Moving to Ireland

Skibbereen Celebrates: Arts and Artists

There’s seldom been as much sunshine in Skibbereen as we are seeing this summer: every day feels like a holiday, and there’s so much for residents and visitors to do – it’s going to be hard to keep up with it all! Coming soon is the launch of the Skibbereen Arts Festival (I love this great graphic!) –

On Friday night we were treated to the ‘Preview’ of the ‘flagship exhibition’ for the Skibb Arts festival, running from now until 6 August at The O’Driscoll Building, Old Quay in the centre of town. It’s titled Elements: West Cork Landscape and features works by 30 artists from the area. In fact, the sunshine and the excitement brought out practically every artist, anyone connected with arts, and a whole lot of West Corkonians and visitors to see what’s on offer.

The exhibition has been put together by Catherine Hammond (above, right, with Finola – standing in front of a Christine Thery canvas) and it’s great to see Catherine curating in Skibbereen again. The art here is strong and looks good on the bare concrete walls of the building, the vacant shell of which is a reminder of Celtic Tiger days, but it always works so well as a gallery.

The work of two artists struck us as soon as we entered the building on Friday: the bold, simple architectural forms of Helena Korpela (two examples above); Helena has connections with West Cork and Helsinki, which emphasises the breadth of art makers working here today.

Personal favourites in this exhibition, for me, are two new pieces by Michael Quane. This Cork born artist now based in Leap is well-known for his large public sculptures, but I like the dynamics of these two smaller works (header picture and above). Roaringwater Journal has reviewed many of the artists currently on show at The Old Quay: have a look at these posts on William Crozier, Terry Searle and Cormac Boydell – and let’s see some examples…

Upper – Crozier; middle – Searle; lower – new ceramics by Boydell. It was also great to see works from elsewhere in Cork: this canvas – by Jill Dennis – is impressive.

It wasn’t just the artists who produced the work that came to the opening: other familiar names in Ireland’s contemporary art world were also well represented. See who you can spot… *

So, everyone is here, everyone is enjoying the summer and Skibbereen is swinging! Art events not to be missed include the opening of Coming Home: Art and the Great Hunger exhibition at Uillinn, and the related performance pieces and installaions which Finola is discussing in her post today, and also mentioned in her post last week. But those are only a fraction of the whole Skibbereen Arts Festival this year – we haven’t even started on the music, film, poetry or workshops: get hold of a programme and book up now – while there are still tickets available.

Angela Fewer – Off Heir Island

* John Kelly, Brian Lalor, Penny Dixey, Jim Turner, Keith Payne, Eion McGonigal, Peter Murray…

Goats, Bees and Spies – Redux

The farm at Dooneen

This post was first published in October 2013. Since then I have found more material, so have decided to update it.

The non-fiction book, White Goats and Black Bees by Donald Grant is set on the Sheep’s Head. Donald and Mary Grant, a couple of journalists based in New York, impulsively decided to jump off the career treadmill and become farmers in Ireland in the 1960’s. They bought a small acreage on the Sheep’s Head, where they raised goats and ducks, cultivated an enormous vegetable garden, and by degrees and sheer hard work turned themselves into ‘peasants’.

This out-of-print book was drawn to my attention by my friend, Aideen, whose father, while in New York, had encouraged the Grants to consider West Cork. Aideen visited the Grants as a young woman and still has memories of their gorse wine.

Dooneen, on the Sheep’s Head – this was the view the Grants looked out on. It could be fierce and desolate in the winter

As a Back to the Land narrative, this is a classic. Earnest urban professionals consulting Department of Agriculture pamphlets, conducting slug patrols, keenly observing the social structure of their goat herd and duck flock, battling the wild Atlantic storms, making cheese and smoking hams: this is the kind of thing that sent thousands of idealistic young people into communes all over the world, or in the case of Ireland, into the hills behind Ballydehob. The need to be accepted by the locals, a thread that appears in so many Year in Provence-type books, is coupled with the outsider’s puzzlement at the impenetrability of some aspects of local behaviour.

Dooneen Pier

Grant is not a gifted writer when it comes to scenery: …Trees wore their autumn colours. Streams tumbled down rocks, sparkling… Nevertheless he does slowly build up a picture of a man coming to grips with his place in the natural world and his relationship with animals and the elements. Perhaps the strongest sections of the book are those in which he chronicles the hard work and resourcefulness that it takes to sustain life on a smallholding, the setbacks and difficulties he and Mary encounter, and the support of the neighbours and community without which it would be impossible.

