The Céilí house, nixers and the euro...

When I was first ordained, I was appointed to the small half parish of Creevalea in North County Leitrim on the road between Drumkeeran and the village of Killargue.

It was just a crossroads with a church and a two-teacher school of 25 scholars, a shop and post office on the turn of the road, which had recently closed prior to my arrival with only a few dozen houses dotted around the hills. There nestled in the valley stood the stone remains of a blast furnace attached to the iron works, which operated in Creevalea from the 1600s ‘til the 1890s where trusted English and Dutch settlers were employed.

It was and is a most scenic corner of the world with winding roads leading up to the townlands of Altravra and Gretnaglough, some 1,400 feet above sea level, from where you can see the hills for miles and miles around. I would attempt to drive my car up these steep roads each first Friday of the month, to visit the sick and housebound.

It was a place steeped in song and story, in culture and folklore and the people who lived there reflected the rich tapestry of the landscape and its heritage. When I first came there, people sang and played music at the drop of a hat and ceilied in neighbouring houses to pass the long nights as October days turned to November.

The old Post Office and shop was a great house for ceiliers as the many bachelors who lived around called to have forms filled as it had been in days past. There they sat and discussed the affairs of the day, births, deaths and marriages, in the warm kitchen where once they collected their pension.

It was to here, I often called on long winter nights to absorb the stories that were told as the former postmistress fed and watered each one that called on their way - Tommy the Navy, Johnny Mc Gahey, Pauric Lackey, to name but a few, men whose tall tales brought laughter to our days.

It was here too I met the Sheehans, two brothers who lived together in their forties, one who drove a red ford fiesta car and worked on the local FÁS scheme and the other who worked the farm. The FÁS worker was often hired, cash in hand, to tidy and strim people's gardens. He was in such high demand, it could be a week or two until he’d get to you in the height of the summer.

He often called in on his way home to the old Post Office and, if you seen the Red Fiesta pulled up outside, you’d could be sure of a laugh when he’d start into telling stories about quare wans he met about the dances in Laghy where all the lonely hearts about North Leitrim and Sligo used to go.

But the year 2002 brought great changes across Europe and indeed to this quiet corner of Creevalea as the new Euro replaced the Irish Punt as legal tender.

For those with bags of 50 pound notes and 20 pound notes stuck up disused chimneys, they had to haul them into the bank to deposit their hard-earned cash into Euro. This posed a bit of problem if the money you had stashed away were notes you had earned, cash in hand, from a few nixers on the side. Money that you couldn’t really bring into bank by the bag load and have to answer and sign for it.

And so it was that our friend who was fond of strimming was to be seen pulling up at shops near and far and buying an ice cream or a 10p bar of chocolate with a 50 pound note much to the disdain of the shopkeeper just to get the change in euro. It was said that the glove department was stashed with 50, 20 and 10 old pound notes in the off chance, on his travels, he was passing a shop.

So one day his friends decided to put this theory to the test, for he always had a habit of leaving the keys in the car when he was out strimming for fear they should fall out of his pocket into the long grass and not be found.

He was strimming at the back of the church and left his Fiesta, with the keys in the ignition, in front of the church and, so for the craic, they moved the car around a corner into a lay-by while the strimmer was going full blast.

Later, when the strimmer ran out of petrol and he went back to the car for the jerry can, the Red Fiesta was nowhere to be seen. Eventually he went over to the Post Office to seek help where the lady of the house tried to reassure him that, if all was lost, wouldn’t he get the insurance on the car?!

"But it’s not the f…ng car I’m worried about, it’s what’s in the car that I’ll never get back!"

So, after hours of being driven every road but the right road to search for the car, the Fiesta and its precious cargo were found back at the gate of the church where he had left it.