Liz's Ireland Journal

"Along the Flaggy Shore"

How did Seamus Heaney learn he had won the Nobel Prize? 

A week and a half ago we took a trip through the Burren to the Cliffs of Moher.  Our bus driver couldn’t keep the microphone in front of his mouth because the earpiece on the head set was broken. This meant he was often giving lengthy descriptions that no one could hear.  And that was actually a good thing since he was only getting about ½ of it right.

But he did tell me one story that just charmed me.  We were sitting in the bus at the Cliffs of Moher waiting for the students to return.  He asked me if I knew any of Seamus Heaney’s poems.  I said the only one that I knew was “Postscript”.  No sooner was that word out of my mouth when he began reciting it:

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other . . .

I joined in and between the two of us we knew the whole thing.  He said, “I didn’t think about it on the way here but on the way back I’ll show you the Flaggy Shore.  It’s at New Quay between Ballyvaghan and Kinvarra.”  He went on, “There’s a great story about that poem and that place".

The story he told me was that Seamus Heaney and Brian Friel were traveling in West Clare on holiday when they stopped into a pub for lunch. As it happened, the pub owner was a big fan of Heaney’s and in particular of “Postcript”.  There, prominently displayed on the wall behind the bar, was a large framed copy of the poem.  Of course, being a fan, the owner recognized him.  She rushed over, “Are you Seamus Heaney”?  Heaney, pleased, blushed a little and said, “I am".  She said, “What are you doing here?  Haven’t you seen the news today"?  When he said that he hadn’t, she said, “You’re after winning the Nobel Prize”!

I loved that!  I made notes, and when we drove by New Quay I took the shot of the Flaggy Shore at the top of this post. And, I was feeling a little bad for being so hard on him.

Last week Liz Weir was here and we were talking about the Burren trip and the driver.  So, to be fair, I said that he had told me one great story and I told it to her.  “Oh, that’s good", she said.  “Nicely done working in the area like that, but that’s not what happened”! 

Turns out that the notice was late in reaching Heaney, but not because he was tourin’ the Burren with Brian Friel.  He was in Italy!

Then, of course, I doubted every bit of the story.  Was that even actually the Flaggy Shore he had shown me?  Yes, it was!  You can see better pictures of it here. 

Ah, yes.  The oral tradition in action!

Triple Liz Throw-down and Other Three Rivers Concert Highlights!

            The annual evening concert of the Three Rivers Storytelling Festival was held at 8:00 p.m. on June 16^th at the Sheraton in Athlone.  Danielle Allison and Mary Dillon got the room set up and managed the door. Chas Moore and the SAI musicians played before and between stories. Liz Weir and Eddie Lenihan were the featured tellers, and I was the emcee.

                Chas and the musicians started the evening with “Tell Me Ma”, and “The Sally Gardens”.  Liz Weir got the storytelling going.  She told six stories, listed below along with their place in the overall count for the term.

1. (64) The story of the fairy’s war shirts that explains why Glen Dun in Co. Antrim is brown.

2. (65) Sheila Quigley’s story of the leannáin sídhe.  The young man who locks eyes with her is doomed.

3. (66) The Fiat Worse than Death. Another of my favorites about a very talented horse.

4. (67)  The Boy with Knowledge, set in Altenagh in Co. Tyrone.  Includes a line about young, adulterous lovers, “She was bein’ powerful good to him”.

5. (68) The story about the librarian with the weakness for Mel Gibson.

6. Crawford Howard’s poem “St. Patrick and the Snakes”.

When Liz finished her set, Chas and the musicians came up and did a fun Arizona version of “La Cucaracha”.  I introduced Eddie Lenihan who came up and told us two long stories that were securely nested in a wealth of folklore from Co. Clare having primarily to do with the power of priests.

7. (69)  A story about a priest who puts a curse on a field that three drunkards use as a shortcut to the pub.

8. (70) A story about a man who shows a kindness to a woman in need.  He is told by the priest that he will have help in his hour of need.  Sure enough,  on the day he needs to get seven fields mowed, supernatural mowers that no one else can see arrive to do the job.

