David Keenan: Dispatches from the Bóthar - Castlebar

How do you begin a piece of writing?

Do you sit down by candlelight and call in the Gods of inspiration as Storm this or that rages outside the blinds, do you scream aloud and run at the thing, do you calmly sip tae and reflect on the state of the kitchen or do you give thanks for the exercise and throw words at the silence.

I now temporarily write for Hot Press...these are my dispatches from the Modern Mythologies Irish tour.

My Irish Tour will take in a lot of the country, the gig being the central element but much can be explored in and around a gig, that's something becoming more and more evident over time and that's where a lot of the learning can be done. Picture me, driving a friend's car towards Achill Island, the first layover on the way to gig one in Castlebar. I'm not a great driver but my friend Liam O'Sullivan is either very trusting or pays scant regard to his own safety, in spite of this we reach the Island and head for Ireland's smallest Pub.

Lynott's, an iconic place, is the size of seven portaloos, let's say, with a roaring fire screaming from the corner and an atmosphere of general harmony. The proprietor Mick was welcoming and gave his blessing for me to sing 'The Ballad of Ernie O'Malley' given the latter's connection to the place, this was the space to sing it in.

A pink moon shone over Achill that night and I was happy to see it and took it as a harbinger of good fortune for the gigs ahead. The following morning we trekked to the deserted village and knelt amongst the potato ridges, standing on rushes to avoid the bog water both of us in awe of the kind of resilience needed to survive in that place amongst the elements but also the strength of such a community and we speculated on their imagined joys and internal resentments before I left the price of a pint or coffee in tribute on the Druids altar in an adjacent field.

Gig one: Linenhall theatre, Castlebar with support artist Trainroom.

No setlist, feeling out the room and leaning into the playing tonight. It was a two guitar set up ie one acoustic and electric sent through my Fender vibro champ amp. We laughed in between songs from the new albums, a welcomed heckler down the back became known as the rent a fan, being a theatre I sensed a reticence in the room but that lent itself to an understanding shared and voices sung aloud in between stories for 1 hour 15 before the gig ended with a We Live, We, Learn, We Love refrain from me and the crowd.

A word of appreciation to all who came, theatre staff and for the promoter Finbar Hoban for being a champion on the ground. We capped the afters in Mick's bar and made our marks in the visitors book before calling it a night.