Fear of Hiberno-Irish

My greatest—perhaps only—fear about living in Ireland is that I will return home with a ridiculous accent, or a vocabulary full of shite, and feck, and me hole. I don't mind those things, but they don't belong in an American mouth. 

Just listen to these North Americans reading scripts of common conversations about politics, weather, household chores, and leisure activities. 

Ew.

Try listening to Americans trying to say Irish slang, if you can stand it.  

Most Americans can identify an Irish accent when they hear it, but they don't know which accent it is. When Irish people speak with each other, they know where they're from. 

This comedian is demonstrating different accents, and playing with regional and class stereotypes that I don't yet comprehend. 

In the US, most prejudices are formed by what a person looks like, and not as much their accent. ("All southerners sound stupid" would be an exception.) In Ireland, where physical differences between the locals are more subtle, class and regional differences are heard in the language. 

This skit from The Savage Eye illustrates the concept pretty well. 

I have Artemis to speak American with, so I definitely have help there. And I hope she would ridicule me if t'ings go too far. 

It's Irish, not Gaelic.

Recently, Saoirse Rohan taught Stephen Colbert how to pronounce a few Irish names. 

He does what most English-speakers do, and make fun of all the "extra" letters that are needed to say simple sounds. 

As I have heard more Irish spoken, I am beginning to hear sounds indicated by "silent letters" that were silent only in my English-speaking ears. 

Irish is one of the oldest languages in Europe, arriving to the island around 2500 years ago. That's Bronze Age, before the Romans, between Sappho and Socrates. Irish culture flourished perfectly well without a written language, but when the new technology of the Roman writing system arrived around 400 CE,  Irish people—as smart and enterprising then as they are now— adapted that alphabet to record their own language. The spelling rules reflect the sounds they use, and the rules are quite regular. 

Irish adapted the alphabet to fit their language; letters function differently from Latin and German languages. Irish consonants have two pronunciations, and vowels indicate those differences.  If you can't hear the difference between a broad and a slender "b," listen harder. There are also two-consonant combinations that have their own sounds; just like "p-h" in English is pronounced with the "fuh" sound, "b-h" is pronounced "vuh." Irish also uses a mark called a fada to indicate particular vowel sounds, just like in French. Here are more details since I may have gotten that wrong. 

When I'm reading something by an Irish writer, I use forvo.com, so I can hear pronounced the Irish words. For instance, if you want to know how to pronounce St. Gobnait, listen here. 


It's a language that carries thousands of years of human life in it, and that it survives at all is a miracle. 

Here's a short movie with Irish speakers answering the question, "Is Irish Language Important?"

This next video on the history of Irish includes interviews adults from other countries who visit Ireland to learn to speak Irish. 

As emphasized in those videos, languages preserve a manner of thinking. The world can't afford to lose the Irish manner of thinking. 

More Blacks, More Dogs, More Irish.

Finally, please spend the next ten minutes watching what some say is the best short Irish-language film. So far. 

All Roads Lead to Kenmare

Dromneavane Road, north of Kenmare, Peakeen and Knockanagish on the near horizon. 

All Roads Lead to Kenmare, first published by Stanley Edward Goddard in 1983, is my favorite guidebook to anywhere. As a trail guide, it is untrustworthy, and as a description of Kenmare town, too old to be edifying. But this: 

Up ahead to the north-east stands Mangerton, a beautiful 'whale-backed' mountain that with its gently moulded slopes looks to have escaped the rugged forces of the ice age. But not so Peakeen and its companion Knockanaguish that look as though they have been physically expelled from the earth to stand silent sentinel on the old road that passes directly between them. Here just a mile and three quarters from town, as the sun catches the shadows of the clouds it feels like another world, the peace and quiet broken only by the shrill calls of the linnets as you stare out on the rugged patchwork quilt that seems to adorn both mountains, before folding gently back into the valley. 

Peakeen Mountain on the right, and the Reeks in the distance. The Black Valley lies between. 

Topics in this same chapter include: traffic jams in Kenmare, the Fever Hospital and famine, how turf cutters relied on donkeys, why Irish roads often dead-end, the extinct Red Deer, why you shouldn't drink on your tour bus, goats, poteen, The Clearances, Booley Villages and sex between young people, the shortage of sacred ground for burials, and a defeat of Normans in 1263. Threaded through all that he describes how to walk from Kenmare Square to Killarney, without distances and rarely what to expect as far as grade.

Goddard's Kenmare is the kind of book I wish were written for every town, approximating the experience of walking around town with a knowledgable friend while they point out where they buy lightbulbs, and the doctor who lived there, and that's why it's called Shelbourne Street, and here's the best route up that mountain. Now that we have satellite maps in our pockets, it's the cultural memories we need resurrected by expert pedestrians with decades of close observation. 



Looking south, above Kenmare. 





Within walking distance of that triangle of streets is a stone circle, a sacred well, a forest, a bridge older than history, a souterrain, a burial ground and medieval church ruin, and American-built folly. 

