Occasionally I surprise even myself. I told ye here a month ago that if the summer turned in any way wet and dreary that we always deploy a Plan B to boost both the spirits and the economy.

The weather kinda broke down a fortnight ago, and a splendid mutation of Plan B was instantly launched in the County Limerick. I hugely admire the canny twist on the original moving statues plan because this year, as you all have doubtless heard by now, the excitement which is drawing countless thousands in their droves to the district of Rathkeale is a tree stump bearing the likeness of Our Lady.

Some lads were cutting down a tree, it seems, and as the tree crashed down She appeared. It is always brilliant.

The stump does indeed look like the Madonna in the photographs I've seen. There are plenty of these in the papers these days, and it is all so nostalgic. It brings back the most famous of the moving statues in the grotto outside Ballinspittle.

In all the shots there are huge crowds gathered around the (motionless) stump, candles are burning, heads are bent and you can almost hear the endless rosaries and other prayers up here in Clare.

The Sunday papers today revealed the most fervent of the pilgrims and the locals are now organizing 24-hour protection for the special stump. It will stay powerfully in the headlines until the weather improves at least, and there is no sign of that happening this week.

You will note I have not traveled to the site myself. I bow to nobody in my respect and love for our Blessed Mother, but I have my doubts about these things.

I also happen to know there are a lot of merry rascals in this neck of the woods, and I have my suspicions. I won't go near Rathkeale anytime soon.

Furthermore, despite the fear that my hands will fall off as I write this, I have always been somewhat critical of Our Lady's style of communicating with Her children down the centuries.

In Knock and Lourdes and Fatima and Gaudalupe and that Medugorje place I cannot even spell properly, why is it, I ask, that the sightings and messages from above are delivered either to small, simple children who do not have the capacity to subsequently clearly deliver them, or to adults with similar difficulties?

Surely, for best effect, they should be delivered to powerful, articulate people like the Pope or President Obama or Nelson Mandela? Bono or Bob Geldof or Archbishop Desmond Tutu, for example, would also be splendid ambassadors for such messages.

All that, though, is beside the main point. Plan B has been deployed again in the rain, Rathkeale and Limerick are benefiting hugely from the influx of visitors, souls are being uplifted and cleansed even as the tills ring merrily in the region. It is all for a worthy cause.

And further meandering...

I'm crossing the street in the resort of Ballybunion below in Kerry on a dry, sultry evening 10 days ago, the sea is calm and the resort lively, and I hear the strains of a song I co-wrote with brother Mickey coming out of McMunn's splendid eatery and drinkery, and better still it is being rendered by Mickey himself and his friend Jim. And it sounds grand.

With me are the other brothers Cathal and Sean, and it is rarely we all get together these days. We had been trying to track down Mickey in the resort and had been told to try McMunn's because he regularly plays there. And there he was.

We had a mighty evening and three thereafter too, a mighty summer singsong, all joining in, including my son Dara who was with his father and uncles for another technical reason as well.

We dined magnificently, and through the later evening I forgot to ask our host Greg Ryan if the McMunn name above the door hailed from Co. Sligo. I've never yet met a McMunn who did not have Sligo blood.

I asked Mickey later, but all he knew was that the proprietor is a Tony McMunn, largely based in the States, a colorful character who once served as a helicopter gunner in Vietnam. Some men lead interesting lives.

Anyway, the main reason the brothers came together was to record a special CD for our growing band of grandchildren so they will have something to remember us by. Daughter Ciara and niece Kerry joined us during the recording in Mickey's studio, and Dara was the recording engineer.

The fare was as much oral family history as it was music, and I have to say that the younger generation present were shocked to the core when they learned they were descended not just from us, but from ancestors who included Stuttering Mickey, the Grumbling Barney Paddy Me Arse and Johnny Woods, the world's first hang-glider!

They were all pale-faced when we were finished, but it was great craic and hopefully the grandchildren will relish it in time and season.

The other reason we were together was because Cathal was being honored by his peers at the Willie Clancy Summer School above in Miltownmalbay on the following Tuesday. We all met up again there and it was very touching and heartwarming indeed.

Our gentle zany brother, we discovered quickly, is so loved by his fellow musicians that the hall was packed with an audience drawn from all over Ireland -- especially Fermanagh -- and Scotland and all points in between.

There was a lively two-hour concert of music and song. At the close he invited his three brothers to join him on stage for a couple of songs.

Going up there I remembered the remark of his father Sandy when we gathered around his deathbed.  He was witty. 

"How are you four small lads going to carry my coffin at all? Sure the four of you wouldn't make one good man!"

We stood in an ageing grey line around our brother and we sang our hearts out and we got a standing ovation at the end. It was Cathal's, but we all claimed our share of it and were happy. 

And a last meandering...

I'm just back from the Munster Hurling Final and I'm knackered but uplifted again. It was a magnificent exhibition of all that is best in the fastest ball game in the world.

Tipperary won in the end and are good enough to give kingpins Kilkenny a real big challenge come September, but my heart went out to the fiery flying Waterford forward John Mullane who opened his account with a goal in the first couple of minutes, scored a rake of points later and, though bleeding and battered, was still flying at the end. Such fireballs should never finish on the losing side.

It is time for sleeping.