In the Guinness Storehouse on Tuesday night, they celebrated their 25th birthday with a party. And a fine party it was, capped off by a musical hooley in the panoramic bar, where a band called Madra Salach was joined by Grian Chatten and others.
For me, the evening was marred only slightly by the inclusion in one of the speeches of that phantom WB Yeats quotation about there being no strangers here, only friends who hadn’t met yet.
I was almost certainly the only crank present to be annoyed by the now-ubiquitous misattribution. But then again, as recently as September in this space, I attempted to exonerate poor Yeats from any responsibility for this trite sentiment.
To recap, the real culprit may have been one Edgar A Guest (1881–1959), a British-born American known as the “People’s Poet” for his simple lyrics, which in 1915 included the line “…strangers are friends that we some day meet".
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From there, the quotation evolved over decades into an advertising slogan, until it was used for a 1960s Bord Fáilte campaign. Sometime after that, people started framing Yeats for it. The campaign to clear his name continues.
Aptly, a sub-theme of the party was the Irish storytelling tradition – of which phantom quotations like that and the one the Duke of Wellington didn’t say are undoubtedly a part.
There was a telling moment when the voice of another speaker who touched on the theme was drowned out at the back of the room. As so often happens at Irish social events involving speeches, people had stopped listening because they were too busy engaging in the oral tradition themselves.
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The aforementioned poet did not feature at the Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) awards on Monday night.
That may be because, to many racing people, Yeats is most famous for being an Aidan O’Brien-trained thoroughbred who won four Ascot Gold Cups earlier this century and is now enjoying well-earned retirement. Even so, the Irish storytelling tradition was a sub-theme there too.
One of the most popular wins was the Flat Achievement Award for veteran trainer Joseph Murphy.
A modest, affable country man, Murphy was the subject of a recorded tribute form his many friends, which included a number of back-handed compliments. One such compliment was that he could be a bit “scruffy”. Another suggested “he would claim he hurled for Kilkenny but I don’t believe him”, and one friend said “with Joe, the glass is always half-empty”.
But at Royal Ascot in June, he wore a top hat to see his 33-1 outsider Cercene land the Coronation Stakes. It was a first Group One winner for Murphy in 50 years of trying.
Accepting the HRI award, he struck a philosophical note. The best part of winning, he implied, was giving the “parish” something to talk about and “bringing people with you”. “That’s the great thing about racing,” he said: “What you have out if it always is the story.”
Murphy was also said by admirers to be “very well-read”. And yet I was struck again on Monday by how articulate racing people tend to be, well read or not. No doubt it’s a gregarious sport. But narrative skills are a vital part of it. Much more often than not, jockeys and trainers have to regale owners with yet another version of why, this time, they didn’t win.
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At an event in the Italian Cultural Institute on Wednesday, I interviewed a different Joseph, the novelist O’Connor. We had never met before, somehow. So amid a frenetic week, I was still scribbling down questions at the last minute, feeling panicked.
Of course I needn’t have worried. One of the most eloquent writers Ireland has produced, O’Connor needed only to be teed up every so often. From there, he would take off on another flight of perfectly formed thoughts, for however long was necessary.
Consummate speaker that he is, his skills included one much less common in Ireland. He also always knew when to stop.
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I tried to remind myself of that skill at a Dublin-Monaghan Christmas lunch on Tuesday, when being one of several interviewees. The inquisitor/master of ceremonies was Monaghan GAA great Dick Clerkin, a former midfield enforcer for the county, known for the occasional robust challenge.
Sure enough, one of his guests, RTÉ head of sport Declan McBennett, reminded Dick of an occasion when they collided in a club match and Declan suffered a broken nose.
I got off lightly by comparison. The MC had asked for a signed copy of my recently published memoir as a spot prize. Awarding which, he advised the winner: “Now, wrap that in plastic and store it in the attic. When you take it down in 50 years’ time, it’ll be worth at least 20 quid.”
It retails for up to €22.99 now, so the challenge was late and high. If I was from, say, Tyrone, I’d have gone down holding my head, screaming. But that’s not the Monaghan way. I took it with a smile and may seek justice on a later occasion, when the referee is not looking.
