Well, a certain person challenged me. And, since I'm never one to run away from challenges, I responded. 
However, I should point out that certain people might want to be wary of issuing challenges to me again! 
Anyone bemused by certain aspects in this story, the Irish language aside, might like to check out posts by Sara in this thread .Póg mo Thón, Sara!“So remind me, Clark. Just what are we doing here?”
Clark glanced across at his partner and best friend, and grinned. “Here, as in...”
“As in, in this poky little car on this dirt road in the back of beyond, where they *claim* to speak English but all the signs are in a foreign language!” Lois grumbled.
“And remind *me*, Lois, where you spent your exchange year in high school?” Clark pointed out, just a touch of amusement in his voice.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. In Ireland. Cead mile fáilte and all that,” she conceded. “But I was in Dublin. That’s a city! Well, okay, not much of a city compared to Metropolis, but it’s not a... throwback to the middle ages like this is! I mean, look what happened two miles back! We had to *wait* while some ancient farmer and his dog herded a bunch of cows across the road!”
“Herd, Lois,” Clark pointed out.
“I said herded!”
“I know. It’s a herd of cattle, not a bunch of cows. And anywhere, this isn’t the back of beyond. We’re only about twenty-five miles from Limerick. And that’s Ireland’s third-largest city.”
“And that’s another thing,” Lois retorted. “Miles? These signposts don’t count in miles! They're all in KM!”
“Kilometres, Lois. It’s metric. They use it in Europe.”
“I do know what kilometres are, Kent!" she said scathingly. "And they're not used throughout Europe, either - they're certainly not used in England! The point is, it's not as if they're even consistent over here - the speed limit signs are in miles per hour!" she finished, pulling a face.
Lois was in a grumpy mood. Clark had suspected as much ever since they'd got off the plane. But he decided that his best strategy was to ignore it. She'd snap out of it quicker that way - or, at least, so he hoped!
“Anyway,” Clark said, “I need you to keep a look-out for signs for Newport, okay? The directions we got say we need to turn off there.”
“That’s okay, as long as the signs are in English,” Lois grumbled again.
“Well, all right, look out for Phort Nua or something like that, too,” Clark suggested. “If my rudimentary Irish is still any use, that should be about right.”
“You speak Irish too?” Lois exclaimed, sounding incredulous. “Just how many languages do you speak?”
He shrugged. “Define ‘speak’. I can order dinner in 357. Anyway,” he added, “I roomed for one semester with an Irish guy over in Kansas on an exchange. He taught me some Irish. So I can say Dia Dhuit and go raibh míle maith agat and slán leat and coladh sábh, but I don’t remember much more than that.”
“I won’t even ask you to translate any of that,” Lois said sceptically. “It all sounded like a load of cuss-words to me!”
“Hardly!” Clark said, chuckling. “Although I should warn you that the Irish aren’t exactly saints when it comes to bad language. Declan - my roommate - told me that in some parts of the country the f-word is used as punctuation. It sounded crazy, but he says it’s quite normal - nobody bats an eyelid!”
“Weird country,” Lois observed.
“Any weirder than our own?” Clark queried. “Where else in the world would a former B-movies actor be elected president? Or where can you get married, or drive a car, but still not be old enough to have a drink? Or would you find drive-through weddings? Or a state which still has a law on the books saying that no monster taller than 200 feet can attack the city - that’s in Michigan, by the way - or is it illegal to take a poodle to the opera or fish in your pyjamas -”
“Okay, okay! Uncle!” Lois exclaimed, laughing. “I get the message!”
“Okay, so we left Shannon Airport - what, 45 minutes ago?” Clark said, glancing at his watch. “Perry’s contact said it should be no more than an hour’s drive.”
“Yeah, but was that taking the state of the roads into account?” Lois asked sceptically. “I mean, since we came off that highway we’ve seen nothing but potholes held together by tiny strips of asphalt!”
“It’s not that bad. Anyway, remember, Perry’s contact lives around here someplace. He’s the editor of the Nenagh Guardian. So he knows what the roads are like.”
“I suppose,” Lois agreed. “Okay. So, according to this guy, there’ve been some strange apparitions in this place... what’s it called again?”
“Farneigh.”
“Another weird name.” Lois wrinkled her nose. “And... apparitions? I mean, who believes any of that stuff these days?”
“Well, hundreds, if not thousands, of people swear on anything you like that they saw a statue of the Virgin Mary move in a place called Ballinspittle back in 1985,” Clark said thoughtfully. “And no-one was able to find a scientific explanation for it.”
