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St Veronica wipes out King Billy on the Glorious 12th

12th July 202312th July 2023 funtime65

Now at the last count we found 22 saintly contenders who share this day but today we focus on how St Veronica wipes out King Billy on the Glorious 12th.

St Veronica, we know from one simple act of humanity from the Passion of Jesus Christ.

When she wiped Our Lord’s sweat and blood-splattered face on his way to Calvary.

For which she was sanctified and given this day for Christians to mark every 12th of July.

Though some in the North of Ireland prefer to bedeck themselves in orange and march in memory of Protestant saviour King William of Orange.

And burn effigies of the Pope upon towering pyres of tyres.

The Donegal exodus

All of which leads to an exodus of Catholics to bordering Donegal in the Republic of Ireland.

Our own Veronica here in our family, our beloved auntie who used to take me on childhood holidays there and in Co. Galway, now lies for eternity there in her home county.

And I was able to return the favour to drive her and my Dear Old Mum, her big sister, up to Ireland’s northernmost county, in her sports car, with both women chattering and pressing buttons on the dashboard.

Veronica’s, or Ronnie’s as we all knew her, was well-named and such was her devotion to her faith I remember her especially this day, her patron saint’s day.

The virtuous Veronica

The holy of holies. At the end of the Francigena in Rome

Of the other Veronica, well, little is known of her after her act of kindness.

But more is known of the cloth she handed to Jesus with it believed to reside now in the Vatican.

There is reference to it coming into the hands of Pope John VII in the early eighth century.

While its legend became popular in the 13th through 15th centuries when the veil was on public display.

Indulgences were granted for people who performed devotions before it.

The trail went somewhat cold around the Sack of Rome in 1527.

There are believed to be six known copies in the world with the original kept in St. Peter’s basilica.

Portrait of a saint

Hands up for King Billy: UIster Unionism

So, if you want an alternative to Northern Irish unionist triumphalist on this day.

Then try the patron saint of laundry workers and photographers… and thank you for my own award-winning snapper, Mrs M.

Because now you know, St Veronica wipes out King Billy on the Glorious 12th.

Ireland

G-hee Galway Comedy Festival is here

19th October 20221st November 2022 funtime65

It’s refreshing that there’s a country where you’re judged not by your wealth or privilege but by the craic and G-hee Galway Comedy Festival is here.

Now for every country we visit there is a guidebook on cultural differences and in Ireland the starting point is the craic.

Boiled down the craic means fun, news and entertainment which us Scots subscribe so much to that we came up with the phrase.

No matter that Scotland’s Bard Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott first used it and Paisley poet Ebenezer Picken wrote of ‘the friendly crack, the cheerfu’ sang’.

From crack to craic

Or that the Northern Irish weavers, from where the Murtys derived before they relocated to Scotland, greeted each other with ‘what’s the craic?’

Or that the chatterati, among them the notable Irish commentator Kevin Myers, refer to it as ‘pseudo-gaelic’.

The change in spelling deriving from there being only 16 letters in Gaelic and no ‘k’.

Because language is a living thing and always evolving.

The scale of the craic

Just swimmingly: Let’s all pool together

And so you’ll be rated in modern-day Ireland by how much craic you are.

And if you’re ‘good craic’ then you’re on your way, with ‘mighty craic’ the ultimate target.

Though woe betide you if you’re ‘no craic at all’.

Of course parties are judged on the craic scale too.

And the maximum is 90 from the Dubliners song ‘The Craic was 90 in the Isle of Man’.

And we know too that it will be 90 too at the Galway Comedy Festival from October 25-31.

Tommy’s titterati

When Tommy Tiernan, of Derry Girls fame, who we roared to the rafters over the Edinburgh Fringe, heading a stellar cast of comics.

Which includes Ardal O’Hanlon, Andrew Maxwell, Dylan Moran, Deirdre O’Kane, Reginald D Hunter, Rich Hall and Karl Spain.

Now for those who love a comedy festival but might feel Edinburgh is too chokka then Galway, where I spent many a childhood summer holiday, is the answer.

g it’s grand

And the g Hotel is where you’ll want to stay.

Treat yourself to two nights of luxury accommodation at Galway’s only five-star hotel, the g Hotel &Spa.

And enjoy a pre- dinner autumn cocktail in the signature lounge, followed by dinner in Restaurant gigi’s on one night of your choice.

A couple of days this month is from €145pps, including:

• Two nights luxury accommodation including cooked to order Irish breakfast

• Delicious Autumn pre-dinner cocktail in the g’s signature lounge

• 3 Course meal at the award-winningrestaurant gigi’s

• Complimentary BMW chauffeur car to the city (pre-booking essential)

• Complimentary parking.

A funny word

Ardal’s well that ends well: Father Dougal

It would, of course, be very puerile to draw attention to another colloquial meaning for ‘g’ in Ireland.

And helpfully that was pointed out to me early in my 13 years an Irishman, living and working there.

