THERE'S ONLY JOHN GALLAHUE

In 1992 in the euphoria of the by-election for the federal seat of Wills, ALP Senator Nick Bolkus escorted me through the corridors of power to a meeting with that irrepressible Irish Australian larrikin Paul Keating, Prime Minister of Australia. In a flurry of colourful Bankstown expletives, Keating explained why he didn't like John Howard. I got the picture.

Gallahue's pipes are calling

A couple of years later the surrounds were starkly different when Gerry Adams explained why the Unionists had to embrace their nationalist neighbours. Taking their time, I thought, as I surveyed the bricked up window that had, before the mortar attack, offered an unambiguous view of the Falls Road. Crossing the path of the famous was one the great past times of being bumped into parliament.

But if I was looking for someone to share a beer at my local, the Cornish Arms in Sydney Road, Keating and Adams would have to play second fiddle to your man Gallahue. That's John Gallahue - world class bricklayer, raconteur, piper, County Limerick Fianna Fail councillor, publican and historian. Gallahue is a legend in Limerick. When I go to Ireland I head straight for his establishment in Main Street, Ballylanders.

In the wake of the tourist boom there are plastic Paddy pubs in abundance across Ireland. But Gallahue's the real thing. An hour with him offers a mixture of escapade and ribald journey through the proclivities of local marriages and the graphic horror of pitched battle against the invader.

Ninety-year-old Daniel O'Brien, another great story teller from the Boro Road, with Gallahue in 2000.

Nestled under the Galtees, Ballylanders is one of a cluster of beautiful and beguiling villages in south-east Limerick. Rich in republican history, it's a territory with an exotic history. The Galtees Anthology - edited by Gallahue - captures a great slice of this history. Descended from the Gallahues of the Boro Road, Anglesboro, whose people told the same stories and breathed the same air as my own family and that of Tain editor, Val Noone, John Gallahue is the epitome of a tribal elder.

Only the other day, James Hannigan from Sydney rang to say Gallahue had told him to contact me. 'He says we're related,' said the Ballylanders born Hannigan. A few days earlier, Eilis O'Hannagain (they use the Irish version of their name) rang from America with a similar story. Gallahue has organised a plaque to be placed on the Boro Road in tribute to Eilis' father, Donncadh O'Hannagain, who had led the flying column against the British during the war of independence.

An Irish speaker like so many of the people of the Galtees, O'Hannagain is celebrated in the book. The Land Leaguers, the Young Irelanders, poets, writers and warriors for the pope; they all come to life in Gallahue's beautiful book. And do make sure you have a copy in your hand when you take the road to Ballylanders. You won't regret it.