http://www.independent.ie/life/health-wellbeing/health-features/the-iron-man-and-the-secret-he-hid-in-his-garden-shed-30585093.html – Sunday Independent article
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imbXyVa_BxU – Official Trailer
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelThatcherFilm – Official Facebook Page
Feature I wrote originally published in The Sunday Independent after going ‘undercover’ homeless for a couple of nights on the streets of Dublin.
Ma’s going to buy me an ice-cream! That’s cool, replied the little boys dad, dressed in blue like his wife and son. Deadly buzz…
My father never said anything like that to me. Deadly buzz is definitely not part of our Bog-Merchant vernacular. But we used to go to Croke Park in Septembers too, back in Offaly’s glory days when I was a child, with bits of rubber attached to the back bumper of the car to stop us getting sick in Kinnegad. Something about static. It never worked.
But on this all Ireland final day, I was on the upper deck of a Dublin bus heading into town, surrounded by a sea of light blue jerseys.
I’d just arrived back in the city after witnessing a bizarre but heart-warming event down in the Midlands, where The Leinster Regiment were being honoured for liberating a Belgian town, Ledegem, from German occupation in 1918. The Leinster Regiment were an infantry regiment of the British army, who until the establishment of the Free State in 1922, were based in Crinkill Barracks, in Birr. The regiment recruited young Irish men mainly from Offaly, Meath, Laois and Longford to fight in the Great War for the Brits, and take the Queen’s shilling.
During the speeches we heard how many of these young Irish men joined the British army only for that shilling, as an escape from dire poverty. But there was also a synthesis of other reasons, it wasn’t all about the money, or lack of choice. Many simply had a lust for adventure and wanted to see the world. Either way they were all unaware of the horrors they would face in those trenches.
The lucky ones came back to the area after the war, to a country on the verge of a massive change where their actions in the British uniform weren’t quite so appreciated, or even accepted. They found a colder landscape, and they were on the outside. But times have changed, and their Irish decedents now commemorate the defunct British army regiment. As one local politician said, this was an event that simply couldn’t have happened 20 years ago.
And so there were ceremonies and speeches and marching and singing, involving the unlikeliest mix of specimen you’ve ever seen. There were people paying tribute to the British army I would never have expected, and more people sitting on Protestant cushions with Lord Rosse in the Protestant Church I could never have foreseen. If ever there was proof that Spud-Heads come in different flavours, it was all there.
There was even more proof the next day on that busy bus into town.
As we weaved in towards the city centre, the whole of north Dublin was packed with punters, some in blue jerseys, others in green and red, the giant structure of Croke Park looming on the horizon.
As I jumped off the bus at the top of Parnell Street and walked down O’Connell street I felt like I was in a scene from Braveheart. It was over two hours before kick off and I’d never seen the street so packed. Big men from Mayo smoked fags outside hotel bars. Smaller men from Dublin stood on the corner of North Earl street usually occupied by junkies, roaring about the hats, scarves and headbands they were trying to flog. Other frantic souls were screaming about tickets. At least the junkies keep it quiet…
My French housemate remarked that she could tell there were country people in the city when she went to the loo in a restaurant and the women all started talking to her. She said Dublin women don’t talk to you in toilets. So obviously city dwellers cope better with the Spud-Head’s mortal fear of social silence. We Bog-Merchants are particularly terrified of that awkward silence, hence all those endless conversations about the weather on the way to GAA matches, with bits of rubber hanging off the back of our cars…..
After the match the streets were alive again, with jubilant Dubs singing in celebration, and more big men from Mayo smoking fags outside hotel bars – their wives presumably busy talking in the toilets…
As I made my way back towards the Northside, this time on foot, I passed another entire family in light blue waiting at a bus-stop. The kids had their faces painted, but the blue paint was all mixed with ice-cream as they ploughed into cones.
Deadly buzz….
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