NEW ARRIVALS

“I want to go back home.” With these words from my wife of three years ringing in my ears, we surveyed the seen before us. Utter chaos was the only way to describe the mess that thrust itself upon the senses. Clothes, boxes, suitcases, mess everywhere. The previous occupiers were just packing up and we had just arrived from England leaving behind a comfortable end terrace house in Staffordshire, to come to this, a two-room barn, with no bathroom. Going home wasn’t an option; we had no home to go back to! With six thousand pounds left over from the sale of our house, no car, and the prospect of renting this accommodation for IR₤12.00 a week, I thought, ‘welcome to Donegal, and welcome to Ireland.” I said to Debbie my wife, “Maybe things will look better in the morning?” She just looked at me with tears in her eyes.

The next day after spending the night at a friend’s house, things did look a little better, but not by much. The ‘barn cottage’ was a little bit tidier, the clothes, boxes, suitcases and tenants were gone. “I can’t live in this place” Debbie said, “Just look at it! Look at the kitchen for starters”. To be honest, it was abysmal. The kitchen was separated from the living room by a hardboard wall. The work surfaces were hardboard, which bowed in the middle like Robin Hood’s bow. The shelves were hardboard, the ceiling also hardboard. It was dark, damp fusty smelling and brown. “Maybe it’ll look better a different colour,” I said, “and perhaps we could even put up a strip light?”

If you will, picture the house in your mind as something like an old country cottage – it was in fact, we found out later, about 200 years old – one door in the middle, one window on either side of the door. Going in through the front door – the only door in the house – turn left to go in the living room/kitchen, turn right to go in to the bedroom. Straight ahead into the toilet, the centrepiece of the house. Using this was an experience in itself. The toilet bowl was raised up on a concrete block, so that when you sat on it your legs were off the ground, swinging. The room was so narrow that your shoulders rubbed on both of the walls, which were again constructed out of hardboard. And if you looked carefully, stopped swinging your legs and breathed in so as to get yourself square on the seat, you could look through the holes in the hardboard and see into the living room. Yes going to the toilet was no longer a private matter, but more of a family concern. You could even go, and still carry on the conversation with any guests that may have called around, you could hear them, they could hear you, and if you wished you could still keep eye contact.

…ramon
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone…W.B. Yeats – 1865-1939