Explosive Night on a Donegal Island

Back in the crazy, extra-warm summer of 1995, when it was about 35 degrees every single day (or so it seems in my mind's eye), I experienced a near-death experience, so I did.

The day started with the usual blazing sunshine on the island of Inishfree Upper. This was not a normal summer, so it wasn't. During normal summers on Innishreed Upper, you would have each day greeted with a little rain and a little wind, mixed with some cold. But anyway, after checking the growth of my week-old beard and the skankiness of my sun& salt- bleached hair, I puffed out my chest and exited through the creaky door to inhale the revitalising scent of the sea. After a short fried breakfast was prepared by others and eaten by me and others, it was decided to head inshore for some supplies. This was usually code for "going to the port for some early beer and not forgetting to buy a loaf of bread and whatever else was on the shopping list that the girls had prepared before going back to the island sometime later".

Well, the sea was as calm as a labotomised Buddist monk that morning, which made our thirsts more pronounced than usual.

I sat with my 3 companions outside Ned's, reading in the Irish Times how the Croatians had been preparing all along to kick out the Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia and that they'd fucked them up goodo. Someone mentioned between slurps of stout that there was a festival on in Inishmore that day, so after another couple of hours involving drinking, talking rubbish and playing pool, we decided to move the bandwagon offshore. We got a lift on a half-decker over to Inishmore and on the journey I remember meeting some charming crusties with whom I shared a bottle of whiskey.

After that, things went a bit hazy, but suffice it to say that by the evening when I somehow ended back in the house on Innishfree, my world had become a very different place and I would estimate that I was the drunkest I have ever been and ever will be.

We all retired to the living room (there were about 10 in all), where talk was had and the fire was lighting. The candles were also lighting as there was no electricity on the island then (although there is now). I quickly fell into a sort -of coma. Around midnight, the fireworks on the mainland (to mark the end of the Mary-from-Dungloe Festival) were set off. These could be seen and heard from the island (only 2km away across the Bay) so everyone went out to see the show, leaving the door ajar. Repeated vigorous efforts were made to rouse me from my deep and dribbling slumber, but all were unsuccesful. With each little explosion and flash, everyone went "Ooh!" and then "Aah!". The house was by the beach and they stood admiring, ooh-ing and aah-ing on the strand with their backs to the house. All of a sudden, instead of a "pop!" or a "crack!", there was instead a thunderous-sounding "BOOOM!" and the funny thing was, it came straight from the house. They all turned around to see flames and thick smoke emanating with alarming energy from the room in which I was sleeping. Inside, I remained sleeping without having moved a centimetre, while burning debris and smoke was falling around me. The candles on either side of the fireplace had, with the assistance of the breeze from the open door, burned the frill which set fire to the timber mantle piece, which then began to burn with a real vengeance. The whole place would have gone up if it weren't for the little ancient tin of gunpowder that was on the mantle piece, which when it exploded, alerted the fireworks-watchers to what was happening inside.

The next morning, I awoke with a peculiar cough and a sore throat. The moral of the story: you never know when a little tin of gunpowder will come in handy.