One of the pleasures of life is a casual walk along an uncrowded beach, where there is always something doing. Two adults and a toddler don their gumboots, arm themselves with a shrimpnet and on a dull end-of-May day get off along a western beach of some 500 s. Shallow green water, lovely clean yellow sand: typical western beach. Also typical was that these three were the only people on it. The lure of fish brings the young lady of 2 years and three months into the sea, over her boots, which flood; but nothing daunts the young. Soon a rock pool is examined and shrimps are duly fished out, placed in a bucket, closely examined, exclaimed at, and then returned to their lair, bristling, it is said, with indignation. In France, writes our young man, this would probably merit a piece in the press entitled La Chasse aux Crevettes, he thinks. A small fish is similarly examined. The fascination of anemones is ignored. Seaweed of all varieties abounds, but does not excite any great interest.
Approaching a small pier, a newly-tarred currach is worth a small detour. But a cat is heard to cry nearby, and idle curiosity leads one party to a casually placed lobster pot just under the high tide mark. And inside is a distressed white cat, clearly lured by the rank bait - and it has done little better than the intended prey, for having entered, it cannot escape. A quick lift of the pot releases the creature which streaks up into the fuschia bushes. Thereafter the booty consists of spider-crab shells, many small periwinkle-type ditto and a healthy appetite. And the lovely sea air all the time.
It was around these parts, not far from Josie Mongan's famous hotel, that the grandmother of the above diarist, then a young woman with three children, walking them on the beach met a party of local women. It was in the 1930s and the women still wore the traditional red tweed skirts, some with shawls, all talking vivaciously, all extroverts, too, for the questions were direct. Were the children all hers? Yes. Any more to come? And one woman placed a hand on the stranger's stomach. Nothing obvious there. More uproarious laughter. Was her husband good to her? Did he beat her? Like a party from a Synge play. Laughter and friendly farewells all round. A story retold down the generations. Y