There are no Ubers in the wilds of West Cork

My American guest kept telling me he was going to call an Uber and I could not persuade him that no Uber was going to appear in the wilds of West Cork. I assured him that the only taxi service I knew of was the local funeral director.

‘What? Will I have to go in a hearse?’ said the chap from Philadelphia, laughing. I agreed it was quirky, but the funeral director really was the only taxi. ‘I’ll take you dead or alive’ is his unofficial slogan.

The American laughed and laughed and texted his sons back in Philly to tell them the joke. It’s no joke, I thought, as I dialled the funeral home. The old boy answered after about 15 rings and asked me what I wanted in an accent so thick I could barely make out what he was saying. Having never rung him for a taxi – or indeed a funeral – I asked if this was the right number for the taxi.

‘No!’ he said. ‘No, no, not this number no.’ I apologised profusely but asked if he could do a taxi. ‘I’ve got to go to mass,’ he said. ‘Then I’ve got two burials.’ I asked about the rest of the week. ‘I’ve got two burials tomorrow…,’ he said. And he ran on about the number of burials he had each day all week until I thought he was going to start telling me who would be dying the week after.

‘You ring me Tueshday and I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. ‘And what number should I ring on?’ I asked. ‘Thish one,’ he said, as if that were obvious.

The American was sitting there with his mouth open. He started messing about with the internet again and found a large cab company purporting to be in business. We rang and got the following message in a jolly Irish accent: ‘For weddings press one! For airport transfers press two! For local journeys press three!’ We pressed three. ‘Due to the high demand for airport transfers and wedding cars, we are unable to offer local taxis! Goodbye!’

‘Honestly, it’s the funeral taxi or nothing,’ I told him. But he wouldn’t give up on looking for taxis on his phone. I tried to explain the internet hasn’t really taken off here yet. I tried to explain what rural Ireland is like. I made the point that this was what he had come for. This was the real deal. The stuff from the movies. 

‘Have you seen Waking Ned?’ He said he hadn’t. ‘Have you seen Father Ted?’ He said he hadn’t. ‘Bodkin?’ No. The only film he had seen about Ireland was Michael Collins with Liam Neeson, which he loved so much he had seen it four times.

He had been thrilled when, on the way back from picking him up from Cork train station, I drove via Beal na Blath and the builder boyfriend showed him the spot where Collins was assassinated.

The BB had stood with him by the roadside memorial chatting for ages as I sat in the car. ‘You gave him a good talk,’ I said later. ‘I got a bit carried away,’ said the BB. ‘I told him how they ambushed him as he came round the bend. I think that’s right. Then I started going on about who fired from where and the angle of the bullets, but he was enjoying it so much.’

The funeral director really was the only taxi. ‘I’ll take you dead or alive’ is his unofficial slogan

The BB went off to London to work the next day and it was down to me to entertain the American, who didn’t drive, couldn’t hire a car, and wouldn’t stop trying to call Ubers, because he had called them just fine in Dublin. Where else had he travelled? I asked him. He said he had recently toured South America where he had done hallucinogens in Peru and vomited up long-held traumas. I said: ‘Think of West Cork as less like Dublin and more like Peru, only without quite so much ayahuasca. Would you call an Uber in the rainforest?’ But he did not believe me, and kept on fiddling with his app on the front driveway. In the end, I offered to take him to Skibbereen and he could try to get an Uber back. He was happy with that and we got in the car with the dogs.

A neighbour was walking her dog towards us as we drove down the hill. ‘Hello Mary,’ I said pulling over to pass the time of day, which is important around here. I introduced my B&B guest.‘I’m dropping him in Skibb, and then he’s going to try to get an Uber back,’ I told her, because I knew this would be the best bit of gossip she would hear all day. She made a face as though I had spoken in Swahili, and I said: ‘He’s going to get a taxi, Mary.’ ‘Taxi?’ she said, still frowning. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Do you think he’ll get one?’ ‘Well…,’ she said, ‘I haven’t ever done anything like that…’ And she stared into the car at us like we had gone stark staring mad.

After dropping the American in Skibbereen, I took the dogs to the beach at Toe Head, then drove home. I was barely back ten minutes when I got a desperate message. Would I come and get him?

He got into the car shivering and said the damp had got to his bones. His teeth were chattering as he recounted his ordeal: ‘No phone network… went to a phone shop… rang taxi numbers… rang and rang… The app… didn’t work… even with wifi… nothing… there are no Ubers…’ ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Welcome to Ireland. Isn’t it wonderful?’