Following a break, Chas and the musicians performed  “Hard Times Come Again No More” by Stephen Foster. 

9. (71) I told Dee Strickland Johnson’s great poem “Tomboy”.  I then invited Eddie up for another story.

10. (72)  Eddie told a funny story about two priests – the old one could not preach and the young one could.  Things get interesting when the young priest explains that his secret is a good belt of whiskey before he goes to the pulpit.

11. (73) Liz Weir closed with her beautiful story of the baby who is rescued and nursed by the seal.

Finally, yes, there were three Lizzes at the Three Rivers Storytelling Festival Annual Concert.  Liz Weir and I are both Elizabeth Ann.  Lizzy Murphy is Elizabeth Marie Cecilia.  Here’s the cool part: her parents named her Cecilia, who in her saintly guise is the patroness of musicians, before they knew Lizzy was gifted musically.  Brain Jagiello, who took the picture of us, is the one who dubbed it the Triple Liz Throw-down. 

Below are Chas and his musicians: Chris Gurule, Rachel Young, Lizzy Murphy, Clarissa Villa, and Ashley Sanders.

Liz Weir's Seventh Visit to Study Abroad Ireland

Liz Weir visited The Irish Storytelling Tradition as part of this year’s Three Rivers Storytelling Festival on Wednesday, June 15.  She is the only teller who has visited my class every one of the seven summers I’ve been teaching in Study Abroad Ireland.  It’s a tradition.

She started off by talking to us about her accent.  Since Cushendall is only 12 miles from Scotland, she’s often told that her accent sounds more Scottish than Irish.  But, she reminded us, in Ireland the accent changes about every 10 miles.  So who’s to say what a true Irish accent is?  And she also cautioned us against ever adopting  a stage Irish accent, an admonishment they’d had from me on the first day of class.

She spoke to us about her philosophy and influences.  She said that at this stage of her career she is more of a listener than a teller.  “It  concerns me that people aren’t so good at listening – I want to encourage that now for all ages.”

She then told us her first story.  Since we are keeping count of the total number of stories told during the class, I’ll include the ongoing count in parentheses.

1. (56) To introduce the story of the girl who went to the hiring fair, she told us about Sheila Quigley, one of her most important influences.  “One of the things I love is following in the footsteps of people who have come before me.  Most people who step on the Carrick-a-Rede in Co. Antrim are afraid, but they walk on in the knowledge of those who stepped  before them. It’s the same with stories.”   

Liz told us that she is drawn to that kind of story. She said that storytelling increases the empathy in people’s lives. “It’s important that we create stories that touch your emotion.  You have to be a human being to really appreciate it.” She likes to make people think and make pictures in their heads. 

2. (57) She then told us a story  with a folded piece of paper that turns from a boat into a t-shirt to demonstrate how engaging a simple story can be for almost anyone.  She says they have great utility English language learners, for example at schools in Dublin where 65 languages are spoken.  “The least confident child or adult can do that.”  Tells in prisons she’s on to the next story and someone still doing it.

Liz grew up in a family before television. Her father made her sing with a bow on her head, and she hated it.  When she began to work at the library, she was horrified when she learned she had to tell stories to children. She was the Belfast Children’s Librarian for 14 years while bombs were going off and people were being killed and “we just got on with it.”  The children of Belfast had seen more violence than most adults ever will.  “But no matter how fast they are forced to grow up they are still children and need stories. They still have a basic need for story. And it’s not just the story. It’s the time spent – the intimacy.

3. (58) She then told us the story of the young soldier who finds a used book, and contacts the previous owner, who conveniently left her mailing address in the back.  She learned it from Rob Mann, who found it in the Readers Digest. She said, “I’ve heard 100s of stories and I didn’t see that ending coming!” She reminded us that we  “have to find stories that suit you as a storyteller.”  She said she wanted to “shut myself in a cupboard when I first saw Grace Haworth – Grace by name and grace by nature.” She  realized, of course, why she couldn’t be Grace – she had to be herself.  “Like a new pair of shoes, I  have to walk in a new story to make it mine, to fit my feet, to fit me.”   She would never change the sense of the story, but even a story like this one she adapted to fit herself. 

