A bordello sweetness in the air

THE HEADY scent of the hawthorn hangs in the air like perfume in a bordello as we walk up the leafy lane.

Not that we really know how a bordello smells, but one imagines a sweetness in the air, the languorous smell of soft seraglio nights. All this, on a bohreen near Kilmaluda!

It is extraordinary, the transporting quality of smells. Some folk claim to remember them from childhood. The smell of a hay field or hay cock, of a wildflower meadow or a robust dungheap. My nose has a very short memory. It remembers the smell of the white hawthorn, enjoyed an hour ago, but for how long? Frothy whitethorns, in full flowers, marched in hedgerows across the flat landscapes of Ireland as, the other Sunday, we passed on the Cork-bound train. On that weekend, the last in May, the gorse at the Curragh was a sight to behold. The Cork and Kerry hills are no less tricked out in gorse resplendent, but the midland plains were, in places, awesome with their level acres of gold.