Entrance

To a handball court near Westport, Co Mayo. I noticed it from the roadside as we were driving past, only a few minutes into Séan's "rain safari" (an outing strictly geared to the weather). It was another friend of mine, Joe, who drew my attention to these old, concrete structures vaguely reminiscent of WW2 fortifications. The first one I remember coming across was in Ring College in Co Waterford, when I was 13, one year's boarding as a Dublin "Jackeen" who barely knew what "Culchie" meant: my own wee Colditz Story (though we never attempted an escape). Did I actually play the game? I can't remember. But Ring and handball are forever associated in my mind.

Afterwards we traveled out to a little lake with a shingle beach and the mouth of a river Séan knew, where it was possible to fish for sea trout. We skirted the lake and came to a wire fence/gate, which I got out to open, then drove a bumpy mile or two, watching the river below wriggle and elbow itself in wee ox-bow lakes, till we came to another gate, near the large stretch of pines we'd seen from the lake. We stopped here, on a little bridge, to talk for a half hour or so and attempt to detect the river incrementally rising in the heavy rain.

I noticed an old, solid but roofless house between the tall pillars of the nearest trees. As Séan said, they must have just planted around it (30 or 40 years ago), so its ghosts now find themselves without a view. They'll probably have it back soon enough when the trees are harvested.