I am Billy.
It is a cold crisp day here in the mountains, with strong light shining through my window. On the chessboard of life I am now in the endgame, and so I thought that I would share some of the things I have seen and heard throughout my long life.
I have seen many changes and been to many places but the one thing that has always been constant has been the pleasure and solace I find in playing music on me little tin whistle. Each and every tune I play takes me back to a time long past. When I get settled into playing I can feel the breeze, the warmth of the sun, the bitter cold of winter, the smell of the ocean, or whatever it is that I felt at a time long gone and lost forever.
It was an old tinker man who showed me how to play the whistle. My grandmother, may the Lord look kindly on her soul, had a bit of a yard; every winter she would allow a few families of travellin people to pull in there and stay over the cold winter that settles over the mountain region. I know now that those mountains of my youth were nothing compared to the mountains around here, but I was younger then, and knew no better.
It was from the travellers that I learnt many tunes and songs. Many great tales were told around the campfire, and these tales of different places gave me a great desire to leave the mountains of my youth and travel around.
It was near the end of a bad winter when the tinker man told me they would soon be leaving for a Fair that was held every year in a little village called Donnybrook just outside of Dublin.
I had heard many wonderful stories about this fair, and I begged to be taken along with them. Out of a sense of debt to my grandmother they agreed. Little did I now that I was setting out on a journey that would result in my killing my closest friend.
It was not my intention to kill the man far from my mind was ever any such thought but kill him I did, just as if I had driven a three-pronged hay-fork through his throat and smashed him down on the sharp stones that lie around the bottom of the mountain.
The journey from the little village of my birth to the Fair took over a week. The travellin people liked to settle down for the night as soon as the sun set.
It was a wonderful week for me as I had never been further than ten miles from the village in all my life. I had never seen the endless stretches of bogland, covered in heather and colours I never knew existed. Never had I thought it possible for a river to be as deep and mysterious as the Shannon, which we crossed after a night in a town called Athlone.
I was out in the wide world now and no man knew greater happiness.
Many times during the journey to the Fair we would meet other travellers and we would stop and exchange news and inquire as to the wealth and health of other families. It was clear that I was not one of them, but once the headman gave the nod I was accepted without question.
News RSS