Dromahair circa. 1978.

I am guessing at the year,but it is unimportant in a way .What is important was the friendships ,the craic and the fact that of the four people involved  I am the sole survivor.
It is well recorded elsewhere in this blog that I was a fierce St.Brigid's ,Blanchardstown man  until I moved to Dunderry in 1986.
Those years we were a bit like the United Nations of Ireland.We had members from all counties in Ireland ,including a very decent Leitrim man,Barney Mac Garholl,a Dromahair man who came to live off the Clonsilla Road with his family.He worked in the Post Office and was up to his oxters with their Football Team,Postal Gaels when he first arrived in Blanch ,but I think that they folded and he threw in his lot with us.
And a nice guy he was too.
Those years we used travel all over the Country at least once every year on a long bank holiday weekend ,book out a local hotel ,link up with the local GAA Club ,play a few matches and let our hair down generally.Barney introduced us to his hometown,a link that still exists to this day.
On such a weekend I was bunked in the Abbey Hotel with Paddy Skehan and Dinny Carroll ,good drinking buddies and the most decent of men.
Dinny was a Glen Rovers man,a maestro on the piano ,a great singer,a hardworking family man and a fierce Gael.I think his poison was a pint of Smithwicks but could be wrong.Paddy was a Tipperary man of huge stature and a fierce Gael also and the very best of company.His drink when I knew him was a double double Gold Label in a half pint glass topped up with red lemonade. And boy could he drink them but I never saw him drunk.
As a matter of historical record when Molloys of Tallagh took over the Greyhound Bar,the place we used imbibe  after a match and twice weekly ,they were that covetous that they insisted on charging Paddy for the drop of red lemonade on the very first occasion we went there after a match.Their predecessors were so glad to have our custom that  he used get it free gratis.All fifty of us left never to return and were like the lost tribe of Israel trying The Twin Oaks and Bertie Donnelley's in Mulhuddart until Patsi Phelan of Davy and Phelan's seduced us to patronise him until he built a lounge to accommodate the extra customers,which he did..Davy's was our local until the Club got the Morgan Schools (now Russell Park).
Back to Drumahair.We were as welcome as the flowers of May and the craic was on almost immediately.The hair was well let down and a we had a great few bevvies.Dinny and Paddy retired before me.I staggered up the stairs to bed .Not a wink's sleep did I get .If you have ever heard a badly tuned and blunt chainsaw in full flight you will have some idea of the snoring capacity of just one of these guys.Multiply this by two ,but not in harmony and you will have some idea of the noise levels in that room that night.
Paddy was a dapper man and as fussy as Hercule Poirot with his abulments in the morning.First up though that weekend was a glass of whiskey which he had poured the previous night and left in its glass on his bedside locker.With that in the tank and  dressed to kill he was right for the day.Breakfast no bother.Meself and Dinny were tidy enough but not in Paddy's class.
Anyhow I resolved that morning that I would get tanked early that night and hit the pillow well before my  room mates hit the sack.I would be asleep first and get some relief.We played a match that day ,had a (good )few joucuroms and I headed off first to the stretcher.I must have been over exhausted but, no matter what I did, sleep would not come.
The boys landed much later and I pretended to be asleep.Do you think that they had any bother entering the land of nod.Well they were asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow.Not a wink did I get .
Then just as daylight intruded the door slowly opened and humming the air of "Jim Muggins went out with curry and stout"team mate and original Blanchie Jim (Jigser ) Powell tiptoed into the room.I squinted at him pretending to be still \asleep.The two chainsaws were still attempting to cut concrete.
He glanced around until his eyes settled on Paddy's bed side locker.He ghosted to it,lifted the glass of whiskey and let it down the hatch in one fell gulp.He savoured his moment ,produced a bottle of red lemonade from his pocket and replenished the glass with this poor substitute.Off he went.
NO way now would I sleep ,even if I could.Well into the day Paddy stirred .His snoring stopped.Without his glasses he felt his way to the glass.He put it to his lips and swallowed it in one gulp.Well no he didn't .Whatever contraption in the throat makes you splutter kicked in ,his head shook as though he was poisoned and the spray of red lemonade from his offended throat drowned me,Dinny and half the room.
He sure knew his Gold Label.
"And he burned all the hair of his as,his ass," did Jim Muggins.
I am sure that Jigser is singing about Jim Muggins to Dinny's accompaniment in the lounge bar of Heaven as Paddy hums Sliabh na Ban.Maybe Tommy Tonge is playing the mouth organ in the background and Tommy Moloney and Tommy Mac Cormack, who were there then, are joining in the chorus,although neither could sing for nuts.
Happy days.