Barney

I was invited to give a poetry reading at The Whitehouse bar in Limerick, by the organiser Barney Sheehan. Barney has been staging poetry readings at The Whitehouse for nearly a decade now. It is a lovely venue, a proper old Irish pub, high ceilings, dark wood floorboards and basic décor, a cave-like, ecclesiastical dimness and silence, similar to what McDaid's in Dublin used to be like.

The reading was at the front of the bar, and being a fairly small space it was packed. The main reason for the crowd was probably the open mic session that took up the first hour or so. I can see how it makes sense, providing an audience for poetry (which includes a sprinklings of non-reading visitors and wanderers-in) and bringing a healthy dose of midweek business to the pub.

I think my own reading went well enough, and I was glad when a few people came and thanked me, especially for the school sequence I'm working on and the final poem, about clearing my mother's room and finding a tiny weighing-card/receipt (I blipped it last month, on Friday 13). I also had a couple of good chats with people, one with a man who had been raised in a family of 13 and remembered being given the job of mouse-exterminator when a child, which culminated in a gruesome little black comedy involving a colander and several knitting needles.

Prior to the reading, Barney kindly invited me to his house for supper. He lives alone, in a semi in a quiet suburb not far from the city. He isn't married, though has had several children ('seven or eight' in his own words). He is very generous and open hearted and was fine with being photographed, inviting me to take as many as I wished. Barney is a performer, and a talker to beat the band. Despite having Parkinson's for the past couple of years, he recently ran in a local marathon. The above was taken in his kitchen, after we'd finished a hasty micro-waved curry, as he was getting dressed for the show. I should have photographed him in his beautiful tail-coat, an amazing garment literally a couple of centuries old. As we drove into town in the taxi he had to tell the driver he'd got his 'tails caught in the door', not something you'd hear every day.