“Mass hysteria?” Lois suggested scornfully.
“Not over a period of months, I don’t think. Anyway,” he added, “Ballinspittle’s only about sixty miles south of here. Want to go and see for yourself?”
“No, thank you,” she said smartly. “Let’s just get this over with!”
********
The sign for Newport was around the very next bend. Lois directed Clark to take it, and was irritated to see that the roads got worse as they turned onto the more minor road. No doubt they would deteriorate once more as soon as they turned off for Farneigh. And no doubt this was going to be one huge wild goose chase.
<Apparitions, my foot!> she thought. Why on earth had Perry taken this guy seriously enough to send them all the way to Ireland over such a crazy story? Okay, it wasn’t that she didn’t like the idea of visiting Ireland, but she would really prefer to go somewhere like Dublin or Galway or Cork - or maybe tour around Connemara or Donegal to see some scenery. Not driving down country roads in the middle of Tipperary, dodging cows and sheep and god only knew what else!
Suddenly, she became aware of a sound - a very irritating sound, close by. Clark was whistling.
“*What* are you doing?” she demanded.
He stopped whistling, but gave her a wounded look. “What? I can’t whistle now?”
“Not if you want to stay alive until we get there!”
“Okay, I’ll sing, then,” he said, grinning, and promptly did.
“It’s a long way to Tipperary,
It’s a long way to go.
It’s a long way to Tipperary, to the sweetest girl I know...”
“Clark!”
Lois thumped his arm so hard that he actually lost control of the car for a brief moment.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded. “I can’t sing now either?”
“You can’t sing anyway! And anyway, we’re *in* Tipperary! It’s hardly a long way from here!”
“Okay, so how about I sing instead?” he said infuriatingly.
“At the ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle long ago
I met a pretty cailín who set me heart a-glow
She was smiling at her daddy buying lambs from Paddy Roe
At the ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle - O!”
“Clark!” Lois screeched. “Whoever told you you could sing... they lied!”
He laughed. “Okay. Pax! And anyway, isn’t that the turn-off for Farneigh?”
*********
They’d finally arrived, and were walking into the small hotel cum pub the Planet’s travel agent had booked for them, the Dancing Leprechaun. The sign outside showed a grinning little sprite carrying a crock of gold. Clark saw Lois roll her eyes as they passed it.
“Looks like cheesiness gets everywhere in the world,” she said, pulling a face. “That has to be for tourists - there’s no way the locals would put up with it otherwise, surely?”
Clark shrugged, pushing the door open.
The lobby was small, with a reception desk set at one end. A young woman, dressed in a bright green outfit, smiled warmly as they entered. “Céad míle fáilte romhat!” she carolled. “Have yous come far, at all, at all?”
This really was beginning to look like something out of the set of a very bad Hollywood movie, Clark thought. He approached the desk, reading the receptionist’s name-tag as he did. “Hi there, Aiss-ling,” he pronounced awkwardly.
“That’s pronounced Ashling, sorr,” she explained. “Ah, shure, but how would a nice American gentleman be expected to know that? You’re booked in for the night, are you, at all?”
“Yes - two rooms in the name of Lane and Kent,” Lois said crisply. “And we’d also like directions to wherever it is that this... apparition’s been seen.”
“Ah, now, that’ll be just a soft mile down the road,” Aisling said. “Just drive along the boreen until you come to Paddy Flaherty’s farm. You don’t want to take the road there. You want to drive on until you see another turning by Dineen’s pub. Now, don’t take that one either. You want the second turning after that. And just up the top of the lane there you’ll see the ancient Druid. Shure, he appears every night after dark.”
“Oh, sure,” Lois muttered; Clark jabbed her with his elbow.
“Thank you very much, Aisling,” he said politely.
“Beidh fáilte romhat,” she said perkily, pushing two keys across the counter to them. “Agus go n’éirí an bother leat.”
Lois grabbed Clark’s arm, dragging him away from the desk. “Five minutes. Then we go.”
He shrugged. “Okay!”
**********
This was totally ridiculous, Lois thought as she tried to remember Aisling’s directions. Druids! And sacrifices! In the 1990s! Did Perry think that she was born yesterday?
Finally, they reached the lane. It was really just a farm track, full of ruts and puddles; Lois grimaced at the thought of what the mud, when they finally got out, would do to her expensive shoes. And as for the state of the car... the Nissan Micra, or whatever it was called, which wouldn’t even be classed as a sub-compact in the US, was so tiny that every time the car bumped over a rut she got thrown against the door *and* the dashboard.