4. (59 She told us the Red Riding Hood rap made by seventh graders and describe how she uses interactive strategies to engage children in creating stories and poems.  More and more of her work knowing is doing just that in more intimate settings and with more marginal audiences. She told of her residency with a group of tough children in Monaghan. At first they told her that books were rubbish and that they wanted nothing to do with storytelling.  Now, after several weekly sessions, next week they will be doing a performance.  The principal told her he’d never seen anything like it.  To demonstrate, she led us through the initial phase of the process by asking our impressions of Ireland.  We’re looking forward to the poem she will create!

 

5. (60) Her next story is one of my favorites.  It was created 8 and 9 year olds, with direction from Liz, and they call it The Chain of Memory.  It’s a beautiful story of a family evicted from their thatched cottage in Donegal, the tragedies that follow, but how the American descendents return to complete the circle.   They made it up after hearing Liz tell  One Wish.

6.  (61) To demonstrate the importance of knowing your audience, she told us the story of the new young minister who preached a full fire and brimstone sermon to one old man.  When he asked the old minister for advice,  the old man told him that when he fed the chickens, if only one hen showed up, he didn’t give her the whole bucket!  “It’s important to read the audience and know who you’ve got.  Storytelling is a living breathing dynamic thing.”  She says she can’t work from a set-list for the same reason – how can you know what to tell until you see who is there?.

Someone asked her who her biggest influences were.  She quickly replied that it was her mother.  “She wouldn’t have called herself a story teller.  And, she couldn’t believe I was giving up my good secure job to tell stories.” Alice Kane, the Belfast-born children’s librarian in Canada, who was also a renowned storyteller.  When Liz met her, Alice said, “You’re the one with the Irish voice”  Liz also mentioned Kathryn Windham, who just recently passed,  “There would be no messing about – she just told the story.  She had a presence in the room and knew how to own the space.”

7.  (62)  She told one of her signature stories, the fairy story set on Rathlin Island about the blackberry picking boy.  At the end she said,  “Our landscape bears the stories.” And,  “You have to be nosy,  and all your senses must come into play.”

Liz said that she had told stories in “the weirdest places:  swimming pools, a boxing ring, squash court, and with soldiers holding automatic weapons.  I came in to storytelling from working in the community.  There was no lying in a darkened room before telling.  There is an art, craft, and skill to it, but part of what I do is to de-mystify storytelling.”

She told us about the Crumlin Road Prison Visitors Center run by the Quakers. When she was a children’s librarian she was asked to tell stories to the children who came to the visitor’s center and then eventually to the prisoners themselves. In Maze Prison, she met Michael Stone who had killed the husbands of two women she knew. It was a very rough experience, but as the teller she had to keep it together.  “Under the terms of the Good Friday agreement they’re all out of prison now. It’s a legacy we’ve had to deal with in Northern Ireland – both the victims and perpetrators side by side in their communities.”   About telling stories to prisoners she said, “When they’re listening they’re not killing each other.” 

8. (63) She was asked which poets had influenced her. She talked about the work Yeats had done collecting folktales and told us that Seamus Heaney, whose “poetry is rooted in the landscape”,  had been her lecturer at university. After a dig at me about the rattlesnake that appeared a few weeks ago on the very patio she’d been sitting on at Christmastime, she closed with Crawford Howard’s great poem, St. Patrick and the Snakes.

Thanks  Liz and see you next year!

Second Stories

On Tuesday, June 14, we heard 15 of 20 stories of the second round.  The numbers in parentheses refer to our on-going count for the summer.

