Take a time out to meet Chantal de Champignon

Country Living with Francis Farragher

There’s a certain peace about pottering around the house early on a Sunday morning with the main chores to be ticked off the list, only stretching to feeding the dog and shoving a couple of slices of Irish Pride into the toaster.

If the few pints on a Saturday night end up not staying ‘a few’ it can knock the freshness from the morning but with the passing Summers, the realisation has gradually dawned that ‘too much’ tends to equate with ‘too much grief’ when it comes to wakey, wakey time.

Anyway the old alcohol lecture is over for another day, and I’m still waiting to pass my final exam on that one, but a few weeks back on a slightly groggy Sunday morning, I tuned into Kevin Rohan on Galway Bay FM, for the usual mix of ballads and traditional stuff.

Kevin, from Colmanstown country near Monivea, is a gifted fiddle player as well as being a good traditional singer too and for decades he was the front man of a band called Rodney’s Glory that played in pubs and carnivals all across Connacht.

The same Sunday morning, there wasn’t a whole pile to laugh about given the slightly later than normal return from the watering hole with even the dog in a kind of grumpy humour at the back door.

Then Kevin Rohan spoke a few words about a singer/songwriter called Brian O’Rourke who I had never heard of before and he asked for a bit of patience for the upcoming song at it was a bit on the long side.

I was bracing myself for an old ‘come-all-ye’ and thought it might be a good time to feed the dog but I gave the first verse a chance and over 13 minutes later, I was in stiches laughing at the story of Chantal de Champignon.

All I can say is that if you’re ever feeling a bit on the cantankerous side or even slipping into any of those melancholic moods that occasionally descend on most of us, listen to this song. If you’re not smiling at the end of it, then there is a real need to seek more professional help.

Chantal de Champignon is the tale of a West of Ireland farmer who falls head over heels in love with ‘a young one’ from France – and she with him too, but alas only for a week. When she returns to France and takes stock, the poor farmer is left with nothing but memories, albeit pretty good ones.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.