out of the blue..

Ballinascreen

Ten minutes out of Draperstown Michael taps me on the shoulder “Thought we’d get you something from the town Ma.  You’ve earned it.”

He puts a tape in my hand “Songs and Music of Ballinascreen”. It’s the property of Draperstown Library, where he and Anthony have been for the last hour or so.

We’ve driven from Malin Head the most northerly point of the country to Draperstown in County Tyrone. I’m travelling with my sons and it’s the second last day of the Irish trip. By the time we arrive in the town where my great grandparents once lived I’ve got a headache.  The final ten miles of the trip have been on the winding roads of the Sperrin Mountains.  As we drive, the stony hills give way to thick plantations of pine with their ugly clearings of scarred logs.  The town that’s signposted as the Home of Sperrin Metal has an archway of  trees.  Oak, elm, sycamore?  I don’t know. The branches criss-cross above the bonnet like panels of a green umbrella. Anthony finds a park in front of a butcher’s shop and I stay in the car resting while the boys go for a Guinness and a wander.  That stolen tape comes from the Ballinascreen library.


All I know about this place is that my great-grandparents were born here, and that they left in 1853, the year following their marriage.  My father urges me to go there when I leave home travelling at 23. Although I plan to go to Ireland not long after I reach London, somehow or other  I miss my chance. Now more than 30 years later here I am in the town with two of my sons. What happens that afternoon? Not a lot really. The headache makes it difficult to do much more than lie back in the front seat of the hire car and tell myself I’m resting on the road those Devlins might have gone along a century or so ago.  When the boys are out walking, I get out of the car and walk into the long grass to be sick.  I meet a woman called Mary selling potatoes from the back of an old farm truck who asks if she can help me. Mary is a woman of the fields, and on this particular afternoon tell her the dilemma I’m in about being here at last and not feeling well and she tells me I shouldn’t have waited so long to come to the town.  When I tell her about the Devlins connection she wonders if I mightn’t be related to Brad Devlin in the Post Office and tells the boys to look after y’r mother.  Make sure she gets better and bring her back again.

Then in the car on the road out of town, heading to Dublin  Michael gives me the tape.   I open the cassette cover and find a cream card with a handwritten list marking its lending history. From the first entry in February 85 to the last in May 95, it’s been borrowed 4 times. Something in that tiny number eases my conscience and I slip the tape into the slot and wait.  At first all that comes out is static then silence before the first song begins.  The Verdant Braes of Screen.   I stare out the window over the stone walls to green paddocks that run the length of the road into the hills beyond.  A piano echoes over wooden floorboards and accompanies the thin, high voices of a school choir.  The next song’s better.  A man’s plain, strong voice tells the story of Draperstown 1913.

This afternoon, March 19th 2012 I'm scrolling through old files and find this piece and read it through.  Later in the day the tape turns up.  On my desk.   Out of the blue.  True...