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A Drive Through the Bog

July 31, 2011 / eric / 4 Comments

On a recent afternoon I had one of those introversive episodes when I needed to get away from everyone, from the teach lóistín (“boarding house”) where I am staying, away from housemates, host family, school, and so forth. So I told my bean an tí (“landlady”) that I wouldn’t be home for dinner, got in my rental vehicle (an Opel Astra), and drove away.

My first and only planned stop was at a famine house in the northern precincts of An Cheathrú Rua which I had seen from our school bus when returning from one of our “tours”. Unfortunately, I discovered that the property is fenced off by a vicious looking barbed wire fence, so the photos I had hoped to take, and did take, are all from a distance. I’d hoped to go inside it and take some interior shots, but alas ….

Famine House, An Cheathrú Rua

I then drove to what passes for a “main highway” in these parts; from an American perspective these are very narrow roads on which the Irish drive at unreasonably high speeds. I turned toward Leitir Moír, deciding on a moment’s notice that since I am familiar with the Irish folk song Peigín Leitir Móir (I can even sing part of it), I should be able to say that I’d been to the town. I have now been … it’s not much; it’s just a small Irish town with a “city center” consisting of a Roman Catholic church, a small park (and car park), a community activity center, and little grocery store. But the song is still catchy and fun – if you want to hear it, click here for a YouTube video of an Irish folk singing family singing it.

After Leitir Moír, I decided to go to Cloch na Ron (the Anglicized name of which is “Roundstone”, although the Irish actually means “rock of the seals”) and maybe have a bite to eat. That turned out to be a drive through “the bog” which is the area where locals “cut turf” to be used as fireplace fuel during the winter. I took some pictures of turf cutting along the way and enjoyed the views of the Twelve Bens which are the mountains of the Connemara. Lots of people go “hillwalking” among these mountains, a very popular holiday (vacation) activity for the Irish.

The Twelve Bens from Derryrush Road

It is estimated that bogs cover about one-sixth of the available land in Ireland, which gets more of its fuel from peat than any country except Finland. In Ireland, many families have an inherited right to cut turf for domestic use which has been handed down for hundreds of years. This inheritable right is called turbary.

The Bog, Showing Family Turf Cutting or "Turbary" Areas

Here in the west of Ireland, the bog is technically a lowland blanket bog. These are unique in that they are formed in a rainfall-rich locale where the supply of minerals is kept up and the acidity down. The makeup of the bog material includes vegetation of many types.

According to tradition, turf is not cut until after St. Patrick’s Day after the March winds dry the boglands. Early May is generally the turf-cutting time in the West of Ireland, although it continues through the summer months and is still going on while I am here. My host family has gone out to the bog to cut turf, although I’ve been unable to go along because of classes a that the Acadamh. While driving the Derryrush Road from An Cheathrú Rua to Cloch na Ron, I witnessed an old man in rubber boots stacking footings and took the photos you see here. (In retrospect, I wish I’d pulled over – if I could have found a wide enough, dry enough spot to do so – and asked the old man about his activity … 20-20 hindsight!)

In some areas, before turf is cut the top layer of heather and roots is stripped; this can be done by the time consuming process of mowing the vegetation and then cutting back the top layer of soil, or by burning. Burning requires a permit, which is often difficult to obtain.

The Bog, Showing Turf Cutting "Ridge"

In this area, they don’t seem to strip the bog first. The top layer is fairly sparse here, so the turf is simply cut through the top surface. Generally, it takes one man a week of cutting to prepare a year’s worth of turf fuel.

Antique Slane (Modern Tools Have Steel Blades)

Turf cutting is done with a sléan or slane, a long-handled turf spade with a shaped steel end. Slane styles vary from county to county. The direction of the cutting varies from place to place. In this area, turf is cut in a vertical direction; where the bog type is what is called a red raised bog, it is cut in a horizontal direction.

Dried Sods Ready to Burn in the Fire

The depth of a single piece of cut turf is called a spit or a bar. A vertical turf bank is measured in numbers of bars to a depth of a slane (twelve to eighteen inches in this area.) A good bank might be six bars deep; I’m told that a day in the bog is difficult work and taxes the strength of even the fittest person. The bog is very wet and the trenches created as turf is cut fill almost immediately with water; cutters usually wear high gum or rubber boots. The lowest row of bars is the wettest, but they say that when dried they make the best fuel.

The cut turf is removed to open ground to dry. The soggy sods, as the brick shaped cuttings are called, are laid out on the ground to dry for a week. They are then stacked upright into a footing which continues the drying procedure.

A Field of Footings Next to the Trench or Ridge from which they were cut

Close-Up of Footing

Once the footed turf is somewhat dry, sods are piled into a rickle. When it is finally dry, the turf is carried home to be stacked against an east-facing wall or in a covered shed for protection from westerly winds.

A "Rickle" or Pile of Turf Ready to be Transported Home

In the past, turf cutting was only fuel available to many families living in the Connemara, where it is illegal to cut it other than by hand. Many families still use turf for homeheating, although today it can be purchased in compressed briquettes in supermarkets throughout Ireland. I’m told that turf burns cleaner than coal; it has a very a pleasant smell which, together with the smell of mown heather, has come to really be the scent of Ireland to me. There’s nothing quite so comfortable as sitting by a turf fire on cold, damp day with a mug of tea (or in my case, coffee) in hand. I’m told that scones cooked over a turf fire have an especially lovely flavor – I’ve not had (nor do I anticipate having) that experience, but I can imagine that it is true.

