As we headed out of the pandemic and into global unease due to the Ukrainian tragedy, the season of Lent took on fresh significance for me this year. I made my usual token gesture of giving up a few titbits like desserts and alcohol, with the mixed motive of pruning myself into physical shape.
But though I do it mainly to show myself who is boss when it comes to my appetites, this season my efforts seemed more insignificant than ever, in the shadow of the hardships so many in eastern Europe are now facing.
When I was young, my mother got me into the habit of cutting out sweets for Lent and, more importantly, of attending daily Mass, where I found the reminders from the pulpit of the benefits of self-denial helped me remain steadfast in my commitment to avoiding local sweetshops during the forty odd days fast, till the big chocolate egg splurge on Easter Sunday.
As a believer, I still attend Mass during Lent for the spiritual nourishment of the Eucharist, which I now value so much I attend daily Mass most mornings all year round. To ward off any feeling of self-righteousness such devotion might bring, I regularly call to mind something Christy Moore’s mother told him about daily Mass goers when he was growing up (you’ll find it in his songbook One Voice ): “People who go to Mass every day are usually the biggest sinners of all.”
For many years I killed two birds with the one stone by walking from Salthill to St Mary’s Dominican church in the Claddagh for the 7.20 Mass during Lent.
The long walk was great exercise, and the coastal road and pathway from the Mutton Island causeway turnoff to the quay across from St Nimmo’s pier has marvellous views of Galway Bay on sunny spring mornings leading up to Easter.
More often than not, however, such strolls were conducted below wind-tussled umbrellas under teeming skies, and not just in winter. During the famous storms of 2013, one powerful gale literally swept me along at a breakneck speed that would have tossed me onto the rocks had I not forced myself to fall on the tarmac path, which resulted in me limping to Mass with torn jacket and jeans that morning.
But it’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow some good, especially for a songwriter.
Advent 2013
All through December, I made my way to the chapel in the bay.
Drawn like the Magi, I left my car, walked the dark shoreline without a star.
The wind was against me, the ocean was wild, when I made the journey for the child.
Black on black as ebony, the clouds and the rocks and the spread of the sea,
with only shadows guiding me. The narrow path, the town up ahead; a forest of lights
and the holy bread, and the deep hunger by which I’m led.
All through the winter, I kept on going while the storms were blowing. Drawn like a moth to the candle flame that burned on the altar to the infant’s name.
The times were against me where few now can conceive how anyone can still believe.
Black on black as ebony, the clouds and the rocks and the spread of the sea, etc
All through the season till Christmas day I struggled all the way.
lured by an instinct and the fear I might fail the little life in the stable tale.
Now light pours upon me here in the spring, where under the sun I sing.
Song for the Old
One of my oldest memories, going right back to when I was no more than five or six years of age, is of recoiling from an old woman’s wrinkled face in the vestibule of a local church and whispering to my young mother holding my hand, “Please never grow old like that, Mam.” A plea I reminded her of towards the end of her life in St Camillus Nursing Home, which put a smile on her withered face.
Truth of the matter is, we’re all growing old from the moment we come into the world, and the process seems to accelerate the older we get.
Though one of the pop anthems my friends and I sang in our teens was The Who’s “My Generation”, I’m sure that for many the acerbic line “I hope I die before I get old” lost its edge as time went on, even for Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend, now heading for their eighties and still stage prancing.
In the last few years, I’ve marked the passing of many musical friends and acquaintances, including old flatmates, Gary Moore and Phil Lynott, and closer to home a great old pal Ger Tuohy (founding member of Granny’s Intentions ) who I lost contact with when he left the band and the Granny’s moved to Dublin and then London.
Before he died, I was fortunate enough to be informed of his declining health, so I visited him in Milford Hospice, where I presented him with a memento of our early friendship – a bar of his favourite Turkish Delight. I also brought along a few lines of reminiscence I wrote based on one of my brightest teenage memories of him.
When I was informed of your move to Milford, a long road we once hitchhiked together from Kilkee to Limerick came back to me in a blaze. Slightly ahead of you, I’m singing Howlin’ Wolf’s “Little Red Rooster” while you’re vamping your harmonica at passing cars unwilling to stop for a couple of sunburnt hipsters, dressed to kill and happy as hell. Though we haven’t seen one another in years, things haven’t changed; we’re still on that twilight road. You’ve gone on ahead, but I can still hear your Hohner, more gently now. And I’m still singing, more fervently than ever, with my song a hymn for the dark night we face together, getting home.
The hymn I was alluding to is “Song for the Old”. Though the lyrics may seem a bit maudlin on the page, I emphasize the wry humour in the last line of the chorus with a brief titter every time I sing, “But now at last that time has passed, we’re as old as they.”
Song for the Old
This song is for the old and frail
Whose crumb of life is growing stale
Though they still hunger for what lies ahead.
I know you’ve seen them, bent and grey,
Hobbling through a long day
To reach cold comfort in a fusty bed.
But if like me you’ve turned away
From the old, the bend and grey,
Now at last that time has past
We’re as old as they.
This song set in simple rhyme
Tells of the ravages of time
And I sing it just to empathise
With those who hobble, bent and grey,
Just to reach the end of day
To watch the setting sun before it dies.
This song is for the old and frail
Whose crumb of life is growing stale
Though they have faith there’s still a feast ahead,
Yes, we believe there’s still a feast ahead.
Johnny Duhan with special guest Eleanor Shanley, Tony Maher and James Blennerhassett will appear in the Town Hall Theatre Galway on Tuesday 19 April at 8pm. Booking: 091 569777 Online: tht.ie
