THE residents association in Temple Bar have more to put up with than most. Marauding groups of Essex boys on stag nights, grungy youths loitering around and all those loud pubs that need bouncers on the door. At least they have won their court case to stop people drinking on the streets. Now the residents, who include designer Michael Mortell and broadcaster Leo Enright, are putting their energies into organising a charity night of food wine and music in Meeting House Square for Focus Point, the organisation that helps the homeless. It takes place next Friday and owners of the very fashionable Mermaid Cafe, Mark Harrell and Ben Gorman are doing the food. Tickets are £30 from Focus Point.
Irish stew in the name of the lore
By EILIS NI DHUIBHNE
ONE of the nice things that can happen to you if you are a writer is that people sometimes invite you to a beautiful foreign place to read your work. This year, L'Imaginaire Irlandais meant, quite a few Irish writers visited Languedoc, Roussillon in the south of France, which hosted the literary part of the festival of, Irish culture. And the organisers said: "You can bring your family."
Maybe they didn't really mean it. Maybe it was one of those generous rash invitations impetuous people give in the heat of the moment, and afterwards hope, you'll have the good sense to ignore. But I took them at their word.
My family and I arrived at Montpelier airport at 9 p.m. one day in early May. There was rain on the runway but we assumed they'd been washing the aeroplanes. Our cases were full of shorts and swimsuits, our heads of happy visions of the Mediterranean sparkling in the morning and vineyards basking in the sun.
We were met by Thierry, a young, mischievous man from Narbonne who was our kind and dedicated cicerone for two weeks, and by an Irish poet, Paula Meehan. "It rains all the time," she said - jokingly, not glumly. And then "I've spent three days in that van!" She indicated the space-wagon type thing into which we soon piled ourselves and our many bags. After our first great French meal, Thierry drove us to our hotel.
It was in Marvejols about 100 miles from Montpelier. Or maybe 200. We drove up to the Causses in the dark, stormy night. Bo, my husband, and the children, Ragnar (13) and Olaf (11), slept. Paula and I didn't, somehow. We were awake for it all - multiple corkscrews, bottomless abysses, onion-soup fog. At 4 a.m. we arrived in Marvejols. Of course, the hotel was locked and barred but Thierry, demonstrating the skills which during the fortnight I would come to trust totally, managed to break in. We opened doors, disturbed several sleeping commercial travellers, and finally found some empty rooms.
A few hours later Paula and I had a bleary-eyed tour of the local public library. During that day, a blueprint for all the days ahead, we met librarians, school teachers, hundreds of children, a mayor or two, several town councillors. We had a lot of delicious food and delicious wine - including that sweet Frontignan which is the most divine substance in the world. We talked about the guerre en Nord Irlande, Sinead O'Connor, the pastimes of young people in Ireland - football, we said, I think, and hurling, and playing the tin whistle. What do the Irish eat? With great presence of mind Paula invented a recipe for Irish stew. The first version sounded like one of those recipes you find on posters in the National Library, dated "c. 1847" and called "A Soup For Poor People". (You can imagine scenes in Dingle Union. "Cad ta ar an menu inniu a Dhonaill?" "O, mhuise, an soup for poor people sin aris a Phaidi!." "Jasus I'd kill for a bit of quiche lorraine." "No fiu amhain prata!"). But the recipe improved with time. By the time we got to Montaillou it sounded almost appetising. Parsley and salt were added. Some cloves of garlic, a dash of cumin. In Carcassone we added a sprig of coriander, the herb of the 1980s and in Montpelier two glasses of white wine.
Meanwhile, my family walked around Marvejols. It was raining and very cold, about six degrees, and the shorts were not all suitable. Marvejols is in the part of the south of France which has daffodils, and snow. Its claim to fame is a wolflike beast who ate children in the 17th century.
Our eventual base was further south, in the Cevennes where Robert Louis Stevenson travelled with his donkey. It is above the grape line but below the winter daffodils. Our flat was in Viallas, a dream village - ochre and sienna houses stacked against the chestnut hillside, chunky red rooftiles, shuttered casements. A village dappled with swallows - singing, soaring, fluttering - and rich with the music of dripping water.
Bo and the boys spent their holiday in this paradise. They could not easily escape. There was no public transport, just a taxi driven by a woman who did not really like driving a taxi. The highlight of their day was lunch at the village restaurant, Les Sources. There they were waited on by a woman who looked strangely blond and nordic for the south of France. We soon learned that her name was Natasha and, she came from St Petersburg. On the first day, when she asked him what he wanted to eat (never ask, Natasha!), Olaf said he wanted chips. Soon, all the patrons of the restaurant were having chips every day instead of the garlic potatoes, saffron rice, and buttered noodles she usually served with her delicious lunches (they were too old or too inebriated or too polite to care).
Once Bo and the boys left Viallas. They got the taxi and went to Nimes to look at the Roman amphitheatre. Ragnar and Bo are keen on that sort of thing but Olaf is not. He is keen on shopping for toys. He thought Nimes would be a good place to buy a very expensive three-foot model of Bud Lightyear. Bo refused to get it. This anecdote ends with Olaf running down a Roman street screaming "That man is not my father!" All the people of Nimes understood this sentence very well. Bo was not arrested for child abuse but after that remained in Viallas, watching television, going for a walk, and eating Natasha's lunches.
I was hardly ever there. Each morning Thierry would come, sometimes with Paula, sometimes with novelist Colm Toibin, and we were whirled from one end of the south of France to the other - Carcassonne, Montaillou, Sete, Montpelier, Paulhan, Mende, Langogne. We met many mayors, librarians, children. We gave them the recipe for Irish Stew if they wanted it, and talked about the guerre in the north (revising our own opinions as we went along), and read them the bits of our work which had been translated to French. Some of the audiences had read our books and made lists of questions to ask us. Some of them had parties with cans of stout and plates of brack and shamrocks made of green paper. Some of them spoke Occidental, the language of Languedoc, for us when we asked, and we compared notes on the history of Irish and the history of that language. (Do you know how many people speak Occidental? Two million. But it has been a repressed Ianguage.)
Was it a good idea, bringing the family? "Our hosts were most generous," Bo said, "and Natasha was nice." Ragnar said "France wuz ok!" Olaf said "Can I buy a few little Eiffel Towers at the airport? And a Bud Lightyear."