I had a near miss early yesterday. Coming round the bend of one of these 1¼ car wide country lanes was another red car coming at me. What pleased me afterwards was that my instinct swerved me left, just like the other driver. I’m a fluent bilateral driver now. The trouble I get into is my first week home, where I’ve been known to, when there’s no traffic to clue me in, traverse whole city blocks on the wrong side of the street.

Very late yesterday I made it into Kinvara for more tunes. There’s a roaring session and 8 dancers expertly doing the Plain Set, every dancer in percussive rhythm with the pipes and box. I squeezed into another pub as someone said, "What are we, cramming a telly booth?" A very well-jarred fellow is groping his way to the door to leave, he’s held up by the hands guiding him there. When he hits the outside air, with no crowd to hold him up, he crumples to the sidewalk. I haven’t been in town this late before, and hadn’t seen it so soused. I’m drinking nothing stronger than sparkling water. A fellow performs an interrogation on me, "Bruce Springsteen, now is he an onion, or a Russian Doll. What is he? What do you think, peel like an onion, or pull apart like a Russian Doll?"

But I came in here to hear the Healy Brothers, two amazing box players, in with an equally strong group of 8 other players. The session is rocketing from minor to major back to minor key tunes at locomotive speed. Eric and Hugh acknowledge my presence and thank me again for the photos.

In the basement of Flatley’s is the same configuration of musicians as the night before, but the crowd is more sodden. A man resembling Jack Nicholson is on his back on the couch, kicking his legs and arms in the air in some apparent giddy response to the tunes. "Must be DT’s," I say to the woman next to me, which got an appreciative chuckle. I walk back to my car with the bodrain player, who’s equally unnerved by the atmosphere. "The Irish have to address the drunkenness in their society," said this Canadian. "It’s disgusting."

But that’s not the note I want to end on. I want to tell you about the Kilconly Crossroads Ceili. There were amusement rides and candy floss for the kids, a bicycle race, and a set dance platform erected in the centre of the village, big enough for a dozen sets. I danced for a couple of hours, rather badly I’m afraid, I’m out of practice. I then visited the Internet nerve centre, two computers in a room with a 2nd story window overlooking the dancing, with digital cameras for near-live feeds to the ceili Website. "We couldn’t get an ISDN line, so it’s just still images." By the time I got out of there I’d met and exchanged email addresses with every dignitary and organiser of the event, including the parish priest.

Contacts that I shamelessly exploited an hour later when the three hot air balloon crews (three-quarters of the entire Irish hot air balloon fleet) began unpacking. Clothed in full photojournalist costume, 3 cameras and a photo vest, I had the priest introduce me to one of the balloonists. Now where’s Tracey? I can’t leave her here till I get back, who knows when. So, within the half-hour the two of us were floating a thousand feet above the Mayo countryside, scaring the sheep and waving at children below as we drifted north in the evening haze.

March 2000