Liz's Ireland Journal

Proud Owner of a Genuine Bodhrán

    Last year around Halloween, my musical partner John Good announced that he was going to learn to play the harp.  I said if he could commit to learning the harp, I could commit to learning the bodhrán.  John bought a beautiful harp, took lessons, and can now play it.  Before I left in late May, we had worked up our version of "Thomas the Rhymer" with John on the harp and the two of us alternating verses sung and spoken.

 I was, therefore, honor-bound to learn to play the bodhrán.  The first step was getting a drum. Sulé Wilson offered me the use of his, a beautiful bodhrán that he got in Ireland several years ago.  “Genuine Antrim goat,” he assured me proudly as he told the story of meeting the maker.

I didn’t want to be responsible for someone else’s drum, and in truth I really wanted my own.   I wrote to Liz Weir and she put me in touch with Paul McAuley,  a bodhrán maker who lives in Ballycastle, just up the road from Cushendall.

Yesterday, Liz drove me to Paul McAuley’s house and I picked out my bodhrán.  That’s us holding it at the top of the post.  It has a beautiful sound, feels good in my hands, and looks like the moon.  I love it. Along with the drum I got a case and a hand-turned wooden tuner, hardwood beater, and several tippers, all made by Paul.

Last night at Liz’s weekly session in Ballyeamon Barn, with a full moon outside that looked just like my bodhrán, one of her guests, Anthony, gave me a quick lesson. “Keep your back straight, the drum straight on your leg, turn only your wrist, and relax.”   Martin O’Kane was playing a tune on the banjo as everyone arrived and visited.  I was able to tentatively keep a semblance of a beat as he played. 

Now that I have my own bodhrán, I feel more confident that I will attain at least a rudimentary proficiency with it.   I want to be able to do justice to such a beautiful instrument.  Let the bodhrán lessons begin!

Dandelions at Dunamase

In addition to the hawthorn at Dunamase, there were lots of dandelions  just waiting to be plucked and wafted.  Ashley and Alysha (above), and Adriana (below) were happy to oblige. 

    This summer we have three Ashleys, one Alysha, and an Alyssa.  We also have Katie, Caitlin, Katelyn, Kailee, and two Samanthas.  You might think it would be confusing, but they are all so different that I’ve had no trouble telling who is who.

    When I first met Adriana I wondered if her multi-hued hair was an homage to CuChulainn.  She assured me it was not.  Even though the colors she chose are not the same, I thought it was a great coincidence and  connection to what we are studying in the Irish Storytelling Tradition.  Here is how CuChulainn, the great hero of the Cattle Raid of Cooley, is described:

A handsome lad was he that stood there, Cúchulainn son of Sualtam.   Three colours of hair had he; next to his skin the hair was brown, in the middle it was red; on the outside it was like a diadem of gold; comparable to yellow gold was each glittering long curling splendid beautiful thread of hair, falling freely down between his shoulders.

 
 

Banish Misfortune

Last night I went to Flannery’s (my favorite pub in Athlone) with my colleague Chas Moore who is teaching music this summer.  We got there about 8:00 and it was still quite bright outside. There were a few musicians there and Chas sat in. I only stayed about an hour.  Of course many more people came later and Chas ended up playing with them until after midnight.

    I took this photo while they were playing a song called “Banish Misfortune”.  I learned that it is also called the “Circumcision Song”, or “Banish My Foreskin”, or in some select circles, “Varnish My Foreskin”.

    It’s true what they say; travel does broaden one’s worldview and knowledge base.

    Counterclockwise from the right are Chas Moore, The Bean, Maria, Cormac, and Des.

 

The First of Our Two Bank Holidays

We have a routine in Study Abroad Ireland. Our first Monday is always a bank holiday in Ireland.  That means that the classroom we use at the Athlone Institute of Technology is not available to us.  So, even though it’s the first day of summer school in Arizona, we always take a bus trip to somewhere interesting and beautiful. 

But . . . the bank holiday is always the first Monday in June.  Given the vagaries of calendars this year our first Monday was the last Monday in May. We had the bus all reserved so we went ahead and took the trip anyway.

We visited Emo Court and The Rock of Dunamase.  Emo Court is a beautiful Georgian estate with fabulous grounds.  Dunamase is the ruins of Strongbow’s castle in southwest Leinster.

Dunamase was glorious.  The views from there are panoramic, a fact that was not lost on Strongbow. From the top of the hill it was possible to see every shade of green that the eye can perceive.   Add to that image all the hawthorn trees in full riotous bloom with masses of white and pink blossoms.

Barry gave a great lecture that tied Emo Court, the estate of an English lord, with Dunamase, the stronghold of the first Norman ruler.  It was Strongbow’s rule that broke the tradition of the election of provincial kings and opened the door to eventual British rule.

Carol and Mike Kearney arrived in time to hear most of Barry’s lecture. The picture at the top is of Charlie Belk pondering the landscape and the lecture.

 

May Bloom

On the Coming of Arthur

By ways unknown, unseen,

The summer makes things green,

The pastures and the boughs

Wherein birds house.