1. (37) Alison Vincent told Paddy Corcoran’s Wife from W.B. Yeats’ Fairy and Folktales of Ireland.
2. (38) Sarah Stevens told The Brewery of Egg Shells, also from Yeats.
3. (39) Nikki Dugie told St. Brigid and the Lepers, which she put together from several sources.  She made me want to tell it!
4. (40) Michelle Fish (at right in pink) told The Horse’s Last Drunk from Henry Glassie’s Irish Folktales.
5. (41) Lizzy Murphy told The Cow That Ate the Piper, which she crafted from several sources.
6. (42) Melissa Barrett-Traister told Two Women or Twelve Men from Sean O’Sullivan’s Folktales of Ireland.
7. (43) Jesse Soper (at right in black t-shirt) told The Magical Thief from Glassie, after which I begged him to become a professional storyteller.  Don’t know if I got through or not!
8. (44) Angela Roman told The Hour of Death from O’Sullivan.
9. (45) Melinda Bokel (first photo below) told Dreams of Gold from Glassie.
10. (46) Tammy Chapman (secon photo below) told Tom Moore and the Seal Woman from Glassie.
11. (47) Fidencio Ybarra told Swine of the Gods from Glassie.
12. (48) Laura Rutherford told Three Questions from Glassie.
13. (49) Kim Wellman (at the top) told How the Sexton Got the Gift of Bone Setting from Eddie Lenihan’s Meeting the Other Crowd.
14. (50) Ashley Sanders (at right with short hair) told The Cockerel and the Fox from Duncan Williamson’s The Genie and the Fisherman, the second in her planned three-fox story run.
15. (51) Alysa Brimacombe told The Farmer’s Questions from Glassie
16. (52 -55) The previous day while we made St. Brigid’s crosses from colorful chenille pipe cleaners, I told my set of Brigid stories that includes how she gave her father’s sword to the leper, how she destroyed her beauty so she wouldn’t have to marry, how she restored her beauty at the well, and how she hung her magical cloak upon a sunbeam.  I also told a little poem I wrote about her:

Young Brigid knew her life's design.

"A life of service will be mine."

Fiery Brigid true and fair,

Wove a cross and spoke a prayer.

She built her church around the oak.

To feed the poor, she spread her cloak.

She fills our hearts with generous dreams,

And rests her cloak upon a sunbeam.

Picking Up Speed

Last Monday, June 13, marked the “only-two-weeks-left” point in our experience and everything began to speed up.  We were so busy that I didn’t have the time to write a single blog post.  So, here it is Sunday, the 19^th, and I’m going to spend the day catching up on laundry, paper grading, and blog posts.  Here’s an overview of last week just to give you an idea of all we did:

Monday: In class the students told their weekend stories, prepared to tell their second traditional story and made St. Brigid’s crosses from multi-colored chenille pipe cleaners. After class, I went to the Marks and Spencer’s and to the Tesco to shop for food for my week of visitors and house guests. That night, Liz Weir and Winfried Dulish arrived from Cape Clear and then brought their Chinese take-out over to eat while we visited. 

Tuesday:  In class we heard 16 of the 20 stories of the second round.  Immediately after class I drove to Tullamore to tell stories to the fourth class at Scoil Mhuire.  The girls were great and the principal, Fionnuala Doheny, gave me the lovely commemorative Moneygall wine glass pictured at the top of the post.  That night, I made a big pot of potato and leek soup and fed Liz and Winfried, Danielle Allison, Chas Moore, and Simone Schummellfeder from Germany who is telling as part of the Three Rivers Festival.

Wednesday: Liz Weir told in class, and afterwards went to tell in the Ballinasloe Library.  Eddie Lenihan arrived in Ballinasloe at 5:00 and then Mary Dillon, librarian at the Ballinasloe and Danielle’s partner in running the festival, brought him and Simone to my apartment for dinner.  At dinner we had all of them, plus me, Liz Weir, Danielle, and Chas.  We then went to the Sheraton for our big concert.  Eddie and Liz told, I was the emcee, and Chas’s musicians provided musical interludes.  After the concert, most of the students and Eddie, Danielle, Chas, and I went to The Olive for their Wednesday night session.  On the way home we saw the full moon and I had to drive down to the Shannon to see it reflected in the water.  Beautiful!

Thursday:  Eddie Lenihan came to my class to tell and Liz went to the Athlone Library. Danielle took Eddie to Ballinasloe, and after coffee with Mary Booth, I went to St. Brigid’s school in Moate to tell stories to Rachel Concannon’s (Mary and Frank’s daughter) class of senior infants, plus the junior infants, too. Rachel came up with me to tell Mr. Wiggle and Mr. Waggle to her classmates, and I think she was overall pleased with the experience, although she did say I could have told “The Five Sisters.”  Another girl in her class came up afterwards and informed me I’d told the story of the “The Dark, Dark Night” wrong.  She quickly, and quite competently, told me her version.  It was good and I told her so.  She replied, “Come back again and I’ll tell you another one!”

