Lighten up: Cork World Book Fest brings city and country together
Like two lads late for Mass, Denis and his fellow cattleman found a spot out back at Callanan’s in Cork City to listen to Cónal Creedon (above) and John Spillane. Picture: John Breen
Saturday for me is all about Macroom Mart. Like Charlton Heston and his gun, it’s all that I think about. I’m passionate about the place.
However, last Saturday, my day at the mart was cut short; I had other plans. I left Macroom early in the afternoon, bound for Cork City.
On that day, in Callanan’s bar on George’s Quay, the writer Cónal Creedon and the balladeer John Spillane were hosting a ‘holy hour’ in honour of books, song, and general craic.
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And — like a sow hearing the rattle of a bucket in a faraway yard — I knew I had to be there.
The event was held under the umbrella of Cork World Book Fest. But I didn’t care what umbrella it was under, so long as I was there too.
We all need a break, especially fellows like you and me.
Fellows spun out from chasing weanlings over boundary ditches.
Fellows with backs bent from dragging buckets to and fro across uneven yards.
Fellows with heads addled from the struggles of survival on the land.
And, be it in Cork City or Timbuktu, on occasions when stories are told, occasions of frivolity and fun, can be the perfect medicine for recharging the old farming battery.
Anyhow, still smelling of the mart and leaving our sticks at the door, we entered a packed Callanan’s bar only to find proceedings well underway.
Like two fellows late for Mass, we found a spot in the porch out the back, and there, on bended knee, we listened devoutly to the readings.
I was there in the company of a fellow cattleman who had also opted for Callanan’s over an afternoon of cattle trading.
Needless to say, the whole event was craic of the highest order, washed down with Beamish of supreme quality.
The stories came fast and funny with Cónal reminiscing about the dating game in Cork City way back in the 1980s, and John singing about mysterious whales that swam up the river Lee — stories that were a million miles removed from our life on the land, and yet all the better because of it.
Alas for my pal from the mart, on account of having driven me to Cork, he was unable to enjoy a pint of Beamish.
With his cattle truck parked, nice and cagey, down the South Mall, he had to make do with that unleaded tack. But, in fairness to the man, he didn’t complain too much. And fair play to him.
In fact, he hadn’t planned to stay too long at all, only in the name of heaven, wasn’t the craic and all the talk about books too good to leave behind? It would have been insane to go home. And I told him so.
Anyhow, hours later, with proceedings winding down in Callanan’s, and Cork City in general, we headed down the South Mall to our cattle truck like two merry ploughboys homeward bound once again.
This urban-rural divide is a thing of utter nonsense when stories are being spun.
At the Cork World Book Fest, no one gave a damn where you came from, and neither did we.
We were simply all there together, shoulder-to-shoulder, town and country, cattleman and city slicker, fully engaged with the best of people, people who really do know how to spin a good story.
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