Speaking of dust, there is none in County Mayo. I’m guessing the winds off the Atlantic don’t carry any. Time doesn’t pass because you don’t dust one day and see new dust the next. You don’t know if you dusted or not. It’s disorienting.
I feel like I’m off the trail. I haven’t even been to Clare Island yet and the Heritage Centre there closes in 4 days and I don’t even have a plan to get there.
My way of recentering myself at home is to do the dishes or some housework. The set up here is different which means I’m using the dishwasher. So I vacuumed the floor and straightened the books on the table just to do that. I finally feel somewhat able to cope, but don’t know why I haven’t been doing more Grace O’Malley research.
Instead, I prepared to meet Noreen, a friend of Patricia’s who grew up on an island between my grandparents’ islands, though she’s a couple of generations younger. Like feeling prompted to bring beach glass, I felt prompted to bring a flash drive with recordings of my grandparents telling stories of their time in Ireland.
I had forgotten the content of these recordings, though I’ve had them for a few years, now. But they’re not part of my experience – I never heard these stories myself and I wasn’t there for the recordings, and didn’t know of them for decades after they were made.
One story my grandmother could hardly tell for laughing so hard, was about a funeral for the one Protestant in town. It was February and very unusually it snowed for weeks, leaving the ground covered in ice and snow. There being no other Protestants, the man’s Catholic neighbors carried his casket up a great hill to the cemetery. But with all the ice, the casket slipped and slid half a mile down and had to stay there till the thaw. You can bet good money on this incident showing up as a scene in my book!
Noreen is way too young to remember that event, but she remembers my grandfather’s sister a bit[1] and knows some stories that were told of their time.
One story she remembers hearing was of an English ship sunk in the Bay, behind the lighthouse. It was a calm night – it had to be, she said. There was no sound, so the boat was untied and allowed to drift out with the ebbing tide, with no rowing to ripple the water, to alert anyone. As it passed behind the lighthouse where the water is deep, stones were loaded into it to disappear it. I hope I can find a way to use this scene, even without a lighthouse!
Noreen also said there had been a lot of resistance to the British in County Mayo in the early 20th Century. She had heard growing up about safe houses on the islands in Clew Bay, where men who had caused a ruckus for the Black and Tans, could get off the mainland, and from the safe house sail to Newport on the other side of the Bay. From there they were transported to a place to leave Ireland.
I’d be wrenched, fighting for my home, land, and people, and then having to flee, maybe forever, to stay alive and hope for success, or to fight another time. My grandfather in the States was from a similar situation and my impression of him was that his head was always turned backwards, so he could keep an eye on the War, those he left behind, and then the Irish Free State and Republic.
I hope you can zoom in on this map.[1] The red pin is Inishgort where the old lighthouse was. You can see Clare Island on the lower left, western, opening to the Bay, and Achill Island at the top left, guarding the entrance from that direction. Collanmore Island is where Noreen was raised. Island Mór is just north of it and Inishgowla, where my grandmother is from, is just west of Carraholly on the mainland. Newport is on the Black Oak River in the northeast corner of Clew Bay and Westport is on the Carrowbeg River in the southeast corner of the Bay.
It’s grounding for me to hear the resistance lasted until modern times from Gráinne’s and Richard’s efforts – seeds planted like Patrick Pearse and Tertullian said they would be.
As I was writing this post, I listened and watched on Zoom a funeral for a 91-year-old woman on Clare Island. Her name is beautiful – Éilis (pronounced Eye-leesh). The people looked like my cousins. They began by bringing gifts to the altar representing their faithfulness to her and her memory – things like a radio, her rosary, and photo albums that she kept track of everyone in. Her son gave the eulogy beginning with a frequent admonition from his mother: Do something and do it without a fuss.
They ended with a poem, a line from which is, “Miss me, but let me go.” And then a final song, “I’ll be back when the robins come home.”
Everything about this funeral Mass was simply meaningful. Everyone sang the hymns. That moment of deep silence after Communion, heartbreaking. This soundless point in the service is the mark of the end – the final moment of a person’s living, and our living with them. There is no more delay. It is finished.
I believe they had good weather on Clare Island. It’s been clear here in Westport all day. The priest said the grave diggers had gone out this morning to dig the grave for their life-long neighbor and friend. I’m really glad there were so many people who made the crossing by ferry early this morning to be there in person, in family. They made a full church. And a full heart in me. Maybe I needed to mourn.
These posts do build on information included in earlier posts. If you would like to read them in order from the beginning, here is a link: https://thegrainneproject.com/260809-2/
[1] I got this map from Google, https://www.google.com/maps/place/53%C2%B049’35.7%22N+9%C2%B040’15.5%22W/@53.8396102,-9.8007478,12.32z/data=!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d53.82657!4d-9.67098?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDkxMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
[1] Noreen confirmed that the cemetery Patricia thought I should visit is the one where my grandfather’s family is buried and the grave markers we found are the correct ones. That cemetery visit, and the markers are in this post: https://thegrainneproject.com/260910-2/