On a road trip to nowhere…
Gerard Smith is back with his popular weekly WordSmith column...
It was a sunny Saturday morning when, quite spontaneously, I found myself driving out of Cavan with friends to visit a place that doesn’t exist.
No map or satnav will guide you to the town of Garradrimna. How could they, when it doesn’t exist? As the lush Cavan landscape rushed by I found myself humming, “We’re on the road to nowhere, come on inside, takin that ride to nowhere…” Yet, before long and thanks to the skill of our seasoned driver, we arrived at this non-existent place.
On arrival, a heat haze shimmered above an imposing castle and graveyard, shrouding the area in a dream like haze. Apart from that, the place looked real enough. I took a few moments to wander its single street alone. As I passed a roadside house, I was sure I caught sight of a shadowy figure watching me from behind a net curtain; or was my imagination running away with me? Then the curtain twitched, followed by another. I stopped and looked across the road at another window, was it squinting and watching me? I became hot and bothered; and through the heat-haze I heard echoes of a troubled past: of intrusions and judgements, that inflamed a burning anger.
At this point I should explain – I was in ‘The Valley of the Squinting Windows’ a fictitious place imagined in the mind of writer, Brinsley McNamara.
‘Squinting Windows’ was Brinsley’s first novel written in 1918. The plot focuses on the oppressive scrutiny and intrusion of nosey neighbours in the fictitious small town of Garradrimna, somewhere in the middle of rural Ireland. Except, unfortunately for the author, the residents from the very real, Delvin in Westmeath, recognised their village and some of themselves in the writer’s thinly disguised and hugely unflattering narrative.
The author’s real name was John Weldon from Delvin, and when the furious residents discovered it was he who wrote the damning tale, there was a public burning of his book and his effigy. His father, the local school master, was beaten up, and both he and son were banished from the town by angry residents.
As a writer who is currently scribing a second memoir, Weldon’s experience made me stop and take stock; the village of Delvin seemed the perfect place to do it. And not wanting to get my own fingers burned, I decided a few memoirist-revisions may be in order before I scribe onwards.
Onwards we went, leaving the pretty village of Delvin behind. We travelled only a few kilometres more before we walked into the pages of an epic tale. A beautiful old chapel caught our eye. As we explored, we realised it had long since become a private home. Thankfully, the owners warmly directed us towards the graveyard we were looking for. Then, just as we were about to leave the man stopped us and said, “Before you go, let me tell you something.”
The man began to tell us a story about a local landowner who hailed from the Delvin area. He was a natural storyteller, holding our attention as he told the tale of an illicit affair between the landowner and his children’s governess. The scandal culminated with the landowner leaving his wife and four daughters to elope overseas with his lover. The couple never legally married, and thus their five sons remained illegitimate. And this is where the man delivered the crux of the tale with an eager flourish, “Their second son became Lawrence of Arabia, so you could say he hails from here.” I gasped in surprise. Wherever his story was leading, I never imagined it would end by recalling one of my all-time favourite films: David Lean’s 1962 epic, Lawrence of Arabia.
Meeting the man was one of those wonderfully warm, unexpected encounters that leaves you smiling after you’ve parted. As we drove away, I found myself wondering whether his tale was true, local folklore, or simply a delightfully told myth.
Later that evening, with T.E. Lawrence still on my mind, I began watching clips from Lawrence of Arabia on YouTube. I was reminded of what a magnificent piece of filmmaking it is – every bit as breath-taking in 2026 as it was on its release in 1962. Researching further, I read of a scene in which Omar Sharif’s character, Ali, proudly recounts his noble ancestry to Peter O’Toole’s Lawrence, only to be cut short by Lawrence’s brilliantly sardonic reply, “And I am the son of a Westmeath Baronet!”
Our Saturday trip to nowhere had, in fact, taken us to somewhere very special indeed – Delvin.