Dear Mr Pinergy Man

Dear Mr Pinergy Man, At least, I think that you are a man. The two text messages that I received from Pinergy referred to you as ‘our installer.’ The messages made me feel like we were all in this thing together. This common desire to save money and energy efficiency. This momentum that I felt build since your colleague with the nice Limerick accent cold-called me last week. Her accent made me think of Paul O’Connell and I could almost hear ‘Ireland’s Call’ in the background. ‘I’m switching for Ireland’, I convinced myself. And so, I awaited you this morning, Mr Pinergy Man. ‘8am-1pm’ the text message said. The person on the phone last week said that she would ‘’take note of your request for the first call of the day, but can’t guarantee anything’. The person who phoned to reconfirm on Saturday noted my request and said that my installer would be in touch on Monday morning. The text message that I received at 17.53pm yesterday, Sunday, said that ‘our installer will contact you shortly with an approx. arrival time. Rgds PINERGY. ‘These guys are so hot, they are smoking,’ I thought, ‘any wonder that Paulie loved them.’ I was up super early this morning waiting on you, Mr Pinergy Man. Washed, groomed, schmancy guna and all. I was worried that you would arrive at 8am while I was getting the children ready for school. So, we were all up and ready to go at an unthinkable hour. The children sat, noses to the window waiting for you. ‘Sorry guys’, I said to the two disappointed faces as they left for school. And so I waited. And waited. I was afraid that I’d miss you, so I brought my phone with me to the toilet and out to the bins. And I waited. And then I waited some more. I phoned the mobile number that I received the text message from, but the automated voice mail said ‘this ain’t no connection’, or words to that effect. As time went on, I was worried that I wouldn’t make my lunch time appointment. I couldn’t get through to the person that I was supposed to meet by phone. The person whom I had been trying to meet with since Christmas. I could feel a cold sweat. Should I stay or should I go ? Finally, as she was driving towards our appointment, I caught my lunch date. I felt that my excuse was lame. Of ‘the dog ate my homework’ variety. At 12.50pm, I received a text message. Was it from you directly ? It stated ‘Hi. Sorry for the inconvenience but your meter installation appointment has been changed to tomorrow. Thanks, PINERGY.’ Eh, what’s this ‘THANKS’ business, Mr Pinergy Man ? Where have you been for the last FIVE HOURS. You obviously haven’t been reading my recent blogs, Mr Pinergy Man. If you had, you would know that I have barely had a minute to myself in the last year. That my ‘me time’ is non-existent. You would know that my birthday hair ‘do is weeks overdue. I could have walked the hind legs of my doggy. Both mutts and I would have been the better of it. I could have gone to work (you know, the important thing that I asked your colleagues to record in your notes). I hear you protest. ‘But you could have worked from home’. No, I couldn’t actually – not when I was lepping up every five minutes checking my phone and looking out the window, wondering which door you would come to. You should know that if I had FIVE FLIPPING HOURS to kill, it wouldn’t be for you to do a no-show. `The text that I received at four hours and fifty minutes into the 5-hour appointment window did nothing to make me feel better. Even though Ireland won an Oscar award or two last night. If I was a cartoon, I would have had steam coming out my ears. Yip, I was that annoyed. I called your colleague on the Customer ‘Care’ phone number, ready to go on a rant, determined to never, ever, ever deal with Pinergy again. Nice Guy on the Phone sensed that I was more than extremely annoyed. I felt a Paul O’Connell roar coming from my gut. But Nice Guy seemed to genuinely felt my pain. He explained that ten other installations hadn’t happened today. Ten ! I assume that was ten other people who also didn’t receive a call or message from you, or yours to let them know what was going on. People like me, who ended up with Wednesdays level of stress on a Monday. ‘We can call tomorrow?’ he suggested politely. Tomorrow ? After loosing five precious hours from my week and it’s only just started, badly, I DON’T THINK SO! ‘To make up for our unfortunate error, we can give you e40 credit on your account ?’ ‘FORTY?’ We made a deal. Next Friday 11th. Between 1 and 6pm. Apparently. Can I trust you Mr Pinergy Man ? Shoulder to shoulder, like ?

