Rural characters

Joe Dixon

My grandfather in Leitrim used to regale us all of stories of wild characters from the area long ago, all long since passed. He used to swear that one fella could throw a stone from the door of my grandfathers house at the time and hit the galvanized roof of a house across the fields (at a guess i'd say it's 80 meters away). His son, my uncle swears he witnessed this feat as well.
As i grew up i've tried the same throw and i'd barely get half the distance.

Another story had him in the bog with a donkey and the donkey wouldn't cross a stream or river or the like and he is supposed to have picked up the donkey and threw him across the stream. He was also the local poutien maker to boot.
All stories probably came with a percentage of exaggeration though I remember meeting him a few times when he was an old man and he was still an absolute giant in comparison to other old men at the time.

Another lad (supposedly) used to walk from Carrick on Shannon to Sligo and back in the one day!!

Anyone hear of any other stories of such legendary rural characters?

4zn76tysfajdxp

Lad I know is a champion Smithwicks drinker, often polishing off upwards of two slabs of cans in a weekend. He also hasn't taxed or insured his car for twenty years and fights anyone who questions him. Gas lad.

The Backwards Man

A character is somebody you thought were a bit of an annoying cnut when they were alive and then you feel a wee bit guilty about it when they croak it.

Barry Badrinath

The Backwards Man wrote: »

A character is somebody you thought were a bit of an annoying cnut when they were alive and then you feel a wee bit guilty about it when they croak it.

There's so many future characters on Boards.

Cnuts

The_Valeyard

I think some of these 'characters' were names given to people who actually may have had some mental impairments that weren't diagnosed or known back then. Remember some 'characters' from my childhood, that looking back today, were probably mentally unwell.

Winterlong

The_Valeyard wrote: »

I think some of these 'characters' were names given to people who actually may have had some mental impairments that weren't diagnosed or known back then. Remember some 'characters' from my childhood, that looking back today, were probably mentally unwell.

True, but some of them were also sane funny fckuers. They would keep you hours telling their tall stories and have you in stitches.
The few I knew were all bachelors. Long side burns and trouser braces. Lived in old cottages with stone slab floors. A st Brigid's cross was mandatory.
A lot of history dies with them auld fellas.

Smondie

Can't be having those sort of people in hip, modern ireland. Get them to treatment asap. We must all be the same, but individual.

dinorebel

It's basically "Care in the Community" done the old way.

Stigura

Michael Hegarty. And Peter. Fcuking Legends!

Both lost to us, now. And the world is a piss poorer place for it

Titzon Toast

Winterlong wrote: »

True, but some of them were also sane funny fckuers. They would keep you hours telling their tall stories and have you in stitches.
The few I knew were all bachelors. Long side burns and trouser braces. Lived in old cottages with stone slab floors. A st Brigid's cross was mandatory.
A lot of history dies with them auld fellas.

I meet loads of them on a daily basis since I took up rural work in January, I love chatting away to them.

BBDBB

My uncle, the black sheep of the family regaled me with a few stories about his grandfather, my great grandfather. They lived on an island in the middle of the river Shannon, one day he was taking a pig to the town on the shore. After walking the pig a mile from the house and down a muddy slipway, the pig refused to get in the rowboat, after several failed attempts my great grandad swore and picked the pig up and put him in the rowboat, rowed a mile, then walked him 5 miles to the town to sell it.
He also said that he could drink over 20 pints a night, but only ever drank halves.
No idea if it was true but entertaining family legends nonethe less

Labarbapostiza

Joe Dixon wrote: »

Anyone hear of any other stories of such legendary rural characters?

My father had an older friend when he was a kid. He used to dress up as a young priest and visit farmers, and collect for "charities". He died in Garda custody....a teaching of a lesson that may have gone to far.

yellowcandle

My Granny was from the West, and had a man who was a friend who used to go to the shops and mass with a ladies hand bag. He'd have it hung over the handle bars of his bike while going around the village, and on his wrist while walking. No comments were ever passed. Was leather too.

Junkyard Tom

Big Hamish McViolence.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Eddie Moroney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHc2pC-ug7c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POHuXU01bOs

Castletown 1994 Donkey Derby

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XtVm8z28e4

Slideways

There was a fella in Sligo, nuttier than a squirrels shyte.
Used to permanently go around wearing a nurses uniform.

Barry Badrinath

Slideways wrote: »

There was a fella in Sligo, nuttier than a squirrels shyte.
Used to permanently go around wearing a nurses uniform.

Then he emigrated

s4uv3

Slideways wrote: »

There was a fella in Sligo, nuttier than a squirrels shyte.
Used to permanently go around wearing a nurses uniform.

