Irish Wedding

After my foray into Irish culture over the weekend (purely with the most sociological of intentions), it is my studied opinion that the Irish do weddings the very best.

Ever.

Evah, evah, evvvah.

Thursday, coach ride to airport was interesting since we went through all sorts of little towns on the way to Stansted. This was enlivened further than just the circus music and thoughts spinning round my brain, when a lovely lady got on at Thetford (on her way home to Sussex, after spending a week with her mother who is 87 years old) and told me lots of interesting things. Here are some things observed and/or learned on this segment of my journey (in no particular order):

* When carrying a banana in one's luggage, one should ensure that it is not on the side of the bag which will be continually bashed against one's person whilst walking.
* There is are not one, but two, wool shoppes in Attleborough!
* Thetford is the ancient capital of East Anglia.
* There are weekend markets sometimes at both Snetterton and Newmarket race courses.
* Newmarket is a lovely town, with amazing stables and horse tracks and fields along the sides of the road. I ought to have taken a picture of the three gorgeous creatures which crossed in front of our coach.
* I saw a dog herding sheep in a field with his owner directing!!!! (I mean, yes, I have seen it on Babe, but not in real life.)

*******
Then I flew to Ireland. To Knock, specifically. One observation is that the English landscape is like manicured smooth green velvet squares. The Irish landscape, on the other hand, has the most varieties of greens you can imagine and is rather like gorgeous crushed velvet (I think from the rockiness of the land and it's more untamed style). Knock International Airport is similar to Bristol Airport in E's opinion. Bristol is a metal hut in the middle of a field; Knock Airport is a metal hut on top of a mountain. A small grouping of cows watched our plane land, make a 180 in the middle of the runway and head back to the terminal building :)

We stayed the Thursday night at the farm where his mam grew up (outside the village of Creggs). E's Uncle Johnny lives in the family home and his Aunt Rose Marie lives across the road; attempted to make friends with a wild black kitten, but failed. It did talk to me, so there was hope... Uncle Johnny took Ciara, Mark, E and me on an outing to Creggs. Although there are closing times, pubs do not kick people out... they just close the doors and draw the blinds until everyone decides to leave! However, we did not push ourselves too much, as certain nutters had been up for approx. 40 hours by that point.

Friday was wedding day, which I found entirely interesting since have never been to a weekday wedding before. The tone of the event was completely unchoreographed and just generally jolly (and there was doodly-doodly music, too, Clare!). Now comes the fun part!

From the church, there is a procession to the reception. Streamers are tied to all the cars, and there is much honking of horns and blinking of lights. THEN (this is apparently a western Ireland thing), along the route, people have built bonfires in their drives and they stand along the road and wave as the wedding party goes by! Had it been a nicer day, I have been assured there would have been more fires; as it was, there were at least 75 fires!


We drove about an hour from the town that begins with a K (feel like complete cartographic failure at repeated inability to remember name; it is very long) to Gort for reception at The Lady Gregory Hotel. Gort is a lovely town and it would be fun to go back and explore. Most everyone had arrived and checked in by 4 or 5, retired to the bar until the next segment, and dinner began at 6-ish. More people came to the dinner than were at the wedding. After the speeches, there was an intermission so the tables could be moved, carpets rolled up, band set up and then...

Everybody danced! All night long. There was regular music and there was jitterbug music and there was waltzing and there was country music (the Irish like country music) and naturally there was doodly-doodly music (again, you should have been there, Clare!). There is a dance called The Siege of Venice, which is a set dance and is generally impressively organised chaos. For the safety of others I refrained from joining in. There are two lines of four in each group; the lines go forward and backward and forward and backward and then by twos go sideways and then back and then over or under depending on which direction you are heading. Various guests got up and sang or played in the band at intervals (E did show remarkable level of self-control and did not give his (in)famous and popular rendition of Born to Be Wild). One question from the night is where is Tipperary and why is it such a long, long way? But it is fun to try to dance there even if your legs feel like they have been beaten the next day.

The wedding cake is Fruit Cake! And the mother of the groom made these probably two months ago (so they could soak, you know). Marzipan icing was really lovely and simple white with a ribbon to match the bridesmaids' dresses and cakes were square and arranged on a sort of candelabra sort of clever thing with arms instead of all stacked up. (Yes, mama. I KNOW I ought to have taken a picture of it...)

After dancing goes for a few hours, plates of sandwiches are brought out (for reviving qualities of crisps and bread and sausages) and wedding cake served to each table before MORE DANCING!

The bouquet is thrown. And the garter is thrown. But there are a couple of differences:
* The girl who catches the bouquet comes to the front and sits next to the bride.
* The groom removes the garter with his teeth! hee hee hee
* The man who catches the garter has to put it on the girl who caught the bouquet... with his teeth!!!!! Have informed E and his cousin that this would never fly in certain regions of the world with which I am familar :)

At the very end of the night (which was well into the next day), remaining guests made a pyramid path of arms and the bride and groom ran through it to The Chapel of Love by The Dixie Cups. And then I was tired (although perhaps it won't take me as long to bounce back as Matthew, who claims to have gone to an Irish wedding six years ago and still be recovering. Light-weight.).

It is really lovely to see such intergenerational family closeness (so much family was there!) and jollity for what should be a thoroughly joyful and non-stressful human event. It was just real. And this is a beautiful thing that we need more of. I have the greatest respect for people who balance abundant joy at being alive with purpose in life and faith.

Am quite sure that there were some other intriguing revelations that I meant to type in, but my shopping venture into the city centre today has drained me. For now my brain and my legs need a little rest... and some milk and chocolate. Shall have to inquire of E as to some more of my questions/observations when he gets back to Cardiff and is reachable by phone/Skype -- the trio is travelling back on the ferry, leaving Ireland tonight at 10.00pm or something that makes my energy store deplete in a swooning manner just thinking about.