My 88-year-old Dad was swimming recently in the sea at Castlegregory, Co Kerry. We walked from the village down to the beach on one of those rare summer days when you knew this was the best place in the world to be. The mountains coming straight down to the sea, and out west, the Magharees and the sun shinning down to Fenit.
It was a perfect day for a swim but Dad was not sure about it; any sort of a wind and it would be too cold for him. I was trying to coax him in but at the same time I was very conscious that, at 88, it would all have to be gentle. Yes, he had been in already this year. Last year was his first year to miss in a while. He had a hip replacement in May so that put all swimming on hold for that summer.
There was no wind. It was full tide. Perfect. Within minutes we were both paddling and then Dad was down on his back and swimming. I was looking at a man who learnt to swim in these waters before the 1916 rising. There were children on the beach who were 85 and 86 years younger than my father. It is seldom I have seen someone going down to the water with a stick. It looks funny, but of course he didn't need the stick in the water.
We both had our swim, then back up the beach, where we spent some time in the sun, and then back home. Home is about a 10-minute walk from the sea. It's the house where my grandfather was born in 1879. By a streak of pure luck the house was passed down to my family. I don't live there the whole year, but I'm there as often as I possibly can be.
Kerry is home
I grew up and have spent most of my life in Dublin, but my home is in Kerry; that's where my stuff is. It's the place where I have sown trees and planted flowers. It's there I watch with a sort of mad excitement my compost heap develop. It's the place where I have painted and put in electric cables. It's my place, my only real place on this planet.
But it's a long haul from Dublin. Unless you travel in the middle of the night or drive like mad you need to give yourself five hours on the road. You can get there in less than an hour with Aer Lingus from Dublin or with Ryanair from London.
Iaranrod Eireann are often in trouble for overcrowded trains, trains that don't turn up, trains built in the early 1960s whose windows are not transparent. If you hit the seat, the dust blinds you for a few seconds. To travel from Heuston to Kerry on a Friday evening can indeed be a nightmare. But I have discovered a magic way to get to Kerry. The trouble about telling my tale is it could spoil it for me.
The 8.55 a.m. Heuston-Tralee train is just a fabulous way for me to get to Castlegregory. Heuston is a beautiful station, especially on a Saturday morning when the crowds have subsided. The Tralee train is normally parked at platform 2. It's always a bright, clean and fairly modern train. Up at the front is one of the new General Motors locomotives CIE bought about three years ago. These are big machines, over 2,000 horse power.
Naming the stations
The train stops at every station between Dublin and Tralee with the exception of Portarlington. Can I name the stations? Newbridge, Kildare, Portlaoise, Ballybrophy, Templemore, Thurles, Limerick Junction, Charleville, Mallow, Banteer, Millstreet, Rathmore, Killarney, Farranfore and Tralee. And every one of those places has its own story, its own touch. The stations, most of them with beautiful buildings, have a great charm about them. I always make sure to sit on the platform side of the train so that I can catch it all when we pull in to a station.
All the track between Dublin and Mallow is now CWR (continuous welded rail) which means with good rolling stock it is a very pleasant and smooth ride. The signalling is automatic, controlled out of Connolly Station. So as I sit there rolling through Ireland, someone in Dublin is watching our progress as we go from section to section. The driver is in permanent contact with a controller in Connolly. If anything untoward happens they can tell each other immediately. Should someone leave an unmanned level crossing open and cows come out on the track, the driver can inform Connolly and word is passed on to all drivers in the area.
As a child I often waved good-bye to my mother at Ballybrophy, and here we are now stopped on the down track, with people making a connection for Limerick via Nenagh and Roscrea. The Limerick train might be filthy and clapped out but it is a little charmer, just one coach and a heating van and, of course, a locomotive. Recently they have renovated the station and removed an old tank on the platform. And just as we pull out of Ballybrophy, a 90-milean-hour train passes; it has to be the 7.30 from Tralee to Heuston.
And off for Templemore, Thurles, through Bishopswood and into Limerick Junction. Every railwayman calls it "the Junction". Going through that sliver of land I'm forever thinking back on my childhood. I spent all my summer holidays on a farm not far from Thurles. I press my nose to the window and wonder what goes on on those farms now. Meanwhile the driver might well be changing radio frequencies.
We arrive in Mallow dead on. There's normally a crew-change here. The guard, checker and driver go their separate ways. Our train makes for the Kerry road and gradually all changes. It's all hoppity-clop now and once out of Banteer we have lost our contact with the man or woman sitting at the console in Connolly Station. It's back to the old semaphore signalling system. We are now travelling at half the rate but due to the poor quality of the track you might think we were hitting astronomical speeds.
Dining car
It's time to have a meal. Leaving it this late it means I won't have to cook lunch when I get to Castlegregory. All trains out of Dublin have the dining car in the front and trains into Dublin have it at the rear of the train. I always make sure to sit near it. The breakfast is fine, it fills a hole. And now the scenery is getting very Kerryesque, the Paps are suddenly there in front of us. I am in Kerry.
The train always seems to empty in Killarney and from there on it's all downhill to Tralee. The weather looks promising. A neighbour is waiting at the station to bring us back west. It looks settled for the weekend. It could well be warm enough for a swim.
Just looking at the house as we pull up, and then putting the key in the door. I'm home. And to think that my grandfather was born here in 1879 and that my father could be swimming down at the beach in the afternoon.
Should I just retire and live here the whole year round? I'd miss the railway.