Watching the Match in the Sheep's Head Property
Although the property I bought from my namesakes at Harrington Estates (although no relation, mind) wasn’t on the Sheep’s Head Peninsula, I do find that I’m being drawn more and more to that neck of the woods.
The trouble is – I find it hard to get myself (and the missus) past the new Sheep’s Head Inn in Durrus. In partiuclar, if I’m feeling a mite peckish. Because, you see, there is good grub to be had in this establishment: Of that, be there no doubt whatsoever. It reminds me of just how bad it was for food when we first came here. Ireland, I mean, or at least this part of Ireland. We don’t really know about the rest of it because we haven’t really seen it, have we.
Anyways, the trip to the Sheep’s Head Peninsula has to go through Durrus village. It was actually the idea of the missus to stop this time. There I was minding my own business, driving along at 50km per hour (they’re all gone metric over here – great fun!) when suddenly she-what-must-be-obeyed pipes up from the passenger side: “oooh… the Sheep’s Head Inn! I ain’t ‘alf ‘ungry, me!” I have got to explain that my wife is from the Eastern End of London and, not being a sophisticated Home Counties boy like me, her prononciation and grammar leaves just a tad to be desired, if you know what I mean. Anyways, that’s not such a bad thing and at least her English is better than what most people around here speak. Talk about speed! You’d want to tape it, play it back on slow speed to understand what they’re on about sometimes. I did consider investing in a tape-recorder at one point, but I’m all right now – I’ve adapted, as they say.
In we went for a quick snack – or so we thought. It turned out to be pretty much a full-blown meal, with a little bit of wine (well, stout for me, actually), a seafood starter and a bloody great dessert! And all the while we were eating, there was this great hoorah-ing and shouting and cursing (they certainly know how to utilise the old F-words and the c-words around this part of the world) and laughing and shouting. Lots of people wore the red jerseys and one – just one – had a gren and yellow one on. For those of you uninitiated in the ways of Irish sport, let me explain: Every year, there’s a competition of Gaelic football, where all the counties of Ireland compete for the All-Ireland Championship. This day, it was the semi-final of the All-Ireland and Cork (in red) were playing Kerry (in green and yellow), which is a neighbouring county and so there’s great rivalry between the two.
Well, it was so noisy during that match that I didn’t have any conversation with the missus (a very peaceful way to eat, I must say) and the upshot of it all was that Kerry won the bad-tempered affair. The place went a bit quiet after that and it was time to settle the bill. I went up to the counter and the geezer behind it takes the money and gives me back me change. He was very cheerful and so I says to him “What are you so happy about after watching the match and all?” He says:”I’m from Kerry!”
Chester Harrington, Monday 21st August 2006.
Harringtons – Estate Agents Bantry – 027 51553
Specialising in West Cork Property in Bantry, Glengarriff, Beara, Sheeps Head and surrounding areas
