I know for sure now that I am lost.
I have been driving for 25 minutes, hopefully heading for the Louis Mulcahy pottery centre and cafe, where I am to learn to make a clay pot and have lunch, but nothing tells me I am on the right road. I don’t mind much. The road I am on offers sights that are immensely distracting. This is the coast that films like Ryan’s Daughter were shot in. Food and pottery can wait, I decide, and take the next turn.
I am in Dingle town in County Kerry in the south-west of Ireland, and it is my third day of discovering the South on my own. By now I nave got used to being lost, and know that sooner or later, I will find my way. I am on a scenic route that tourists usually take, one I have discovered by accident. A missed turning, and the road leads me through twists and hairpin turns up into the hills that border the ocean.
Finally, a sign tells me I am close to humanity again. I turn down a gravelled tar road that leads to the Blasket Centre, which is also on my list, though programmed for after lunch. I do not know what to expect. At the Blasket Centre, I stumble upon treasures from the lost history of Ireland.
The centre is the only remaining evidence of what is now a lost way of life. It uses all the tools of modern technology, from documentaries to photographs to books and touch screens, to recreate the Blasket islanders’ way of life. The Blasket Islands can be viewed from the large picture window at the far end of the Centre. I see them — craggy, rocky, uninhabitable looking islands — not too far out from the mainland. Excursions do still go out to these islands, but the slippery slopes demand good shoes on firm-footed travellers and a sunny day, rare in this season. So I explore the Centre instead.
The stories the walls and touch screens tell are fascinating and evocative. The Blasket Islands, about 5 km from the coast of the mainland of Kerry, were inhabited for almost 300 years. Isolated from the mainland, the islanders lived a tough, austere life, and evolved habits of food and culture that were singularly their own. Unlike in the mainland where the Irish language gave way to modification and the influence of English, the islanders spoke in the old, native tongue. The earliest inhabitants, in 1840, numbered about 150. The Great Famine decimated the number to 100, but by 1917 many mainlanders who had lost their homes and found life too tough moved to the islands for safety and to escape persecution from the Lords.
Fishing gave them their livelihood and food, which they preferred boiled and sometimes raw. Hungry fishermen out at sea were quite happy eating the fresh crabs they caught in their nets, uncooked, while they waited for the rest of the day’s catch to come in. They sometimes caught seal, ate the meat and used the skin to line the mud floors of their stone and mortar walled houses. When seal skins were not available sand from the beach would be used to cover the floors twice a day to protect from the damp. Birds, rabbits, locally grown rye or oats and potatoes formed the rest of their food sources. Sheep and cows were prized possessions. Twice a year a sheep would be killed and cured for the coming months. Tastier than most meat, Blasket mutton was much desired in the mainland.
Later on, the inhabitants learnt to fish for, sell and eat lobster. Disconnected from the mainland, life was hard. They had to row three miles to the mainland and walk another five miles if they needed a priest, and 12 miles to visit a doctor.
Living in seclusion, the islanders spun stories about their way of life; the sea, the elements, the harsh cold winters and the biting winds and storms made up their songs and tales. Visitors were rare, and rarely welcome, mostly looked upon with fear and suspicion. But it is thanks to the rare visitors that the story of the island is still told.
In 1907, Carl Marstrander, nicknamed affectionately the ‘Viking’, came to study the islanders and lived, worked and ate with them as one of their own. The old Irish scholar wanted to learn modern Irish from the islanders, and he stayed at the house of the island king and learnt from the only ‘professor’ there, Thomas O Criomhthain. In return, the Viking made the islanders understand how their culture was unique, and something to be proud of. He helped change them from a people living in fear to a people proud and independent. Some years after he left, he directed a student of Old Irish, Robin Flower, to visit the islands.
It is thanks to Robin Flower that the Blasket Centre exists — for he started the movement that helped record the folklore and stories of the islanders in a language that was by now almost unheard. Excerpts from the translations of the original work of the islanders line the walls of the Blasket Centre. The lines are evocative, with a poetic and haunting quality that life on the sea evokes. The books they are from have evocative names. Twenty Years A-Growing , The Islander , and Stories from the Blasket , are oral chronicles transcribed into print of a life lost to the Irish, and books that they are very proud of. The islands were evacuated on November 17, 1953, when the few remaining residents, mostly old, crossed over to the mainland to be resettled. Most youngsters had immigrated to the U.S., and life on their island was no longer feasible for the elders.
Unaware, I have spent more than an hour, lost in the historic retellings of the islanders. They speak in many voices but come across as a hardy, tough people who fought the harsh elements to eke out a life for themselves, for over three centuries. The words on the walls ring true. I loathe leaving but hunger reminds me that I have yet to find the cafe and the pottery. But, as I head towards my little car, I am carrying a bit of Blasket history with me. Nestled in my bag is Muiris O Suilleabhain’s book, Twenty Years A-Growing , which I hope to start reading with my lunch at Louis Mulcahy Cafe. Now, all I need to do is find the place.