After my drive through the Bog along Derryrush Road, I connected with one of the small “highways” of Ireland and made it to Roundstone, which was a bit of a mess. It is a fishing village turned vacation resort. One very narrow street along the waterfront, several B&Bs and a few pubs/eateries. It was a “mess” because next Thursday is the running of the Tour de Bog, a bicycle road race that begins and ends in Roundstone and they were setting up signs, starting/ending line, viewer stands, etc. Some guy with a trailer was trying park it on the main street where there was patently no space to park it! So a long line of cars waited about fifteen minutes for the fruitless maneuvering to end.

I finally parked in the free public parking area and walked to a local pub – had a pint of Smithwick’s ale with the barkeep, a woman about my age who bemoaned the Irish economy and the fact that at 6 p.m. on a Friday evening she had absolutely no business. For the first twenty minutes or so, I was the only customer in the place, then a French family entered and since they had very little English and she had no French, I served as translator.

I finished my beer, bade my new friends farewell – “Adieu!” and “Bon nuit!” to the French family, “Slan!” and “Oíche mhaith!” to the Irish tavern owner – headed back to the car where I noticed that the music shop of Malachy Kearns, reputed to be the best bodhran (Irish drum) maker in Ireland, was open.

I bought a bodhran there in 2005 when Evelyn and I made our first trip to Ireland. We also bought a CD that I really, really liked, but which we gave to a friend (after making a bootleg copy for ourselves, a copy which has since disappeared). I thought I might find another copy but, alas, the stock at Malachy’s store has been replaced with Celtic Woman and a bunch of touristy “moods” CDs that you can find in any Celtic-Gaelic store in the USA. So I bought nothing.

I headed back to An Cheathrú Rua, covering the same roads in the reverse direction (I thought “Jack the GPS” might take me a different route, but no). I got back to town just in time for a really good lecture on “the function of music in the Irish tradition” by Breandán Ó Madagáin, an elderly professor from NUIG. Old he may be, but he has a great singing voice. He really knew his stuff. I had a chance to talk with him briefly about my project and he gave me a copy of an ethnomusicology article he had written which references and briefly discusses the hymnal I’m working on.

After the lecture, I headed for home and bed.

Hello Out There!

July 30, 2011 / eric / 7 Comments

You know, there are times when I wonder if anyone besides my altar guild director is reading this…. 😉

Sunday, a Sermon, and Superstring Theory

July 27, 2011 / eric / 2 Comments

Time away from the Irish (the language, not the people)….

On Sunday, 24 July 2011, I left my teach loistín (“boarding house”) and drove the 32 km from An Cheathrú Rua to Galway to attend the Sung Eucharist at the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas, a church which formerly (pre-Reformation) was the central church of the city. That distinction is now held by the Roman Catholic Cathedral, “The Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St. Nicholas”. (How the BVM was assumed into St. Nicholas, I have no idea….) But St. Nicholas Collegiate Church, now an Anglican congregation of the Church of Ireland, continues to play a central role in the life of the city. The church has marvelous acoustics and is host to a variety of concerts, dramas, conferences, and other cultural and educational events throughout the year.

Interior of St. Nicholas Collegiate Church, Galway

It also plays the role of providing a place of worship for visiting tourists who do not wish to attend a Roman Catholic Mass. The Sunday morning congregation, especially during the summer, is an aggregation of Irish Anglicans, Protestants of several sorts (many of whom do not speak English), and tourists with little or no religious background at all (some of whom, I sure, wander in on Sunday morning to see the historic church and get “trapped” in the service). Such was the congregation this Sunday.

Interior of St. Nicholas Collegiate Church, Galway (from choir)

I arrived in Galway about one hour before the service, so I went to a local café and had a cup of coffee. Thirty minutes before the service, I made my way to the church and found a seat – not difficult as there were very few people there. A church warden introduced himself and offered me a leaflet which included nearly the entire service with an insert of the hymn lyrics. On learning that I am a priest, he asked if I would read one of the lessons for the day, to which I assented.

One of the transepts of the church has been closed off with a partial glass screen and made into the choir room. The choir was practicing and their music filled the church – it was grand! It put one into a prayerful mood and prepared one to enter into worship.

Transept, St. Nicholas Church, Galway (used as choir room)

About 15 minutes before the service was to start, a woman priest vested for the day began greeting those of us seated in the nave. She was to be the presider in the absence of the rector, who is on holiday this month.

The service started on time with a procession of crucifer, choir, and clergy. Although lay eucharistic ministers would later assist with the distribution of communion, they were not vested and did not process with the altar party. The placement of choir, clergy and altar assistant was interesting and, given that everything is moveable (and moves frequently for various events), I wondered if this is a standard arrangement or if they experiment regularly with different seating plans.

The service followed a fairly familiar pattern, more similar to the American church’s liturgy than were the Church of England services I experienced a couple of weeks ago, although as in the English church, the service began with a confession and absolution before the Gloria in Excelsis. Then there were the reading of the lessons, a sermon, a variant form of the Creed (sort of a Q-&-A format), prayers, the Peace, the offertory, the Great Thanksgiving, the distribution of Holy Communion (at stations, a central position for the Bread from the priest and four cups of Wine), the final blessing, the last hymn and the dismissal. It all followed a familiar and comforting pattern.

Free-standing Altar, St. Nicholas Church, Galway

The lessons for the day were those of the Revised Common Lectionary – from the Hebrew Scriptures the story of Solomon asking God for the gift of wisdom; from the Epistles Paul’s assurance in Romans that nothing can separate us from the love of God; from the Gospel’s Jesus rapid fire mini-parables that the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, a buried treasure, a pearl of great price, a net thrown into the sea.

