Colin Sheridan: A break away with the lads proved just the tonic

At this stage of my life, taking part in a men's trip with people from a variety of backgrounds is a refreshing and formative experience

Golf courses are the perfect setting for in-depth conversations with friends and peers, and a good excuse to organise a lad's trip away.

“Cast a cold Eye On Life, on Death. Horseman, pass by” — epitaph on the grave of WB Yeats, Drumcliff, Co Sligo 

The best ideas often happen by accident. 

A little over a year ago, a good friend of mine, who plays much more golf than I, suggested we go on a tour.

Start small. Just four lads. None of this fancy Portugal nonsense, think the Donegal Riviera with a stop off in Sligo on the way home.  A few hours drive up on a Friday, head back south on Sunday. Three rounds. A few pints. A couple of late night kebabs. No need to remortgage the house or get a series of inoculations for Dengue fever. 

One weekend. Nobody’d even know we were gone.

Of course, the plan didn’t survive first contact.

Its architect was the first faller due to a scheduling conflict. With the programme in full swing (pardon the pun), it was too late for dates to be changed.

Closer to launch, a second member of the party had to withdraw for some very legitimate personal reasons. Four had become two, and as much fun as that sounded, the surviving pair figured it best to broaden the church, as it were, lest we set tongues wagging.

Bringing the craic

By the time we set sail on a horribly wet June morning last summer, we had recruited an eclectic bunch from a variety of backgrounds. 

We could never have been mistaken for a boyband, but the craic was rich and varied, and anybody eavesdropping would’ve been at the very least highly entertained. 

As for myself, it was a formative experience. Watching Mayo exit the Gaelic Football championship surrounded by Galway men in a bar in Donegal Town after shooting 90 around Murvagh is character building in ways you can’t imagine.

Everybody, from the local press to the Donegal Chamber of Commerce, deemed last summer's trip a success  — so much so that a resolution was passed that it should become an annual event, so long as nobody died in the meantime. 

It was even agreed that, should one of us sadly pass on, the trip should go ahead anyway.

That caveat almost became a reality when two weekends ago, the original architect  — back on track and ready to right the wrongs of his absence last year  — ate raw broad beans while preparing dinner for his family. Just cracked a couple of those green bastards open and popped ‘em, absolutely certain all he was doing was good for his body. 

Note to readers; consumption of raw broad beans can cause phytohaemagglutinin poisoning. I don’t know what phytohaemagglutinin means, but I don’t need to, because I absolutely know what “poisoning” means.

Under normal circumstances he might have died, but, given the humiliation that awaited him at his funeral had he fatally surrendered to his violent illness, he willed himself to recovery.

At least two of the group — his older brother, and oldest friend — had relayed in no uncertain terms that should his burial coincide with the already arranged tee-time in Strandhill, they would be going golfing.

And so we set off. A sociologist, a sparky, a gym owner, a writer, an entrepreneur, two entrepreneurs, an IT guy, a solicitor, an ex-banker, an ESB guy, a retired English teacher. All dads and a couple of granddads. 

Not exactly a group that would worry the local constabulary, but, given it was Donegal we were headed to, that was never going to be an issue as they seem to live according to a different set of rules to the rest of us anyway.

How times have changed

I was never a guy for lads holidays when I was younger, and I absolutely do not regret that. A career in the military meant there was enough toxic masculinity going around for the other 50 weeks of the year, so that the last place I wanted to spend the other two was knee deep in Joop, sweat, and vomit in an apartment complex in Magaluf. 

But, the age and stage I’m at now, I appreciate the company of close friends — and their close friends — in ways I couldn’t have thought possible. 

Three of our group grew up together in South Africa, and, for a time, Gabon. Listening to their experiences of childhood, of education, of apartheid, their appreciation of their own history and genuine fascination with ours, was humbling. 

Golf courses too, especially links golf courses, are the perfect setting for such conversations to slowly evolve and unravel. If you wanted to think deep and be silent, you could. All you had to do was look west to the ocean to realise the insignificance of your taunting hangover. 

When that perspective became too overwhelming, the group was waiting to ground you again with a quip.

We stopped at Yeats' grave on Sunday in Drumcliff, fulfilling a promise we had made when our moods were a little lighter two days before.

It seemed a strange thing to do, to stand in the rain around a modest headstone; but somehow in the silence, something about the moment, the journey, the uncertainty of the destination, suddenly made sense.

“Cast a cold Eye On Life, on Death. Horseman, pass by” 

It was all there in those 11 words. The transience of our existence. The fickleness of our humanity. The tenuousness of human connection. It hung in the air like a seven iron battling the wind, and, at the risk of ridicule, I swear I felt the great poet linger alongside me.

We left just as the Japanese tourists arrived. I think they expected a great mausoleum. What they discovered was a few vulnerable men gathered around a stone, each contemplating the meaning of life.

I shot 78 on Sunday.