MY esteemed colleague, Michael O'Regan, was writing in this space recently about the 30th anniversary of the Bishop and the Nightie Affair. The report was a fine and poignant account of those momentous days.
Most telling for this reader, however, was the discovery that the bishop in question was Dr Thomas Ryan of Clonfert, who resided in the town of Loughrea, and that it was from the pulpit of that same town's cathedral that the "disgusted, disgraceful performance" telegram [to Gay Byrne was metaphorically sent.
Dr Ryan was, we learnt, a "big, likeable Tipperary man" [who was naturally gregarious, and thus for whom Loughrea in the mid 1960s was an agonisingly stifling place. A lonely bachelor who wanted nothing more than a good drink shared in good company.
The genuinely sad irony of the piece is that within a year of Dr Ryan's death in 1983 there emerged in Loughrea a company of men and women who "through the stimuli of alcohol, nicotine and general camaraderie", dedicated themselves to the spirit of Anthony Hope's stirring line: "I wish you would read a little poetry sometimes; your ignorance cramps my conversation."
Literary Esoterics
Thus was the Bowes Academic Fellowship and Fraternity. of Literary Esoterics (BAFFLE) conceived in a "small but select and, sadly, now extinct drinking establishment in Loughrea by the name of Bowes Kennedy".
BAFFLE was, according to the introduction to the first collected works of its members, published, this, week, "created with the intention of forming a catalyst of poets where there would be no censorship of language, revelation, humour or innovation: indeed these would only serve to emphasise and enhance MacCauley's adage that. Perhaps no person can be a poet or even enjoy poetry without a certain unsoundness of mind."
Of course, that Loughrea could produce such a group will startle the majority of you who have only a passing knowledge of the town, i.e. you pass through it as fast as you can. For it must be accepted that, On First Looking Into Galway's Loughrea, the place does look a bit of a ... well it looks profoundly uninteresting.
Over the past couple of years, however, I have had the great pleasure of discovering the many hidden wonders of this jewel by the lough.
It began with a spur of the moment visit to a public house with a recently painted facade. Therein I encountered the new proprietor, one Joe Barrett, a smallish man of cherubic mien, a ready smile and glint in sleepy eyes which always suggests that he is up to something. He usually is.
Stinging Affront
Barrett's instantly became an obligatory stop, and it was on one Friday's journey down to Galway that I was initiated into BAFFLE. It was not long after Boris Yeltsin's celebrated stopover at Shannon, when the president, locked, (so to speak) in prolonged discussions with his most trusted adviser, Gen Smirnoff declined an invitation to meet the then Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds.
The good people of BAFFLE stung by this affront to the nation, appropriately and without hesitation organised an other of their fabled Poetry Debates to address the weight issue. The Snub.
The venue was Barrett's that, night, and the opposition would be provided by a coachload of aspiring intellectuals from Trinity College Dublin. No muck, there.
The night was an absolute howl. Imagine the senate chamber of ancient Rome awash with porter, smoke, hoots of derision and loud, bawdy laughter. And it may surprise some of you to learn that the students were thoroughly hammered; they missed, the point entirely several tried to recimatate pomes.
Indeed, even though I was nominally competing on the BAFFLE side, my modest effort a Limerick composed both on the back of a stained betting docket and on the back of several inspirational pints, and which received the thumbs up, was lumped in with the students just to make the score a bit more respectable.
In their first dozen years, BAFFLE have tackled such diverse topics as The Piano, The Rod Licence, Joe Kennedy's Piles, The Turoe Stone, The Vanishing Corncrake and Come Dancing.
There members - a most heavily fraught term in this instance - range from a nine year old girl to the president, Mr T.R. (Bert) Kelly, now 84 and through whose lips not an offensive word has passed.
The same, one fears, cannot be said of Anna Allen, whose contribution to the new anthology, The European Condom, will not appear here in its entirety, but here's a taste:
The men from Loughrea have a problem, they say,
On account of the European condom,
Its length and its girth have been causing some mirth,
But the boys say it won't go upon them.
The males of this town say; they're studs of renown
And the condoms scarce fit for Italians.
It is far flung that our males are well hung,
As in onions, my darlings, not scallions.
Here we save your blushes and move to the closing stanza.
But, is a stud from Loughrea as big as they say?
The question is moot, but I'll say though,
Just to find out would be, something to write home about,
If it's quarter the size of his ego.
Demanding daughter
There are 75 poems in the anthology, ranging from Bert Kelly's homage to Lough Derg to Paraic O Loughlin's marvellous In Search of Santa Claus, in which a father is confronted by a demanding seven year old daughter: "Will you tell me Daddy, cos I hafta know, Is there really a Santa Claus?"
That Jimmy Brown, he's from the town,
He thinks he's very clever,
But I heard Missus Murphy say
That his fathers his uncle Trevor.
Well, he said Santa's just his Dad,
But I know that can't be true,
Cos his uncle Trevor's dead five years,
Said Miss us Murphy too."
I can't help but think that big, likable Dr Ryan would have loved it.
(A Collection of Poems by, BAFFLE compiled by Sean Gaffney, is available from all quality outlets in Loughrea.)