Perhaps we'll go to Galway next week. If we don't make it all the way to Galway we can stop in a field and start building a new Galway. This is how my uncle Billy created Dublin in 1972. He was on his way to Dublin to see a man about a dog. He was still fifty miles away from his destination when he stopped in a field to sleep. Billy could sleep for a week. This was because he'd get into long arguments with everyone he met in his sleep. He'd get into long arguments with everyone he met when he was awake as well, but real people would never argue with him for longer than six or seven hours.
   He slept in the field for five days. When he woke up he found that someone had built timber walls and an iron roof around him. He decided to make this the new Dublin and he'd wait for the man with the dog to come to him. Many people joined him in his new Dublin over the following weeks. One of the newcomers was a man called Tim. Every time he was struck by lightning, he'd dance. He was struck by lightning three or four times every week. On cold nights, people would crowd around him for the heat after he was struck. They were liable to get kicked by his dancing feet, but a good kick in the head only helped keep out the cold.
   Billy was often woken from his sleep by a kick from Tim, so he decided it was time to expand Dublin. He built more rooms in the field. The town kept growing, and the influx of Dubliners gathered pace. It took three years for the man with the dog to arrive. Billy decided not to buy the dog. The man and the dog stayed in the new Dublin. Billy went back home to Limerick, but when he got there, everyone had gone to the new Limerick. Billy stayed in the old Limerick because there was no one there to disturb his sleep. In his dreams he populated the abandoned city with people who never tired of arguing with him.