The weather was crazy on Thursday.  At 8:30 it was sunny and sandal worthy.  By noon it was freezing and chips of hail were hitting the window.  Fortunately, I had a few minutes before driving to Moate to get back to my apartment and get the boots on!  That afternoon I took a nap while Liz did an interview with Mairead O’Connor at the Athlone Community Radio.  That night the weather was beautiful again and Liz and Danielle and I were dining by the window at the Olive Grove, watching the sun and clouds on the Shannon.  We stopped in at Flannery’s for a quick one, and then Danielle took us back to the apartment.

Friday:  Liz left for Cushendall, after morning sessions in Birr and Clara.  She took Laura Rutherford and Andrea Robinson with her. We all went to Trim Castle in the pouring rain. That afternoon I made the final preparations for my workshop in Dublin the next day.  That night Chas Moore, Sarah Stevens, Michelle Fish, Lizzy Murphy and I drove to Ballynacargy to see Clare Murphy and Gombeens perform.  We then dropped Chas and Lizzy at Grogan's in Glasson so they could join in an engagement party session that they’d been invited to.

Saturday:  Bob Farwell, Danielle Allison, and I caught the 7:30 a.m. train to Dublin. Bob was meeting his friend John Ahearn. Danielle and I were picked up by Jack Lynch and driven to The Flying Book Club on Leeson Street so I could conduct a workshop, The Architecture of the Anecdote, for the Storytellers of Ireland. Dublin was sunny and the day was great.  Danielle and I caught the 5:10 train back to Athlone and I was back in my apartment eating left-over lasagna by 7:30 p.m. 

 Whew!

Presidential Pottery at Shannonbridge

I don’t know if you heard, but Barack Obama was in Ireland a couple of weeks ago.  Just kidding!  Wait until you see the t-shirts!  My favorite shows Mr. Obama, of the Moneygall O’bamas, hoisting a pint of Guinness to his lips.  Below the image it says “Tall, Dark, and Had Some.”  This is a double joke, as Guinness has had an ad for years that shows a beautiful big pint with the words “tall, dark, and handsome.” If you had any doubt about how important pub culture, and Guinness in particular, is to Irish identity then doubt no more.  Whoever it was on Obama’s team that figured out that he had to drink a pint was a genius. Almost every stranger I’ve spoken to while I’ve been here has wanted to talk about my president, and more particularly that he drank a pint. It means that he truly accepts Ireland and his heritage;  he is one of them who has finally come home.

But did you know that Obama did some shopping while he was here?  Well, he did.  He purchased a beautiful 7 piece set of Shannonbridge Pottery for his mother-in-law.  You can see the set here on Shannonbridge’s site. 

I was intrigued, so I went out to their shop, conveniently located in Shannonbridge, to check out the pottery.  I didn’t go for the mother-in-law set, but I did get myself a cute little teapot for one, milk pitcher, and a mug for Mark in the same presidential shamrock pattern. I pressed them into service immediately upon my return.  In the picture below, the teapot is steeping one bag of Barry's Tea Gold Blend.  Now to find those t-shirts!

Here's my route. On the way home between Shannonbridge and Cloonbegaun I passed huge fields of peat being harvested by Bord na Mona to burn for electricity.The photo at the top is Shannonbridge.

Clints and Grykes - Cliffs and Gripes

First the gripes.  Our driver for our day-long trip to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher was no Tom Kirwan.  Tom, who is the Flagline bus driver we have for most of our field trips, is legendary for his driving skills. And although I doubt he would consider himself a tour guide, whenever he does give information or background it is always accurate, concise, and insightful.

Our driver for this tour was a friendly, good-natured guy, but his information was spotty and his driving, to put it mildly, lacked Tom’s finesse.  Now, we were never endangered; it wasn’t like that.  Just a little rockier than we’re accustomed to – a missed turn and a side mirror swiped on a sedan in Lisdoonvarna.

