Kilrush...

There are very few reasons why a young woman of twenty would be talking to an old guy like me, so I was naturally suspicious when she hailed me from across the road, in a little town called Kilrush. I’ll call her Clare, because I’m in Co Clare. But she talked about me, not herself: where was I from, what was I doing, what did I think about Ireland, etc. I told her I was travelling in a campervan, so we talked about that. I eventually turned the conversation round to her, as she sat down on a doorstep. She’d been over in England; Birmingham, she said, but hadn’t liked it. Now she was back in Ireland. She had family in a nearby town, just seven miles up the road, but, for whatever reason, didn’t want to contact them. I wondered if she was staying with friends. No, she said, and mentioned the Catholic church just round the corner. I assumed she meant she was sleeping inside church property. But no, she was sleeping outside. After a few more minutes talking, I gave her ten euros and walked back to the van.

I spent the night in Kilkee, on the coast, hearing the rain drumming on the roof of the van, debating with myself whether I could have done more to help Clare. The answer seemed pretty obvious, so this morning I drove back to Kilrush to see if I could find her. I wandered the streets for three hours in the usual drizzle, before bumping into her, and a female friend, in the main square in town. We went to a little café round the corner for breakfast. Apparently they had slept behind the grotto next to the church, where a statue of the Virgin Mary gazes down from her niche in the wall. That can’t have been much fun in the rain. However, the good news was that they’d found a hostel in another town, not too far away, which could offer them a room. With a fixed address they would now be able to start claiming the jobseeker’s allowance and look for work.

“Are you Protestant or Catholic?”, Clare asked: a question that doesn’t invite a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. “Neither”, I said, but that conversation would have to wait, as the bus was about to leave. I gave them money for the bus and food, and said goodbye. I hope things work out for them both…