The River Nore, I read later, rises on the eastern slopes of Devil’s Bit Mountain, in Co Tipperary, flows east through Borris-in-Ossory, then runs south through Co Kilkenny, taking in Ballyragget, Kilkenny city, Bennetsbridge and Thomastown, before meeting the tide at Inistioge.
We’d spent a humid night in a friendly hotel in Kilkenny, where, from above our attic room, a monsoon rain was falling on to the streets below. At the tail end of the tourist season we’d rushed through medieval streets in a deluge and sheltered in a music bar, where two robust musicians drank pints of water and bequeathed their small but enthusiastic audience a tender rendition of Raglan Road.
“I’m driving home tonight,” the singer ruefully said, lifting his glass. “Who’d have thought it, eh? An Irish musician waterlogged!”
It rained and it rained, and then it rained, and that night I dreamed I was hauling myself up a cliffside on a fraying rope, being assisted (somewhat disconcertingly) by Joan Bakewell.
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In the hotel lift the next morning the hardworking housekeeper, a gentle middle-aged woman with an eastern European accent, was fanning herself with the cleaning schedule.
“Hot,” she said, blowing her hair back from her forehead, “so hot”.
“And last night a monsoon,” I offered.
“Monsoon,” she repeated. “I like that word.”
Why thank you, Mrs Goose, I’m having a blast. I may, however, have downed one too many Malbecs at ye olde hostelry last night
Dragging our wet feet about returning to Dublin, we found our way to Bennetsbridge, where the rain had stopped. Next to a mill on the banks of the frothy brown river, Charolais cattle lay around in the weak sun like great big sofas covered in creamy throws. I felt as if I’d landed in a child’s picture book, a bucolic haven where plump and inquisitive geese, also resting on the riverside, rushed to ask us where we were from and how we were enjoying our brief sojourn in their beautiful county.
“Why thank you, Mrs Goose, I’m having a blast. I may, however, have downed one too many Malbecs at ye olde hostelry last night, for I’ve been dreaming about ageing cultural icons, which can’t be a good sign.”
In Bennetsbridge’s famous pottery shop I bought myself a small coffee mug from the seconds shelf and stood watching the glazers and painters at work in the adjacent workshop.
A couple of hundred years ago I used to work in a small local pottery on the harbour near my home, painting and glazing the earthenware. Part of me still misses the meditative predictability of that work, the peaceful reliance on a trusted process.
As I was leaving the Bennetsbridge shop a small coterie of well-dressed women in waterproof jackets was perusing the Christmasware: mugs and plates glazed red and green, pot-bellied jugs as round and satisfying as a sleeping infant, presentation platters decorated with old roses and young reindeers.
“Oh God, yes,” one woman with a winter tan was saying to another, “that’d be fabulous for the turkey!”
I got back into the car, turned it around and waved goodbye to the oblivious geese.
Later, in a quiet corner of Thomastown where some disused premises loitered, their broken window panes opening on to the street like startled eyes, there was a plucky shop selling Wicca paraphernalia alongside crystals, oils and potions. Outside was a dog bowl with a sign above it that read: “This water is for dogs or for short people with low standards.” The jaunty message rang out to the empty street under a damp and darkening sky.
I nursed my sparkling water and looked out of the window at the leaf-strewn village square
We had a pot of tea in a pleasant cafe, where the proprietor asked if we’d come far and whether we were enjoying our sojourn and what about the rain, the rain. Afterwards, walking down Maudlin Street, I remembered an old pal, now gone, who thought the place’s name would make a wonderful title for something. The last time I saw her she was in the hospital on the outskirts of this town, her faculties being smoked out by disease. She had held my hands and asked me with startling clarity if we had once been great friends. “Yes,” I answered, “great, great friends”.
Back in the car we followed the river and the fire-coloured falling leaves to the village of Inistioge, where, on the outskirts, the GAA pitch was under water. “They got to the end of the season anyway,” the woman behind the bar in the empty pub reassured us.
I nursed my sparkling water and looked out of the window at the leaf-strewn village square, trying to imagine what it would be like to live alongside a turf-brown river forever rushing towards the vast anonymous ocean.