A Mid Term Election

Who put ‘break’ into Mid Term Break ? Are they related to the fella who put the figs in the Fig Rolls ? Or the gal who put the ‘O’ in the Polo mint. Would Mid Term Break Down not be more accurate ? The very thought of the children having a week off in February, when I’m up to my oxters in work, was enough to bring me out in a cold sweat. It’s taken me almost a week to recover, hence that fact that I am only writing about it now. So, how to juggle an action packed, 1916 commemoration fuelled work schedule with the little uns ? I opted for marathon driving sessions, to leave my little darlings for a series of overnight stints with my lovely, gorgeous, sweetheart Mam in Co Meath. If it wasn’t for the incessant rain on the car journeys, a four-hour round trip (no matter which route I took, or how fast I drove, often through rush hour traffic), the whole thing could have been quite pleasant. If any of you are lucky enough to have a Mammy, or a family member living close by who will give a dig out with childcare, you REALLY don’t know how lucky you are. If that is you, take your Mammy, or whoever that person is and give them a big smack on the lips, hug them so tight, that you hurt their ribs and tell them how lucky you are to have them. Did I mention the incessant rain ? The sort that turns your newly-straightened-hair-for-work-because-you-want-to-look-like-you-have-your-act-together-even-though-its-Mid-Term into a Tina Turner ‘do in 2 minutes ? It’s great standing in it, overseeing the eight year olds pee on the roadside. Flipping great. Other than the weak kidneys, the chizzlers were good as gold. But in the week that was in it, it was inevitable that the topic of conversation would turn to the upcoming General Election, especially with the invasion of election posters over the last few weeks. Because I work in a local authority and work a lot of nights and weekends, my pair get brought along to more-than-your-average-eight-year-olds-fair-share of launches and events. As a result, they have met many of the elected representatives and are now highly amused to see many of them smiling out at us on election posters. With this familiarity, they also tend to earwig on conversations that I have at home around local politics, especially if they perceive that I am in the Bold Corner about an issue at work (I seem to have spent a lot of time there, of late). Keeping up to speed with the election posters and explaining who’s-who in South Kildare was enough to be getting on with. Driving through other electoral regions in North Kildare and then Meath East and West and Cavan, with different sets of faces and explaining to the children how the local feeds into the nation was as gruelling as what I imagine a Planning Tribunal would be. I thought I was getting somewhere, until I drove towards West Kildare, via Monasterevin. Here, the electoral boundaries have changed, with some of the traditional Kildare constituency now pushed into Laois. How can you explain that to an inquisitive pair, when you can barely understand it yourself? My babes and I have strong opinions on important matters such as who is the candidate with the ‘funniest glasses’ (Sharon Keogan, Meath). We are what you might call ‘very pass-remarkable’. My boy is TOTALLY disgusted that he cannot vote in the election. I had to break it gently to him last week. I got the ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN’T VOTE ?’ tone, with a total sense of injustice. Maybe an exception should be made for children like mine who are dragged to a disproportionate number of local government events ? I might start a petition next time around. I have a confession to make, Dear Reader. You could call it ‘active participation’ in politics ... Every time we drive past a certain election candidates’ posters, my children shake their fist at them. (No rude finger gestures, mind – My pair are very well reared). From their previous earwigging, they have concluded that ‘That person was really mean to Mammy’. I sniff and nod, feeling vindicated by my very own, not-influenced-at-all fan club. My children are studying 1916 in school now and are very animated about it, which is lovely to see. But then there’s joining the dots on 1916 and politics today, and how to talk about it in terms that are actually correct and that will satisfy two information hungry little people. Myself and the boy happened upon Micheal Martin, leader of the Fianna Fail party with a local election candidate, while out walking the mutt in town last night. He shook my hand warmly, saying, 'I think we have met before'. We haven't met, but I replied, 'I think we have', suddenly taken by his charisma. He shook the boy's hand too, who was too star struck to even make eye contact. As soon as they had left, the boy got excited, 'Mam, he could be the next Taoiseach. I bet he doesn't usually shake children's hands. Do you think I'm the first child whose hand he shook ?' 'I'd say you are Leon. One of the first anyway'. Bless his wee heart. Big news to tell Teacher. P.S. Please vote. There's an eight year old boy here who is very envious of your privilege.

