A Quick Pilgrimage in Search of Oats

 It used to be accepted as an obvious fact that the Irish and the Highlanders were people given to wandering, and that they are all born with an itch in their feet that can only be cured by travel and emigration.

For proof, you only had to look in any big English, American, or more recently, Australian town. There were Irish all over the place! Highlanders were more often out in the countryside and so drew less attention to themselves, but they were there as well. And wasn’t it those crowds of Irish monks that saved civilization or something back in the eighth and ninth centuries? There wasn’t an Italian, French or German monastery where you wouldn’t hear a brogue back then, and they left graffiti in Gaelic in all the manuscripts.

It's obviously something in the genes.

Fewer people care about such things anymore. For one thing, the Irish are less visible in foreign places today, maybe partly because they are less obviously different. (Irish in 19^th century America were apparently only one step above Native Americans, and even in 1950s and early 1960s England they were awkwardly old-fashioned.) Irish or Celtic wanderlust may die an intellectual natural death, like some old writer long gone out of fashion and reduced to boring strangers in late-night bars. Or maybe not.

Since last week was even busier than the one before, and I have still not had time to write about oats and vegetables, I’d like to look at the genesis of the wanderlust idea and do my small part to help it expire.

Fil suil nglais                                                        There is a blue eye

Fégbas Erinn dar a hais:                                       that will look back at Ireland:

Noco n-aceba iarmo-thá                                       never more shall it see

Firu Erenn nach a mná.                                        the men of Ireland or its women.

12^th century: attributed to Colm Cille as he left Ireland in 563 A.D. (“fil” used as the independent verb “to be” in Middle Irish. Lenition not shown.)

 

Robads mellach, a meic mo Dé,                      It would be pleasant, oh son of my God

(dingnaib réimenn)                                          in wondrous voyages

ascnam tar tuinn topur ndílenmnm                  to travel over deluge-fountained waves

dochum nErenn…                                            to Ireland…

 

Rom-lín múich i n-ingnais Eirenn                   Sorrow filled me, away from Ireland

Díamsa coimsech,                                              though I was powerful,

‘san tír ainéoil conam-tharla                              making me in the foreign land

Taideóir tuirsech.                                               Tearful and sad,

Poem from about 100 A.D, also attributed to Colm Cille,

 Perigrinatio, Intentional separation from loved ones and from the world – from everything known – was an important practice of early Irish monks, and this could be effected by going to the continent or setting off west or north into the unknown.

The continent was attractive in some ways since that was where Christianity came from and there were monasteries and manuscripts and relics and so on, besides all the strange, unpleasant, foreign places and people, but it was still considered a kind of martyrdom to leave Ireland.

West and north provided a more immediate break with the known world, since it was mostly ocean. Irish monks trusted to God to steer their tiny boats, and they were in Iceland before the Norse, and on all kinds of tiny islands and rocks, but I suppose others starved or drowned before finding a retreat.  West and north may have had their own lesser, maybe subconscious, attraction though: there were older  traditions of Otherworld islands out there, and these traditions gave rise mostly Christianized tales like that of Bran and Mael Dúin.

The important point was that perigrinatio was intended to be difficult and unpleasant, and leaving Ireland was suffering. There are poems whose whole point is that and the assumed composers talk about how difficult it was and how much they miss Ireland.

Later travelers made the same point.

Diombáidh trial ó thulchaibh Fáil,                             A sorrow to travel from, the hills of Ireland,

Diombháidh iath Eireann d’fhághbháil,                     a sorrow to leave the lands of Ireland.

Iath milis na mbeann mbeachach,                              Sweet lands of bee-filled mountains

Inis na n-eang n-óigheachach.                                    Island of fields of young horses.

 

Cé tá mo thriall tar sál soir,                                              Although I travel east over the sea,

Ar dtabhairt cúil d’iath Fhiontain,                                   When I turned away from Ireland,

Do scar croidhe fan ród rinn—                                        my heart left me as I traveled--                                            

Níor char fód eile acht Eirinn.                                         It loves no land but Ireland,

 

Fód is truime toradh crann,                                            Land of heaviest tree fruit.

Fód is fearuaine fearann:                                                land where grass is greenest:

Sanchar braonach beartach,                                            the ancient plain with its streams and

                                                                                        sheaves

An tír chraobhach chruithneachtach…                           the green-branched land of wheat.

Three verses of seven composed by Uilliam Nuinseann from Delvin, County Westmeath (born 1550) as he was about to go to England in the mid-sixteenth century. He got home again, but lost his lands for having fought with O Neill against Queen Elizabeth and the rest.

(For more about him and his Anglo-Irish family, see Eigse, #6, 1949 , Poems of Exile by Uilleam Nuinseann by Gerard Murphy.

Nineteenth century immigrants didn’t want to leave either, but they had no choice because they could no longer get access to land, and there was no other way to feed themselves and their families.

 From Duanag do’n Mhorbhairbe (A little song to Morvern, Highlands of Scotland)

Tha clann Aonghuis air am fuadach                         The Macleods of Fuinary are                                                                                                     banished

‘s gann tha duine san Leth-uachdraichach,              and hardly a man left in the Upper Part:

 claidhe is ballachan fuara                                        stone wallss and bare house walls are

suaithnicheas na tím chaidh seachad.                       a symbol of the time that has passed.

 

An oidhche roimhe, bha mi bruadar                           I dreamed last night

Bhith mar abhaist an Rathuaidhe.                             That I was in Rahoy as I used to be.

