Evening in Carrickfergus

After a good day in a hot office, I stopped on the way home for a drink outside at Carrickfergus harbour. The tide was further out than I'd ever seen it here, leaving the boats and the old ruined harbourmaster's station at the pier's end and even the great castle itself looking beached, high and dry...

But the sea is wide and I cannot swim over
And neither have I the wings to fly
I wish I had a handsome boatsman
To ferry me over my love and I...

Carrickfergus once had a claim to be Ireland's capital - or at last, Norman Ireland's capital. It was certainly Ulster's major town, long before Belfast had a role to play. Now it's a dormitory town, most of its industry long gone. Beached, in its own way, it struggles to survive as a retail centre.

If the town is known for anything, it will be for the song that bears its name - though the ballad's connection with the real place is tenuous at best. There are various explanations, some involving the interaction of men from either end of the island involved in the linen trade. But it's more likely that the lyrics we have today are a bowdlerised collage of old, misheard or mistranslated verses.

Now in Kilkenny it is reported
On marble stone there as black as ink
With gold and silver I would support her
But I'll sing no more now til I get a drink...

The pools in the rippled mud and sandbanks create surreal metallic reflections, as if the world is warped by the historical gravity of the massive keep overlooking the harbour.

Cause I'm drunk today and I'm seldom sober
A handsome rover from town to town
Ah but I'm sick now my days are numbered
Come all me young men and lay me down!