The lick of paint...

Tweet I've lived in Dublin for the past few weeks and missed out on a huge clean-up effort that got underway in Kells. Gallons of paint were made available from some paint factory in Cavan (the Cavan paint people must have forgotten that dark day in Kells/Cavan relations when Kells people threw eggs and stones at their cars on their return from a game in Croke Park), and businesses were offered €100 grants to clean up their premises. A key incentive was that ageing Hollywood icon Maureen O'Hara was to pay us a visit and unveil a bronze bust of herself (which I checked out today and found out that her father, a Kells man, was called Charles Stewart Parnell Fitzimons no less - Parnell has some vague Kells link too!).

But now Maureen has come and gone, and look what we have, a town that shines and gleams like a postcard come to life. I swear it's amazing what a lick of paint does for the soul of a small town. Kells made new. Even the empty premises, shining like instagram photos waiting to happen (and in the age of instagram reproduction, that's the way some of us will ever know they really exist).

photo from Kells Heritage site: taken in Autumn

I was feeling under the weather yesterday, so I trekked down to the chipper to cheer myself up. It was national fish and chip day. Because of this, I had an idea that the chipper would be busy due to the half price fish and chip offer. I had an idea, but the reality was beyond belief. Two queues of people, coiling out the doors and down the street in two directions. One queue was for those who had made phone orders for collection, and the other was for those who wanted to avail of the walk-in offer (so to speak).

I took my place in the walk-in queue but couldn't help throwing the odd jealous eyeball over the other line which seemed to be moving much faster. Then I noticed that other people were aware of this too and were placing sly orders from their mobiles, while in the walk-in queue, before quietly switching sides. This strategy backfired, however (thankfully before I got sly and pulled the same stunt). You see, the collection queue immediately clogged up with people pulling the switcheroo. After that, some grumbling began. I heard the following hilarious lines: "there are scabs and strings of shite coming in here who never bought a bit of food out in their lives." "In twenty years you wouldn't see them cross a door for anything but teabags." "There'll be flies zapped dead on that thing from all the wallets they're flying out of".

Ah, Kells.

Also spotted in the chipper: an oul fella repeatedly wiping prodigious globes of sweat from his head with a fifty euro note later used in his transaction for chips. Well, it was hot in there, I suppose.

The fish and chips tasted great by the way. They really cheered me up. And I ate them walking home through a sparkling town.

MP3: Mt Eerie-The Place I live