An Irishman's Diary

A man walks diagonally across the street in the village of Hollymount, Co Mayo, heading for Mahony's pub

A man walks diagonally across the street in the village of Hollymount, Co Mayo, heading for Mahony's pub. Half-way across, he stops and gives way to a tall, square, black motorcar, crawling with intent up the street. As the car comes abreast of him, the back window is wound halfway down. Out of the interior darkness a voice speaks: "Are you ---- ----?" Fearing for his post-Treaty life, the man replies: "I am." A hand emerges from the window, and the voice speaks again: "Here's a pound. Buy yourself a drink. I'm Eamon de Valera."

You would hardly expect me to vouch for the historical quality of this episode in the political life of Hollymount; but I can swear to all that happened, in broad daylight, when another mysterious black car slid into the village one day and pulled up outside Mahony's. The proprietress, hearing voices in the bar, emerged from the kitchen.

Unexpected visitors

Good God! Was she seeing things? Had she lost her wits? Was the strong summer light playing tricks on her? Being a woman of considerable capacity, presence and eloquence, she recovered her composure, went behind the counter, and served the tall gentleman and the beautiful lady. Relaxing on bar stools, the two unexpected visitors were courteous, chatty, downto-earth, and especially appreciative of the cosy rurality of the village of Hollymount, snugly tucked up by the River Robe.

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An unhurried half-hour later, at the door of the pub, John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara - taking time off from making The Quiet Man - bid a warm and civil goodbye to the proprietress, Bride Brennan, my beloved late aunt.

Time passes. I am at the Horse Show at the RDS in Dublin - one of my favourite summer pleasures, now upon us once again. Things are jumping in the Anglesea Terrace overlooking the pocket where the horses await their turn to enter the arena. Here are the riders, the sponsors' representatives and those centrally or marginally involved in show-jumping. Above the chatter, you hear the pop of a champagne cork.

If you are looking for a Jilly Cooper scene at the Show, the Anglesea Terrace is the place to find it. Here, among the riders and the sponsors' agents, are women whose purpose in life is to be female, and to be observed in that undertaking by all and sundry, the male world especially. Horsy men eye them, up and down. "Good bone," they mutter, measuring long limbs through narrow eyes. The jillycoopering has begun.

The sun is dipping behind the grandstand. The last jumping event of the day is over, and Maureen O'Hara has just finished presenting prizes to the winners. The crowd gathered in front of the stand cares little about who has won what. Everyone wants to get close to Maureen O'Hara - to speak to her, at least; to touch her, if possible.

Rubber goods

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour in December 1941 and Roosevelt took the USA into war, Americans were asked to make sacrifices for the war effort, and to surrender goods in short supply - articles made of rubber, for instance, because most rubber came from south-east Asia, then under Japanese control. The President's dog, Fala, was donating his rubber bones. A filling station in Washington DC hung out a sign: WE ACCEPT ANYTHING MADE OF RUBBER EXCEPT CONDOMS.

At the more salubrious end of the business, typewriters were needed for all those young women flocking into temporary offices popping up around three sides of the Washington Mall. "Send your typewriter to war," went the slogan. Radio stations played a jingle: "An idle typewriter is a help to Hitler." The authorities needed a face to go with the slogan and the jingle. "Well, who but one of the most beautiful and most famous women in the world?" you cry. A photograph from that time shows Maureen O'Hara, from Ranelagh in Dublin, posed, smiling, behind a table laid out with 20 typewriters, each tagged, "For Uncle Sam".

Seapoint Ballroom

Back at the RDS, a man of my acquaintance recalls an evening in Galway when a car pulls up at Seapoint Ballroom. John Wayne unfurls at the far side, but - Wow! - legs first, Maureen O'Hara descends from the near side - flashing eyes, red hair, big smile. The man, nearly a half-century older than his boyish Seapoint self, notices that the eyes are still flashing and the head as high and proud as ever.

David Gray, who looks after the press at the RDS, spots a man he knows on the edge of the crowd, and beckons him in. Maureen O'Hara reaches for the man's hand, and he, a little shyly, says: "You are obviously going to hold on to your beauty forever." The eyes of Katie Danaher, blazing at Sean Thornton, in a field outside Cong, in Co Mayo, open wide: "I'm going to live to a hundred-and-two," she says. The RDS crowd cheers. It appreciates real class when it sees it; and it knows that, compared with such company, jillycoopering is strictly for the birds and the bees.