The Bandon Valley has experienced some traumatic events down the decades, notably during the War of Independence. But according to The Southern Star newspaper, it is now emerging from another long dark night of the soul, one that descended suddenly in 2021.
Under the headline “New public loo for Ballineen will ‘right the wrong’ of 2021 closure”, the paper reports from a recent council meeting at which the dark episode was relived in all its horror.
Councillor Joe Carroll described how existing public conveniences, dating from the 1970s, were demolished overnight, leaving desolation in their wake. Of residents’ reaction, he said: “They will never forget the woeful day when they woke one morning at seven o’clock and found that their toilets were gone.”
Thank God, the councillor was on hand to provide reassurance: “We told locals that we would not rest until the toilets would be restored and that the people who did nothing about them would be banished forever out of West Cork.”
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Now, happily, a bright new day has dawned. A new unisex toilet and a separate disabled-access facility are to be installed in the footprint of those demolished.
It was a “glorious honour and pleasure” to rectify the wrong, declared Carroll. Of the grateful locals, he added: “They can rest easy that they [will soon] be spending a penny in luxury and they can sleep well tonight in Ballineen.”
Installation of the new toilets aside, it only remains now for someone to commemorate these epic events in a ballad.
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Speaking of which, and still on the subject of hyperbole, I was struck by the victory in Cheltenham last week of a horse from Drimoleague, Co Cork.
Owned and bred by Sean O’Driscoll, Home By The Lee takes its name from the lesser-known anthem about that river: The Green Hills of Cork, aka Beautiful City.
And after the horse romped home, as they say in another hyperbolic phrase (in fact, he romped only as far as the finishing post and was then driven home in a horse box), his owner sang the chorus live on ITV: “Beautiful city, charming and pretty/Beautiful city, my home by the Lee.”
The song was written by John Fitzgerald (1825–1910), who has also been credited with writing The Banks of My Own Lovely Lee, although that’s unproven.
In general, Beautiful City’s lyrics exemplify a particular form of hyperbole, popular in Ireland, that refrains from just bigging up the immediate subject in favour of juxtaposing it with similar phenomena elsewhere and finding those inadequate by comparison.
Here’s a typical verse, in which the balladeer tours Europe, admits its lovely and all that, but returns to his homeplace with his faith in its greatness unshaken:
“The bold feudal castles look down on the Rhine
That flows through the land of the olive and vine
There is freedom and health in the fresh mountain breeze
That careers round the home of the brave Tyrolese
There is beauty and love in all spots of the earth
To the heart that can call it the land of its birth
But of all the fair countries, the dearest to me
Are the green hills of Cork and my home by the Lee.”
I’m tempted to think that this sly, hyperbole-by-proxy is a Cork speciality. On the other hand, the classic of the genre is about a town in Limerick: Percy French’s Drumcolliher.
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Returning to the theme of legal tautologies, as touched upon in a recent Irish Diary, John O’Hagan refers me to Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy (1534):
“Albeit the king’s Majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be the supreme head of the Church of England… yet nevertheless, for corroboration and confirmation thereof, and for increase of virtue in Christ’s religion within this realm of England, and to repress and extirpate all errors, heresies, and other enormities and abuses heretofore used in the same, be it enacted…that the king, our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England…and shall have and enjoy, annexed and united to the imperial crown of this realm, as well as the title and style thereof, all honours, dignities, preeminences, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities to the said dignity of the supreme head of the same Church belonging and appertaining; and that our said sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall have full power and authority…to visit, repress, redress, record, order, correct, restrain, and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, offenses, contempts and enormities, whatsoever they be, which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed, repressed, ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained, or amended…and for the conservation of the peace, unity, and tranquility of this realm; any usage, foreign land, foreign authority, prescription, or any other thing or things to the contrary hereof notwithstanding.”
On a minor but related note, meanwhile, John adds that while travelling to Dublin by train recently, he heard the driver say Connolly Station would be the “last and final” stop.
