On Christmas Eve, 1979, I received a hero’s welcome on my return to Rattigan’s Pub in County Roscommon, after circling 1,720 miles of the Irish coast with my beloved donkey, Missie.
The Roscommon Champion reported that more than 200 people were jammed into the small parish pub that memorable night - a Christmas miracle in itself.
Among the crowd was my dear and darling wife, Belita, who had given me a year away to follow my boyhood dream. She was accompanied by my brother Dermot and our good friend, Jack Schermerhorn, who had flown over the ocean to enjoy this festive homecoming.
Holding Belita in a warm embrace, to the rousing music of pipes and fiddles, I promised her that my days of playing the Irish rover were over.
Quipped one aged bachelor, “I’ll never understand how a young man could leave such a beautiful woman behind, just to go traipsing the black bogs with a brown ass!”
My Uncles Vincent and Mickey were also there, as were a covey of cousins. They happily informed me that my 86-year-old grandmother, Grannie Kelly, whom I adored, was currently minding the three-legged pots on her open hearth, preparing a Yuletide feast for her “wild colonial boy.”
Headmaster Dan D’Alton, a devoted schoolmaster who had taught my own mother at Ballagh National School, hosted the spirited ceili. He praised me for traversing the four ancestral kingdoms of Erin like the venerable bards of old, with only a blessed donkey as a companion.
He concluded, “For all your living days and, indeed, in the mansions of the saints above, you’ll always have a grand story to tell.”
Suddenly, the pub erupted in an avalanche of cheers, as Missie herself was led through the pub’s front door. To everyone’s amazement, she sauntered through the throngs like a seasoned barfly.
“By God,” exclaimed Uncle Vincent, “she’s nearly one with ourselves!”
Headmaster D’Alton took the opportunity to recite a stanza from G.K. Chesterton’s poem, “The Donkey”: There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet.
“How about a bucket of stout before Missie’s feet?” piped one happy lark.
“Oh, can I, Mama, please?” squealed young Donal Rattigan to his mother, Kathleen, busily working the bar with four other women.
“A splash in a bucket, yes, if it’s all right with Kevin?”
“She deserves a drink as much as anyone,” I granted, as a scrum of Donal’s mates pressed around my shaggy roadster. Once Donal had placed the sloshing half-bucket before Missie, my dapper donkey dropped her head into the black elixir and came up with a lathered snout and, I daresay, looking for more.
“Bejabbers,” laughed one of the children, “she has a taste for the Guinness!”
Missie, in turn, let out a strident, ear-splitting bawl that sent toddlers scurrying to the laps of their elders.
Uncle Mickey, giving me a playful wink, took to the floor: “’Tis amazing to think that a proper hooligan like my nephew here could circle this island with a donkey and cart, and return without a devil of a loss.
"’Tis also heartwarming to know that our people, despite the divisions that mar our country, would take kindly to such a roguish imp as himself.
"So on this Christmas Eve, I’d like to toast my longhaired nephew, Kevin, his beautiful and sure-to-be-sainted bride, Belita, and his long-eared mistress, Missie, but also the whole of Ireland, North and South, for delivering him safely home to us.”
The Toothsome Pair - Kevin O'Hara and Missie - on Christmas Eve, 1979. (Kevin O'Hara)
The band soon called Belita and me to the floor, where we danced to a medley of ballads. Shockingly, Missie Long-Ears, who was known to nip, snip, and piddle every time I chatted with the fairer sex along the roads, looked upon our reunion like a beaming bridesmaid.
Following our dance, I threw a reassuring arm around my turf-colored trouper, and was asked by the crowd to describe our journey. I spoke of Missie’s gallant climbs up Conor and Glengesh passes, praised her long marches through the tense Northern cities of Belfast and Derry, and reminisced fondly of our winsome strolls along the ancient highways of Beare, Erris, and Connemara.
Then, abruptly, Willie Cassidy popped up like a leprechaun gone mad.
“This is truly an odd midwinter’s coronation,” he jigged, presenting me with a Hillman’s tea tin stuffed with pound notes, donated by the patrons.
I lifted the overflowing canister above my head and announced, “Since leaving this pub in April, Missie and I have spent 188 nights in different farmhouses, where we were never once asked a penny for lodging. So, I’m handing this tea tin over to Kathleen, with one simple request: Tonight, and tonight only, drinks on the Yank!”
A thunderous cheer arose, as the unforgettable hours spun away in a whirl of music and merrymaking.
I eventually stumbled out of Rattigan’s, giddily drunk, dragging along Missiecakes, who showed no desire to depart the revelry. Joined eagerly by Dermot and Jack, the four of us ventured into the frosty night nosed for Grannie Kelly’s, Belita having gone ahead with my uncles.
Despite our goal being a mere mile away, I dallied at every opportunity, trying hopelessly to suspend those waning moments to memory. Yet, our party pushed on, up the foothills of Slieve Bawn to Ballincurry, where we shortly arrived at the grandmother’s farmhouse. There, the “queen of the parish” stood in the doorway, just as I’d long imagined, smiling broadly with rosary beads in hand.
“Glory be to God in the Heavens,” she proclaimed, “if it isn’t himself who’s arrived!”
Oh, never have I known such gladness!
*Kevin O’Hara, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is the author of “Last of the Donkey Pilgrims: A Man’s Journey through Ireland.” Visit his website at TheDonkeyMan.com
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