I Miss My Da

It was my birthday last week. On a Wednesday. Not the best day for a birthday, if one planned on major celebrations. As usual my Mam send me a birthday card in the post. As usual, I phoned home to say ‘thank you’. In others years, my father answered the phone. He would have the usual chat about the weather, the farm and, depending on the news on the day, politics. He would chat away. Eventually, I would say, uncomfortably, ‘’it’s my birthday today Da’’. His response would have been an awkward ‘oh right’, or maybe even an-under-the-breath, ‘Happy Birthday.’ And then ‘Do you want to speak to your mother?’, passing the phone over. When I was Younger-Adult-Me, there are times when I felt hurt by his lacklustre response to my birthday, but now I can recognise that he would have been slightly embarrassed by it. I could relay a similar imaginary birthday conversation in my head last week because I knew him so well. Had it been one of the grandchildren’s birthday on the other hand, he would the first in there pretending to blow out the candles, high pitched laughing from the children. I have had many imaginary conversations in my head with my father recently. Mostly he is talking and I’m listening, sometimes only half listening. I can predict what his responses to various political shenanigans would be. I would have been pleased if I had some stories to tell him about the political scene in Kildare. Two of my friends’ fathers had heart attacks in recent weeks. Thankfully, after medical intervention, they are both doing okay. One of these friends relayed the experience to me – the collapse, the shock, the race to the hospital and all that came after it. As she talked, I could barely stop the tears, feeling for her family in distress, but also thinking of my own father death. Wondering if he was in a lot of pain, if he could hear the familiar voices around him, if he knew that he was dying, if he was afraid. I stayed in my parents’ house last Sunday night. It was lovely to be there with my mother. I had an early start the following morning and savoured the sounds of Home, as the farm yard was starting to wake up. The snuffles of the cattle. Timber beams creaking in the wind. The comforting sound of the river. All that was absent was the sound of my father’ smokers cough coming from the bedroom. I miss his cough. My son has always loved ‘‘Grandad’s farm’’ and his curiosity around it has heightened. He was asked recently if he had any fears since Grandad’s death. Earwigging on the conversation, I thought he might say that he was afraid that other loved ones might die too. Instead, he replied ‘I’m worried that Grandad’s farm might be sold.’ He spent most of his mid-term break with his Nana on the farm. He traipsed her down the yard to do a full inventory and condition report on all of the machinery that Grandad had, including its make and colour. Meanwhile, he is trying to convince me that his eight-year-old legs are long enough to drive a tractor. While its lovely to see his interest in the farm, it hurts my heart that my father is missing out on these little moments. I could imagine my father, highly amused, telling my mother over dinner, or his friends in the pub, about my boy’s incessant questions about the mechanics of the various machines. ‘That young lad never stops talking’, my father would say. I would smile. ‘He didn’t lick it off the road, you know Dad’. He wouldn’t look up from his newspaper, he would ruffle it, laugh and continue reading. I miss you Da. Can you hear me ?

Love and Stuff

Had I stuck it out, it would have been my twelfth wedding anniversary today.  Maybe I jinxed it all by getting married on a Friday 13^th and caused Cupid's arrow to go astray ?

I’m feeling sad.  Not because of the anniversary, but because I had plans for the weekend and they have gone askew.  I was looking forward to some 'me time' and had planned to get my hair done today.  The idea of sitting in a hairdresser for 3 or 4 hours with nothing better to do than sup tea and read about ‘celebs’, although I don’t always know, or care who they are is the closest thing to heaven that I can think of right now.  I was looking forward to a ‘new-do’, a little make over to mark my 42^nd birthday the other day.  I was going dramatic.  Two-tone.  Dark at the roots and blonde at the bottom, channelling my Sarah Jessica Parker again.  It’s been so long since the ‘do was done, that I pretty much am two-tone already (albeit with a few grey streaks, as little woman just pointed out, as she read this over my shoulder, laughing her head off).

I’ll spend the weekend with the children.  We are all heading off on a sleep over later (even the dog).  New hair is not necessary for this occasion.  Wine is though.  Trucks of it.  It can be my catch-up birthday wine – the liquid stuff that many people referred to in messages on Facebook.  My Wednesday birthday was a sober affair in every sense and that needs to be sorted.

The children have already given me handmade birthday and Valentine’s cards.  The ones that flop on the mantelpiece and that I will keep in a box forever.  I’ll give them money later and let them loose in a euro shop to buy me a birthday present.  On second thoughts, I’ll bring them to a chemist instead, in the hope that they will buy something I will actually use.  At some stage they will see something that they fancy and ask if they can buy that instead. It's a wonder that the pair of them remembered my birthday at all, such was their excitement about Pancake Tuesday, or more specifically, that a jar of chocolate spread, usually considered as contraband, was purchased for the occassion. They ate the stuff for breakfast, dinner and tea and lamented over the empty jar.

