A Man Called Willy Dineen

The tide is turning as I write, doing that brief wrastling little dance it does, it's magical. I do so hope we don't find creatures on the moon and blow them into democracy too for I would so miss the tides. Along with my inner tide. Apart from female lunar cycles, I often wonder about its powerful bearing on everyone else. We understand so little about the moon.

No, let me call Luna 'her'. The goddess. She who controls so much of the doings on earth. Silently, quietly. I had an ancestor who would get in his wee currach on a night of a full moon and go out into the middle of the harbour and anchor there. He would then proceed to lean on his oars, throw his head back and sing away to her. All through her slow cruise along the navy blue sky. When she dipped below the horizon he would row to shore and go home. Probably to his mammy. For I wondered who would have married him. I think I would have. For what's wrong with a man who sings to the moon?

The odd thing about this relative (I could be wrong but I think his name was Willy Dineen) my father's second cousin, twice removed or something, was that he was shared with my ex-husband's family. So we figured out we were sorta third cousins sharing Singing Willy. A bit of shame attached to Willy and the full moon, for they all thought he was cracked. I didn't. And he only came to light when both our families were sitting down around the table one night untangling the long knitted strings of Irish relationships which spreads like a blanket over the entire 32 counties. And beyond, if you're inclined. A hobby which is fully present and accounted for in Newfoundland also. I could listen for hours to this kind of talk while it uncovers long forgotten marriages, dead babies and cursed families and people buried outside the churchyard in the dead of night. For Willy paid no attention to the church at all and was buried in 'unsanctified' as befitted his pagan leanings.

Ah, there should be a Willy Dineen in everyone's family. To give it a bit of spice. To tell us all we're not as green as we're cabbage-looking. Another fine turn of an Irish phrase you may not have heard before.

If I had stronger arms and could get at a currach, you'd find me out in the bay here of a full moon night, listening to the echo of my voice all around the bay while above me Luna grins her Mona Lisa.