There has been a great deal of talk in recent days about life after the Late Late Show, but not many people alive today remember what life was like before it. Fortunately, though my age is great, my memory is good, and I will now put down on paper what I recall of those far-off days.
You have to keep in mind that before the Late Late there were only about 3,000 people living in all of Ireland. It was entirely rural at that time. There were no towns or cities, only small communities huddled together on the edges of windswept bogs and treacherous bays. We lived for the most part in tiny huts built of mud and wattles, eking out a tenuous and meagre existence by whatever means we could - tending small plots of corn and potato, launching frail fishing currachs on a cruel sea to catch the odd mackerel, and, if lucky once or twice a year, killing a wild deer with bow and arrow.
Such meat kept us alive for many months, so that a successful hunt was the cause of great celebration, with bonfires and dancing, and the drinking of strong honey mead in great quantities. People would come from far and near, for all were welcome and no man was ever turned away.
Our women meanwhile kept house, spun the rough woollen tunics we wore, cooked and cleaned, bathed our wounds of battle and bore us many children, all without complaint. Though it was a hard way of life, we were a contented people.
In the summertime, when the rain got warmer, a mass migration would take place southwards, for we all enjoyed the milder climatic conditions which then obtained. From early June, the bog roads would be clogged with cheerful families on carts dragged by strong oxen, all on their way to the wild sea-girt Kerry village we knew as Baile Bhunain, not far from Lios Tuathail, the fabled town of the great Irish storytellers.
It would take us many days and nights to get there, and many a broken axle and cracked skull too, for the mead-drinkers among us were great fighting men, and much enjoyed the heat of battle, even among themselves. But, on arrival, the soft summer days would then stretch before us in all their glory.
From early morning, we would mass along the great white beach of Baile Bhunain and renew our strength, depleted by winter hardships, under the soft warm rain and the odd gentle ray of weak sunshine. Our offspring meanwhile would gambol at the edge of the great sea, often hurling themselves towards the mighty waves in their youthful exuberance, shrieking mightily all the time, their naked bodies glistening in the rain, for they knew no shame.
For those on the verge of manhood and womanhood, these days brought much romantic delirium too, as shy introductions were made, oftentimes to be followed with many lustful couplings in the dunes and hollows of Baile Bhunain. We were a passionate people and gloried in our passion.
Those of a full age amongst us would meanwhile recline on the white beach, refreshing ourselves betimes with lumps of raw mackerel and copious draughts of salt water, as we listened to tales told by our aged parents and grandparents, for in those times we did not have separate households for the aged and feeble, but ourselves looked after their welfare.
The old folk would talk mostly of the days of the Firbolgs, the Tuatha de Danaan, the Fianna, of Cuchulainn, Diarmuid and Grainne, of Concubhar, Grainne Ui Mhaille, the great battles of the plains, the sadness of the sons of Oisin, the fate of the children of Lir, and the Tain Bo Cuailgne.
I will not deny that the old people could sometimes be tiresome. A companion might turn to tell you of the exploits of his elkhound, and its powerful feats in the field, when a toothless great-grandfather would interject with his own boastful tale of the great woolly mammoths he himself hunted in the glory of his youth.
We men of adult age would then turn instead to talk of more current affairs, to speak of how Finan's church in Lindisfarne was coming on, of the new settlement at Lough Gur, the fall of Eamhan Mhacha and the worrying ways in which the Ui Neills were monopolising the Tara kingship. Those of a more intellectual bent might discuss the Annales Cambriae, St Basil's establishment of cenobitic monasticism in Asia Minor or perhaps a recent exegetical text such as De Mirabilibus Sacrae Scripturae.
Far from television we were reared, but sure the years went on and the wonders only multiplied. We were the children of the rainbow and it was all before us.