Altar Window, St. Nicholas Church, Galway

The homily admonished us to do as Jesus did and look for God’s reign in the ordinary things, the ordinary places, the ordinary people of our lives. In the course of the homily, the preacher compared the structure of Jesus’ delivery of the parables to that of the Psalms referring to the Hebrew practice of parallelism as “the rhyming of ideas.” That description stuck with me.

Chancel and High Altar, St. Nicholas Church, Galway

Later in the day, I relaxed with a book, The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. In it, describing the findings of quantum mechanics as an introduction to a discussion of superstring theory, the author writes:

Even in an empty region of space – inside an empty box, for example – the uncertainty principle says that the energy and momentum are uncertain: They fluctuate between extremes that get larger as the size of the box and the time scale over which it is examined get smaller and smaller. It’s as if the region of space inside the box is a compulsive “borrower” of energy and momentum, constantly extracting “loans” from the universe and subsequently “paying” them back. But what participates in these exchanges in, for instance, quiet empty region of space? Everything. Literally. Energy (and momentum as well) is the ultimate convertible currency. E=mc2 tells us that energy can be turned into matter and vice versa. Thus if an energy fluctuation is big enough it can momentarily cause, for instance, an electron and its antimatter companion the positron to erupt into existence, even if the region was initially empty! Since this energy must be quickly repaid, these particles will annihilate one another after an instant, relinquishing the energy borrowed in their creation. And the same is true for all other forms that energy and momentum can take – other particle eruptions and annihilations, wild electromagnetic-field oscillations, weak and strong force-field fluctuations – quantum-mechanical uncertainty tells us the universe is a teeming, chaotic, frenzied arena on microscopic scales.

As I read this I was reminded of the first words of Holy Scripture:

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Transfiguration Window, St. Nicholas Church, Galway

People ask why I read books on particle physics, quantum mechanics, and string theory for relaxation. I really don’t have a good answer, and I have to admit that a lot of what I read, though it fascinates me, goes right over my head! But, for reasons which are probably beyond anyone’s comprehension, including my own, my idea of relaxing reading is exactly the sort of stuff that bored me to tears 40+ years ago – physics books. In the new understandings of quantum mechanics, superstring theory, the multiverse speculation, and other work seeking the “theory of everything” (or “TOE” as Greene and others call it), I see science converging with religion. As microscopic physics gets “weirder” (Greene’s term, again), it seems to me it gets more theological, as well. Every so often a passage strikes, if you will, a theological cord. This was one of them … the description of even empty space as “teeming, chaotic, frenzied” seems to me to echo, to “rhyme” (to use the preacher’s term) with the idea of the writer of Genesis that “a wind from God” (the Holy Spirit) sweeps over creation. Numerous theologians have taken off from this Genesis account to assert that the Holy Spirit “enthuses” all things; that the wind from God blows through and within all of creation … even empty space. How great it is that science’s new understanding of empty space as “teeming” and “frenzied” rhymes with faith’s vision of empty space as filled with God’s wind!

In Sunday’s sermon, the preacher reminded us to seek God in the everyday stuff of life. As scientists probe the “weirdness” of the smallest dimensions of everyday stuff, I think they’re doing just that … seeking God. They may be calling it the search for the TOE, but to from my perspective it’s just a variation of the same search human beings have been on for millennia, the search for meaning.

Baptismal Font, St. Nicholas Collegiate Church, Galway

And now … back to the Irish.

A Visit to Inis Oírr

July 25, 2011 / eric / 6 Comments

On Saturday, 23 July 2011, the students of the Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge boarded a bus, traveled 45 minutes to Ros á Mhil, boarded a ferry (Banrion na Farraige, “Queen of the Sea”) and journeyed to the smallest of the Aran Islands. Inis Oírr (Inisheer), a name derived from Inis Oirthir meaning “island of the east”, is the most eastern of the islands. About 3 square kilometres in size, Inis Oírr is a walker’s paradise. Posts with a “walking man” symbol mark a route around the island which can be completed in about four hours; we didn’t have quite that amount of time and covered only about half of the trail.

The island is a limestone pavement rising to a highest point of 60 meters above sea level. The flora and fauna include many extremely rare species, some of which are under conservation order. Fifty-seven species of birds, thirty-two kinds of wildflower and grass (including a species of darnell grass and one of cornflower found nowhere else), and three types of bumblebee share the island with about 250 human beings.

The heights of Inis Oírr seen from the island's pier

Inis Oírr has been inhabited for more than 5,000 years; arrowheads and flint from the Stone Age have been recovered at various locations on the island. Later evidence, from the Bronze Age, comes from urns and bones excavated at a burial site called Cnoc Raithní (“hill of ferns”).

Christianity came to the islands before the end of the first millennium. Near the swimming beach next to the ferry pier is the island’s graveyard. Here one finds the buried church called Teampall Chaomhain (“St. Caomhan’s church”). This is a 10th Century church said to have been founded by St. Caomhan (“Kevin”), a disciple of St. Enda the Patron Saint of the Aran Islands. (This St. Kevin is said to be the older brother of the St. Kevin who founded the monastic community at Glendalough.) The church was nearly buried by drifting sands, but has now been excavated and is kept clear of sand by the residents. It is a beautiful and peaceful place looking out over the ocean.

Further inland is Cill Ghobnait (“St. Gobnait’s church”) or Teampall Beag (“small church”) which was built in 11th Century and is dedicated to Saint Gobnait. It is built on a site which may have had an early church from before the 9th Century and does include the remains of a clochán or hermit’s beehive cell. Although Saint Gobnait is linked to Ballyvourney in County Cork, she is believed to have been a native of County Clare (the closest mainland county to the islands). The islanders believe she fled to Inis Oírr and lived in the clochán. (What she may have been fleeing from, we were not told.) Around the ruins of the church here three outdoor altars (which may mark graves), two bullaun stones, and the clochán. (Bullaun stones are basically holy water fonts. Local folklore often attaches religious or magical significance to them, including the belief that rainwater collecting in a bullaun stone’s hollow has healing properties.)

