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Brian Boru was possibly the first and definitely the last king of all the Irish. After his demise in the early eleventh century, Ireland self-fractured and remains that way a thousand years later. The lines of demarcation are different now, but the island rubs against itself in distinct pieces still.
In spite of a large and ominous – you've seen their hats - Viking presence and a fair amount of armed dissent among his fellow Celtic warrior kings, Boru unified all the peoples of the lower two-thirds of the island under his rule. In fact, his popularity so visceral and his legend so golden that his northern rival, a King Malachy, of his own volition allowed Boru to annex his own kingdom peacefully. No small feat, that. It might have been a millennium ago, but it is the Irish we’re discussing.
This Brian Boru Irish Pub sits where Portland’s residential melts unevenly into its commercial, overlooking the bay. I decided I would amend the agreement. Before I put on my Kooks’ hat and entered the bar to pretend to read my newspaper, I was going to park, sit in the lot and see who entered the pub at the appointed hour.
I figured I stood a pretty good chance of knowing the woman when I saw her, if for no other reason than she chose a place to which she could walk. Her reticence to identify herself suggested she’d have on an inconspicuous disguise, too.
As the lunch crowd filled in the unlined parking spaces around me, I watched a young woman. Sunglasses Barbra would kill for, a kerchief and a raincoat over pressed jeans and heels, she walked up the hill towards the pub. Head down and gliding purposefully, she passed right in front of me.
I stayed in the car for a while to make sure no one trailed her. Hell, if Fintan O’Keefe weren’t safe in the house of the High King of all the Irish, where would he be safe? I put on my cap and followed her in.
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