So, on to the good part.  The day was glorious – sunny, not too windy, and relatively warm. Here is a map of our route to accompany the pictures.

We traveled south-west from Galway through Ballyvaghan, and then right along the Atlantic Coast to see the burren.  The burren was created by the retreating glacier. It's characterized by patterns of clints and grykes. The clints are expanses of limestone, and the grykes are the fissures that define them.  The remind me of Ogham writing, and I like to imagine this landscape was the inspiration for it. The burren extends right into the ocean, and the Aran islands which are not too far off shore are of the same composition.

 

Our next stop was lunch in Doolin, where we were treated to one of these classic displays of Irish road signage.

Next stop was the Cliffs of Moher, which is the image at the top of the post. After a couple of hours there we started our return journey.  We stopped at the top of Corkscrew Hill to take panoramic pictures of the burren hills, the landscape in between and the ocean and I took this shot of myself with my colleague Bob Farwell.

Our last stop was the the Aillwee Cave, where a neolithic cave-bear skull was discovered in the 1940s.  I'd never been there before, and once was probably enough for me, but the students seemed to enjoy it.  We saw a lovely underground waterful (left) as we wandered through our guided tour of another world. In the picture below, the guide is explaining to us the formation of tiny calcified straws that take thousands of years to form.

 

 

 

It took well over an hour to get back to Galway from the caves.  Along the way, I snapped this from the bus window.  All in all, a beautiful day.

 

Plugging the Festival

Thursday afternoon Danielle Allison and I stopped by the studios of Athlone Community Radio to be interviewed by Mairead O'Connor. Mairead hosts Athlone Today on weekdays from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.

We talked about storytelling, the festival, and I told a story, all in 15 minutes.  We were pleased to get to plug our big event which is coming up this Wednesday evening at 8:00 p.m. at the Sheraton in Athlone.  It's our annual concert and this year it will feature Liz Weir and Eddie Lenihan.  Chas Moore's music students from our program will also perform, plus some local musicians, and I'll be the emcee.

I was interviewed two years ago by ACR, but then they were an internet only radio.  A lot has changed since then.  Their studio and offices have expanded and they now broadcast on 88.4 FM in the Athlone area.  If you are ever in Athlone on a weekday afternoon, tune in and give Mairead a listen!

We've also been getting good publicity for the festival from Athlone's website, where they've posted a familiar picture, and from the Westmeath Independent which used the same photo in an announcement of our event.

Oh, and if you haven't done so already, "like" The Three Rivers Storytelling Festival on Facebook. Please.

Pat Speight Comes to Study Abroad Ireland

The Three Rivers Storytelling Festival brought Pat Speight to my class on Thursday, June 9^th.  All of my students were there, plus six of the remaining twelve in the program.  I was very pleased that so many of them got to hear Pat – The Hat, as he brands himself.  Speight is pronounced just like eight. He told 16 stories, which I’ll detail below, which brings our total up to 37.

                Pat started off by telling us that he was an “organic storyteller” with no professional academic training.  I believe he means in the art of storytelling, since I know that he’s done his time in the folklore department at University College Cork.  He charmed the students immediately by telling them that he has “too much respect for the truth to use it in everyday normal conversation.  I’m not known for telling the truth”.

                He gave us some background on himself and on the ancient tradition of storytelling in Ireland.  Before he was a professional storyteller he’d been a carpenter, a ship-builder, a chef, and a salesman, to name a few.  He said he would have told stories as a younger man, since in those days, and especially in rural areas, everyone had to have a “party piece”. It might be a story, or a song, or a dance; everyone took a part in community entertainment.

                He explained the difference between the two Irish names for storyteller:  seanchai and scealai.  The seanchai (shan-a-key) told shorter tales along with local history and news.  The scealai (shkay-lee) told the long epic tales, often with musical accompaniment.  Pat classes himself as a seanchai and he says there’s a lot of rubbish said about how the seanchai traveled about as a paid performer and was “fed and fêted” wherever he went.  On the contrary, he says that the seanchai was embedded in a community. He “had his own profession”, as farmer, tailor, or thatcher but would be recognized in his area for telling stories, especially on long winter evenings.  The scealai was the one that worked under the protection of a patron and would have been based at wealthy homes and courts.

