In Ireland, according to one Jack O'Sullivan, "people discuss rain as others savour wine. They dwell on the subtle differences in its quality, the drama of its manifestations and, of course, the likelihood of its occurrence."
Jack, who was reviewing Patricia Craig's Oxford Book of Ireland for the London Independent, is dead right. I stopped off in Leitrim village the other day during a downpour and sure enough, a bunch of locals was huddled in the main street, soaked to the skin and totally engaged in voluble vinous conversation. One man was adamant that the downpour was the most full-bodied of the week, with a distinctive personality, a strong oaky essence and an after-taste of black pudding. Another man praised the cow-pat nose, the Cabernet Sauvignon mid-tones and the long firm Dromod finish. One expert old-timer said he didn't think much of the Merlot influence, but "that's the way the wind is blowing". A young upstart begged to differ, likening the rain-shower to a late-1980s Gewurztraminer Reserve, plus hints of Rousanne and Viognier emanating from the Ballinamore direction. Oh all right, not very funny. But look. We might be as well off letting Jack and his like romanticise rain. We should maybe play up the rain instead of giving out about it. It's well known that foreigners love the stuff.
And we should begin to incorporate it in our literature. It's not very long since snow was all the rage in the literary world. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow. Snow Falling on Cedars. Snow Time like the Present. All those books were very big for a while, and where were our Irish writers? Inside, avoiding the rain, and looking for inspiration, which was falling outside in sheets, unseen by any of them. It didn't even dawn on James Joyce that he could have made literary use of the rain. Instead he sucked up to the European crowd with snow the dominant image in his well-known tale of dead people at Christmas, not too subtly titled The Dead. Does anybody remember that Christmas? No. Because it probably never was. Pure invention on Joyce's part. But rainy Christmases we all know. Snow is a bit too easy in my symbolic book, with all its fresh virginal implications, its cover-up qualities, its rather vapid beauty and its intimations of mortality. Any fool could milk a story of yearning and lost love and new blankets out of that, and often does. It is just a matter of getting on the band-wagon, or snow-wagon.
Rain is the real challenge. Unlike snow, it does not show off, preferring to remain close to invisible. It has no definable colour. It does not sit on the ground and invite carefree gambolling on its surface. It does not see any need for a symbolic melting process, but disappears as fast as it can. It will do anything to avoid notice. Rain is wholly unpretentious. But that is not to say it is uncomplicated.
All right. The so-called professional Irish writers are clearly not up to the job and we will have to do it ourselves. Here we go then, and no apologies to James Joyce, he had his chance and blew it.
A few light taps upon the pane made Gabriel turn to the window. It had begun to rain again. The newspapers were wrong. Rain was general all over Ireland. Met Eireann had screwed up again, and no help from your wan on AA Roadwatch either. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westwards. Mullingar, Moate, Castlebar. Selling animal feeds. What a life. At least there was that frisky widow in Foxford to think about. Jaysus, what a night. The rain dribbled down the boreens, it ran down the roads, it soaked the fields already sodden. It fell pitilessly on man and child, the aware and unaware, the proud and the defeated. It sank gratefully into the Bog of Allen.
The rain fell too on the lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lay buried. And why wouldn't it if it was raining everywhere else? Is it that Michael Furey, just because he caught pneumonia standing in a stupor in the rain outside his beloved's house, is to be let off, and him ignoring his poor mother's advice to wear the big coat? No. The rain ran off his grave as fast and furious as off everyone else's.
Gabriel turned to his wife, snoring soundly, and soundly snoring. No hope of getting to sleep with that racket, never mind a bit of the other. Soon he and the wife would be shades too. Ah, what am I thinking, he thought, it's the drink that's depressing me, shure I'm only 47. Better hit th'oul bed. His soul swooned softly, and softly swooned - the glass of port after the feed of pints was a bad idea - as he watched the rain pouring down, and down-pouring, as if it would never bloody stop, on all the living and the dead.