Confessions from the Cottage

Once upon a time, I lived in a two hundred year old freezing cottage with a half-door in remote west Ireland. It was an incredibly picturesque location, on a quiet country lane, a stone’s throw from a sheltered tidal harbour.

It was in this old cottage I set up Airbnb, a concept fresh out of San Francisco at the time. My set-up was a little comical because in this old two-bedroom cottage access to the guest bedroom was through the main bedroom.

Visitors, should they have needed use of the facilities during the night, would’ve had to pass within two feet of their sleeping host. The bathroom was accessed directly from the kitchen in a flat roof extension out back. A sensible boyfriend of the time thought this a ridiculous enterprise, notwithstanding its questionable legality. We parted ways soon after.

I don’t recall any strangers shuffling past my bed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. If they successfully navigated such journeys, they did so without disturbing me. I look around now and hope that someone might set up a less fancy version of Airbnb, lower expectations, less deep pockets.

This cottage, because it was a such a beautiful original gem in itself, delighted all of the guests. The most interesting people passed through that half-door. A Canadian explorer in the mining business, an American athlete with expertise in Arab diplomatic relations in the US. A couple from the Basque Country who stayed up late drinking wine.

I was writing at the time for various newspapers and stumbled upon a story connected to a beautiful old Protestant Church. The story was about a Catholic bell-ringer who was dedicated to his duties and not too long deceased. I loved this story of cross-Christian chivalry, so I set off to the village on foot to see what those that remembered him had to say. The locals fondly recounted a man and many repeated the same description.

Bow-legged.

And so a story was published with the following introductory line:

“The bell tower of an iconic west Cork chapel has been dedicated to a bow-legged bell ringer that served the church for fifty years.”

All hell broke loose over the bell tower story. The man’s family were desperately aggrieved at this implied insult and thus began a series of contacts between the newspaper editor and myself over the unfortunate use of this descriptive phrase. A printed apology was requested but the editor resisted and soon there were threats of escalation to the Press Council. Subsequently, I found out that my nearest neighbour was related to the deceased bell-ringer.

“For fuck’s sake Louise. You may as well have called him a fat bastard.”

Confused and mortified, I retreated to the cottage in dismay. The term had been intended as one of affection, an effort to convey the high esteem in which the bell-ringer was held.

All those that spoke to me described him in the same way, insisting that I must have known him, seen him, met him. But he had died before I ever set foot in the village. Feeling total remorse and unsure of how to right the wrong of this terrible sleight I packed myself into the car and drove the length of the country to Lough Derg, Co. Donegal for three days of penance and prayer. For the uninitiated, the famous pilgrimage on Station Island involves bare feet, an all-night vigil and fasting on bread and black tea. Pilgrims must keep a 24 hour vigil and complete nine ‘stations’ which involves walking and kneeling on a series of rocky penitentiary beds while repeating invocations and prayers.

The rocky ‘beds’ belong to a Celtic monastic period and are believed to be the remnants of beehive cells occupied by the early monks. These circular mounds of rock are named after saints:

St Brigid, St Brendan, St Catherine, St Columba, St Patrick, St Davog, St Molaise. Saint Patrick is reputed to have visited the island in the fifth century for a period of prayerful reflection.

My pilgrimage took place in the post Celtic Tiger era; the island was seeing a resurgence of the faith.

Confessions take place in the morning, after an all-night vigil, which is spent walking in barefoot circles around St Patrick’s Basilica in the quiet dark of night. The rhythmic sound of the lapping waves lulls pilgrims into a deep meditative state. The break of dawn heralds morning mass and then, the Sacrament of Reconciliation. There is an understanding that this preparatory process unlocks a connection to the subconscious, to reveal things that pilgrims have perhaps, buried deep.

Kneeling into the dark of the confessional, the shape of a priest became apparent to me, the upper half of his face shrouded in shadow.

“Bless me Father for I have sinned,” I said by way of introduction, then confessed the whole sorry scéal, tracking the story from idea stage to the end result on the printed page.

I finished my confession and fell silent. At this point, the priest usually offers some words of insight before granting absolution. In those heavy moments of physical exhaustion, my focus fell to something not quite decipherable. The priest’s countenance had shifted, ever so slightly. I wondered had I descended to hallucination. I snapped my eyes open and closed a few times and looked again.

Closer.

Little flickers of light were bouncing off his whiskers. There was no audible sound. But there were dimples around his mouth and these held the beginning of a barely noticeable little dance. In the end, he bowed his head and let his shoulders drop and with them a muffled, but unmistakable… laugh.

For a second, I couldn’t believe it. And then all of a sudden I was laughing too, soft closed mouthed and silent. Whatever words accompanied this exchange I can’t remember, but they didn’t matter. Once recovered he offered absolution and I, relieved of the terrible, horrible burden of having delivered such a hurt upon my neighbours, skipped out of confession a new woman.

Fresh from the purge and on the drive home, somewhere in Co. Leitrim it occurred to me.

I had only told the truth.

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