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| Yesterday I spotted that Siobhán Doyle was a guest on Donal Fallon’s podcast Three Castles Burning and it sent my memory recall in all different directions. On a nice May evening, in 2018, we stopped with friends at O’Connell’s bar in Skryne in Co. Meath. As I was on driving duty, I explored the nearby cemetery, as one does, and the surrounds with the younger generation. The numbering on the seating in an outside shed did have us puzzled for a while – this is the place where one remembers to turn the lights out, not on. Returning to the counter, the barman did confirm that these timber planks, with their numbers, did, as we guessed, come from Croke Park – the old one that was demolished. Christmas advertising is nearly a month old this year already but I do not think that I have yet seen this year the advert showing snow at a closed O’Connell’s. I have to travel to a meeting on Monday and the Three Castles Burning podcast will be my choice of listening. It will be a bit longer before I find out if the Smoking Room in Skryne made it into the Top 100 in Siobhán book – this being a Santa’s letter of sorts. |  |