She was never coming back to Ireland unless it was to a city. And in a decent car!
“Here we are,” Clark said. She could see that for herself; a small crowd of people waited at the edge of a field.
They got out of the car and joined the crowd. And then Lois’s jaw dropped.
In the middle of the field stood a tall figure in a druid’s costume. In front of him - or it - was a small arrangement of stones. And on top of those stones lay a figure in white, long dark hair splayed out around the woman’s hair.
And the druid was holding a long knife poised over the woman’s heart.
“This can’t be happening!” Lois whispered to Clark.
“Ciuin!” someone next to her hissed. “Whisht!”
“Be quiet,” Clark translated.
The druid began to incant something; Lois couldn’t even make out the words, though she was sure that she wouldn’t have understood them anyway. And then suddenly the hand holding the knife descended swiftly.
And, just as suddenly, the knife was snatched away by a figure in blue and red.
“Superman... here?” Lois gasped.
Superman paid no attention, even if he’d heard her. He seized the druid, tying him up in his own robes, and then turned his attention to the young woman on the stones, ripping apart the ropes binding her. “Are you all right?” he asked, concerned.
But she lashed out at him. “What do you think you’re *doing*, you great lump? This was none of your business! Go on - get lost! Ní dhéanfach an saol capall rás d'asal!”
Superman blinked. “Huh? Horses... ass...”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “You can’t make a racehorse out of an ass. Though I bet you’d try. Asal! What are you still doing here, anyway? Shure, if you came to a weddin’ you’d stay for the christening!”
“I don’t understand!” Superman protested. “I just saved your life. And you’re calling me an ass?”
“I’ll call you a lot worse if you don’t get lost and leave us alone!” she yelled.
“Sara!” the druid yelled. “It’s not his fault, a mhuirnín! He didn’t know!”
“Know what?” Superman asked, bemused.
“It’s all a game, Superman!” the druid protested. “Look, Sara’s my girlfriend -”
“I am not!” she objected.
“You are so! You said, if I played out this druid fantasy of yours for five nights running, then you’d go out with me! And sure isn’t this the fifth night?”
Sara rolled her eyes. “I suppose so. More fool me!”
Lois turned to Clark. “I told you it was all -” she began - then she noticed that Clark was nowhere in sight. “Clark?” she called. Trust her partner to get himself lost at the crucial moment!
“I’m here, Lois,” he announced, jogging up to her.
“Where’ve you been? Oh, never mind - look at that!” She glanced back at Superman and the two young Irish people, indicating the scene to Clark. But Superman had vanished.
“Superman was just here... where’d he go?” she said wonderingly.
Clark shrugged. “Guess he had to get back to Metropolis.”
She pulled a face. “Typical! And now, wasn’t I right all along?”
“Sea,” Clark said unintelligibly.
“Huh?”
“Irish for yes.” He waved his hand towards the arrangement of stones, and to Sara and her would-be boyfriend. “You know, all this reminds me of a saying Declan taught me... something like ‘is ait an mac a’saol, agus is mó cor agus iompair a bhaineann sé as duine ó bhais go bhás.’ Something like that, anyway.”
Pulling a face, Lois asked, “What on earth does that mean?!”
Clark grinned. “The short version is ‘life is strange’. The rest has something to do with there being many twists and turns between birth and death, or along those lines, anyway.”
“The Irish always did know how to turn a phrase,” Lois mused aloud. “I mean, Joyce, Yeats, Sheridan, Wilde... it’s got to be in the genes in this country. Or maybe it’s got something to do with the state of the roads. If you can’t go anywhere, maybe you just stay in and write.”
Clark laughed, then slung his arm around her shoulder. “Let’s get back to the hotel. We can call the airport and see if we can change our flight to the morning. Unless...” he added, trailing off thoughtfully.
“Unless...?”
“Unless you’d like to make use of the couple of days we have left to see a bit of Ireland?” he suggested. “You know, we’re not far at all from Cork. Or Blarney Castle, if you’d like to kiss the Blarney Stone... not that you really need to, at all, at all, Lois,” he added, teasing.
She thumped him. “Tell you what, though,” she said. “If you take me to Killarney, I might even let you sing that Tipperary song again. Only once, mind.”
He grinned. “I think I can live with that!”
~ The End ~
Postscript for Sara:Is fada an bóthar nach mbíonn casadh ann, agus níl aon suáilce gan a duáilce féin. Mair, a chapaill, agus gheobhaidh tú féar.(Challenge: translate that!
)