Donald and Mary, although not Catholic, attended the Star of the Sea church in Kilcrohane. This window from that church depicts the struggle against the elements that was such a part of life on the Sheep’s Head

The story of Donald and Mary took a strange turn for me when I decided to Google around a bit, digging for more information about them. Astonishingly, Mary was convicted in Israel in 1956 of spying for Syria! She spent a year in an Israeli prison, eventually applying for a pardon. According to one account, she had fallen for a Syrian diplomat who persuaded her to take photographs in Israel for the Syrians. She was so unsophisticated a spy that she was captured almost right away.

She claimed to have been married to the Syrian: one newspaper account referred to her as Mrs. Caleb Kayali, the former Mary Frances Hagan of Huntington, W. Va. However, Kayali denied that they were married. The trial took place in secret, although the US authorities were kept apprised of the situation. Mary was eventually released when she had served much of her sentence. Once free, she denied that she had been spying, and described her prison term as “boring.”

Donald and Mary on their farm. Note the photographer, Mark Fiennes, who was also living on the Sheep’s Head around this time

She and Donald met when they shared a desk at the United Nations, where they were both correspondents: he for the St. Louis Post-Dispatcher and she for Look Magazine. Little did the people of Doneen know of the chequered history of the American woman who introduced goat’s cheese to their far-flung parish. The story which starts White Goats and Black Bees – the one where Donald and Mary take a sudden notion to move to Ireland and farm – may not have happened quite as related. According to one account, Donald had been “given early retirement” when the Jewish community complained of and investigated what they saw as his “extremely anti-Israel” coverage, and declared that his marriage to a former convicted spy put him in a conflict of interest situation.

The old graveyard in Kilcrohane, centred on a ruined medieval church, is a beautiful and peaceful place

Whatever the truth behind how they got there, Donald and Mary continued to live happily on the Sheep’s Head and eventually in Bantry for the rest of their lives. While Donald died in 1983, Mary lived until 2012. Both are buried in their beloved Kilcrohane.

Dear Minister

Share the road

Share the road

Readers will remember my travails with the Irish driving system. I wrote about having to apply for an Irish Driving License and then about the mandatory driving lessons and passing the driving test. I promised myself that when it was all over I would write to the Minister for Transportation and make recommendations about how people like me could be treated respectfully and flexibly.

Harvest time
Yes, we do have to come right through the village.

I’ve finally written the letter and have extracted my recommendations below. I would be interested in whether readers agree with them. I’d also love to hear your personal experiences of driving in Ireland. It’s a unique experience in many ways – I am constantly bemused by what I observe as I navigate the boreens and village streets of this part of the world.

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EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO MINISTER OF TRANSPORT, TOURISM AND SPORT

There is no justification for such an inflexible approach to holders of foreign licenses. I know Ireland is committed to negotiating mutual recognition agreements with other countries over time, and that Canada may be a little more complex since licensing is handled by individual provinces, thus  requiring recognition of ten provincial licenses rather than one national one. I also understand that progress is being made, but slowly.

Since my license happens to be Canadian, I will venture now to make some recommendations on an alternative approach to how holders of Canadian licenses (and by extension others) could be treated.

Recommendations:

  1. Retain the requirement for the Rules of the Road test – there are enough differences to make this a good idea.
  2. Waive the requirement for the mandatory lessons or reduce them considerably – four lessons would be more than adequate to cover some of the idiosyncrasies of driving in Ireland.
  3. Waive the requirements for the Canadian license holder to apply for an Irish Learner Permit.
  4. If, for whatever reason this is not possible or practical, waive the regulation whereby the Learner Permit then takes precedence over the Canadian License. In practice, this allows the Canadian license holder to continue to drive on their Canadian license for a year (as they can if they do NOT apply for a Learner Permit) while preparing for the road test.
  5. Conduct a desk review of all ten Canadian Provincial Licensing systems. They are all easily accessible online, and fully explained. I can assure you that each province in Canada has a rigorous and comprehensive learner-driver program, but don’t take my word for it – a civil servant in your Ministry can conduct this assessment in less than a week.
  6. Once you have done this, immediately declare a unilateral recognition of Canadian driving licenses, as your Ministry has already done for several other countries.

The Road Safety Authority is doing a good job of raising the standards of driving in Ireland. In doing this they are battling decades of deeply-engrained negative attitudes to careful driving and to adherence to licensing regulations, especially outside the major metropolitan areas. I applaud this progress towards real change to the culture of driving in Ireland. But please, allow flexibility in how the regulations are applied so that someone with 40 years of driving experience is not treated like a  beginning driver.

Sincerely

Finola Finlay

Don't get distracted by the scenery

Don’t get distracted by the scenery

I wonder if I will get a response. I will let you know.

