Train time blues

Train journeys in fiction are often romanticised. But sometimes the reality can be far from the fiction.

I’m on a four hour train, east to west, from one coast to the other side of Ireland. It’s a hot, sunny day, the train is packed and, OK, the a/c is on and working.

Mind you, that was no help when a man with chronic GAPO sat beside me. I thought of holding my breath but he was on the train for two hours.

It’s a holiday weekend so many people are heading to the seaside, like the half dozen guys, all tats and crushed beer cans, in the seats behind me.

They are noisy but not nearly as annoying as the child with the maximum decibel scream, in the booth in front.

The wifi, as usual, isn’t working but I’ve written a new chapter, we’re well into the west and just one hour short of our destination.

I’m looking forward to my first pint in Molloys and then a bite to eat, with my good friend Maria.

Raftery, a 19th century Irish poet, wrote a poem about the road west. Here is a translation.

In Clare of Morris family

I will be the first night

and in the Wall on the side below it

I will begin to drink

to Maghs Woods I shall go

until I shall make a months visit there

two miles close

to the Mouth of the Big Ford.