Back in 2007, when I accompanied the wife and her family to my step-daughters wedding in Ireland, we did a whirlwind tour of the country.
The step-daughter got married at Sligo Castle in County Sligo. Well, it was mainly just ceremonial. She got married in Texas so the groom’s family could be there, then we went to Ireland because her father always wanted to visit so she held her wedding there giving him the opportunity to do so. We then spent the next week or so traveling around Ireland.
We made a stop in Galway, where we stayed at the Radisson Hotel. Since I travel light I was the first into the hotel. While waiting for the rest of the group to show up, I was standing in the lobby looking at the decor.
A man came around the corner and started walking towards me. I wasn’t focused on him though. Two small black dogs, maybe Scottish terriers, I don’t know for sure, came around the corner following him. My attention immediately went to the dogs. I was in a foreign country, I wasn’t as sociable as I am now, and I missed my own dogs, who were all the way back in Texas.
I almost turned to ask the guy if they were his dogs but he was walking past me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him.
Then he wife arrived in the lobby. I had to turn to wave her over, and then it hit me. That guy who just walked past looked a lot like Jeremy Irons. I turned back around and he had just walked outside and was turning a corner, his two little dogs trailing behind him.
“I think that was Jeremy Irons” I said to the wife.
“Who?”
“Jeremy Irons. You know, the actor.”
“What have I seen him in?”
“Lots of things, but do you remember The Man In The Iron Mask? The scene at the beginning when Porthos is talking to Aramis about nothing being so sublime as a plump pink nipple between your lips?”
“He was Porthos?”
“No, he was the priest, Aramis.”
“Oh.”
The next morning while having breakfast, someone left the local newspaper siting on a table near us. I picked it up and was looking through it when I came across an article. Jeremy Irons was visiting a local school’s music festival. There was a photo of him holding a violin and he was wearing the same clothes he had when he walked past me. I showed the photo to the wife.
“That was Jeremy Irons I saw yesterday.”
“That’s nice.”
Well, I thought it was cool.
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