Acting the Jennet in Galway

You hear a lot of talk about Galway people's eyes and how, if you take a good look at them, you'll see how they seem to "snare some of the sea"; and then, of course, you'll hear about their hair and how it's like what you might trip over on the floor of a Spanish barber's; not to mention all the yarns you'll hear about pirates and wild men and God knows what else - although I have to say that the last bit is definitely true, for in my time in the tribal city I have had occasion to encounter more than one or two of these justly celebrated fellows. And have found them most willing, I must say, to assist me in many spirited "acting the jennets" along the banks of the foaming Corrib.

"What is all this about jennets?" do I hear you say. I'll bet I do - for a source of some anxiety and consternation in my life of late has been the virtual disappearance from both the fields and the folk memory of the humble animal known as "the jennet". In fact, a mere two nights ago, I was engaged in lengthy discourse with a number of gentlemen of the veterinary profession in my hometown of Clones, and when I mentioned the word "jennet", they looked at me as if all their human features had somehow been mysteriously erased from their countenances through the intervention of some eerily invisible alien-type force, such as gamma rays, perhaps. Many minutes were to pass (the clinking of stout bottles seemed a subterranean orchestration of unease) before one of their number croaked: "What in under Jaysus is a jennet?"

It was at this point I realised that I, too, was completely oblivious of its origins, knowing it only to be an unfortunate creature of little sense, getting by on the magnanimity of ordinary folk and common decency as it bucked sideways, crossways, lengthways and any ways at all it felt like doing, jets of steam shooting from its inflamed and moistened nostrils. However, extensive research in other ale-drinking establishments resulted in its being at last defined as the issue of a mare donkey and a pony. All of which is not so powerfully relevant here, because what we are more concerned with is the emulation of the just-about-equine creature. A feat more than ably managed by myself, ancient Gael and fully paid-up Galwegian that I am, when I was sitting in the bar of the Atlanta Hotel some time ago and remarked to my companion: "Ah, that's what's great about Galway. The sonorous lilt of genuine Gaelic voices embroidering the very air itself!", only at his prompting turning to discover seven Chinamen wreathed in smoke tearing the heads off each other in a heated argument over poker. That is exactly the sort of behaviour that might be described as "acting the jennet". Another might be falling out of the Macnas tent with a can of lukewarm beer (containing two cigarette butts) and shouting: "Up Galway!" or "Yeeho!" or perhaps: "Come on the Connemaras!"

But that's allowed. Because acting the jennet is not against the law and, as far as I can see, the good folk of Galway have no more a problem with it now than they ever had. As a matter of fact, it would appear to me that if you were to tip into a cafe, bar or other establishment where good times are to be had, attired in a pink ballet tutu with a parking cone on your head, the most likely observation would be: "That's a fine day now, isn't it?" or "Smoking or non-smoking?" Effortless cosmopolitanism indeed, thank you, and so far not too many bouncers with headsets and big knuckles that they're always rubbing. Now there's chaps who don't like this acting-the-jennet business. Oh no. Indeed I would be prepared to go so far as to suggest that their eminences would be only too delighted to burst the poor old jennet with one box first chance they got.

Which the committee of the Galway Arts Festival wouldn't do, not this year, or any other. Because they're too busy talking down the phone to "Jennet Central" and travelling to far-off distant shores to import a clatter of them themselves. Yes, any amount of surprising jennet-shows, bucking this way and that in the fiery imaginations of the world. Some people say that it is all big paper heads, lads eating fire and skinny dogs in Galway. But I don't agree. It gets better and better each year. Watch out for big Paraic Breathnach's show this time out - already reviewed in Builder's Craic Weekly, favourably indeed. I myself am reviewing it for Horse Monthly. "One mother-f.....g jennet of a play," is what I intend as my opening sentence.

And there's hundreds of others. But I am not here to tell you what to go to. My brief is solely to advise you on how best to emulate our perspiring, recalcitrant friend. So get out there on the banks of the swollen, Niagarous Corrib (O mantle of sweet poesy that thou shouldst wrap thineself about me at this hour!), shove a cigarette between your lips and raise that can aloft in sacred veneration of the west and all its majesty. Then, splaying both your legs, push back your hair until it's all stuck up and looking good and mad, and then, like a demon, snort as you yelp: "Up Galway!" and go galloping off (sideways) to Derevo (Russia), Shockheaded Peter, the ESB Millennium Drum Carnival, or maybe just to the Roisin Dubh (tenebrous hostelry of fame and renown) where, if you're lucky, and not too wild a jennet, the gentle barman might just sing you a couple of bars of My Rifle, My (Pony) Jennet And Me. Dark mutinous Shannon waves abu!

Pat Mc Cabe's most recent novel is Breakfast on Pluto