Erindipity Column No 2

Sunday Tribune

Longest distance
sailed down the
Amazon in a bath tub

MICHAEL Flatley may be light on his
feet but he can never be accused of
mincing – least of all his words.
Last week the all-man, superheroboxing-
champ dancer caused ripples
on either side of the Atlantic when he
launched a broadside on the new
Ireland. He told the US Ireland Forum
that:
A:) the Celtic Tiger is NOT dead
B:) we are in danger of losing our
identity and
C:) we need to shed the old image of
Ireland being a land of drunken
leprechauns urinating outdoors on St
Patrick’s Day.
Now, some may say this leprechaun
remark is ironic coming from a man
who looks like he bathes in Lucozade
and makes his money from dressing
up as an oily Celtic warrior, flailing his
legs all over the shop. (The image is all
the more arresting when you consider
that he does this while fingering his
flute.)
Erindipity does not subscribe to this
view. Michael Flatley is a National
Treasure who promotes our culture
worldwide. He is also right: we need to
ditch the leprechaunism and appear
more dynamic while retaining our
Irishness. That quirky, eccentric,
adventurous quality that made him,
for example, the...
Fastest tap dancer in the world
When he recorded a phenomenal
speed of 35 taps per second in 1998 at
the age of 39.
His remarkable feat with taps got
us thinking about a number of other
Irish people with unusual connections
to bathroom items. Two that spring to
mind are Mr Ahern and the Bertie
‘Bowl’ stadium project that went
down the toilet in 2002, and ‘Lino’
Ritchie and his Finglas flooring
showroom. James Joyce is another
one: he was the first writer to put the
word ‘loo’ in print. (Short for
‘Waterloo’, in Ulysses). There’s also
Dubliner Robert Dowling and the
bath he sailed down the Amazon.
Please do not adjust your glasses,
you did read that correctly. We’ll come
to Rob presently, but let us introduce
you first to Violet Jessop, who is the...

Most unSinkable woman ever

In 1903, Irishwoman Violet set sail for
England to become a stewardess on
the White Star Line. This career path
was to lead to her being forever
chained to the word ‘sink’.
During her years at sea, Violet was
present at two maritime disasters and
one close call. By a strange
coincidence, the ships she was
working on at the time were the ‘three
sisters’ of Harland and Wolff’s
‘Olympic Class’.
On 20 September 1911, Violet was
on board the Olympic when it collided
with the warship, HMS Hawke, off the
Isle of Wight. The latter was nearly
capsized and the Olympic was
seriously damaged, but miraculously
no one was killed.
The following April she transferred
to the Olympic’s sister ship which was
(cue drum roll) – the Titanic, which
sank mid-Atlantic on 14 April 1912.
Violet survived and word spread of
her habit of being on board boats that
crashed. Therefore, it must have been
a case of ‘brown trouser time’ for the
sea dogs of the Brittannic when they
saw her boarding their ship in 1916.
True to form, on 21 November, the
ship struck a mine in the Aegean, with
the loss of 28 lives. Once again Violet
found herself in a lifeboat thanking
her good luck – until she realised her
small vessel was being drawn towards
the ship’s propellers.
She leapt out of the boat and was
immediately sucked under the
surface, banging her head on the keel.
Was this the end of our intrepid
heroine? Was she sinkable after all?
Nope. Violet still refused to sink and
was saved by another lifeboat. She
went on to live to the venerable age of
84.
While Violet Jessop’s life story
revolved around sinks, Robert
Dowling’s will forever be synonymous
with bath tubs.
Huge-hearted Rob can boast that
he travelled the ...

Longest distance ever
in a bath tub

In May 2006 the Donabate man set
sail from the town of Iquitos, Peru, in
a plastic bath. His plan was to travel
single-handedly down the 5,471km
Amazon – through Colombia and
Brazil – to raise money for Temple
Street children’s hospital. His
singular craft – should you ever wish
to attempt this yourself – was housed
in a steel frame supported by
stabiliser tanks and powered by a
15hp outboard engine. But let’s not get
carried away with the technical
details – this was still a bath and the
only thing preventing his bottom from
getting nibbled by piranhas and water
snakes etc.
The bath idea came to Rob 25 years
earlier when he was chatting to
friends about what mad thing they all
wanted to do before they die. Usually,
these type of conversations never
make it past closing time, but with a
lot of planning and a large dollop of his
own cash, he was on his way.
The journey, undertaken with
tinned food, a GPS unit, satellite
photos and maps, started off well. The
Peruvians had taken a shine to our
naval hero and he enjoyed a relatively
trouble-free run until he reached
Colombia. There he had to contend
with the threat of running foul of
ruthless rebel group, Farc. Travelling
as quietly as he could by night, he
stole by their campfires and
continued into Brazil.
It was here, unfortunately, that his
plans went down the plug hole. But it
wasn’t a rebel or a hungry fish that
ended Rob’s journey – it was a
bureaucrat.
After travelling 804kms down the
river he was told that he couldn’t
continue because he didn’t have a
licence for his bathtub.
Picture the scene: Irishman in a
bath accosted by little man with a
clipboard and a peaked cap:
Rob: “Morning.”
Bureaucrat: “Morning.”
R: “Looks like rain.” (Smiles).
B (snootily): “Well, you are in a rain
forest. Do you have a licence for this...”
(waves clipboard in direction of bathtub)
“...vehicle? Sub-section C,
paragraph One of the Amazonian
river code clearly states that all
motorised bath-tubs must be licensed.
It’s the law, you know.”
R: “No.”
B: “Would you mind stepping out of
the vehicle, sir?”
R: “Yes, I would mind.”
B: “Why?”
R: “Because we’re in the middle of a
river...”
And so ended – if not exactly in
those words – Rob’s journey.
However, the adventure doesn’t
stop there. He is currently making
plans to return and retrieve his tub
from Colombia and is looking for
funds (Michael Flatley are you
reading this?). He’s also planning his
next trip down the Amazon to raise
funds for disadvantaged South
American children – on a jet-ski.
Rob was presented with a ‘Best of
Irish Award’ by Bertie Ahern for
promoting the nobler side of our
Hibernian nature. He then dropped
off the nation’s radar. Erindipity
believes it’s now time to honour him
properly. Dublin City Council should
erect a statue of him on O’Connell
Street and we could nickname it ‘Roba-
Dub-in-a-Tub’.
Michael ‘Taps’ Flatley is bound to
approve of any move to applaud such
a true Irishman. If we had more
people like Rob we could easily shed
the ‘urinating-leprechauns’ image.
After all, who wants to be known as
the ‘wee’ people?