Eoin Butler: writer, journalist and Mayoman of the Year
Tripping Along The Ledge
Croagh Patrick
St. Patrick’s Day, 2011
According to press reports last week Tottenham are set to introduce new space-age football jerseys, which will alert coaching staff when a player is suffering from fatigue. If I’d be wearing one climbing Croagh Patrick Thursday morning, I suspect my number would have been called before we’d even left the car park.
This was my first time climbing The Reek in almost four years and, man, it was tough going. If it wasn’t for the presence on the mountain of climbers thirty and forty years my senior, I’d have been tempted to throw in the towel. But those pints in Galway that night tasted all the sweeter. Made it Ma, top of the world!
The day my mother read about me shooting heroin into my c*$!
Yesterday, I posted this article about my mother and I doing a joint pub review one time. Denise asked if my mother ever reads the stuff I write about her. I replied honestly, saying that I have no idea. In fact, there’s only one article I’ve ever written that I know for certain my mother has read.
It involved some heroin and my penis. Read the rest of this entry »
There he was tormented by demons, in the form of great black birds that swooped around him.
Finally, he rang his bell, and the demons fled, perishing in the sea beyond Achill Island. Read the rest of this article here.
“TAKE MY HAND, LORD JESUS TAKE MY HAND…”
Religious beliefs and practices in Mayo are informed by ancient tradition, galvanized by history and shot through always with the strangest, and most profound, ambiguity. Nowhere is this better illustrated than on the stony slopes of Croagh Patrick…Read the rest of this article here.
For God & St. Patrick
“Take my hand,” croons the singer on Mid West Radio. “Lord Jesus, take my hand.” Its 9am on the last Sunday in July, and the crowd outside Campbell’s pub, at the foot of Croagh Patrick, are basking in the early morning sunshine. They wear county jerseys, and clutch pints of Guinness and bottles of Bulmers. An old man plays the box accordion, while the jukebox inside blasts ‘Sean South from Garryowen’. Some appear weary from their morning’s exertions. But the mood is one of festive celebration. We’re at the bottom of a mountain, but at the very apex of a summer.