CHE POSTER. BLOG 1. ADDENDUM:
In my last blog, I talked about the visit of revolutionary leader Che Guevara to Kilkee, County Clare, his appearance in the bar of The Marine Hotel where I worked for a long summer, my brief discussion with him about the Irish diaspora in Latin America -and how that chance meeting inspired and affected me.
Years later I would produce the world-famous icon, the 1968 black and red ‘Viva Che’ poster, inspired by that meeting.
On my blog page, I showed a photograph of four people taken at the time in 1961 outside the Marine over 50 years ago and that’s now a story of its own.
THE TWILIGHT ZONE. KILKEE.1961.
Guess what?
A few days after publishing the first Che story blog, I got a phone call from that beautiful blonde teenager in the photo, Jill Clancy, now a grandmother herself.
Her daughter had seen my blog, loves my art but never knew I was the same ‘Jimmie FitzPatrick’ in the photo. When she called her mom and they shared the photo it all came back to the mom, Jill.
Next thing I got a call and there she was after all those years, still sounding the same and full of funny stories and great craic. We talked about those sunny days, filled with bright optimism when the world seemed to be set up for us all and it was so easy to relax and enjoy life with Kilkee sunny and warm with hardly any rain that entire summer.
All we were missing was California surf and the Beach Boys on soundtrack but in 1961 we had to settle for a geezer on the squeezebox singing Jim Reeves and Marty Robbins hits.
There are four of us in this photo;
Mike Williams, a Kilkee local and a really lovely guy who I always hung out with when I had time off. Next door to the Marine Hotel, where I worked as the barman and met Che Guevara, was his family hardware store. In 2013 when I visited Kilkee with Alieda Guevara, Che Guevara’s daughter, I had the pleasure of meeting his brother and was delighted to see the hardware store was still going strong.
I met Mike a few years later and we had a drink and a catch-up in Grogans Pub, a famous, original, and unspoiled remnant of the real Dublin.
Mary Sliney is the girl in the white jumper and Mike took to her big time. I remember her as a lovely, smart, gentle, soft-spoken girl and we loved her company.
Jill Clancy is the beautiful blond teenager beside me and was so striking we all referred to her as ‘Sandra Dee’, the American teenage movie star whose image was plastered in every teen magazine in the early 60s.
I have to admit I had a dreadful crush (I was only 16 and all over the place) and spent as much time as I could with her, always in the company of the two others.
Her dad even took us all on a trip to a secluded beach away from the hustle and bustle of Kilkee for a day.
As we lay on the warm sand our eyes met, then our lips…
eh…sorry, I made that bit up.
True love never ran that smoothly for me back then. I was a virgin novice without a damn clue.
Anyway, it was a fabulous surprise to hear from my teenage crush in Kilkee, even if it was only 60 years ago 🙂
A few years ago History Ireland magazine ran a story on the creation of the Che poster and the following issue had a letter from a historian who claimed I was never in Kilkee, which I found ludicrous and part of the reason for me putting the entirety of the story down in writing.
I was in Kilkee with my good friend from Gormanston College days, Gilbert Brosnan, who lives up the hill in Howth near me and we still meet frequently.
My son Redmond always films stuff when he is home and he has a superb interview with Gilbert recorded detailing the arrival of Che in the Marine and his own colorful memories of that period.
Not only that, I have that great photo of the four of us right outside the Marine, I do have another photo Jill’s dad and two other guests and behind them, myself and the female manager on the bench and Jill behind, all on the front lawn of the Marine Hotel, Kilkee in 1961.
Across the road was the twice weekly Kilkee bus which, if I remember correctly, rested in that spot beside the petrol station on a Sunday and left on Monday morning.
I think that all proves pretty conclusively that I was actually in Kilkee for that entire summer from June, through July and all August of 1961.
I hitchhiked to my aunt Mary in Ennis, got fed, then hitched to Limerick and got the train to Dublin around the 4th September that year.
PS. Any comedians commenting on my rather overdone bebop ducksass hairstyle will be banned for life and cursed to suffer from runny pustules forever.
You have been warned.