Other than that, I can’t see myself being showered with Valentine’s Day gifts.  I already checked with the postman – there shall be no special weekend deliveries tomorrow.   Still, there is loads that a gal can do to make herself feel special on her birthday/Valentine’s week.  An extra squirt of perfume.  Lingering in the shower with fragrant Chanel soap for a companion.  A glut of blueberries and the biggest spoon of honey on my porridge.  Children getting ready for school ‘extra fast’ as a surprise.  A purchase from the 70% off Sales Rail in Shaw’s (Almost nationwide).  Wearing my bestest knickers midweek.  Writing blog ideas in my new embroidered notebook.  It goes without saying that a good streak of red lippy tops it all.

Since my new found singledom, I’ve been getting a lot of advice, some more helpful that the rest.  Sentences that start with ‘Do you know what you should do … ?’ are enough to make me glaze over.  I’ve also had plenty of advice on how to find a new man.  I’ve had the low down on Tinder, which quite frankly, scares the life out of me.  Someone recommended that I just need a ‘Booty Call’, or if you want to be really crude about it, ‘Dial-a-Ride’.  Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you blush, but I probably did that earlier when I mentioned knickers.  My lovely Mammy hoped that I might meet someone at an arts conference I was attending recently.  I smiled.  The attendees were 70% women, with a disproportionate percentage of gay men.  Damn, they dress well.  

Even my children have begun to ask me if I will get married again – A subject that I wouldn’t have thought would have entered their heads and one that I certainly wouldn’t have broached at this early stage.  My boy wants to know what kind of car Imaginary Man will drive.  (Audi or BMW apparently).  My girl wonders if I will have more babies.  Jaypurs, I may get my skates on, biological clock ticking like a time bomb now. I wonder how/when they think that I will meet someone, when they both have heart failure at the thought of me going on a night out ?

Right, I’m outta here.  The 70% Sales Rail awaits me.   Maybe I'll buy a hat to cover the hair.  Maybe Prince Charming will catch my eye at the till.

Happy Valentine’s lovely people. 

This 2016 craic

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s 2016.  Yip, the year after 2015.  And, oh yeah, the year that marks the centenary of The Easter Rising, one of the defining moments in the struggle for Irish independence which began on Easter Monday.  There were 300 civilian casualties and the sixteen rebel leaders were executed.  Sound familiar ?

I haven’t felt like writing a blog about anything in ages and now I am half terrified writing this, in case I come across like a complete thick.  Truth is, I know flip all about the 1916 Rising, or Irish History in general.  My only calling-card in this regard is my knowledge of ancient Irish Art History that I studied for teaching Leaving Cert. art students - If you want to know what a corbelled vault is, I’m your woman.  I could blame my history void on the fact that I didn’t study history in secondary school.  But given that I left school in 1991, I’ve had ample opportunity to catch up in the meantime.

My half-baked understanding of 1916, struggles for freedom, differences of opinion and all that came after it were influenced by my experiences in my late teens and early twenties.  I spent a lot of time in Portadown, Co Armagh, with my then boyfriend.  The town was largely Protestant.  It was known locally as a ‘Black Hole.’  My boyfriend’s surname and address identified him as Catholic.  In fact, he may as well have had ‘fenian bastard’ tattooed on his head.  Encounters with RUC officers and soldiers, with me, the ‘Free Stater’ were intimidating and tense.  

My poor mothers heart was in her mouth every time I headed North.  Oh, and I did I mention that the boyfriend had a motorbike too?  Stress City for any Irish Mammy.

On the 27^thApril 1997 Robert Hamill, my boyfriend’s second cousin was kicked to death by a group of Protestants after a night out in Portadown Town Centre.  An RUC land rover was parked twenty feet away during the attack, but the officers did not intervene in the attack, despite pleas for help. Robert never regained consciousness after the attack and died of his injuries eleven days later, aged 25.  Years afterwards, night-time chants about jumping on Robert Hamill’s head could often be heard on the streets in Portadown.  To date, no RUC personnel have been prosecuted for their part in Robert’s murder.

In 1999, Robert’s solicitor, Rosemary Nelson was assassinated by the so called ‘Red Hand Defenders.’  Allegations that the British state security forces were involved in her killing led to a public inquiry.  The inquiry found no evidence that state forces directly facilitated her murder, but could not exclude the possibility that individual members had helped the perpetrators.

Eleven days after the Good Friday Agreement was signed on Friday 10th April 1998, I got a call from my boyfriend to say that his good friend Adrian Lamph had been shot in the head, while he worked at an amenity centre.  Adrian’s patched up, swollen head laid out in a coffin looked nothing like the 29-year-old fella that we knew. 