                Pat then told us his first story.  I’ll list the stories below, plus some of what Pat said in and around them. The numbers in parentheses refer to our story count for the term.

1. (22)  The story of the archer, as told by the rabbi to explain how he always has a story for every occasion.  Pat used this to talk about one of the basic truths of storytelling – namely that a skillful teller can connect almost any story to any situation.  He also talked about Eamonn Kelly’s influence on him, and how Eamonn, who was trained as an actor, began to tell stories with the persona of a storyteller. Eamonn had heard an old storyteller in Kerry, and then told what he heard at a “posh Dublin 4 dinner party after a show.”  After that he began to get more and more requests for stories, and researched and developed a large repertoire.  He was heard on the radio and seen later on television, and for Irish people of 50+ he remains the icon of the Irish storyteller.
2. (23) A story he learned from Dan Yashinsky about an Excellent Pig.  Pat told this story to demonstrate his point above by appearing to start off telling a story about phones and directions, which he then wove in to the story later.
3. (24)  He told the Japanese story of Urashima and told us how it was the same story as Oisin in Tir-na-Nog.
4. (25) He slipped in the Finn McCool story of Youth, Strength, and Death, which among other things explains how Diarmuid got his love spot.
5. (26) Then he told us Oisin in Tir-na-Nog, which ends with Oisin meeting St. Patrick.  Pat told us that this one story shows “how we managed to kill pagan Ireland”.
6. (27) He told the famous story of One Wish.
7. (28) A quick joke about the man who wanted to be made irresistible to women and was turned into a chocolate bar.
8. (29) A story about a woman who has three wishes, which involves a neutered cat. About this story Pat said, “Very bold. Very bold. Very bold.”   They guffawed.  I’ll say no more!
9. (30) A story from the Jewish tradition that he learned from Joel ben Izzy, who he credits as having had a great influence on him.  The story involves a shamus who comes to America and makes gazillions even though he can neither read nor write.  After this story Pat explained why it’s important to be well paid as an artist:  “It’s a matter of respect.”  He also told us that a storyteller needs to pick his or her moment.  The old saying, “A song before a story” is true, as the music sets the context and then the teller can slide right in.
10. (31) A riddle: The man that made it never wore it and the man that wore it never saw it. (a coffin)
11. (32) The story of the tailor who makes a coat, then a jacket, then a vest, etc.  In his version he wins a bale of Donegal tweed in a contest.  After he told it he walked us through the scenes as a way of describing how storytellers rely on images instead of words. 

After this story he took some questions:

• How old were you when you first got paid?  He deftly dodged this by saying it was 18 or 20 years ago
• What story do you tell first?  “You have to see the audience.” He said starting a storytelling session with an audience is like making pancakes.  “The first one doesn’t count.” The first one is like an icebreaker and gives the teller important information about the listeners.
• Do you get stage fright?  Pat told us he was always a little bit nervous, but not too much.  Even coming here, he said, was a little nerve-wracking.  “I know it works, but I don’t know why.” He said it comes down to himself, the story, and the audience.  He said there is no room for nervousness, drink, drugs, or exhaustion.
• What is your favorite quote?  “Don’t buy green bananas”.  (This was something that John Campbell was known to say.  Pat and Danielle and I had been talking about this the night before.  It was on his mind as he’d just suffered the loss of a dear friend.)

    12.  (33) A story about gravestones that had a particular date and time rather than a span of years.

    13.  (34) The Man Who Went in Search of His Luck.  I really enjoyed Pat’s version of this story.  He             brought it around nicely to give a message to them: “Your luck is all around you.  Just reach out             and grab it.”

    14.  (35) The story of CuChulainn and Blaithnat, very nicely done – he made me want to tell it! 

