McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland Read Online Free PDF Page B

sneaked into St Peter’s and can’t find his way out. Suddenly, the lane sweeps sharply downhill towards a junction a couple of hundred yards away. As I change down and negotiate the slope, I look up, and there ahead of me, silhouetted against the horizon on the crest of the next hill, dominating the surrounding landscape, is Bohonagh.
    But by the time I’ve descended to the junction, it’s gone. I drive along the road in both directions, but the stones can’t be seen from anywhere. To find them, you’ve got to know they’re up there, and know where to go. There’s no sign or marker, so people must drive within a hundred yards of them all the time and not have a clue that they’re there.
    But now I know they’re uphill, and just two fields away.
    My way is barred by a wide ditch full of blackthorn, which is of course a sacred bush, though that isn’t much consolation just now. But thirty yards away is a barred gate, and not a yellow placard in sight, so I stride up to it with a spring in my step. Then, more threatening than any official sign, I spot the fragment of ragged brown cardboard tied to the gate with baling twine. A message is printed on it in Biro, in a crabby hand that lacks generosity of spirit:
    DANGER!
    BULLS!!
    DO NOT ENTER
    Hmm.
    I’ve never been one to mess with bulls, particularly in a Catholic country. Spain, for example, is a delightful place, but I’ve always been mystified by the nationwide passion for taking the piss out of bulls. Sometimes it’s a prelude to killing them, of course, but often it’s just for the crack.
    I have a much-prized piece of home video shot a few years ago at the fiesta in Jávea, on the Costa Blanca, where they let the bulls run through the narrow back streets of the town before emerging into the main square. As the first bulls enter the square, a local sex god in tight black trousers and a puffy-sleeved white shirt unbuttoned to the scrotum leaps out in front of the lead bull, grimacing and pouting, waggling his arse, and making what I take to be the Spanish equivalent of the wanker sign.
    ‘Wanker, eh?’ enquires the bull, lunging at him and penetrating his ribs with its horns in a fairly matter-of-fact manner. Sexgod is thrown abruptly to the ground as various spectators rush to his aid and shoo the baffled bull away. Two stewards run in. One picks him up, dusts him down, staunches the wound, and asks if he’s all right. He nods; at which point the other steward punches him in the face, presumably for taking the piss out of a bull in an unacceptably flamboyant manner. After all, without rules, society will collapse. As, indeed, does Sexgod, before being carried unconscious from the arena.
    Now, if I’m gored by a bull here, within horn-tossing distance of the spectacular, but at this moment invisible, stones, no one’s going to leap in and punch me; but no one’s going to save me either. There isn’t a soul to be seen in any direction. So I try to convince myself to be law-abiding, that I did my best, got as close as I could, so I can give up with honour; but I just feel pathetic. I’m scared of dogs, too. And geese.
    I walk back up the steep lane I’ve just driven down until I can once more see the stones on the horizon, calling me to them. I’m now in a position to survey the land all around, and there isn’t a bull to be seen.
    It’s clear that the DANGER! BULLS!! sign is just a ruse, a scam to keep New Agers, Pagans, Crusties and Whiffies from tramping all over the fields to paint each other’s faces and drink Scrumpy Jack in a ritualistic manner in the centre of the stones. There isn’t a problem here for me. It’s just over the gate, up the hill, check out the stones, no bulls, back in the car and find a nice spot to eat my sandwich.
    The first thing to catch my eye once I’m over the gate is a freshly spent shotgun cartridge, presumably fired from the gate at the back of the last person who trespassed.
    Bullshit.
    Not my thought, but the