Strokestown in the Sunshine

Many years ago when I was travelling the country promoting my album door to door, I met an old man somewhere in Dublin and he told me that I should get myself to Strokestown in Co. Roscommon where he said they would really appreciate what I was doing. I never got there - until yesterday - the Tuesday after Easter. A short drive from my new home and so my second busking outing since moving here last week.

I have a few neighbours here and, living in a small development of half a dozen or so houses, it hasn’t taken long to meet them. One of them, Mick, is a big music fan and told me he was delighted to see guitars arriving and I was also introduced to Martin - a guitar player who is also currently teaching himself ukelele - (something we have in common) - and when I mentioned my plan to go busking in Strokestown, they were surprised and told me there was really nothing there and that I’d be wasting my time.

Always up for a challenge and having nothing else to do, I headed for Strokestown on a glorious day that would pass for summer if I didn’t know it was early April. The drive was a really pleasant 10 miles or so, during which I hardly met no more than six or seven cars and soon I was on the approach to Strokestown with Clara and a brand new set of strings on my guitar. I did notice a group of newish bungalows set back from the road - all boarded up and also passed a notice advertising a receiver sale of a new housing estate of 20-30 pretty looking houses. Hmmm. not good. Still, what’s a couple of hours?

Driving in, the village is set in a valley and at the centre there’s a road to the left and one to the right. We took the left and, within a couple of hundred yards realised that it was simply going out of town and so wheeled around and back at the main road to a left and up the hill and after a short distance saw that it fizzled out and that I’d pretty much seen Strokestown.

Turning the car around, I went into the car park of a Centre store but the four or five cars in it were the only signs of life and, as the shop also had a front door to the main street, I figured that this was not the place and headed back down the hill to the cross where I’d noticed a Eurospar supermarket and wheeled around left and saw that this also had two entrances. The main road one wasn’t really an option as the noise of the many cars passing through would have been too much and besides, the side entrance had a spacee where cars could pull in and SUNSHINE.

It’s around 12 noon and I’m looking forward to playing for a couple of hours and enjoying the new strings. Big mistake. While I had stretched and pulled the strings before leaving home, before I got to the 2nd verse of my usual opening song - When it Rains - before my strings started to let me know that I should probably have done the changing the night before. The sunshine didn’t help either as the electronic tuner that’s turned my ears into lazy things on either side of my head that will let me know that my guitar is out of tune but not how to address it, has a fairly dim display that’s impossible to read in the sun.

Anyway, I had a not so enjoyable half hour of retuning after each song - crouching down to tune in the shade of my guitar case and….. not a single cent earned and a seemingly unreceptive local population. Busking is a bit like fishing and like fishing, doing what you want to do can be just as important as getting a catch and luck in both cases can turn on a sixpence.

Once the guitar eventually settled down, the dog stopped cringing and looking embarrassed to be seen with me and coins began to land in my case and during the last 90 minutes, my takings were more than double the Saturday session in Longford town.

My most memorable moment was when an ancient Ford fiesta pulled up close to where I was standing. The driver’s eyes lit up and he dropped the window and said, ‘Fair play to you.’ He was a farmer in his late seventies and it took him a good five minutes to get out of the car and then he came over and dropped €5 into my case and said, ’Thank you.’ He wasn’t a well man and had recently been let out of hospital and his travelling companion was a ventilator with tubes coming from it and into his nose.

When he came out with his bit of shopping, he sat back into the car and listened to a few more songs and then asked me if it was recordings I was selling. I had some CDs and he insisted on buying one.

As I was packing up around 2, several people came over and asked me if I'd be back. I will.

After the busking and just up from Eurospar, I found Strokestown Park and Famine museum - and Clara got a decent walk. Nothing in Strokestown? Yeah, right.