Cill Ghobnait - Teampall Beag

Altar of St. Gobnait's Church

Stone altar outside St. Gobnait's Church and Bullaun Stone

Remains of clochán or hermit's beehive hut at St. Gobnait's Church

In medieval times, the Aran Islanders lived in “chiefdoms”, the largest example of this is the hillfort at Dún Aonghasa on Inis Mór. The Aran Island chiefs were powerful and wealthy men who controlled the western sea passages; they contracted with the merchants of Galway keep the approaches to Galway Bay free from pirates in exchange for protection money, but apparently were not against a bit of pirating themselves. The islands became known as a haven for foghlaí mara (“sea plunderers”, i.e., pirates).

In the 14th Century, Inis Oírr became a base of the powerful O’Brien family and Caislean Uí Bhriain (“O’Brien’s Castle”) on was built here. The castle was taken from the O’Briens by the O’Flaherties of Connemara in 1582. It was occupied by them and others until 1652, when the Aran Islands were surrendered to Cromwellian forces.

O'Brien's Castle

In the early 19th Century, it was feared that Napoleon might invade Ireland and watchtowers and Martello towers were built all around the island nation, including a watchtower on Inis Oírr. The French never came and the watchtower became a school and an additional building was built next to it. Children would be schooled for the first several years in this local school and then would travel by boat to schools on the other islands or to the mainland.

Napoleonic era watchtower

School building constructed next to, and incorporating, watchtower

Inis Oírr’s history is strongly linked to the sea; the sea provided food for islanders to live on, and protected them from famine. The cargo vessel Plassey was shipwrecked off Inis Oírr in the 1960s, and has since been thrown above high tide mark at Carraig na Finise (a beach) on the island by strong Atlantic waves. The islanders rescued the entire crew from the stricken vessel, the wreckage of which has become a tourist attraction on the island. Unfortunately, with our limited time we were unable to see the ship wreck.

This marks my third visit to the Aran Islands. Evelyn and I visited Inis Mór, the largest, in 2007; I visited Inis Meán with another class from the language school in 2008; and I have now made this visit to Inis Oírr. Although the 21st Century has certainly come to these islands (automobiles and diesel tractors are found on all of them; cell phone reception is superb; one assumes the residents have access to the internet), there is still something timeless and ancient about them. Life clearly moves a different pace. Travel writer A.J. Neudecker has said that “Little Inisheer … is bottled tranquility.” I can see how two or three days on this island would be very restful!

My Daily Walk: The Rocks and the Flowers

July 25, 2011 / eric / 4 Comments

An Áras Mháirtín Uí Chadhain (the Martin O’Kyne Center) is located in the village of An Cheathrú Rua on the western coast of Contae na nGaillimhe (County Galway). The name was Anglicized to Carraroe during the time the British Empire ruled Ireland.

There are various stories as to what the Irish name An Cheathrú Rua actually signifies and how it came to be. The word ceathrú means “quarter” and is used in the same way the English word is used, as in ceathrú tar eis a hocht (“quarter after eight” o’clock) or an cheathrú Laidineach (“the Latin quarter”). It is in this latter sense that it is used to name this area.

The debate and the differing stories enter the picture when one considers the word rua. In one sense the word can be translated as “red” or “russet”, most commonly when referring to hair color. With that information you might think that perhaps this is an area populated by large numbers of red-heads, but that is not the case nor is that one of the stories about the area’s name. Rather, the argument is made that the color of the soil on this peninsula (for that is what An Cheathrú Rua is) is a particular auburn color, like that of red hair. Another story dependent on this meaning of rua is that it refers to the blood spilled when a man was killed several centuries ago in a fight outside a public house (one which still exists today).

Rock-walled Fields of Inis Oírr; An Cheathrú Rua has similar terrain.

The etymology favored by most people is based on an alternative meaning of rua: wild, fierce, or rough. The terrain of An Cheathrú Rua is very rough! Like much of this part of Ireland, the ground is rocky and uneven. Granite stones, which are plentiful and readily available, are the preferred building material for homes, other buildings, and the fencing of fields; stones cleared from the small, uneven fields have been used for centuries to wall in those same fields. (One finds this all over the northern half of this island nation and on the offshore islands; I have included in this post a picture from Inis Oírr, one of the Arann Islands, which shows many rock-walled fields terracing the island’s hillside. More about Inis Oírr in a later post.)

I take a daily walk along some of the winding roads through these rocky fields. (All the road here are winding and narrow; there’s no such thing as a straight road in Ireland!) Along any of these paths, I pass the tumble-down ruins of old stone cottages. These are referred to as “famine houses” for many (if not all) of them date from about 165 years ago, the time of the potato blight and the Irish Famine. Two Irish terms are used to name that time in the country’s history: An Droch-Shaol (meaning “The Bad Life”) and An Gorta Mhór (“The Great Hunger”). As people left the rural areas seeking food in the cities or to emigrate to America, Australia, or other places, they simply packed up and left their homes which, over time, deteriorated and partially collapsed; many of these refugees were evicted from their homes by landlords who were responsible for paying a yearly £4 per person tax on their tenants and who, without those tenants producing income, were unwilling to do so. But the Irish people build their stone homes well, and granite and mortar take time to erode, so the walls of many of these now-ancient structures still stand and those who live amongst them, out of respect for the dead, are loath to tear them down.

