Strongbow Mike McGrath
A bby Carey strode dappled morning light on O’ Callaghan Strand between the leafy grass verge and wrought iron railing which skirted the trail of the Shannon. A little early yet for breakfast with Godet near the butcher said her iPhone spritely as she slowed and thought and rested her arms on the black bars against the river. Nice span of water between the two bridges on both sides and impressive too she considered, how they had invested in the quays across the way with large white features where three rollerblading girls rolled down the wide footpaths- only missing palm trees to trick a drunk to thinking he was in L. A. Working on that stretch for months of course and wonders would be done for trade in the hotels and restaurants and Clohessy’ s would surely be printing money for weeks with the fine weather.
Abby looked once more at the clock digits on her digital phone and cursed that she could not fire up her Kindle Fire for she’ d left it at home on her locker all alone. Still, a stroll instead of a stride would burn the time a fire might and light the corners of her mind that had remained unlit for far too long to help her rest and maybe even sleep that night. Rising slowly from the railing with interlocking fingers high above her head, she arched and stretched deeply in a wide yawn before committing one foot to follow the other along the blackened concrete path.
It was quite beautiful. Abby wondered why but not aloud she had been asked to meet this morning for coffee. There was always a motive of course but the text was odd in tone when one considered all the water under the bridge and there was Sarsfield’ s now in front of her which was opened some two hundred years previous to great fanfare under the then auspicious title of‘ Wellesley Bridge’ after the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland – himself a brother to the celebrated 1st Duke of Wellington; not to mention his direct ancestry to the current monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, its overseas dominions and all lands presently allied to the commonwealth, HM Queen Elizabeth II. The gothic spanning arches, pseudo vase pillars and Munster quarried smoked stone had become synonymous with that‘ Limerick Greyness’ often attributed to the city in time by its detractors of the well – heeled, erroneous and moot variety.
Miz Carey to her students turned the path’ s corner and stepped onto the bridge, never stepping but taken aback by the panoramic depth of Bridge Street up to Lower William Street ahead and the expanse on either side of water. Clugging cars clugged by in easy streams now the rush had ebbed and the teacher slid her palms along the surface of the grainy cool stone of the parapet while passing the 1916 memorial cross across from the 1900 Limerick Boat Club at Poor Man’ s Kilkee. Down from the bridge deck, she walked lightly in soft decks up Bridge Street between the brown sorrow of
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