November 4th 2015

Sli na Mona; that’s the name of the raggle-taggle collection of houses where I live. As interesting a place as ever I lay me down to sleep. The locals are diverse and each one has the amazing human tale to tell. There is no such thing as an ordinary man. Not even me. These habitations are gifts of the nation to those of us lacking in choice of address and sometimes you get lucky and are content. Maybe you learn the sheer uselessness of too much choice. The address, literally translated from the Gaelic, means ‘way of the turf’ and unusually for housing estates built in the last two decades the name has some significance with its location.

One mile east of here there is a bog called Ballymulvey Bog and the road leading there has always been known as the Bog Lane. Sli na Mona is an artery of the Bog Lane so the whole shebang makes some sort of locational sense.

We have a resident’s association which is of little consequence in the overall plan of things but now and then the principals assume it to have the gravitas of the United Nations. This is usually when a row develops between neighbours or something happens which wakes up one of the normally dormant ones. Last weekend was one of these happy occasions.

A young male, having teamed up with a daughter of one of the tenants, celebrated Halloween by having a christening of their own bairn. At any rate they had a serious session inspired by a concoction of toxic substances. The substances themselves are limited in toxicity but the carriers were not on this occasion. They found their way home and in full view of the locals fought like tinkers, shouted like demons and shagged like amateurs for a full hundred yards to the horrified amusement of their neighbours. They broke the windscreen of an innocent car, properly parked minding its own business, just for the crack; many of them in fact. All and sundry had to endure the shame of several visits to the location of various versions of Starsky and Hutch which is no ordinary disgrace in this neighbourhood. Something had to be done.

The Gardaí don’t give a rat’s ass as they have bigger fish to fry and they aren’t even caught yet. The chairman called an emergency meeting to give us all a chance to tut-tut. It was my job to communicate with the Local Authority so I was mandated to compose a suitable epistle wherein to convey our horror and distress at the entire proceedings. Crows built their nests loosely but with staying power and I had to build my composition along the lines to resist a gale. This is my love letter.

 

A Chara,

Sli na Mona Estate in Ballymahon has been a compact community of 20 households for almost 10 years now. In that time the estate and its residents has been a model of good behaviour and community cooperation in all of its facets. For the past number of years we have either won or been highly placed in the better estates competition run by Longford County Council. In the current year eight households have spent in excess of €2000 in repainting their homes, without the historical supply of paint from the Local Authority which used to be the norm.

Garda sources can confirm that the extent of antisocial behaviour has been negligible in our area and has never been caused by residents, until now. For the past number of months a lot of aggravation has been generated in the area, all of this nuisance emanating from a single source. The frequency with which the Garda patrol car is visiting the estate, always to the same house, has now become something of an embarrassment to the general body of the residents. This anti-social behaviour must be viewed in light of the societal composition of the tenants. No less than 11 of the residents from a total of 16 in the inner body of the estate are either senior citizens or single parents all of whom live alone. These people feel threatened and are frightened by the presence and behaviour of thugs on an all too frequent basis. This pattern of unacceptable behaviour is ever increasing and is due totally to the visitors or tenants of just one household. Ms.Sheila Tipper, Housing Liaison Officer of Longford County Council, has been informed verbally of this unfortunate development on previous occasions. Now we are agreed to formally lodge a complaint against the tenant/s of this household.

The scurrilous behaviour of these people at the weekend of Sunday November 1st leaves us with no choice. Among the catalogue of abuse was the public fighting and the disturbance caused, the state of undress of the perpetrators, the smashing of a car window by one of the vandals and other unmentionable behaviour which was totally unsuitable for viewing by young children in the estate. We request that you contact the local Gardaí to establish a full account of what transpired and they will supply you with the details of the personnel involved. You may regard this as a formal complaint and any evaluation of the circumstances will confirm that these people are in repeated breach of the terms of their contract with the Local Authority as Council tenants. We are demanding that you investigate these matters and forward to us your proposals to deal decisively with this situation.

We anticipate your expedient response with solid proposals to deal with this situation as it is now outside of the remit of the Residents Association as an issue.

 

Obviously, the composition of such a communique is a very taxing matter and I felt to need to relax afterwards with my darling Patience. Earlier I had my eldest progeny confirm to me that his favourite read of all time was a toss-up between “Wuthering Heights” and Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”. I requested from herself that she might download the latter if in movie format and we could watch this together before retiring. She graciously acquiesced. I had shamefully never read this book and decided to reserve that pleasure until after seeing the film which is always the lesser offering. The executive producer on this was Francis Ford Coppola so the omens were promising. The tale is one of the fifties and is not original in theme but very well put together. It’s a description of life on the road spiced up by drugs, jazz, sex and all those other wonderful ingredients with the usual compliment of hapless victims.

During the viewing her ladyship treated me to a ring of prawns with side sauces. Perfect! The lead character, Sal Paradise, meets up in various ways with other colourful types and takes to the high road. It must be presumed that the main character is in fact Kerouac himself. The quality of acting was surprisingly good with Garret Hedlund as Dean Moriarty the pick of them. Stealing everything in sight, including the transport, was the way to survive and the rights or wrongs of any element weren’t a factor.

It is widely accepted that the characters in the book were Kerouac’s pals Allen Ginsberg and William S Burroughs who were two well-known drug devouring socialite writers who just happened to be openly homosexual. Not good old all-American boys, it would seem. Still they were all hugely talented if a little non-conformist. As with all works of fiction based on fact, as all fiction must be, there are losers and survivors as we see them. But as Shirley wrote in “Death the Leveller”,

 

“The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
there is no armour against Fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings:
Sceptre and Crown
must tumble down,
and in the dust be equal made
with the poor crooked scythe and spade”.

 

As the very worst of our politicians say “at the end of the day” we all vote the same way in the graveyard and who is the real hero or villain then. Only our forefathers can tell and they’re not talkative.