Famine House, An Cheathrú Rua

And so these stark reminders of the past are with us everyday. As I walk amongst the homes of the living and the dead, I am also greeted by flowers of all sorts. Though this is a rough countryside difficult to farm, it is lushly overgrown both with the gardens planted by the residents and, along the roads and in the fields, many sorts of wildflowers. Like the Arann Islands a few miles out in the Atlantic and the Burren of County Clare to the south, the climate, the winds, and the sea currents have conspired to bring to this area a variety of plants not usually found growing together. (This is especially true in County Clare where one finds tropical and arctic varieties growing side by side.) I thought I would share with you some of the flowers I see each day.

Fuchsia on Rock Wall

Spear Thistle

Field Bindweed

Wild Blackberry

Potts' Montbretia (orange) and Fragrant Orchid (purple)

Meadow Buttercup

Wild Angelica

Common Ragwort

My Typical Day in the Gaeltacht

July 24, 2011 / eric / 2 Comments

I thought I would share with you the usual daily schedule at an Áras Uí Chadhain: an Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge ag An Cheathrú Rua (the Irish Language Center of the National University of Ireland in Galway at An Cheathrú Rua). Here’s my typical day during the last week:

I get up at about 6:30 a.m. (before anyone else in the house) and brew a four-cup pot of coffee in our host’s French press. I do a chapter of work in a basic Irish grammar book (this is on my own, not something assigned by the school which is more concerned with speaking than with writing the language).

About 8 a.m. the rest of the house is up and functioning and by 8:30 a.m. we have our breakfast (“bricfeasta” as Gaeilge).

Uí Fátharta Home (Taken in July 2008)

The seven of us students walk to the school at about 9:10 or so and arrive in time for classes at 9:30 a.m. Two of us are in the “meánrang” (pronounced “mahn’-rahng”, the intermediate class), four are in the feabhaseoirí (pronounced “fouse’-i-ori”, the improvers, which is the elementary class for those who have had a minimum exposure to the language), and one is in the “búnrang” (basic class) for rank beginners with no Irish at all.

Classes run until 11 a.m. which is tea time (“sós” which means “break”) – we have tea or coffee or whatever until 11:30 a.m. and then it’s back to class until 1 p.m.

Lunch (“lón“) runs from 1 to 2 p.m. More class time from 2 to 4 p.m. (with no break). At 4 p.m. there is some sort of lecture (archeology, music, Irish orthography, folk lore, etc).

At 5 p.m. we walk back to the house; our bean-an-tí (pronounced “ban’-uh-tee”, landlady) feeds us dinner at 5:30 p.m. and that usually takes more than an hour.

Shortly after 7 pm. we walk back down the hill to the school for an evening lecture from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m. (these are the same sorts of lectures as in the afternoon, but usually more specialized or more in depth).

At 9:00 p.m. we return home and do our homework, which usually takes me until 11 p.m. At that point, I either go to bed (this happens most often) or I walk down the hill to have a pint at the pub across the street from the school (“An Chistin” which means “the kicthen”, also known locally as “tígh sea” – “tee shay” which means “house of the O’Shays” because that is the name of the family who has owned and run the place for generations) and have a pint. In either event, I am usually in bed by midnight (“meánoíche“, prounounced “mahn’-ee-khuh”) or shortly thereafter

This is the pattern three of the six days in a week. One day each week there is a “turas” or tour of some local area – Kylemore Abbey and the National Connemara Park, the Arann Islands, into Galway, etc. On Wednesday afternoons we are given the afternoon off, but those become intensive study times with others in our class as we prepare for the oral tests that happen on Thursday afternoons: each week we are expected to converse with two instructors about a particular subject. We know in advance what the subject will be, so we can get together with classmates and practice conversation about whatever (this week it is our favorite music – type, performers, compositions, concerts, etc.)

In general the weekly pattern is

Monday – basic pattern
Tuesday – basic pattern
Wednesday – morning basic with free time in the afternoon; after-dinner lecture.
Thursday – morning basic with conversation exam in the afternoon; after-dinner lecture.
Friday – basic pattern
Saturday – tour
Sunday – free (but filled with homework)

You can see that there is not much time for other activities! I try to take a walk of a couple of miles every day and, when I can, to take some photographs, but there is almost no time for writing posts to this blog!

Today (Sunday, 24 July 2011) I attend the Sung Eucharist at St. Nicholas Collegiate Church in Galway (a 45-minute drive each way) and did take some pictures of the church. I will make every effort to write a posting about that and hang some pictures here later in the evening, but right now …. I gotta study!

A Music Sample

July 18, 2011 / eric / 1 Comment

This is a sample of the music I am arranging. This hymn is called Holy Trinity Protect Me. I made this audio with Sibelius 6 and converted the Sibelius audio to MP3 format. I’m having some difficulty getting it to play in the Firefox on my MacBook Pro, but it plays fine in Safari. Hopefully, it will play in whatever browser you are using. The link will open a new tab or a new window depending on how your browser treats the target=”_blank” attribute in the link tag.

Úna ní Ógain arranged this for soprano accompanied by piano – I’ve arranged it for SATB choir – the audio from Sibelius makes use of synthesized voices and, of course, does not include the words.

Holy Trinity Protect Me

The Holiness of Creation – 17 July 2011

July 17, 2011 / eric / 1 Comment

It is said that there are forty shades of green in Ireland … there are probably more. There seem also to be at least that many shades of gray in the skies of Ireland the past couple of days. Since my arrival here, there have been clouds, wind, and rain. Irish words I learned three years ago come easily to mind: scamallach (cloudy), gaofar (windy), báisteach (rain).