So many roads meet in Kenmare it is an easy place to take a break from the road for lunch, shopping, and a walk around. It is perfect for tourists. There are fewer shops for locals than in Goddard's day, but a hardware still carries everything, local eggs can be found at the health food store, there's a pet rescue thrift, and musicians nearly every night at one of the many pubs. It's the kind of place you might visit on vacation, and wish you could move to.

Kenmare is the closest town to us, and I never dreamed I'd be living here. Kenmare was the first Irish village I became acquainted with, and although I tried not to compare, I found many similarities to Santa Cruz. The Catholic Church is called Holy Cross, and the other church is called "St. Patrick's" like the one in Watsonville. The tourism and traffic, the good restaurants, the sea, the locals complaining that the town isn't what it used to be—all familiar. When I first arrived, I was confused why my hosts kept driving through the middle of town and getting stuck in traffic instead of going around. There are no side streets for locals only. All Roads Lead to Kenmare.  




Toward Kenmare. 

My home town of Santa Cruz needs a book like this and I'm probably a good person to write it. For now, I'm where my roads led me. 

Off Road

Last week, I fell into a bog.

Only up to my knees. The water wasn't cold, and I easily dragged myself out, leaving only a little dignity behind. I had left the road because I wanted to get to know the field. I see that field there along the road, but I've never crossed it and entered that clump of oaks, and I want to know them too.

So, crossing the field, I fell into a bog. Between two slices of granite was a lovely patch of moss, looking like all the moss on the field my boots firmly tromped on. A patch of moss floating on two feet of dark water.

And that's why we stay on the roads. 

The most interesting roads, the lanes, are just as wide as they need to be, about as wide as a cart. The lanes are worn deep into the land and sometimes field flowers wave over our heads.

Take a look at this photo.



This is what the Coom wedge tomb looks like from its road. See those white rocks in the lower right? That's the tomb. The sort of thing you might want to cross a field for. Don't. Take the lane. The lane leaves the road and passes the tomb and is only as wide as it needs to be. As wide as a cart. In 2500 years, no cart ever needed to veer off the lane and carve out wide spot, so that in our century two Yanks could pull their car off the lane and mess around with that wedge tomb. 

And that is how I learned to back up our car.  It seemed farther in that direction. 

Ireland may be a small island country, but take a wrong turn and "suddenly Ireland gets very big," as our friend J. sometimes says. The smallest smidgen of a valley or hillside can get bigger if you show it a little interest. And that pile of stones over there contains thousands of years. 

I love immensity of time and space in Ireland, because so much of the culture of Ireland remains human scale. Little, then big. 

Today I went for a long walk up the Sneem river valley, over a hill, and back through another valley to the village. The walk is called The Lomanaugh Loop, if that interests you. It turned out to have another Gobnait connection. 



That photo shows a part of the walk you can drive to, on a lane just past the Sneem GAA grounds. Many points-of-interest in Ireland are given in relation to the local GAA grounds, because everyone knows where they are (?).  I'm only beginning to pay attention to GAA (football and hurling), but I think the season may be over. I watched a hurling match on TV at the Staigue Fort B&B&B last week. Metal. 

Near the top of the valley the Lomanaugh route loops over the hill and through a forestry, before coasting back to Sneem. The roads through forestry are built for trucks with wide and easy grades. These are utilitarian forests, hardworking and no nonsense. Bits of life leak in along the little creeks that meet the roads, falling down the cliffs of the roadcut in tinkling waterfalls.



The road became a muddy caterpillar track near this active lumbering area. 



Just past this pile of logs, the road ended in a cul-de-sac ring with forestry trees. I thought I had taken the wrong turn, and suddenly the forestry seemed very big. But my map said straight on, so on I went. 

An opening in the ring of tres, and the trail opened to this: 




Now I was truly off road. I love these rambles through sheep pastures. Now and then there's a trail marker, but interesting trees can catch your eye, and off you go. 

Just before the route crossed a bridge, I took a wrong turn. I mean, I took the turn I wanted to take, even though it was the wrong one. I took the road more beautiful. 





Just like with the impulse that ended in a bog. 

Irresistible. 

This road ended just beyond the tree on the right, and I turned around to see this. 


 

The road I should have taken is on the left, and as you can see, anyone could have resisted that road. 

No regrets. 

Eventually the route joins the Kerry Way.




The last two kilometers are this country lane pointing directly at the protestant church in Sneem, which is that white speck you see at the vanishing point. I realized that this must have been the route that our Gobnait Ni Bhrudair took when she rode her bicycle from her cooperative at Castle Cove to Sneem. (Here's an earlier post about Gobnait.) 

Looking at the map later, I see that her road from Castle Cove to Sneem is still there, and it's the Kerry Way. Of course. The old route between her village and Sneem is further inland, but almost the same distance. That's what the map says anyway. It's probably much, much farther.