Mooooove over!

Mooooove over!

One last image…

What the...?

What the…?

West Cork Speak: Lessons 5 to 7. And PRIZES!

Here comes himself at the head of the parade

Here comes himself at the head of the parade

Time for the next lesson in how to sound like you’re from West Cork! In Lessons 1 and 2 we covered like and grand, now and so – versatile words that will take you a long way in any conversation around here. Then in Lessons 3 and 4 we looked at how you would frame your sentences in the conditional tense, and how to use the pronouns ye, and himself, herself and yourself. I hope you have been practising, in preparation for your visit. You ARE coming, right? Good – well so, you would need to be moving along to the next important steps in your language development. And to help you see where you’re coming, I will illustrate these lessons with pictures of the St Patrick’s Day parade last Monday in Ballydehob.

Vintage tractors galore

Vintage tractors galore

Lesson 5: In Fairness

Nothing distinguishes the West Cork denizen like the phrase in fairness. Occasionally rendered as in fairness, like or even to be fair, it is tacked on to the end of sentences with total abandon, whether it matches with the sense of what’s been said or not. If you meet someone on your walk, don’t be surprised to hear him say “’Tis a grand evening, in fairness like.” It’s as if it’s important to give God His due – He’s sent us lots of storms lately and endless days of rain, but sure, He’s doing His best to make it up to us now, isn’t He?

Sometimes you are left wondering about what’s not being said. If you hear “She’s a terrific dancer, in fairness,” you might wonder if there’s another part to the sentence, that has been left out – “even though she can’t sing,” maybe. But no, it’s probably just been added for some kind of emphasis, or to round out the sentence in some way. So go ahead, just drop it in here and there, and you’ll be grand.

Going to the creamery

Going to the creamery

Lesson 6: Modifiers

Nobody in West Cork is very happy – no, we are happy out. And why wouldn’t we be, living in this beautiful place? We might also, if we have a lot to do, be busy out. If we badly need a pint, we might be thirsty out.

If using out as a modifier doesn’t trip off your tongue, try altogether instead. Or entirely.

We saw a good movie the other night. “It was great fun altogether.”

A recent story in The Examiner tells of a local hero, a student who found a toddler wandering late at night and made sure he was safe. Since the story is told mostly in dialogue, it’s an excellent example of Irish speech.

And the student, I think you will find yourself saying, “Wasn’t he a fine lad entirely?”

Don't they look happy out?

Don’t they look happy out?

Lesson 7: The diminutive

In Irish, the diminutive is formed by putting –ín (pronounced een) at the end of a word. We tell people that we live down a boreen (Irish word for road is a bothar, pronounced bo-her, and a bothairín is a small road). I’ve written about the children’s graveyards here: a cillín, pronounced killeen, actually means a small cill or church.

Some West Cork people routinely add -een to the end of a word to convey a sense of its size. Our landscaper asked if he should put the tools in our shedeen. Our neighbour, when I asked him about a certain piece of land said it was “nothing but a fieldeen.” You may well be asked by a waitress if you’d like a biteen more coffee.

Isn't that a grand careen?

Isn’t that a grand careen?

Now so – there you are! I think you might be ready to put all of that into practice.

Announcing our second ever COMPETITION (the first one was about place names). Your task, Dear Reader, is to construct a short conversation between two individuals. They are driving in opposite directions, but meeting on the boreen they roll down their windows to pass the time of day. The big topic of the moment is the St Patrick’s Day parade in the village and this, therefore, is the subject of their conversation. Reconstruct the chat, using what you’ve learned in the seven lessons so far, and your own imagination. An astute panel of judge will pick the winners and excellent prizes will be dispatched. Actually, prize-eens, in fairness. Good luck!

'Tis a lovely float, in fairness, like

‘Tis a lovely float, in fairness, like

Driving Home the Point

Another grand road

Another grand road

In my two previous posts about driving in Ireland, I chronicled the bureaucracy involved in registering our car and in applying for an Irish driving licence. Since Ireland and Canada do not have a mutual recognition agreement I had to take the theory test, a series of 12 mandatory lessons, and then take the road test. The good news is that I passed – I am now a fully qualified Irish driver! More good news – we got a €50 rebate on our car insurance. And best of all – having never even sat in a tractor in my life, I am now licensed to drive one. This is particularly pleasing since it is the vehicle of choice for the farmer visiting the pub at night in country villages, so you never know when I might be called upon to use this facility.

I can park my tractor in town now if I want.

I can park my tractor in town now if I want.

The bad news is that, between all the fees and the mandatory lessons, I spent a LOT more than the €50 I saved. It also cost me several months in which I was unable to drive on my own, and the aggravation of being trapped in an inflexible bureaucracy that refused to acknowledge my 40 years of safe driving.