‘The Twelfth’ is forever synonymous for me with the events around an Orange Order march on 6^th July 1997, when 1,200 strong Orangemen were forcefully allowed to march down the nationalist Garvaghy Road to Drumcree Church.  I watched in horror on TV from my flat in Dublin, as Ian Paisley and David Trimble shook their joined fists victoriously in the air as the march was pushed through.  The triumphalist look on their faces was sickening and I despaired that it would ever end.  Ian Paisley roaring ‘NEVER’ scared the life out of me.  ‘Incitement to hatred’ if ever you seen it.

These personal experiences and the countless other atrocities across communities in the North made me really question the cost of ‘freedom’ when no middle ground seemed achievable.  Thankfully, 1997 was the last time that the Orange Order march along the ‘G Road’ was allowed to take place and (in my humble opinion) the Good Friday Agreement has transformed Northern Ireland. 
I visited Portadown last summer, not particularly aware that it was the eve of the 12^th July, prime marching season.  There were remnants of massive bomb fires the previous night, union jack flags aplenty.  On the way home that evening, the children counted the distinctive white RUC riot jeeps heading in the opposite direction towards Belfast.  There had been trouble there the night previous.  Although I didn’t feel in danger, I was I was happy to be driving away from it in my car with a southern registration plate. 

I read an article in the Irish Times recently.  A number of young people, who were born in the year that the Good Friday Agreement was signed, were interviewed.  In reading it, I was struck by how quickly things move on and how, largely, they could take it for granted that they will grow up in a safe and peaceful environment.  The stories of just one generation before has quickly been placed on the ‘archive’ shelf.  The stuff of ‘the olden days when you were young Mammy,’ as my children put it.

Fast forward to present day and I am one of the organising committee on the Kildare 2016 programme, the rest of the committee more knowledgeable about all things 1916 than I.  I bring ‘other skills’ to the table, I swear.  We have been working on the programme for almost a year now.  2016 Fatigue was setting in towards the end of last year.  Now that it has kicked off proper, I feel energised about it all again. 

I launched one of our major projects recently – ‘Little Stories, Little Prints,’ an exhibition of 60 fine art prints on stories and incidents around 1916 – in the Little Museum, Stephen’s Green.  I was slightly panicked at the thought of speaking at the launch, knowing that there would be many people there 1916 savvy.  

I had a flashback to the launch of a previous exhibition of prints by the Leinster Printmakers, based on ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,’ the novel by James Joyce.  I was due to speak alongside a Joycean scholar, Bruce Bradely S.J.  My good intentions of studying Joyce in the weeks preceding the launch came to nothing, so I left the ‘science bit’ to Bruce.  Besides, who wants to hear two people delivering the same speech? 

At the ‘Little Stories, Little Prints’ exhibition, I adopted the same attitude, avoiding mentioning ‘The War’, so to speak and let the prints speak for themselves.  I have learned so much from the stories behind the prints already.  It’s a wonderful exhibition, curated by Pamela De Bri, who was assisted by Margaret Becker.  It has generated a lot of interest around the country and is touring throughout 2016.  How lovely that each of the participating artists to say that they (quite literally) have made their mark in 2016.   When I seen it on the gallery walls, and the accompanying catalogue, I regretted that I hadn’t participated myself, to be part of that 2016 story, that legacy.

My mission for 2016 is to educate myself on Irish history.  I feel that I (and you) have an obligation to do that.  I’m gathering some information from the family archives and I’ll write about that another time. 

In the meantime, my interesting ‘fact’ for the day is …. I’m kinda related to Peader Kearney, who wrote "Amhrán na bhFiann" in 1907, which became our National Anthem.  According to my cousin Nicola Carroll, in as far as she can establish, Peadar’s great grandmother Mary Hickey, was a sister of our great-great grandfather, making us second cousins twice removed.  I’ve always felt pride in that little piece of information, but particularly on the days when I stood in Croke Park with my father, waiting on a Meath match to kick off.  It gives me a pain in my chest just thinking about it.

One of my fears for 2016 is that people will not engage, that only 100 years later, we just ain't that bothered.  I was heartened though, by two major events last year, that demonstrated how getting involved makes a difference.  Firstly, the turnout to vote for the Marriage Equality referendum and secondly, the response to the Waking The Feminists movement, a backlash to the poor representation of female directors on the Abbey Theatre’s 2016 programme. 

I hope that young people especially, get off their asses and vote in the upcoming election. 

You must be registered to vote by 5pm this Tuesday, 9^th February.