Nobody will ever come close to "Straightback" in Sligo legend

groucho marx

Man up our way used always pick up hitch hikers,always gave a lift then one day he stopped for a guy,turned out to be a skeleton

Smondie

groucho marx wrote: »

Man up our way used always pick up hitch hikers,always gave a lift then one day he stopped for a guy,turned out to be a skeleton

Was he thumbing lift because he had no body to go with?

groucho marx

Smondie wrote: »

Was he thumbing lift because he had no body to go with?

DanMurphy

Slideways wrote: »

There was a fella in Sligo, nuttier than a squirrels shyte.
Used to permanently go around wearing a nurses uniform.

Knew him. Nurses uniform complete with the little cloth blue rimmed cap and Wellingtons!
He was from just outside Boyle, A nice fella, quite harmless.

Badly Drunk Boy

Slideways wrote: »

There was a fella in Sligo, nuttier than a squirrels shyte.
Used to permanently go around wearing a nurses uniform.

So that wasn't Aine Chambers?

Winterlong

Slideways wrote: »

There was a fella in Sligo, nuttier than a squirrels shyte.
Used to permanently go around wearing a nurses uniform.

DanMurphy wrote: »

Knew him. Nurses uniform complete with the little cloth blue rimmed cap and Wellingtons!
He was from just outside Boyle, A nice fella, quite harmless.

Dropped ye a pm with a pic of him. No wellies though.

Your Face

I knew a lad who would drink over 20 pints on a Saturday night.
Everyone thought he was a legend.
Now he's battling numerous health and relationship issues.
What a character.

TSMGUY

This is the funniest ****ing thread I've ever been in, Jesus Christ.

Keep it coming lol

BattleCorp

Depending on your definition of character we had two brothers down our way that were either characters or 'not quite right' in the head. I know which one I'm going for.

AC and JC were their initials.

JC was the maddest. He had one leg shorter than the other and hobbled around the town. He carried a radio on a strap that he used to listen to Garda conversations and aliens. Apparently there were little men in the radio that used to talk to him too. He always wanted to be in the Gardaí and even bought himself a little plastic gun. He often went into the local Garda station asking if they would make him a guard. They used to fob him off telling him that his uniform hadn't arrived yet. They told him that they were getting the leg taken up. :pac: I was only a kid so it's hard to tell what age he was but I'd guess he was in his late 30's or early 40's back then.

The Gardaí had to take the plastic gun off him eventually due to a little bit of confusion when the army were escorting the cash delivery to the bank. :eek:

He once threw his mother out through the window of the house because she wouldn't buy him caps for his toy gun.

We used to have great craic getting him to chase us around the town by telling him that he 'smokes like a chimney'. He'd never catch us with his gammy leg. :pac: We were quite harmless too when we were kids.

Last I heard he was in a psychiatric hospital. Probably dead by now.

My last memory of his brother was him standing in the middle of the town holding his bicycle over his head shouting 'I'm the strongest man in xxxxxx'. It's worth pointing out that his trousers were down around his ankles at the time. That's also the last time I ever saw anybody drinking a bottle of Black Tower wine.

He had a sad end after. He died of natural causes at a young enough age while walking across fields. He wasn't found for a long time and the birds and animals didn't leave much to bury.

Sh1tbag OToole

I used to know a serial killer from Co. Mayo, he comitted the most haunis of crimes

Widdershins

There used to be a handful of interesting old lads around in every village but they are passing on now . The place is getting like the high streets, everything and everyone looks and sounds much the same .

DanMurphy

Growing up in the 1950s / 60s as I did, there were many such harmless characters about.

Ireland was an uninspiring, dead, gray place in those days, and folks did their best not to stand out from the crowd; either in deed, in the way they acted in public, or the way they dressed.

Mostly the 'characters' I knew were single men, existing on tiny farms, or working as an unpaid laborer for 'jaw wages' on the family farm inherited by an older brother.

In my opinion, and I knew many of them; these chaps were the non-conformists of that time. They were rebels against the norms, harshly imposed by our parents / Wives / Clergy / and the utterly boring, soul destroying grayness of Ireland in the 1950s.

These characters had a desire to do something different, if just to relieve boredom, while these same desires were suppressed by 'normal' grown up people, and beaten out of the rest of us in school.
But, thankfully, our old characters were having none of that. With nary a wife nor living parent to answer to, they gave vent to their uniqueness, and didn't give a flying tiger what 'normal' folks thought.

A few 'characters' were exhibitionists; simple showmen crying out for an audience...any audience. They followed the beat of the their own drum, one they alone could hear. That did not make them 'quare in the head' as people (including a young me) said at the time, and mental illness was too harsh...and too broad a brush to describe them.

They are all passed on now to a greater reward, but I'm glad I knew them. They were a background to my childhood, and from them I learned a lot.

Don't be led by the nose.
March to your own drum.
Follow your dreams, and yes...it's okay to be different.

Bless them all.