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An amphibious invasion boded ill after a foray to liberate some 1798 spirit
at the weekend, I had the unusual experience of spending a night camped alongside Kilcummin Pier, only metres from the “Humbert Stone”, where theIt was a blissfully quiet place to go to sleep around 4am on Sunday, with the gentle lapping of waves as a lullaby.
It was somewhat less tranquil a few short hours later, as the first of the morning’s swimmers, sub aqua divers, and boat owners descended, turning the tiny, somnolent village into a watersports park, and depriving me of a badly needed sleep-in. Then again, the late bedtime was my own fault.
Saturday’s 228th anniversary of the French landing had coincided with Humbert’s 259th birthday – he turned 31 the day he arrived – both of which a group of us had commemorated earlier. Season finale: Mae Leonard on a belated trip to a famous French rose gardenHow Irish kindness in a war-ravaged French town inspired unknown writer Samuel Beckett But we were also remembering our friend Steve Dunford, aka “the General”, Killala historian and serial re-enactor of the Napoleonic wars, who died too soon in 2021, five years ago next month.
So in the spirit of the occasion, after the local pub closed, I volunteered to help a couple of other comrades liberate the remains of a bottle of 1798 whiskey on the pier. We paid the price next day. But you know what they say: war is hell. Mind you, in the balmy weather that blessed the events, Kilcummin was a glorious place to be, noise or no noise.
To one side of me, over breakfast, the bucolic scene included a pair of new-mother horses in a field with their baby foals, maternal doppelgängers both. Out in the bay, meanwhile, human participants in the aquatic sports jamboree were soon joined by a shoal of dolphins – there must have been at least 10 – frolicking around the swimmers and boats.
On the occasions I’d joined the late Steve and his brother John out at sea, fishing all day between Killala and Downpatrick Head, I’d never seen anything like this. Now the dolphins too seemed to be contributing to the weekend’s commemorations, invading the bay and putting on a free show for those of us on the pier.
It adds to the sadness of friends and family that the Dunford brothers did not live to see the miracle of Mayo winning the All-Ireland. During their later years, that seemed about as likely as the return of the Republic of Connacht, established briefly by Humbert, with John Moore as its first and last president. The 12 months that started on July 26th will forever be known in Mayo as the year of the Sam Maguire.
But every year there is the Year of the French, thanks in large part to Steve. And in his absence, the job of organising re-enactments has been taken up by “Colonel” Sharon Horkan, his former second-in-command. Her many duties at the weekend included supplying and erecting The Irish Times’s tent. Lest we feel left out of the formal commemorations, meanwhile, she and her comrades also provided a uniform and insisted we participate in the firing squad. Not as targets, I’m glad to say. In fact, although the period rifles and gunpowder used are real, there were no bullets. We just fired a ceremonial volley of shots before and after a wreath-laying by the French consul for Connacht, Catherine Gagneux.
Invaders of Kilcummin on Saturday also included a hen party – a very well behaved party as hen parties go. But noting the presence of grizzled veterans in 18th century military costume, one of the organisers thought it would be hilarious if some of us pretended to be strippagrams, just long enough to mortify the bride. I chickened out of volunteering for this dangerous mission into no-man’s-land, except to provide cover for my braver colleagues.
In the event, they didn’t need any, making it back without even the loss of a tunic. After some early victories, the original Year of the French ended badly, with the rebels, while marching on Dublin, outgunned by General Lake at Ballinamuck. And there was an unintentional extension of the commemoration on Sunday evening when my train home also ran into trouble.
We hadn’t even escaped Connacht before experiencing, not General Lake, but a general electric failure that left us stuck for 40 minutes outside Castlerea. As always, the enemy cut off communications. Every second word in the public announcements was inaudible, leaving us no wiser as to what the problem was, or when it might be fixed. I was on the point of forming a scouting party when the engine at last spluttered back to life.
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