"The Hands of Dingo Deery" by Patrick McCabe

"The Hands of Dingo Deery" by Patrick McCabe  (2002, 21 pages)

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One of my goals during Irish Short Story Week Year III is to read new to me Irish writers.   Patrick McCabe has been short listed two times for the Booker Prize, for Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto, both of which have been made into movies. ( I would have probably already read Butcher Boy if it were available as a kindle.)   My advance research indicated his work can be strange, almost psychedelic and "The Hands of Dingo Deery" sure lived up to that advance press!

It is set in Ireland.  It begins as an official statement of a detective inspector, Norman Jenkins, Willesden Police Station.   Willesden is located in North London and has a very large Irish population. Dermott Mooney has been arrested for assaulting a constable.   At first they think him a mad man, after all he did throw himself through the roof of a cinema.   He  requested he be given, he is in jail, an opera cape and some writing paper.  He has written the story of his life.  The inspector says "I defy all staff to read it and then think, 'all this man is fit for is punching policemen and drinking cans of McEwan's Export".   The rest of the work is the story of how one Dingo Deery ruined his life.

It looks like Dermot  has been in jail for years and it his story is flat out crazy for sure and tremendously fun to read and a darn sight difficult to figure out at times.  His story begins thirty years ago in the Irish midlands.  He used to spend his summers in the company of his uncle, a pretty well known ornithologist. He would accompany his uncle on lectures and help him with the projector and such.  The lectures go well and the man enjoys traveling around Ireland with him.  There is one problem only.  There is a man, Dingo Deery, who would show up wild eyed looking during some lectures and scream at his uncle that he knew nothing about birds and was good for nothing but beating up poor scholars.

This story is just so strange and so beautifully told I do not intend to retell more of it as I could not do justice to it anyway.  The story of how he wound up in jail is really a great one.   I read this in The Anchor Book of New Irish Writing edited by John Somer and John J. Daly.