An Irishman's Diary

The swallows have gone back to Capistrano and other points south; the torrential rains have returned; and as this millennium gives up its last attempt at a summer, winter gathers its gloom. By now thousands of youngsters have resigned themselves to the school routine. Some will harbour memories of summer weeks at residential Irish colleges around the country, where they added to their cupla focal and, one hopes, will enjoyed the Gaeltacht experience.

I had a marvellous time in the Gaeltacht back in the summer of 1969.

Student rebellion

It all seemed to be happening in those days. A rebellion by students, radicals, idealists and young adventurers of the western world was in full swing, challenging an old order that was perceived as being outdated, unrepresentative and unjust. The flowers we wore in our hair in '67 had long withered and aspirations for a just world order had hardened into protests and demands. Anti-Vietnam War protesters marched through Dublin chanting the name of the North Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh, who died in 1969.

That summer I was in Irish college in north-west Donegal, which to a Leinster boy seemed to have a strong flavour of the thistle and heather of Scotland. At Colaiste Cholmcille in Meenaclady-Meenalaragh, Gweedore, the main item on the agenda was anything but Gaeilge. Students were more concerned about ceilis, cailins, and craic. The Dublin boys tended to go for the Belfast girls and the Belfast boys went for the Dublin girls (it was an accent thing). If revolution was in the air, so too were the first flushes of romance: a heady concoction indeed for impressionable youths. But during that idyllic summer a storm blew. Shocked, frightened and angered, we all watched TV pictures of the riots that had spread from Derry to Belfast. News was coming in on the radio and TV that nationalist areas of Belfast were under attack. Daily and nightly, images of riots, shootings, and reports of injuries and deaths horrified us all - particularly those from Belfast, who pointed excitedly at TV pictures of the streets where they lived, which had been transformed into battlegrounds. Those from the affected areas made frantic phone calls home and brought back the dramatic details to those of us hanging out outside our favourite meeting place, Mrs McGee's shop, where in 1969 we swallowed strange local lemonade, gur cake and strange tidings.

Streets burning

Each morning we hurried to catch the news to see what further damage the turbulence had caused in Belfast - and heard that some of the streets close to where many Belfast students lived, such as Cupar Street and Bombay Street, were burning. Those events marked the end of a relatively peaceful era and ignited nationalist fervour throughout Ireland, just as unionist passions had been inflamed by the Bogside and Belfast riots. A young teacher warned us of an impending civil war.

News of uncivil mayhem and strange emotional stirrings colour my images of summer in that wonderful, windswept and rugged region of north-west Donegal. There are memories too of young courting couples hiding from priests and teachers on the way home from the ceilis where we had danced to a fiercely energetic band in the schoolhouse to lively tunes such as The Waves of Tory and The Walls of Limerick. There was also the strong smell of the sea and of and smoke from turf fires and heather; magnificent views of Muckish and Errigal mountains; walks up Bloody Foreland; climbs down the Devil's Well; boat trips to Gola island, of Baidin Fheidhlemidh fame, where we swam, had barbecues and generally cavorted. And at night we schemed to escape for illicit rendezvous.

City boys

I have fond memories, too, of our surrogate mother, our hard-pressed Bean an Ti, Mrs Ferry, trying desperately to keep some control on us wild city boys. In Gweedore then an era was ending. A young man from Fermanagh was there to learn Irish in case he failed his RUC exams and had to try the Garda. A boy who was later to become a senior member of Sinn Fein was also there. There were a number of Protestants from east and south Belfast. And a boy who would be shot a few years later.

Life-long ties were forged that summer. I began a friendship with Belfast students in the class of '69 that has survived all the intervening troubles and travails. Many of those who shared that experience - and others whom I have met in Belfast over the three momentous intervening decades - are still good friends.

It is hard to believe that it is 30 years since our coming of age in Gweedore when we were ambushed by history while on a summer holiday.