At the Beach

At the Beach ©

By Michael Casey

Well I’m feeling very Summery right now, I stumbled over Spotify and the Eagle’s Long Road to Eden album, I’m thinking of the beach a spit away from where my mum was born, literally. I’ll add the photo of the stone building she was born in at the end of today’s piece. She lived there till she was 12 with her family of 9, we never knew it was a house as it was used as a cow shed when we visited, Uncle Danny told us one day.  He ended up in Boston Mass and his son is a cop there. But what about the beach, you can google it and you will see for yourselves it is one of the most beautiful places on God’s earth. So google Cromane County Kerry Republic of Ireland, it’s opposite Inch where Ryan’s Daughter was filmed, and down the road from Killorglin and Puck Fair, which takes place on 10^th 11^th and 12^th August every year. You can even walk down the road and spot my cousin David’s house, he owns the land now. He isn’t called Casey, so I’m respecting his privacy.

I’m getting home sick now, yes I was born in Birmingham a couple of miles from where I am sitting now, but my heart is in Cromane Lower, blame my mum for that. If only I could find a driver I’d go back, it’s over 20 years since I’ve been back. Last time my mum was sick 2 days before the holiday so she could not come. Then the next year me and my sister went back, parents included, it was the final grand tour, dad was determined to meet and greet all his brother’s 10  children. Some places were impossible to find, you start at the back of beyond and then go to the back of the back of beyond, like navigating a maze within a maze of  back roads.

We covered a lot of ground, the year before me and my sister did over 1000 miles in two weeks, with only a picture postcard with a map of Kerry on as a guide. You visit 2 or 3 relatives a day and eat at every house, with dad pressing money into every palm. He knew it was the last visit, he had a few Guinness in small bars, such as the bar in Ballyheigh with its great long beach, not forgetting finding bars in Scarthaglen.

The story about Scarth is that a young Policeman noticed blue smoke as illegal Poteen was been distilled in that house next door to the Police station.  He told the police sergeant, who promptly had him transferred to the back of beyond, he didn’t want to be deprived of his own supply. Who knows perhaps the young policeman emigrated and became chief of police in Boston or Chigago. This would be in the 1920s or 1930s.

The footnote to the story is that Scathaglen was one of the widest streets in the whole of Kerry, so the police sergeant used to walk up and down the middle of the road, and then retire to the police station, he’d just made sure that all the pubs had closed at closing time. He’d done his duty, and were all 20 pubs closed? Well let’s say when he retired he got a bottle of whisky from each and every bar in Scarth. Now if the details are wrong you’ll have to take it up with my dad.

The next year my mother died, and my father almost died, he was in fact given a week to live.  It’s all in Padre Pio and Me by Michael Casey which you should be able to find on the Internet. The tales my father told me over and over again are part of my soul, which is much much more than DNA. When I was writing my comic novel The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker the spirit of the policeman became the police sergeant in my book, the priest who made a boy organise a fete for the children’s home as a penance for getting his girl pregnant before marriage was maybe the Jesuit Fr Michael who married my parents. So you can see how the Love given to me became characters in my book.

 Percy the Undertaker was no doubt inspired by our local undertaker’s dignity and care, I have also been an altar server so I’ve been to many funerals. As for my mother she was like many pious mothers, so she sometimes was a sole mourner at a funeral for some unloved person, who was asked to come to the grave by the priest, to pray for their soul. Then mum would sit in the jump seat of the hearse and the undertaker would give her a lift home afterwards.

One of the main characters is Big Sid the Butcher, a larger than life Falstaff kind of person, full of joy, but much more.  When I finished writing the book it occurred to me that really Sid was my dad, somebody so full of love for his children. I did not want to put my dad in the book but he was there after all, what’s in the blood is in the blood. In Tears for a Butcher which is the follow up novel Big Sid has a huge part in the finale, all I need is a legal secretary then I’ll write it.

Back on the beach at Cromane Lower you can walk to the end past the Tank and to the spit as they call it, it is a peninsula after all. I always used to, its 30 mins or more from mom’s place to the end, while the dinner was on you could get some exercise. If you look over the water you can see Inch and the Dingle peninsula, there used to be a dolphin called Fungy too. Then there is the bar that’s also a book store, I bought Daniel Yergin’s The Prize there, all about the oil industry. Great read.

I’m going to finish now, it’ll be interesting to know how many of you go to Ireland for a holiday now, it really is the most beautiful place on God’s earth. You can send me a postcard, if you are clever you may even find mum’s old place, it is on Google Earth, I can find it in a couple of mins just by walking down the beach. You may even read my books on Kindle while sat on the beach at Cromane. If you pop into the church you could light a candle for  the Casey Clan. Good Luck.