Irish week.......

Inevitably, this has to be ‘Ireland’ week with Her Maj making the first ever state visit to the Emerald Isle. Hopefully this will help to draw a line under 500 years of pretty dreadful history.

The Beeb launched a stunning new series to accompany it, called ‘The Story of Ireland’. I was so impressed with the first airing that I immediately bought the ‘book of the series’. My knowledge of Irish history is woefully lacking, and I intend to be better informed if no wiser.

 The Romans left Ireland alone; they called it ‘Hibernia’, the land of perpetual winter and the home of dragons. Pity that the English didn’t follow suit.

I knew nothing of the advanced state of civilisation in Ireland when England was passing through the Dark Ages (which actually were not quite as dark as all that).

 They developed a Celtic script and produced a vernacular translation of the Bible about 700 years before Tyndale. They led Christendom.

 Irish monks were established in Italy in the 7^th century under St Columbanus, who, in the best of Irish tradition, promptly had a Donnybrook with the Pope.

 The Irish were not altogether of the Celtic race; more a pot pourri, like the English. They were much inclined to raid Wales for slaves.

 One of the enduring characteristics of the Irish is that they tend to blame the English for everything that goes wrong (in which they are often fully justified!).

 For example, whenever my lovely friend Liam Fox visited from Dublin when I was working in Malawi we would go out to dinner and also have a drop of the hard stuff. This generally led to Liam being locked out of his hotel in the wee small hours or some other catastrophe.

 We met up in London thereafter and we agreed to have pre-lunch drinks at the Sherlock Holmes pub in Trafalgar Square and lunch in the Commonwealth Club. Liam hovered down a few pints of Abbot Ale, which is heavy stuff. Glasses were filled and refilled frequently over lunch and we were just relaxing over the port when he discovered that the waitress was from his part of Ireland. That called for another bottle which she was happy to share with us.

 We left at about 4 p.m. and Liam insisted on going back to the Sherlock Holmes. I had one drink and left him there as I needed to get my train before rush-hour.

 He phoned me from Dublin the following evening with the news that he had spent the night in hospital having fallen down the escalator at Trafalgar Square tube station. He then said (and I remember his words exactly) ‘Bejasus, whenever I meet up with you, you get me into terrible trouble’.

 I rest my case.