The Dublin Yarnspinners had arranged several weeks ago for me to be the featured storyteller at their monthly meeting on Thursday, June 14th. As it happened, Study Abroad Ireland was scheduled to be in Dublin – starting the 14th – for our annual multi-day trip that includes the celebration of Bloomsday on June 16th. Bloomsday celebrates the day chronicled by James Joyce in his famous novel Ulysses.
The team that is responsible for running the Dublin Yarnspinners is composed of three storytellers: Aideen McBride, her father Jack Sheehan, and Jack Lynch. Aideen was my contact for the evening, and she told me that it was scheduled for 8:00 p.m., but probably wouldn’t start until 8:15. It was about 8:20 as Aideen introduced me that I looked around the room at 22 American faces and 13 Irish ones, including those of Miceal Ross, Danielle Allison, and Richard Marsh.
As I prepared myself for the evening, the one thing that never occurred to me was that there would be more Americans in the audience than Irish, but for the first half of the evening well over half my listeners were participants and faculty of the Study Abroad Ireland Program. I was honored and a little surprised that all my colleagues and over half the students would come, and just before it was time for me to begin telling I allowed myself a moment of wonderment and reflection on the relative utility of expectations. The picture I had in my head of the Dublin Yarnspinners was of the last time I was there in 2005. On that evening there were about the same number of people, but Mark and I were the only Americans.
Flexibility is part of the storyteller’s credo, and I pondered a moment on whether I should choose something different than what I had planned to tell. I decided to stick with “The Path of Truth”, a story about my grandmother and her impact on me, built around the image of a bracelet that she wore most of her life. For this evening, I developed an expanded 30 minute version of the story. I had a wonderful time telling it, and as she usually did and still does through the story, my grandmother was able to bridge both generation and geography.
After I told, Aideen invited Joyce Story to come up and tell which she did with great aplomb. She chose a short story with a good ending that the audience really enjoyed. It took me several days to convince Joyce that I had not known Aideen was going to ask her. I should have realized though, when Aideen asked me who the experienced storytellers in my group were.
After Joyce, Aideen asked Richard Marsh to step up and tell. Richard hails from Detroit, but has lived in Ireland for close to three decades and is well known as a storyteller, author, and tour leader. Richard told a poem he wrote about an experience he had crashing the annual and very posh Trinity Ball with a group of friends. When Richard finished it was time for the break, and when the doors opened 10 or more people who had been waiting in the hall poured into the room, including Jack Lynch. It was a horrible rainy night out and people had had a rough time getting there.
The Yarnspinners is held at the Club na Múínteoirí, the teachers’ club, which has a very nice bar. During the break, most people went there to grab a pint or a cup of coffee. When we resumed, over half of the Study Abroad Ireland listeners had gone, replaced by the people who had been standing in the hall during the first set. That meant that the majority of the listeners were now Irish.
I had asked Jack Sheehan for a story I heard him tell last year at Cultra called “The Fairy Seat”. Aideen called him up first and I was very sorry that so many of the students had left because this was the story I had wanted them to hear. Fortunately, most of my storytelling students were still there. Then Aideen asked Danielle to come up and tell a story that has become something of her signature, a beautiful love story about a tragic, misguided postman and the woman he loves. I closed out the second set with two of my favorites, “The Woman Who Knew a Story and a Song”, and “What Happens When Your Really Listen”, two folktales from India both collected by A.K. Ramanujan.
After visiting with the listeners and wrapping up, several of us went to the bar and then another storytelling session began. Maura and her sister Brigid told about their father, who was a great storyteller, and about their personal experiences with ghosts. Jack Sheehan told a ghost story that turned out not to be about a ghost. Aideen told her “Hole Story”, and another one about a long concealed murder. I told a short Irish folktale about a mirror, and then gave the modern American version transformed into a blonde joke.
The Irish folktale is about a man who buys a mirror in town, thinking that he is looking at a picture of his dear, departed father. His wife grows jealous of his attention to it and thinks it is a picture of another woman. After the man goes to bed, she sneaks out for a peek and says in astonishment, “Now why on earth would he take up with an old worn out hag with those two useless things hanging down?” But, feeling uncomfortable saying that, I instead said, “Now why on earth would he take up with an old worn out thing like that with her gray hair and wrinkles?” Right away Maura and Brigid were nodding their heads. Maura said, “Oh yes, our dad used to tell that, but he always said. . ." and she proceded to tell what I'd edited out.
The blonde joke, just so as not to leave you hanging, is this: The blonde was stopped for speeding by a woman police officer, also blonde. When asked for her license, the driver could not find it. Finally, the police officer says, “It’s the little square thing with your picture.” The driver says, “Oh! Here it is”, and hands the police officer a square mirror. The officer looks at and replies, “Why didn’t you tell me you were a police officer, too?”
It broke up about 12:30 and Doug Bland and I walked back down O’Connell Street to the Liffey and then to the Abbey Court Hostel on Bachelor’s Walk through a steady cold rain. It was a memorable and satisfying evening.
The photo of me at the beginning of the post was taken by Allison Davis.
