Monday, 21 July 2014

Now and again

I was in Glencolumbkille on Wednesday week playing in Oideas Gael. At the session afterwards I was in conversation with Derek Williamson and a fiddler who happened to be on an Irish course that week. I was telling them about the remarkable coincidence that a woman in the telephone box in Glen was talking about the Australian author Thomas Keneally when suddenly he appeared on the road outside with a camera crew.
"Thomas Keneally is my relation," the fiddler said. "My second name is Keneally, and I'm from Newmarket in County Cork, where his grandfather was from."



"While the girl reads, another somewhat older woman emerges and speaks to her. She folds the paper and rises from the steps. She has the oval face of which I have heard people say, 'That's a Cork face.' My grandmother possessed it too and gave it to me and my younger daughter jane. It is sometimes referred to as, 'a potato-face', unjustly, as it can be handsome, especially on the young." 'Now and in time to be', p4