Today, the wind is blowing hard enough that the trees and bushes in the front yard of my teach lóistin (boarding house) are bent far over and whipping about violently. The clouds, seeming low enough to touch, race by overhead, and throughout the day sheets of rain – some of hard, coarse droplets; some of sharp, stinging mist – have come and gone. From time to time a seagull struggles to move against the wind finding ways to travel into the blustery headwind, knowing instinctively when to rise, when to dive, when to tack.

The Windblown Skies of An Cheathrú Rua

My housemates are away today – the Acadamh has offered a bus tour to Ros Muc and the cottage in which Patrick Pearce, a hero of the founding of the modern Republic, spent his life. I have made this journey before and so I have opted not to take today’s bus ride. It has given me a chance to study grammar, review vocabulary flash-cards, and read a bit.

But the rain beats against the window and the wind blows so hard the house, though solidly built of concrete block and stone, vibrates; I am constantly distracted by this weather. “Tá an aimsir go-holc,” exclaims the bean-a-ti (literally “woman of the house”, the term – pronounced “BAN-uh-tee” – means both “housewife” and “landlady”). Yes, I think, the weather is wretched.

Olc is an interesting word: its basic meaning is “evil”, but it is used in a variety of ways which would be supplied by different words in English. (Go-holc is a form which would be translated into English by the addition of the adverb “very” to adjective.) It can be used to describe anything from simple “bad luck” to “wretched weather” to “moral evil”. Similarly, a word used to described good weather, álainn, can mean “beautiful”, “delightful”, or “perfect”.

I have been convinced for some time that a people’s spirituality is informed by their language, by its structures, by its grammar, by the alternative meanings of words.

It would, I think, be unlikely to find an English speaker describing the weather as “evil” – wretched, perhaps, and bad, certainly – but “evil” is a term we would reserve for other uses, to describe that which is morally reprehensible, something which can’t be said of the weather. Similarly, while we might describe the weather as “perfect” for some activity, we would not generally describe the weather as simply perfect in its own right.

Thinking of these descriptive terms for the weather I am reminded of a verse of scripture, Matthew 5:48, perhaps most familiar in its King James Version form: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Although álainn is not the word used in the Irish bible’s version of this admonition of Christ, I can’t help but think that the secondary meaning of the word might suggest to the Gaelic soul a link between the occasional perfection of nature and the perfection of God (or, negatively, between the “evil” of the weather and the Evil One).

Celtic Christianity views the mission of Christ less as a “redemption” of a “fallen” creation than as the “completion” of an “incomplete” creation. I believe the use of these morally and spiritually charged adjectives to describe the weather and to describe nature has contributed to the spirituality which informs this theology. There is a hymn in Dánta Dé which sings the praises of the holiness of all nature and is reflective of this Celtic spirituality.

First, the Irish:

Naomhtha cearda Mhic Mhuire;
Naomhtha ó thus A thrócaire;
Naomhtha grian is neoil nimhe,
Dhá fhiadh eoil na h-aimsire.

Naomhtha a bhfuil thall n-a thigh,
Naomhtha gach dúil dá dhúilibh,
Naomhtha an ré a’s na réaltain,
Naomhtha an Té ó dtaisbéantar.

Naomhtha na síona saobha,
Naomhtha an fhearthain Abraona;
Naomhtha an tsoinionn go ngné ghil,
Naomhtha doinionn Dé dúiligh.

Naomhtha ceathra na cruinne,
Naomhtha cloche ‘s caomh-dhuille,
Naomhtha an teine, giodh h-í ain,
‘S gach ní eile dá n-abraim.

Naomhtha an ghaoth lonn ag labhairt,
Naomhtha fairrge ‘s fíormamaint;
Naomhtha gach aon-mhaith d’ar fhégh,
Naomhtha ‘n éanlait ‘san aedhir.

Naomhtha na coillte fá chnáibh,
Naomhtha an fhíneamhain abaidh,
Naomhtha gach toradh dá dtig,
Naomhtha an talamh ó a dtáinig.

Naomhtha an tráigh ‘s an tuile,
Naomhtha fás na fiodhbhaidhe,
Gníomha naomhtha learg is luibh,
Naomhtha an Ceard do cruthaigh.

Naomhtha fós fóghar na dtonn,
Naomhtha siúbhal na srothann,
Naomhtha an riasg fraochdha ‘s an féar
Naomhtha an t-iasg ‘san aigéan.

Naomhtha A thionsgnamh ‘a A thoil,
Naomhtha oibreacha ‘n Athair,
Naomhtha A cheard ‘s A chreidiomh,
Naomhtha A fhearg ‘s A fhoighideadh.

Naomhtha teaghlach A thoighe,
Naomhtha an Trionóid tóguidhe,
Naomhtha A iomrádh ag gach aon
Naomhtha ró-ghrádh A ró-naomh.

And the English translation by Úna ní Ógáin:

Holy are the works of the Son of Mary
Holy, from the beginning, His mercy,
Holy the sun and the clouds of heaven,
Two guides of knowledge of the seasons;

Holy all yonder in His House,
Holy each creature of His creatures,
Holy the moon and the stars,
Holy He from Whom they are revealed.

Holy the wild tempests,
Holy the rain of April,
Holy the fair-weather, with bright looks,
Holy the rough-weather of God the Creator.

Holy are the quadrupeds of the Universe,
Holy the stones and the gentle leaves,
Holy the fire, though it be destructive,
And all else of which I speak.

Holy the strong wind’s speech,
Holy, sea and firmament,
Holy, each good thing which was recounted,
Holy the birds in the air.

Holy the woods bearing clusters,
Holy the ripe vine,
Holy each fruit that cometh,
Holy the earth whence it came.

