An Irishwoman's Diary

It was late. The all-night car park had in fact closed at 1am and our station wagon was locked in. We had to wait. It was nearly 4am before that happy reunion took place.

In an attempt to salvage the night, I decided to post my credit card payment in Donnybrook, as the traffic was bound to be lighter than during working hours. Not since the days when I used to live in Dublin and always travelled by bike had I had such a pleasant few minutes gliding through the dry city streets.

All those bright lights. You forget about them in the country. Bright lights and that cold neon glow. The car was clean. I felt organised and was enjoying the fluency of driving without the usual city bumper-to-bumper crawl. But the fun lasted only about three minutes.

A riot appeared to be going on in Leeson Street. What political demonstration could possibly be taking place in the middle of the night? But no, there was no "cause" at stake - it was not about race or religion; it was only the crowds vacating the night clubs.

People falling against each other, screaming, making vulgar gestures, four 20-something males, pants down, were busy seeing who could urinate the farthest. The watching girls added their comments, desperate not to be left out of something apparently as cultural as a urinating contest.

The car in front of us screeched to a halt as a youth threw himself in front of it. We slowed down; it would have been too easy to hit one of the drunken, flaying figures.

Then, a couple of young men jumped on to the bonnet of my car while their pals slapped their hands against the windows and made grabbing gestures. My view was filled with smirking faces, teeth, fingers and hands.

Suddenly a jeering voice shouted at me. I turned around as a lanky character in a pink shirt screamed obscenities at me, lifted the tail gate and proceeded to climb into the back of my station wagon. I'd had enough and wasn't scared, just furious.

I stopped the car and pushed open the door, forcing another fellow who had been pounding on my window, busy calling me a "fat old cow", to jump back out of my way. He seemed surprised and backed off.

Absolute rage is a strange sensation. It is as if your mind splits into two; one half was telling me to stay in the car and lock the door - the guy was already in the boot space - the other half was saying: "Use your fists - you didn't have two brothers and spend all that time running, jumping, climbing and riding bikes and horses for nothing."

My house had been burgled and ransacked recently and I hadn't forgotten that either. One of my dogs had been viciously beaten during the robbery; she has been left weakened, vulnerable, defeated by some swine who thought he was great, beating a brave young house pet with a cast-iron frying pan.

My tack had been stolen; saddles, bridles as well as computers, files and instruments, music, archive material, my daughter's violin. A disgusting mess of torn papers, letters, books, prints, maps had been left.

All of this surged through my mind and then, crazily, I also remembered I had a new bridle and a new horse rug - replacement tack - in the boot. I wasn't going to lose another horse rug. The rug became monumental.

Holding the keys in my hand, I ran out and snapped open the tail gate. "Get out of my car," I said in a low, menacing growl. "Get out of my car." The fellow laughed and stuck his fingers in my face.

"Get out of my car," I repeated, pulling him by his hair. He stopped sneering and screamed in pain. I kept pulling and pulled so hard, a clump of sweaty hair came away in my hand.

He shrieked as I grabbed his shoulder and half hauled him out. The intruder lurched away from the back of the car. I kicked him, maybe three times. I punched him in the face and felt my fist against his teeth. There was blood on my hand, I'm quite sure he didn't bite me. I slammed down the tail gate.

Then, as I turned around his jeering buddies, all middle-class boys with south Dublin accents, who had been chanting "fat ugly c**t", roared "mad ugly bitch, mad ugly bitch" back - but they had stopped laughing.

Now they were indignant. Outraged. It was obvious what they thought. How dare I react with such bad temper? Had I not realised I was supposed to be crying and pleading for mercy?

I swung round and went to pull open the driver's door. A young fellow - young enough, as they all were, to be my son - kicked it closed. I turned and kicked him. Luckily for him, I kicked higher than I had intended and merely winded him. I could feel my foot landing in the soft pad of his stomach.

He fell over, though, and I got into the car and gunned it. No one played at blocking my path this time. On delivering the payment, I drove back to Leeson Street, intending to offer my two cents worth to the guards. But the street was empty.

It's an ugly little story and I'm not proud of acting like a thug. I feel diminished for having been caught up in the sort of moronic, threatening "fun" that is making driving through Irish streets almost as dangerous as walking them.