FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
On the platform of Marylebone Underground I spot him – shock of white hair, ruddy complexion, grey overcoat and sporting a Saint Patrick’s Day badge the size of a large lettuce. He is middle aged, stocky and low-sized.
It’s midday in London, Saint Patrick’s Day, and this is my only sighting of anything remotely related to our national holiday. I feel a little emotional, nostalgic and walk over to him. “Have a good one,” I say extending my hand which he takes and the handshake is confident and firm. “Where are you from?” I ask.
“Golders Green,” he replies in a profound English accent and then, as if to explain the accent and the badge, quickly says, “But my parents come from Clare.”
“I’m from Kilkenny myself”. He nods. “Have a good one,” I repeat as the train whooshes in and we hop on.
On the tube I flop down beside my American friend, and travelling companion, who has been observing our brief encounter. “You, eh, wear one of those badges at home?” he asks. “Lord no,” I hear myself say but the words are hardly out of my mouth when I find myself querying my reply. “Lord no”! Whatever do I mean? ‘Lord no’ I’d be too embarrassed to wear such a large badge? ‘Lord no’ I’m too sophisticated for that kind of carry-on?
And as we sped towards Westminster, for a tour of the abbey, my mind travelled back to the last time I actually wore a Saint Patrick’s Day Badge. I was maybe 12 or 13 and marching with the school in the St Patrick’s Day Parade. Decked out like a new pin, my mother had pinned a large spray of shamrock to my lapel, accompanied by a colourful Saint Patrick’s Day badge. And I was as proud as punch. Proud to be Irish. Proud to be Catholic. Proud to be marching.
This Saint Patrick’s Day, on the tube from Marylebone to Westminster I wonder if I am still proud to be Irish, still proud to be Catholic. Indeed I wonder what sort of Irishman I am, what sort of Catholic? And I keep thinking about the man with the large badge in his lapel who is obviously proud of his Irish roots. Is he meeting family, friends? Will he drink pints of porter later in some Irish pub and sing ballads late into the night?
Before I can answer any of those questions we screech to a halt in Westminster. And I am rather relieved not to have to answer my own private inquisition. After our tour of Westminster Abbey, a veritable microcosm of English history, we need a little refreshment (it is Saint Patrick’s Day after all and a drop of something or other wouldn’t go astray). My American friend mentions The Albert which he had spotted earlier on but I’m a little hesitant about ‘drowning the shamrock’ in a pub called The Albert. I needn’t have worried. The Albert, on Victoria Street, is festooned with green, white and gold balloons and decked out with bunting and tricolours and is probably more festive looking than any Irish pub in any Irish village or town.
It’s about 5pm. and The Albert is heaving, chock-a-block. Irish music, contemporary Irish music, blares in the background: the Pogues, Thin Lizzy, Van Morrison, while in the corner a woman with a laugh to rival any hyena catches everyone’s attention. Who’s tickling her, we wonder because her laugh is hysterical and contagious. And what of it, it’s Paddy’s Day after all, a day to let our hair down and pin our badges up. If we had hair. If we had badges.
And, later, en route to our tube station, we look up at London’s Eye – that 135-metre high Millennium wheel which is lit up in luminous green, looking, for all-the-world, like a gigantic Saint Patrick’s Day badge in the London night sky. And my mind flits back to the man on the platform in Marylebone underground with the large badge in his lapel. And I wonder what he’s up to now and I wonder what he made of this Irish man, namely me, wearing no shamrock, no badge, no colours on this our Patron Saint’s day?
