Stuff Out There

 

Eolas ar an Dúlra (Donncha Sheamais)

"Má tá smacht again le trí fiched blian ar ár gcóras scolaíochta fóin, conas gur sa trí fichid bliain úd a tháinig an meath agus an daille go léir ar ár n-eolas ar an saol timpeall orainn. An “timpeallacht” b’fhéidir a bheadh ag an nduine thall air. Is cuma san. Tuigimid go léir cad ta I gceist agus ná habradh éinne ná táinig an meath. Do tháinig agus tá a riain air mar chomh fada agus a chím agus a chloisim, ní aithneodh leanbh an lae inniu an chopóg ó dhríoscar na gcloch...Ní lú mar a aithneodh siad an bheach mheala ón mbeach ghabhair ná an eithleán ón bhféileacán..."

"Na daoine riamh anall ar chuimhin liom iad agus a bheadh anois idir an céad agus céad go leith blain cá bhfuaireadar a n-eolas ar an dtimpeallacht nó cé hiad na múinteiri do theagasc iad? Is duine fánach díobh a bhí riamh ar aon scoil... Ní raibh éan ná nead éin thar a n-eolas."

(“If we’ve controlled our own educational system for sixty years, how is that in the same sixty years, our knowledge of the world around us has decayed and “gone blind.” The “Environment” somebody over there might call it.  It doesn’t matter. We all know what I’m talking about and don’t anyone say decay has not come. It did, with the result that children today don’t know a dock from (lichen?) and no more could they tell a honey bee from a wasp or ?? from a butterfly.”

“The people I always knew and who would now be between a hundred and a hundred fifty years old, where did they get their knowledge of the environment and who taught them? Only a rare person of them ever went to school, but there wasn’t a bird or a nest they didn’t know.”

(Cape Clear is fairly barren and unless foxes and badgers etc went in for real long distance swimming, they’d never reach the place, so birds are the most prominent wildlife.)

Donncha Sheamais O Drisceoil was a Cape Clear island man (southwest Cork) who, wonder of wonders,  wrote a weekly column on the weekly Irish Times Irish language half page in the nineteen eighties. It appears it was Eibhlín ní Bhriain who got him in there among the literati, and his columns were an unexpected blend of quiet wit, good Irish and forthright opinion. Some of the columns were put together as a book in 1987, Aistí ó Chléire published by An Clóchomhar (who else?).

Cape Clear was a unique place in the early twentieth century: a mostly self-contained community of fishermen and subsistence farmers who kept on speaking Irish after people on the Mainland and Sherkin stopped. By the late Seventies, though, English had just triumphed there, and it was only a few houses on the most remote part of the island farthest from the harbor, where Irish was commonly spoken. O Drisceoil, as a neighbor said to me, never emigrated, even for a few years, and did not understand that the world had changed, and, by implication, all that old stuff was defunct.  His last years must have been sad ones, seeing a new and mostly lesser world take over. And then there were the freakin’ rabbits...

It didn’t have to be that way, to end in lonely darkness. An energetic young priest was assigned to the island in the seventies (seen in the video above)  and he inspired the people to start a co-op, inspired a group of young men to stay rather than emigrate, and do all sorts of things marginal communities are not expected to do...So much so that nearby politicians were annoyed, the priest was reassigned to Offaly where he was unlikely to cause trouble, and the island went quiet again. I really doubt any Irish is spoken there now, but tourists find plenty of reasons to go there, as they always do.

The Irish of Cairbre (southwest Cork and Beara) was different from Muskerry and east Cork Irish, though non-Corkmen might not notice. The great Breandán O Buachalla did a small book on Cape Clear Irish it that I never saw, but the most available sources are Seanchas ó Chléire by Conchúir O Siothcháin, originally published 1940, (a fisherman’s memories) and Seanchas Cairbre I ,though that is specifically the lore of a fisherman from near Glandore on the Mainland. Any of Peadar O hAnnracháin’s books are also worthwhile, especially Mar a Chonacsa Eire, the tale of a bicycle trip from Gortahork, Donegal, home to west Cork in about 1905. Béaloideas published long collections from Cape Clear and I almost forgot Céad Fáilte go Cléire, a more recent selection from folklore archives edited by Marion Gunn.

Why should anyone care about these things?  Duitse an cheist sin a fhuascailt.

But I was speaking of Nature...Aodh Mac Domhnaill from north Meath wrote his Fealsúnacht in the mid-nineteenth century. The first books are explications of the natural order of Earth, mostly as taught by the Church, but he then goes into lore of plants and animals, and as Donncha Sheamais mentions above, the old people knew a lot about that and not from school.

Two random selections.

“Is mór an t-ionadh le daoine má fheiceann siad nithe neamh-gnácha, agus is mó ná sin an t-ionadh nach dtuigeann siad na nithe a bhaineas leo féin. Dá dtuigeadh an garraíodór cad é is brí do na luibheanna atá ina gharraí, dhéanfadh sé ionad dochtúra, agus ni bheadh riachtanas aige lena shláinte a chur i gcontúrt le nithe a thiocfadh as tíortha coimhthíocha: de bhrí nach bhfuil aicíd ná galar dá leanann do lucht tíre ar bith nach bhfuil  leigheas le fail san áit chéanna, dá mbeadh a fhios ag na daoine air...(d, 115)

Sailchuach: Níl ní ar bith le fuil a chosc, nó goin a leigheas inchurtha leis an luibh seo. Oir dá mbeadh créacht nó goin dá mhéid – cuirim i gcás go mbeadh cuisle gearrtha—stopfadh céirí den tsailchuach an fhuil agus leigheasfadh an reang i mbeagán aimsire. Ach is úr is fear í, mar caillean sí mórán dá brí sa triomú.” (d 135)

The whole thing was edited by Colm Beckett and published by An Clóchomhar in 1967, mostly because of the linguistic interest. Mac Domhnaill was not really a trained scribe and his writing is very strongly influenced by spoken Meath Irish. Beckett supplies the original text face to face with a version in standard Irish (as in the two extracts above), plus a 60 page phonological and grammatical analysis. The text itself runs to about 60 pages, plus another 60 in standard Irish.

North Meath was closely linked to south Cavan and the English State Papers are always complaining about the O Reilly Kings interfering in Meath, then part of the Pale. In later times, Cavan and Meath scribes and poets moved back and forth without noticing, and north Meath Irish was a south Ulster dialect.

(Not much is known about south Meath. While the north had areas heavily populated by small farmers, the south was mostly empty fields grazing bullocks etc.)

North Meath had its peculiarities but in many ways, it is more characteristically “Ulster” (that is, east Ulster) than, say Donegal which, west Donegal anyway, is a transition to Connacht, becoming less characteristically Ulster as you go south. For example, Rannafast in the Rosses (I was told there) uses “ní” where Gweedore uses “cha,” and the Irish of Gortahork parish (just east of Gweedore) and contiguous bits of Gweedore is more strongly (east) Ulster than core Gweedore in some features. By the time you reach Inishowen...Well, God help a Connachtman there unless he carries a pouch of fresh violets with him.

    Is there any point to this post?  I say there is, even if not well expressed. Ah well, it was snowing, you see, and who can think clearly in that kind of weather?