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If you are recovering from years of alcohol abuse and your nerves are already stretched tight, sometimes, something has to break. Whatever it was, something of the group’s cohesion broke down after that journey back from Dublin and the atmosphere was pretty tense for a while. The next day we took the group out to visit Dunbrody, the restored famine ship in New Ross and then to Enniscorthy and Vinegar Hill for a bit more history. This can be a good way to spend a day, seeing the scenes of our shared history and there was not much driving involved after the previous days exertions; but we found it almost impossible to find anywhere open that could serve 15 people lunch. And this added to the strain, so by that evening we were facing a mutiny.

Having been used to mostly drinkers and their ways and needs we may have misjudged the dynamics in a dry group. We were taking the group around in a gang when they probably wanted to go their own way and sometimes they were herded together with people they did not necessarily get on with. Pubs were not an option so we had brought playing cards and board games as there is little to do in the evenings but they were turning into long days and longer nights. Trying to enforce the smoking ban was difficult and anger and resentment briefly came to the surface. Later in the week, we took a group to Wexford town and they just went off and did their own thing around the town and that seemed to be a better approach. There is not a lot to see or do in Wexford town and most of the group were ready to leave after a couple of hours, but we sat on the harbour wall in the sunshine and waited for the last few to come back feeling pretty relaxed.    

A lot of good stuff did happen though and everyone got something out of the experience. Terry spent a few days visiting friends and relations around his home in Kildare. He had left home years ago when he was very much involved in the horse racing business as a jockey, trainer and stable lad. He worked around the Curragh before coming to work in England at Newmarket and he was hoping to pick up the threads of his network of friends from back then. Luckily he had started to make the connections on a previous trip with us and had kept in touch with an old friend by text, who was now working as a taxi driver.

Terry also thought it was time to get in touch with one of his brothers who was suffering from the same problems with alcohol that Terry had struggled with in his latter years in London. One evening he called to the brother’s house in his mate’s cab. He wanted it to be a surprise after so many years but the place was dark when they knocked on the door and they went round to the back of the house before deciding that no-one was home. Giving up on the surprise element Terry phoned the next day and his brother was duly surprised. Sure, wasn’t he home all evening? Did Terry have the right address? He had the proper address alright and it seemed that his brother was in the house and up out of bed, peering through the curtains, wondering who was calling in a cab at that time of night. They did get together though and Terry spent a few days back in his home town with his brother for the first time in 20 years.

Early in the week we had a great day around Glendalough and Glenmalure. I love these drives through the wilds of Wicklow, steeped as it is in history and even more invigorating seeing as it is so close to the urban pressures of Dublin. The pub at the entrance to Glenmalure had no trouble accommodating 19 hungry souls and although it did rain slightly we explored parts of Glendalough I never knew existed. Christy and Mick walked up past the waterfall into the mountains and we waited for them at the bottom near the lakeside where Sean was struggling with his stiff legs and poor balance after years of drinking. Amazingly Sean is working in London these days as a banks man directing a digger on a building site out near Heathrow.

One good thing about the smoking ban was that people had to congregate outdoors and had then to be sociable with the people staying in other houses and everyone was getting fine before we left. On the way home we stopped at a service station on the M4 and tucked into a fantastic picnic that some of the lads had prepared for us and by the time we went our separate ways peace had definitely broken out. Maybe another week would have done the trick but on the other hand maybe people were more relaxed at the end knowing they were going back home to what they knew and to what was familiar to them. Sometimes it can be too much for people still raw from hard life experiences to be confronted with their homeland looking green and pleasant in the sunshine. Maybe the hard familiar streets of London felt safer. Who knows?

reports on other Aisling trips