And no doubt the funnymen and women in the City of Tribes next week will make funnier references than me.

But because I can’t resist it my offering is… G-hee Galway Comedy Festival is here.

America, Ireland, UK

Travel’s Snakes and Ladders

15th February 202214th February 2022 funtime65

Daddy’s Little Girl almost always knows the right thing to say to cheer her Old Man up and she did not disappoint when I went slithering down the board in Travel’s game of Snakes and Ladders.

Returning to my North Berwick home early yesterday morning having only managed to get halfway to Edinburgh Airport,

Before the car died on me I felt like I was in Hotel California.

Only without the California, although I’d often thought that it might not be the worst thing to be trapped in the Golden State. I digress.

St Paddy’s Day

DLG shot me one of her unique smiles,

And she said that I should join her when she goes over to our old Ireland stomping ground for St Patrick’s Day.

Of course, I wouldn’t dream of cramping her style.

Should that not be a green carpet: The g Hotel

But her generosity and the two doggies she borrowed to walk the beach lifted me from my doldrums, albeit temporarily.

St Paddy is often accompanied on the parades throughout Ireland and the world by carnival snakes.

As he famously rid Hibernia of the serpents.

Those scary Indians

Indian snake trick: Behind our snakes and ladders derivative

Travel these past two Covid years has seemed a bit like the ancient game of Snakes and Ladders.

And like the Indian original Moksha Patam rather than the British derivative the game it is deffo stacked against us humans.

With more snakes than ladders.

That news to you?

Thankfully the game was diluted from its base when Victorians took it back from the Indian Raj in 1892.

It had been based on the idea that a person can attain salvation Moksha.

Through doing good, whereas by doing evil one will be reborn as lower forms of life.

How we changed the game

Snake all right: With ‘The Donald’ in New York

Not that the Victorians ditched the morality, they were all about that.

But there was no suggestion that little Herbert or Hannah would be turned into snakes.

Our cousins across the Atlantic sanitised it even further turning the snakes into chutes and the board into a playground.

All of which childish nonsense is indulged in other forms on Paddy’s Day.

And despite the Americans’ showpiece events.

In the likes of New York, Boston and Chicago, the latter where they turn their river green, the best Paddy’s Days are in the homeland.

Give me a g in Galway

Among the offers that have landed in my inbox (always more reliable than a gearbox) was from Galway in the West of Ireland.

And not just because I feel a kindred connection from summer holidays there as a child.

And because Galwegians are much like Glaswegians and not just in the naming conventions.

Towering status: And Macnas put a stamp on it

Also because down, down, down the brief g Hotel & Spa says it will provide a courtesy car and comp parkin.

If you like your entertainment ghoulish and dramatic then you’ll lap up the Macnas parade.

While of course you’ll be tapping your feet too to the trad music.

Deal us in

The Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day 2022 Package at the g Hotel & Spa is available from the 13^th to the 20^th of March for two nights from €229 per person sharing.

Evening dinner on one night of your choice and freshly cooked breakfast included both days.

Booking is advised for the discounted use of the Thermal Suite.

Perhaps I’ll still win the game of Travel’s Snakes and Ladders.

Countries, Europe, Flying, Ireland, UK

A favourite airline now gone, Stobart Air

13th June 202113th June 2021 funtime65

Sorry to be such an old misery guts on your rest day but every day will now be a rest day for Stobart a favourite airline now gone.

Stobart Air has been the wings beneath my winding my way from Ireland back to Scotland.

On more occasions than I care to remember.

Liquidation looms

But alas the 50-year-old carrier has been forced into liquidation now.

By Covid and Irish Government inaction.

For every Irish adult Stobart Air will always be Aer Arann.

Aer Arann got off the ground in 1970 to serve Inishmore in the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland.

And Galway and the West, where I would spend my childhood summer holidays, is best.

Aer Lingus, the national airline carrier, saw the possibilities and soon got on board, contracting Aer Arran to operate their short-haul commuter links.

Stobart story

Stobart Group jumped in during the choppy mid Twenty-Teens and rebranded as Stobart Air.

Which is when I started to lean on them as my taxi service back and forth to Scotland while living and working in Ireland.

And revisiting my old haunts such as my young party days in Aberdeen, my adopted home Edinburgh and my home city Glasgow.

There are other airlines and they will fill the gap left by Stobart Air mist critically now where flights have been lost.

But the collapse of any airline is to the detriment of passengers.

A sad day

The wider the range of airlines the greater choice on offer and the better value.

This is all on the back of the collapse of FlyBe.

And they were a favourite too with their flights to cruise town Southampton, Stobart Air’s decline is a sad day for us all.

We’ll be told that it is Covid collateral damage but try telling that to those who have lost their jobs.

And passengers who have been left out of pocket.

And until governments change their attitude to Travel as vital and not trivial…

Then it might be Stobart a favourite airline now gone today but there will be countless others tomorrow.