Holy are the shore and the wave,
Holy the growth of the woods;
Holy works are hillock and herb,
Holy the Artificer Who created them.

Holy too the voice of the waves,
Holy the travelling of the streams,
Holy the wild moor and the grass,
Holy the fish in the ocean.

Holy are His designs and His will,
Holy, the works of the Father,
Holy His workmanship and His faith,
Holy His anger and His patience.

Holy the household of His house,
Holy the exalted Trinity;
Holy, for all, to converse of Him,
Holy, the great love of His great saints.

Quarry Bank Mill – 13 July 2011

July 17, 2011 / eric / 1 Comment

After attending the midweek Eucharist at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Wilmslow, my host Sally M. took me to see the Quarry Bank Mill, one of the largest cotton producers of the English Industrial Revolution. The Mill was founded by Samuel Greg from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and stayed in the Greg Family until 1939 when Alexander Carlton Greg gave the Mill and the family estate to the National Trust. It is now a well-preserved and highly educational historical site encompassing not only the Mill, but the Apprentice House in which young pauper and orphan children who worked in the Mill were lodged, Styal Village where the older workers and their families lived, Quarry Bank House where the Gregs lived next door to the Mill, and Mrs. Greg’s gardens which provided her with enjoyment and fresh vegetables for the children living in the Apprentice House.

I was able only to visit the Mill itself due to lack of time, but hope some day to return and see the rest of the site.

Quarry Bank Mill, Wilmslow, UK

The Mill is a marvel of early industrial technology presented in such a way that the visitor really appreciates the “improvements” in cotton production from the cottage industry it originally was when a woman would spin all day to make enough cotton to work on her loom all day the next day producing about 8 inches of yard-width cloth! The water-wheel and later steam driven machines could turn out yards and yards of thread, yarn, and cloth in a few hours. In addition, there are exhibits about how looms are set up to make patterns and about the way in which patterns not woven into the fabric are printed on it.

I’ll just show a few pictures here and add a few comments.

This is an exhibit showing a spinning wheel in the background and hand-loom in the foreground. A volunteer in period dress explained the way in which these machines were used by women in the cottage-industry days of cotton production.

Loom exhibit, Quarry Bank Mill, Wilmslow, UK

One of these volunteers is showing the operation of a flying-shuttle loom, an improvement on the hand loom which made the work go faster; this loom also has an improvement which makes it possible to change the threads of the weft so as to add colored stripes or bands to the cloth. The other is setting up a spinning jenny seen in the next picture, a machine with which one woman could produce not just one, but up to 16 bobbins of thread at a time.

Loom exhibit, Quarry Bank Mill, Wilmslow, UK

Spinning jenny exhibit, Quarry Bank Mill, Wilmslow, UK

These two machines spin yard and thread onto hundreds of bobbins; the third then takes those threads and rolls them neatly onto a drum for use on the mechanized looms as the warp.

Quarry Bank Mill, Wilmslow, UK

These two machines are individual mechanized looms now run with electrical motors for demonstration purposes.

Quarry Bank Mill, Wilmslow, UK

But, of course, the Greg mill didn’t rely on individual machines … a hundred or more machines were set up together, all running off a central power source (either water wheel or steam turbine). One room of the mill is set up to show what this was like and while were there a worker set only three of the machines working – the noise was deafening! I can’t imagine what it must have been like to work there with all of the machines running.

Here is a picture of the several looms together; the next picture is the bank of bobbins which feed the looms.

Quarry Bank Mill, Wilmslow, UK

Men would run the looms; the apprentices (young boys about nine years of age) would go under the looms to clear jams or tie broken threads while the looms were working. As we went through the exhibit, there were several displays telling us about boys who had died from injuries received while working on running machinery.

The last display I want to share in this posting is the display of printed cotton cloth. I thought my daughter, a print maker, would appreciate this pictures of the cylindrical drums used imprint the cloth and the press on which they are used.

Quarry Bank Mill, Wilmslow, UK

The Gregs were enlightened mill operators for their day. They provided fresh food and reasonably good housing for their apprentices, as well as rudimentary education. But let’s face it, the working conditions of the 18th and 19th Centuries were horrendous. One also must face the fact that large scale industrial production of cotton cloth put a vital cottage industry to death and changed an entire society.

Hand weaving of cloth and the making of clothing by hand was a staple activity of Gaelic life, as well as of English life, prior to the Industrial Revolution. In their collections of rustic charms, Douglas Hyde in Connacht in Éire and Alexander Carmichael in the islands and highlands of Scotland both recorded many songs sung by women as they worked the looms or finished the cloth; these songs reflect the rhythm of the looms or, in the case of those sung during group work like the waulking of the cloth, provided a rhythm for unified activity. (Wikipedia has a brief article about Scottish waulking songs.)

However, it was not only in these work songs that the making and working of cloth found its way into the folk songs of the Gaelic people: it was also in their love songs! The following is a song Dr. Hyde collected from Walter Sherlock of County Roscommon (because this post has gotten rather long I won’t record here the Irish, only the English). The title is The Tailoreen of the Cloth. (The ending “-een” or “-ine” added to Irish words means “little”, so in this song treasureen is a way of saying “little treasure”; tailoreen, “little tailor”. Céad fáilte is Irish for “a hundred welcomes”.)

I will leave this village
Because it is ugly,
And I go to live
At Cly-O’Gara?
The place where I will get kisses
From my treasureen, and a Céad fáilte
From my soft, young little dove,
And I shall marry the tailor.

Oh, tailor, oh, tailor,
Oh, tailoreen of the cloth,
I do not think it prettier how you cut your cloth
Than how you shape the lies;
Not heavier would I think the quern of a mill,
And it falling into Loch Erne,
Than the lasting love of the tailor
That is in the breast of my shirt.

