Debs

Quite a strange and interesting day! I was in Bantry fairly early for a rendezvous outside the Tourist Office. You may remember I'm working on a website about interesting things on the Sheep's Head. Well, I occasionally get contacted by people asking for more information and have been corresponding with an American woman who thought her great grandmother came from the area. She had been over last year, met the parish priest who had told her firmly she was in the wrong area. Well, she found my website, contacted me and I was able to tell her she was in exactly the right area. So she had come over again and I took her and her friend on a quick tour of the townlands her family had come from and where they might be buried. They were both delightful, two Californians, excited and interested. I think a genealogical service might be another string to my bow.

Dropping them off in Bantry it was evident that strange things were going on - the square was heaving with young people - the girls in flowing gowns and the boys squeezed into suits and waistcoats, watched on my adoring mummies and aunties. It's the Debs - a celebration of the end of school year when they are offically released into the world. This involves spending a small fortune on frocks, makeup, fake tans and hair (girls); suits, corsages, flowers, hair, fake tan (boys). I bumped into Bat whose son and girlfriend were amongst the throng - she had been instructed to find her son a new white shirt this morning!! Anyway, they were about to be bused off to somewhere past Killarney - a two hour drive in the sweltering heat, whereupon they will drink a lot, dance a lot, do quite a lot of things they will regret the next morning and arrive home wrecked in the early hours. I liked this slender girl in red on the right, she seemed a bit out of it and I admired the flaming red hair of her escort - hopefully the girl in the short shorts is just sending them off. And I'm not sure what the bloke was doing.

It's hot hot hot. More swimming has taken place. Fabulous.