After this story Pat took a few minutes to talk about taking charge of the geography of the room.  He advised us that your audience wants you to succeed.  “You have to forget the words of the story.  You need to have the story so well off that you can forget about the words.” Then, he says, you can be concerned with the job at hand, which is relating to the audience and managing the performance.  “Your job is to deliver the story.  The story’s the thing.  No ego. No ineptitude.  Be honest.  Be fair.  Don’t be patronizing. Then dance with the audience.”

    15. (36) His favorite story, The Golden Ball, which he learned from Eamonn Kelly.  When he decided           to tell it, he called Eamonn to ask for permission.  Eamonn told him, “Pat, I’m 80 years old and I           won’t be taking them with me.”  He gave us a little background on fairy lore, plus the statement           of a Connemara woman, “I don’t believe in fairies, but they’re there.”  The story includes the           great Irish marriage proposal, “Would you like to be buried with my mother’s people?”  The           story was beautifully done, the best of the day in my opinion.  Another one I’d really like to tell. 

Pat then talked about the rules of using other people’s stories:  You should always ask and you wouldn’t tell a story you got from someone else if he or she was in the room – unless they asked you to. 

        16. (37) Pat’s last story was about a king with four daughters.  Before he leaves on a long journey                 he gives each of them a grain of wheat.  Only the youngest plants the grain of wheat and                 gains her father’s praise.  He linked that to the sharing of stories.

Two final quotes from our great session with Pat Speight:

“I never knew I had a deprived childhood until I saw the film Angela’s Ashes”.

“A story is a letter that you get from the past, add to, and then send on to the future.”

Below is Pat's repertoire system - a stack of well-thumbed cards with story names that he keeps in a little pouch he got in Nepal.

More First Stories

Wednesday morning we heard the rest of the first stories told by students in The Irish Storytelling Tradition 2011.  As with the first eight tellers, I was very impressed with how well the new tellers chose stories that fit their personalities, or revealed something about them we wouldn’t have known had they not told the story they did.  The range of stories they chose also gave a natural context to discuss Irish folklore, customs, and national identity and psychology.  It was a very rich day.

9. Andrea Robinson told Gold Tree and Silver Tree that she put together from several sources.

10. Lizzy Murphy told The Legend of Knockgrafton from Folktales of the British Isles by Kevin Crossley-Holland.  (The story included the music, so Lizzy played the tune on her penny-whistle at the beginning and the end and sang “Monday-Tuesday” in Irish within the story.)

11. Laura Rutherford told The Tale of the Tail that she learned from her mother, Cheryl Rutherford, who has taken this class twice, once in Ireland – as Laura now has done as well!

12. Jesse Soper told Cromwell from Henry Glassie’s Irish Folktales. (The story opens with Cromwell – the brute – skewering an Irish baby and holding it aloft on his sword.)

13. Alison Vincent told The Black Bull of Noroway from Best Loved Celtic Folktales by Neil Phillip.

14. Melinda Bokel told Sleepy Pendoodle from Glassie.(It's a puppy!)

15. Tammy Chapman told Butterfly Soul that she put together from Sean O’Sullivan’s and Kevin Crossley-Holland’s versions. (Tammy deftly integrated just enough information about the symbolism of the butterfly for the story to need no explanation at all.)

16. Bryan Jagiello told Finn and Saeva from Erica Helm Meade’s The Moon in the Well. (Bryan served in Iraq and Afghanistan and it was wonderful to hear him tell this warrior's story of lost love.)

17. Fidencio Ybarra told The Legend of Knockfierna from Glassie.

18. Ashley Sanders told Fox and Hound from The Genie and Fisherman by Duncan Williamson. (Actually, therefore, a Scottish story.)

19. Melissa Barrett-Traister told The Origin of the Shannon.

20. Kayla Linn told Fairy Property from Glassie.

21.  We had some time left, so I told the story of how the great bard Seanchan recoverd the Irish National Epic,  The Tain. (The timing was right for it since they have been reading about The Ulster Cycle in both mine and Barry's classes.) 

 I’m looking forward to the next batch of stories.  We will hear them next Monday and Tuesday.

The image at the top shows Fidencio, Jesse, Laura, Alison, Ashley, Lizzy, and Kayla Below is Tammy, Melissa, Bryan, Melinda and Andrea.