I thought, myself,
As I was without knowledge,
That I would sieze your hand with me
Or the marriage ring,
And I thought after that
That you were the star of knowledge
Or the blossom of the raspberries
On each side of the little road.

(From Douglas Hyde, Love Songs of Connacht, page 37)

The many working songs of weaving women and love songs like this reflect a way of life ended by the Industrial Revolution so brilliantly displayed by the Quarry Bank Mill.

St. Bartholomew’s Wilmslow – 13 July 2011

July 16, 2011 / eric / 3 Comments

Let’s back up a few days and consider St. Bartholomew’s Church in the Parish of Wilmslow; it is one of two congregations in the Parish, the other being St. Anne’s Church. Though I visited both, I was able only to get photographs at the first.

A church has been on the site of St. Bartholomew’s building since 1264, but the current building was built in the early 16th Century; all that remains of the earlier structure is a crypt below the altar of the current church. The current building also incorporates a structure from the 1400s which now forms the base of the church’s bell tower. The building is made of local sandstone which the Parish’s guidebook acknowledges is “weather-blackened”; I rather think the black discoloration is more from industrial pollution than simply from the “weather”. Wilmslow is quite close to Manchester, center of the English Industrial Revolution, and has its own very large cotton mill which used coal-fired steam to power its spinning jennies and looms; coal smoke is most likely the cause of the blackening.

This photo was taken from the city park across the street. One enters the building through a porch to the viewer’s left; the altar and crypt are at the end to your right.

St. Bartholomew's, Wilmslow

One enters the church grounds through the “lichgate”, although there are other entrances as well. I’m told that all funeral processions begin here, the officiant leading the pall bearers with the casket and the congregation following behind. According to the dictionary, a lichgate is “a roofed gate to a churchyard, formerly used as a temporary shelter for the bier during funerals.”

St. Bartholomew's, Wilmslow, Lichgate

I visited the church on a Wednesday morning just a few minutes before the midweek Eucharist. I had limited time to take pictures and, with church people preparing prayerfully for worship, forebore using flash. As a result many of my interior pictures simply didn’t turn out.

On entering the church one finds a very dark interior, typically English Gothic but with Victorian emmandations which, frankly, are a detraction! I apologize for the blurriness of this photo; given the dark lighting conditions, it was the best I could get. Notice in the ceiling a larger-than-usual golden boss (a blur really, sorry). I tried to get a picture of this, but none came out. Such bosses, whether stone or wood, usually depict stylized flowers or angels … this one is the Devil! According to the church’s history, “It is meant to show the Devil nailed in perpetuity to the roof and obliged to listen helplessly to the congregation insistently singing the praises of God.”

`St. Bartholomew's, Wilmslow, interior

Notice the screen separating the congregation from the choir and chancel; although part of this is an original 16th Century rood screen, it was incorporated into an 1865 restoration in which all the pews in the church were replaced by the current pews and this “vestry chapel” in the choir was installed. This provided “more dignified” seating and a place for the governing board to meat. The individual, upholstered seats are labeled with brass plaques inscribed in Latin for the various offices of the board.

St. Bartholomew's, Wilmslow, interior

The church council has tried get permission from the diocese and the historical preservation authorities to remove this chapel, moving the seats to exterior walls and the screen to the base of the bell tower in order to restore a more original appearance to the church; unfortunately, that permission has been denied. If the screen were moved to the bell tower, a floor could be built at the same height as its top on which the bell ringers could stand; as things are now, the bell ringers stand on the ground floor and thus block entrance through the main door which is in the bell tower.

In the bell tower is an engraved stone plaque bearing these words: “John, son of Robert and Penelope Hunt, was killed by the first bell on Sunday, August the 30th 1767.” Apparently, the 13-year-old boy was fatally injured when the treble or smallest of the six bells broke loose from its mounting and fell on him! Those six bells are still in use today.

I was able to take pictures of some of the stained glass windows and here are a few of those.

St. Bartholomew's, Wilmslow, interior

I was unable to film the crypt, which is a very small, cramped space below the altar. It is believed to date from the original 13th Century church. In more modern times it fell into disuse, was filled with rubble and forgotten. During repairs to the church in the 1970s, it was rediscovered. In 1979, the Lebanese Consul in Manchester, Christian Emile Fadil, paid for its restoration in memory of his late wife. Now a chapel, the altar there is made of Lebanese cedar and on the wall are three glass panels engraved with golden lettering reading, “Pease I give unto you” in English, Arabic, and Hebrew. It has become the custom of the church that, following the Saturday evening Easter Vigil service, the clergy of the parish and others who wish to join them keep the rest of the overnight vigil in this chapel until the festival service on Easter morning.

St. Bartholomew’s is a lovely church building which evidences the faith of generations, even centuries of Wilmslow’s residents. It shows how each generation alters the church building to meet its needs to make the structure a more suitable tool for the ministry appropriate to their circumstance. It is, I believe, unfortunate that those more interested in historic preservation than in living ministry are blocking the current congregations efforts to continue in that tradition. As I was discussing this situation with my friend who is on the congregation’s ministry team, I was reminded of Jaroslav Pelikan’s aphorism, “Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”

That Which We Have Heard & Known

Page 125 of 130

A Drive Through the Bog

Hello Out There!

Sunday, a Sermon, and Superstring Theory

A Visit to Inis Oírr

My Daily Walk: The Rocks and the Flowers

My Typical Day in the Gaeltacht

A Music Sample

The Holiness of Creation – 17 July 2011

Quarry Bank Mill – 13 July 2011

St. Bartholomew’s Wilmslow – 13 July 2011

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