Rory Fitzgerald
I had never been quite so delighted to be dropping the kids off at one of their clubs. The clever old Brownies had organised an outing to the beach. The government, in their wisdom, permit parents to drive outside the 5km limit during the lockdown, to enable children to attend sports and clubs. The logic was inescapable: I was going to the beach!
The winter sunshine penetrated the morning mist as we busted merrily through the 5km travel limit for the first time in over a month. I wondered if we might somehow be stretching the space-time continuum as we hit the dizzying distance of the 10km mark. As we moved further onwards, I gained some inkling of how Columbus felt, as we ventured into those mysterious and unknown parts of the world beyond Ballinadee. As we drove along the high ridges of this strange faraway land, golden sunlight lit the winter fields, while the ghostly lakes of mist lingered in the valleys below. Suddenly, we rounded a bend, and there, in all its vast sparkling glory, lay the living sea. This beloved entity lies under 15 kilometres from my home, but I had not seen it for four long weeks. As we skirted along the beach, clean blue breakers crashed upon the shore, sending white spray scattering like the cold morning air.
We parked up and flung open the doors to gulp in the sea air, like a sick man might a tonic. The dog burst out of the boot, his eyes ablaze, looking for mischief. My daughter, dressed smartly in her uniform, ran off into the dunes, where her troop were assembling.
As I looked around me, I slowly registered the vast numbers of cars and many hundreds people milling about, walking dogs and building sandcastles. There was even a coffee van with a long queue. Either all these people live within 5km of the beach, or I’ve been the only sucker following the rules in the entire county of Cork.
Perhaps there is some justice in the widespread flouting of rules which needlessly prevent people from merely going to the beach, which is hardly a hotbed of Covid transmission. Either way, this was not a time to ruminate on the Irish predilection for observing rules in the breach. This was a time to savour every one of these precious 90 minutes of legitimate liberty. With this my aim, I set off at a brisk pace along the beach, intermittently hauling back my vast hound from “greeting” the many passers-by on the crowded shore.
At the end of the beach, I stepped away from the throngs and onto a lonely cliff path, where I had often walked as a boy. Each winter Sunday, my father and I would walk the cliffs of south Cork, and this was one of our favourite haunts. Flashes of memory were triggered as I rounded a turn in the path and saw a once-familiar scene. This rugged coast always whispers of the past, and the many ships that came and went in the age of sail.
At the appointed time, I collected my daughter, who was full of delight after her outing. A large exhausted dog collapsed into the boot. We drove home, where a Sunday roast was being laid on the table, and the range was lit, to warm our bones. After the meal, I pulled from the shelf an old maritime tome and reclined by the fire. I read the very words of a privateer who sailed from Bristol in 1708 and called to Cork to victual and take on board many men, before proceeding to sail around the world, privateering against the Spanish, rounding Cape Horn and even plucking Alexander Selkirk from his isolation. Such are the tales of the Cork coast.
As the fire crackled and I turned the pages, the glowering sky darkened. I was content to be once again confined. Despite my odyssey to the beach, this was the greater journey. From the comfort of my fireside, I had travelled 300 years into the past. Putting the book aside, I played chess with my boy, and as the storm brewed outside, I plied him with old tales of privateers out of Cork, and their adventures upon the south seas.