John Lennon

This didn’t scare the old woman. She was from the ancient school.

“Hmm. Well then, I shall make a small gift for you. Take this.”  She handed him a piece of cloth. It was a coarse, mottled, brown and white checkered wool with faded symbols running the edge.

“Thank you. It’s beautiful.”

“Carry it with you and only use it to clean the mirrors,” she said. “It’s older than sand.” She rolled it up and gave it to him.

“One kindness deserves another,” I said. I rummaged into my pack and pulled out a piece of kamben gringsing cloth.

“Here, this is for you. It is a magic cloth woven on another island. They use bark and roots to make the dye and the cloth is for all their social rituals from birth to death. It will protect you from evil vibrations and, if you ever get sick, soak an edge in water and drink the moisture. It will cure you.”

“Wonderful. Many thanks. Travel safe and look after yourself. Before you go I will reveal a small future to you,” she said. “After Tiglin you will ramble across country to the Killarney hostel where, sadly and unfortunately, you will be awake in the predawn morning of December 8 hearing a BBC news announcer tell the world about John Lennon being shot in New York.

"You will turn your head to the wall and cry. Later you will take the black push bike down narrow wet twisted streets and meet a nun opening heavy steel black church gates and you will tell her what happened. You will push open the heavy wooden doors, genuflect, cross yourself, walk the length of a cold aisle and light votive candles in silence.

"Then you will ride into town and go to every news agent to buy every Irish paper with the screaming black tabloid headlines full of desperate black ink and grainy images of death personified before retiring to a pub to sit by a peat fire drinking, reading, and sadly, quietly remembering John’s creativity and his words Imagine and Give Peace a Chance.”

A Century is Nothing