On a sunny day, West Knock International Airport (which is rather a grand title for what amounts to a couple of runways and sheds in a field in County Mayo) must surely have one of the most picturesque landing approaches in the world: all verdant green grass with cotton-wool sheep, azure blue skies and the theme tune from Father Ted. Unfortunately I encountered it on a storm-lashed day in late November: rain, wind and more rain, the same again and then some more.
That’s the Atlantic coast in early winter for you, I suppose. Perhaps it might have been more clement had I been heading to the shrine at Knock itself, where Our Lady appeared in 1879. Instead I was on my way to her cathedral in Sligo, which, as it happens, received an honourable mention in the Pointed Arch column in December. I’d accepted with delight an invitation to join two young friends for their nuptials; so having thrown my morning coat, stripy trousers and other requisites into an overnight bag, off I went.
Sligo is one of those places where religious plurality – or sectarianism, I suppose, depending on how you look at it – makes its presence felt. The Catholic cathedral – which by now, thanks to Michael Hodges, readers will know was designed in the neo-Romanesque style by George Goldie – is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception and looms triumphantly over the comparatively tiny neo-Gothic Anglican cathedral just slightly down the hill. It also happens to be dedicated to Our Lady, and to St John the Baptist.
Diversity was, as it turned out, the order of the day. The bride was a fair colleen of old Irish stock, and her bridegroom a dashing Companion of the Order of Malta based in England but with not inconsiderable Teutonic tendencies. Given the variety of nationalities represented in the couple’s families, then, the first reading was in English, the psalm in Gaelic and the second reading in German. The Gospel and the rest of the Mass were in Latin. E pluribus unum: a very neat solution. More of this sort of thing, please.
Like the Wise Men I returned home by a different route, but for more mundane reasons after Aer Lingus cancelled my return flight. As you may imagine, this is not the sort of news one wants to receive on the morning after an Irish wedding, with feet sore from dancing and residual Guinness still coursing through the veins. But a bit of quick research yielded a new plan: a train to Dublin, a bus to Collinstown, a plane to Birmingham, and back to Oxford that night. I wonder what the Magi would have done with an iPhone.
In other circumstances I’d probably have accepted the alternative flight two days later and a couple of nights in a hotel at the airline’s expense and explored the area in more detail, but I needed to make another flight the next afternoon: I was on my way to Seattle, to spend Thanksgiving with old friends. I daresay that any American readers will write in if I have misunderstood, but as a relative newcomer to the party it seems to me that one of the most attractive aspects of the holiday is its relative lack of hard-and-fast rules.
The company gathered on the shores of Lake Washington included Mom and Dad, naturally; their grown-up children home from work; a friend whose wife was looking after her elderly mother; a widowed neighbour; a young couple with a new-born over whom everyone else billed and cooed; yours truly, and so on.
Of many variable traditions, turkey seemed to be the sole non-negotiable. Ours had four legs, which was startling, but on closer inspection turned out to be two turkeys on the same plate, one pre-carved and the second balanced on top.
A talent show followed dinner, for which everyone had a party piece at the ready. Some read a poem; others told a story; most sang a song. I was excused a solo performance in exchange for playing the piano for all the singers. The talent show was followed by parlour games of one kind or another (and several more rounds of pass-the-baby), and conversation long into the night. The next morning the return journeys began: here, there and everywhere. I was no exception, for it was a whistle-stop trip across the pond. What would Greta say?
In under a week I had returned to dear old Blighty and was heading to Durham for a birthday party and dinner at St Chad’s College the night after. Then it was back to Oxford for the usual marathon: the Christmas feast in college; dinner at All Souls; the Herald staff lunch at the Chelsea Arts Club; the Tablet Advent Party at the Athenaeum; a rugby lunch with the customary two-day recovery; an alumni carol service; Christmas lunch at my club; another carol service, then two more; a drinks party, a second and then a third.
As an old friend of mine always says: “It’s a grand life if one doesn’t weaken.” Then again, now I think about it, he’s just entered a monastery.
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