The taxi cab operators of Dingle, County Kerry, Ireland are a highly successful lot having made all the money they can use before 8:00 o'clock on a drippy Saturday evening full of tourists in need of a ride back to their bed and breakfast. There actually is no taxi cab company in Dingle. The service, when it is offered, is performed by locals out to earn a bit of cash for another pint but certainly not as the sole source of income to provide for their families.
And so it was that we found ourselves looking for all the world like the lost lambs we were as we forlornly searched the dark empty streets for the cabs the hotel clerk promised would be at the corner by the bridge, the very place at which we now stood. No such conveyance was in sight. The not quite freezing drizzle enveloped us to make sure we would be truly grateful for the warmth of our shelter for the night if only we could somehow get there.
We three pilgrims had left the concert early not because the Irish music was bad but more because we didn’t want to be engulfed in the crowd at the end of the performance. The music was fine. The crowd was fine. The inside of Saint James’ Church was warm and dry with surprisingly good acoustics for a building that old. The pew on which we sat at the very back of the hall was as comfortable as any hard, wooden bench in any ancient structure anywhere on Earth but my ancient bones were not as well suited to this seat as they might be to an overstuffed easy chair near a glowing fireplace in a cozy little bar inside Milltown House. Consequently, we nodded to each other and simultaneously stood up at the end of the song being played then made our way outside, down the alley, across the street and into the hotel where we had been assured transportation could be arranged. The hotel clerk could not have been more accommodating as she called the taxi service on our behalf. After she hung up the phone, she informed us our taxi would not be forthcoming. She told us to turn right after exiting the hotel and walk over to the bridge where we would certainly find a cab happy to take us wherever we wished to go short of Belfast. Right.
As we wondered what to do next while we stood at the appointed spot near the bridge, a man approached from the other side of the street. I asked him if he knew where we might catch a taxi. He informed us we were indeed in the right place and a cab would surely come along sooner or later. He walked onward to his pickup truck and got in. After a minute, he got out of his truck and shouted to us that he had called his father who would be there quickly to pick us up. Then he got back in his vehicle and drove away.
Within two or three minutes, another pickup truck replaced the one that had just left and the driver motioned us over as he held the door open. We walked to the truck and got in. It never occurred to us that we just might be participating in our own kidnapping or some other chicanery. Stupid Americans and gullible. We were stupid and gullible but fortunate to be in the company of an honorable and generous Irishman. We didn’t even need to tell him where we were going because he recognized us from earlier in the day. Our tour group had visited his factory, The Dingle Crystal Company, that morning. The driver, Sean, dropped us off at the front door of our residence du jour and refused to accept any payment only adding further evidence of the affluence of Dingle’s taxi cab operators. God bless them each and every one.