A chara, – I met a Welsh girl recently who talked of romantic tales on Ireland’s west coast, where rain and wind battered down, making car doors impossible to open, and of the sea’s incessant rumbling threatening to wash away beached tents. But it was told with such fondness and warmth, as she suggested that people needed to embrace the elements in order to enjoy their beauty.
I started picturing high-heeled legs shivering in a cold, wet night on an emptying Harcourt Street in Dublin. But what she says is true. In places such as Doolin, Co Clare, ruggedness rules and beauty always prevails. Let yourself go, and only then can all elements of life be enjoyed.
Ask the martyrs who trip to Oxegen and Electric Picnic each year if they’re bothered about getting muddy, and of their plans for the rain? And the real festival-goers, the ones who actually enjoy festivals, will tell you, happily, that mud doesn’t bother them and if it rains they’ll simply get wet: once you’re wet you won’t notice the rain. “At least we won‘t get sunburnt!” That surely is the spirit.
Fun in the sun? Sure, that’s too easy. Singing in the rain sounds more like it! Get out and enjoy it! – Is mise,