“You’ve got, like, two thousand and however many kids – and their teachers, by the way, which really surprised me – running towards each other at a fair old pace, hurling angry abuse at each other”
MULLINAVAT, I THINK it’s safe to say, has never seen anything like it. I don’t think any of us is ready for the sight that greets us when we step off this little – I don’t know – boreen, into the field where it’s all about to go down. I mean, yeah, we played in front of bigger crowds back in the glory days, but you’ve no idea what two-and-however-many- thousand people look like when they’re done up – as most of us are – in fancy dress, then crammed into two ends of a field out in the middle of the basic sticks.
I have to admit, I was sceptical when I first heard about the whole battle re-enactment thing, but it looks like Fionn has actually pulled it off. “McGahy’s supposedly bringing a hundred from Castlerock,” Oisinn goes. I’m, like, scraping my little plastic sword off a concrete gatepost, trying to shorpen it to a point.
“Glad you guys could grace us with your presence,” we hear his voice suddenly go. I turn around and there’s Fionn, yeah, done up in full costume like everyone else, but also sitting on an actual horse, which I recognise straight away as Harlow, one of Erika’s two white Arabian mares. I don’t need to tell you, I’m sure, what a total and utter goon he looks, with the glasses and everything.
The next thing I hear is more clippity focking clopping. I look to my right and there’s Erika, up on Kelly. She looks incredible on horseback and I mean that in a purely brother-sister kind of way. Just really, I don’t know, powerful and in command.
We get the hellos over with, then I stort studying the crowd, looking for McGahy’s ugly mug. I don’t even know if he’s with us or them.
Fionn rides out into what I suppose you’d have to call no man’s land? Then, through a loud-hailer, he storts going, “Welcome, students and teachers, to the first in a series of historical re-enactments that we – that is, my partner, Erika, and I – have organised to try to give you a better understanding of some of the battles that have shaped our history and that appear on the Leaving and/or Junior Cert syllabuses.”
Jesus, he’ll be lucky if we’re not all asleep in the next five minutes.
“Now,” he goes, “I probably should say at the outset that there will be no actual combat today – I hope! – and when I give the order for the two armies to advance, I want you to do so by walking, at a leisurely pace, towards the point where I am right now.” I stort looking around at some of the kids on our team and you can see them, like, rolling their eyes, as if to say, we might as well have spent Paddy’s Day in school for all the crack we’re going to have here today.
“Now,” Fionn’s giving it, “the Battle of the Boyne took place on July 1, 1690. The protagonists were two rival claimants to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland – the Catholic King James II and the Protestant King William III, otherwise known as William of Orange, who had deposed James two years earlier.”
“This is focking boring,” I hear one of the kids mutter. He’s Clongowes.
Another one goes, “I thought it was going to be, like, an actual fight?” There’s, like, a definite tension building up. That’s when I cop McGahy.
I don’t know how I missed him standing there, directly opposite me on the far side of the field. But I’m suddenly thinking, this is the focker who wants to be stepfather to my actual son. And that’s when I end up doing it. I’m staring at Erika’s horse’s rump and, well, I’m not a 100 per cent proud of this – but I end up giving the beast a jab in the orse with my shorpened sword.
After that, I think it's fair to say, everything happens pretty quickly. Kelly rears up, like horses do in actual westerns? Erika manages to hold on but Harlow gets spooked then and she goes up on her hind legs as well. In the sudden confusion, I just happen to shout, "Chorge!" at the top of my voice. And to my total surprise, everyone does? It's that real mob mentality, people are just totally caught up in the moment. You've got, like, two thousand and however many kids – and their teachers, by the way, which really surprised me – running towards each other at a fair old pace, hurling angry abuse at each other, most of it school-related.
I just keep my eyes on McGahy, who looks like he's being swept along, against his will, by the tide of bodies. It takes about 10 seconds for the two ormies, teams, whatever you want to call them, to close the space between us. Then it ends up being like the battle scene from Brave hort, we're talking a serious mill, mud flying and the air filled with cries of, "Gonzaga wankers" not to mention, "Fock you, Belvo, and shove your two Taoiseachs, one president, 12 knighthoods, one Victoria Cross, one Olympic gold medal, one signatory on the Proclamation of Independence and 32 Irish rugby internationals up your northside orses!"
McGahy doesn't notice me until we're, like, 10 feet aport. I can only imagine the madness in my eyes, roysh, because his expression changes from one of just fear to one of, like, total terror. I swing my sword in his general postcode but the focker is surprisingly quick and manages to, I don't know, evadethe blow by dropping his shoulder and I end up slashing at thin air, then falling face-forward into the mud, as he shoots past me.
I’m up quickly, though, and haring after him. He escapes from the general, I suppose, melee and heads for a small wooded area, maybe 200 yords away, with me still in hot pursuit.
I’m, like, five seconds behind him, roysh, but when I enter the wood – unbelievably – he’s, like, disappeared. And that’s when I hear it. A small voice, going, “Help! Help! Ross! Please!” It’s coming from somewhere off to my left.
I follow it, pulling back leaves and branches until I come to, what I know from the tiny bit I learned in his geography class, is called a ravine. And there, at the bottom, lying on his back, his face twisted in pain, is the man who made my life a misery at school and is still doing it today.
“Help” he tries to go. “Please, help me!”
rossocarrollkelly.ie, twitter.com/rossock