Nuair a dhúusg me  -- fáth mo chruadail –               when I woke – reason for my misery --

E cho fada bhuainn ‘s a’ ghealach,,,                          it was as far from me as the moon.

 

And from Oran úr mu Sgrios nan Croitearan (A new song about the destruction of the crofters.)

Fhad  ‘s bhios cridhe bláth ‘nam chum,                      As long as I have live heart in my chest

Is teanga am bheul gu cainnt,                                     and tongue in mouth with which to speak,

bidh an tír ‘san d’fhuair mi árach óg                          the land in which I was nourished                       young

le sólas  tighinn am chuimhne.                                  Will come with joy in my memory.

Mar is fhaide théid mi om dhuthaich,                        The farther I go from my land

‘s ann as dlúithe an dáimh,                                         Love/loyalty are all the firmer

‘s cha díochuimhnioch mi an taigh dubh                    and I will never forget the little house

‘san d’rugadh me sa ghleann.                                     In which I was born in the glen

                                            

Ged tha ‘n duine bochd fo tháir                                    Though the poor man is despised

Am beachdan árd luchd -uaill,                                      in the opinion of the great and proud,

An inbhe mhór, am bósd ‘s an cliú                               their high rank, their boasts and                   reputation

tha leams’ ‘na mhasladh buan:                                      I think it a great insult

a liuthad gleann ‘s a chuir iad fás                                 considering all the glens they cleared

le feidh an áite an tsluaigh,                                           and put deer in place of the people

san tigh ‘s nach cuireadh iad an coin,                          and the house into which they would not

 put the dogs

tha an croitéir bochd gun truan.                                  There is the poor crofter unpitied.

 

Duncan MacPherson was born in Rahoy in Morvern in the 1830s and ended up in New Zealand. He is one the local poets in The Gaelic Bards of Morvern, self published by Iain Thornber (Morvern), 1985, and no one has ever heard of him.

It might be worth mentioning that today, there is probably no one in Morvern whose family was there a hundred years ago. Everyone who is there is there because work on the estate or tourist trade, etc. etc. brought them.

It wasn’t only going to a foreign land that was horrible: even leaving one’s native village was terrible. The people were part of their place in a way moderners can hardly imagine, and their people before them  had been forever. Leave? Was it even possible?

Maybe not, but they had no choice.

There are many stories about starving people carrying their dead child or spouse who died insan Droch-Shaoil many miles so that the dead one could rest in the graveyard of their native place among their kin and neighbors.

There are many stories of people out at night meeting ghosts who are traveling there. Here are two from Seanchas Amhlaoibhh Uí Luínse, Comhairle Bhéaloideas Eireann, 1980. He was a Mid-Cork storyteller who died in 1947.)

Bhí feirmeoir áirithe n-ar (i.e. gur) ghlaoig fear siúil chuige i gcóir na hoíche. Ach do ráinig gur cailleag (cailleadh) an fear siúil i dtigh an fheirmeora. (There was a particular farmer to whom a begger came for the night. But it happened that the begger died in the farmer’s house.)

An oíche a bhíothas á thórramhj, do bhuail chútha isteach seana-bhean (agus thosnaigh sí ag caoine an fear siúil) (The night he was being waked, a little old woman came in.)

Mo chara thú is mo rún,

Is níl agum bád ná lúng

A bhéarfadh tú chun siúil

Go teampall Acha’n Dúin.

 

(My kinsman and my love,

I am without a boat or ship

To take you away

To the church of A. an D.)

 

The man of the house asks where Acha’n Dúin is. She tells him, but then he asks “Ca bhfios dom canad (ce'n ait) ann go gcuirfí é? (How would I know where in the graveyard he would be buried?)

“Ní ghá dhuit ach é a bhreith  go dtí geata na reilige, agus tógfar dhíot a chúram ansan.” (You only need to carry him to the gate of the cemetary and the matter will be taken off you.)

Bhí sé déanach um thráthnóna nuair a shroiseadar Acha’n Dúin. Nuair a chuadar go geata na reilige, bhí ceathrar fear anso rómpu. Thógadar an chora amach as an dturcail agus riug leo ar a nguaillibh isteach geata na reilge. Níor labhradar  féin…”

 (It was late in the evening when they reached A an D. When they went to the gate of the cemetery, there were four men waiting for them. They took the coffin out of the cart and took it on their shoulders in the gate of the cemetery. They themselves did not speak…”

 (The point is that the old woman and the four men are some of the dead of A an D., probably kin).

The second story concerns a man from the storyteller’s village who was buried in another place, “though he should have been buried in his place.”. He appears to his kin when they are milking out in the pasture and asked them to bring his body to Baile Mhúirne. They don’t bother to do that, thinking it's just a passing thing.

He soon appears to them again and when asked, tells them that in the foreign cemetery, he is “mar a bheadh gé iasachta idir scata géanna: prioc agus giub age gach éinne orm,” (like a foreign goose among a flock of geese: every one of them and a push and a beak at me.”

His relations go and bring his body to his home place.

There were many such stories and I’d leave them here, only it would seem repetitious and, yes, I’m very busy.

At any rate, the renowned Gaelic wanderlust had very specific causes, and in its more modern form, was born of necessity. The Irish and Highlanders left home only when forced to, and dreaded leaving.

The assumed wanderlust is an example of lazy, shoddy thinking of which there is plenty in the world today

However…having dismissed the idea of Gaelic wanderlust, I’ve got to admit that some of the Irish emigration of the 1980s and later was aided by the fact that, despite U2 and James Joyce, a lot of twentieth century Irish knew that America etc and its way of life and culture were much! better than dingy old Ireland, so why not go where life was good?