Feel good post of the winter

Tweet A couple of weekends ago when I wrote my little photo essay on Kells, I had a childish fight with my twin brother (a regressive and embarrassing spectacle that happens all too often when we spend time in the family home. We are 31). He stalked me around the house, pleading with me to delete the blog post as I banged a couple of doors and muttered at him to fuck off (reminder: we are 31). He believed that the post would go viral and I'd become a pariah in Kells. Not only that, my near-certain status as town reject might rub off on him on account of our being identical, which is exactly what happened the time I finished in last place on Come Dine With Me and he had to suffer such slings and arrows as a row of Dublin teens singing "come dine with me..." to the melody of Frank Sinatra's "come fly with me" in the Savoy cinema once.

He was half right. The post went semi viral. According to my blogger statistics it accumulated about 2,500 hits a day over the course of last week. A number of websites also linked to the post, including Kells online which featured a piece about it here.

To be honest, I shat my pants (figuratively!) before reading the Kells online piece, as Storkboy's rabid warnings had me braced for the worst. However, the piece is measured and it acknowledges that the town looks a bit shit at the moment. Indeed, it appears that my little photo essay might even provide incentive for a town clean-up.

I felt a bit bad, however, when I read the line "while it could be argued that there is a certain mean spirited tone to the article and that you could find similar sights in any town in Ireland is went set out to look for them". I would hate people to come away from my blog with the impression that I am mean-spirited about my home town and I'd hope that regular readers recognise that I have a fairly complex relationship with the place.

if your Viking longship runs into trouble approaching Kells, look out for our lighthouse

There are times when Kells feels like a dispiriting kip to me, a heritage town of enormous historical significance that perpetually fails to respect itself. But there are times too, when I come over all gooey for the town; for the motley crew of unpretentious yet arty kids I befriended in secondary school and who continue to be my closest friends in adulthood; for the dreaming monastery feel of the town on a fine Summer afternoon walk; for the weird pagan lore that seems to co-exist with the monastic past; for Ireland's only inland lighthouse; for the flat, aesthetically challenged accent that is perversely sported as a badge of honour by many; and for a stubborn character that continues to resist the severe damage Ireland's failed economy has wrought on the place.

Ah Kells, I love ta hate ya.