 

Summer will come again,

For sick things become sane,

And dead things fat the root

That brings forth fruit.

 

Arthur, like summer, waits,

For Wit and Will are gates,

Like those the summers pass

To green earth’s grass.

 

Arthur will come like June,

Full meadow and full moon,

With roses up above

As red as love,

 

And may-bloom down below,

As white as fallen snow,

And no least linnet dumb;

O Arthur, come.

From Midsummer Night and Other Tales in Verse, by John Masefield, 1928.

 

Last year when I came to Ireland the May-bloom had already passed.  There were still a few hawthorn trees blooming, but they were well past their peak.  This year we arrived while they are still in their glory – covered with white and pale pink blossoms that signal May and the coming of summer.

The poem above isn’t Irish, but it is one of my favorites.  It speaks to the mystery of summer,  Arthur, and all that flowers.  I’ve puzzled over this line for years: “For wit and will are gates like those the summers pass to green earth’s grass”.  I feel that I know what it means, but that I could never put it into words or intellectualize it. 

Guinevere, Arthur’s queen, was known as the Queen of the May.  Blodeuwedd and Olwen were both flower maidens from Welsh myth. Blodeuwedd was made from flowers and wherever Olwen stepped she left white flowers, like hawthorn blooms, in her track.  To find her all you had to do was follow the path of flowers.  In Irish myth, Bláthnat was the flower maiden, abducted by Cu Roi and rescued by Cuchulainn who was killed for his trouble. 

Death often accompanies the flower maiden.  She is spring, possessed by winter and rescued by summer.  Summer in turn must die to give way to winter so the whole cycle may repeat.  Arthur was winter, Lancelot was summer, and Guinevere mediated between the two.

My partner in music and story, John Good, and I have been working up a version of Thomas the Rhymer. It’s a famous Scottish ballad about a man who meets the Fairy Queen while sitting under a hawthorn (eildon) tree.  Once he kisses her lips, he is bound to serve her for seven years.  Some people say that Thomas is still there in the Otherworld, a guide for mystics and seekers.

That’s just the kind of thing that can happen when you take your rest beneath a hawthorn tree, especially one in full bloom.

 

Don't Drive into the Shannon!

    This is my sixth summer teaching in Mesa Community College’s Study Abroad Ireland Program.  We normally leave on a Friday, arrive on a Saturday, and take a walking tour of Athlone, where we are based, on Sunday.

    This year we left on Saturday, arrived on Sunday, and then still went on the walking tour – on Sunday.  We were all completely trashed.  The poor students were sitting there trying to keep their eyes open as Barry Vaughan, Bob Farwell, Chas Moore, and I told them all sorts of very important things that they needed to know.

    It was a little easier once we were walking.  The highlight of the tour is illustrated here. Our esteemed director, Barry Vaughan, is lecturing on the importance of never, never ever, driving into the Shannon River.

A Gilbert Connection

    I met the mother of one of our participants at Sky Harbor the morning that we left for Ireland.  Ashley McCleve is our student, and her mother is Julia McCleve. When Julia introduced herself, I said that her name was familiar.  That’s when I learned that she had been on the Gilbert School Board while my mother was still the high school librarian.

    When I told Julia that I was Mary Warren’s daughter, she got tears in her eyes.  We reminded ourselves of mother’s last years there and her epic fight against one of the other teachers at the high school.  He started a campaign to collect books for the library and was bringing in all sorts of trash – outdated encyclopedias and history books and the like – and expected her to accept them into the library.  It was very stressful for her, but I thought at the time that her rage may have kept her alive for a couple more years. 

    Ashley told me later that she’d heard stories about my mother when she was growing up.  I can’t wait to talk to Julia when I get back.  I’d very much like to hear the stories she tells about my mom.

    I stepped on to the plane with the blessing of having met someone who knew and loved my mother.  And although the plane trip was rough, who knows how much worse it might have been without the benefit of that blessing!

    The picture at the top is Ashley McCleve and my colleague Chas Moore admiring the flowers outside a monastery on our walking tour of Athlone.

Taking Stories

The Ireland Journal usually begins as soon as I arrive in Ireland.  That didn’t happen this year.  My blog fell victim to jetlag and exhaustion.  I’m happy to report that I’m full recovered and in possession of my motivation.  Let the blogging begin!

 The back of this bus was the sight that greeted me when I stepped out of the terminal at Dublin airport on Sunday morning, May 30. At first I just saw the larger line of text: "A great story is in the detail". Then I saw the web address below that ends "takestories". 

Take stories.  I know the participants in Study Abroad Ireland will take lots of pictures. Those images will illustrate their time here, document their experiences, and prompt their memories and their stories.  They will certainly take those stories home and share them – well, some of them anyway. 

The students in my class, The Irish Storytelling Tradition, will have the opportunity to take other stories home.  Those stories – the folktales, myths, and legends – will find homes in their imaginations.

These old stories have a place in the landscape, and they can't just be taken.  They must be treated like honored guests; respected, honored, and most importantly told. When treated correctly, the stories can travel with us anywhere. Even back to the desert.