I've learned to be alert for road signs

I’ve learned to be alert for road signs

However, all that paled when it came to the frustrations of learning to drive in a whole new style. As my friend Danny puts it, if someone tries to teach you how to walk (place this foot here, now lift this one) you will fall down. It just messes with your head to have to unlearn a sequence of actions that is as familiar as breathing, and relearn them a different way. This is not to do with being a better driver (although I think I am a better driver now), but with passing the test by demonstrating the correct procedures in the approved sequence.

You MUST not stop or park in a box junction

You MUST not stop or park in a box junction

Some examples might help to demonstrate. Shoulder checking is a huge thing in Canada – looking over your right and left shoulder before moving off, changing road position, turning a corner, etc. It’s because of the danger of not seeing a cyclist in the car’s blind spot. In Ireland, they want you to do a quick glance, no more. Here, you MUST check your mirrors before signalling, and after – there’s a strict sequence to follow. In Canada they teach you to take one hand off the steering wheel so that you can turn around and look out the back window when reversing – here they want both hands on the wheel at all times. You WILL be asked to reverse around a corner (you would not be asked to do that in a Canadian test) and you WON”T be asked to parallel park (a Canadian right of passage). None of these things are matters of life and death – they are all stylistic, but this is what you will be tested on. The national pass rate for the test is only 56% so there is a very real possibility of failing, no matter how well prepared you think you are.

No parking where there are zigzag lines. Or double yellow lines. Or both.

No parking where there are zigzag lines. Or double yellow lines. Or both.

Meanwhile, all around you, you will see Irish drivers doing the most appalling things and routinely flouting the rules of the road. This can be put down to the lax driving standards of the past, and so it is encouraging that it is now more difficult to get a license and that the expectations for skill and safety have been elevated. (See an interesting discussion on this here.)

Don't drive too close behind the slurry tank

Don’t drive too close behind the slurry tank

There was one bright spot in all of this – my driving instructor, Frank O’Driscoll. Having spent years driving big rigs all over Europe, and huge buses around the tiny West Cork roads, there’s nothing about driving that Frank hasn’t seen or done. Sympathising with my plight, he nevertheless gently prodded me through the lessons in sequence and encouraged me to just get on with it. An hour and a half in the car with Frank wasn’t just about driving, though. He has a great tenor voice and on the long straight stretches we roared our way through Come By The Hills or The Fields of Athenry, punctuated by snatches of poetry or by snippets of local history. Back at the house Robert put the kettle on and we settled down to tea and laughter as Frank filled in the log book and entertained us with his West Cork wit and stories.

Frank – if you’re reading this – I almost miss my driving lessons!

Frank O'Driscoll - instructor par excellence

Frank O’Driscoll – instructor par excellence

West Cork Speak: Lessons 3 and 4

How are ye?

How are ye?

You all did very well, Dear Readers, with learning to speak like a true West Cork denizen. I was especially proud of all the grands and likes you appended to your emails and comments. So, now, I think it’s time for the next couple of lessons.

I wish I could really capture for you the true cadence of the language here – the colourful vocabulary, the way stories are infused with a humorous acknowledgement of the foibles of the teller and the audience, the up-and-down rhythm of the speech, the expressiveness of all communication. But at least I can teach you some of the basics, so you will feel at home when you get here.

Would you be after some scallops?

Would you be after some scallops?

Lesson 3: Using the Conditional Tense

Today’s first lesson deals with the importance of mastering the conditional tense – in other words, using the word ‘would’ and all its variations, where the rest of the world would use the simple present or past tense. This has the effect of softening a statement in quite a delightful way, but it can also be confusing if you’re not used to it.

At a recent class I took, the instructor presented her credentials by saying, “I would have qualified in 1996.” Now, if someone outside West Cork had said that, you would have been waiting for the rest of the sentence…”Except that I failed the exam,” perhaps. But she was simply saying, in the West Cork way, “I qualified in 1996.” It’s just a bit more roundabout, a bit more diffident, a bit less assertive, than baldly stating a fact. Here’s how I normally say something, followed by how it is said in West Cork:

I got married in 2004. 

I would have been married in 2004.

I don’t like jazz.

I wouldn’t be a huge fan of that kind of thing myself, now.

Hi, I’m Finola.

’Tis lovely to meet you. I would be Finola.

I’m always exhausted after yoga.

Sure, ’tis tiring, like, but you would feel great after it, wouldn’t you?

That guy is a crook.

He wouldn’t be the saintliest of fellas, like, but he would have had a hard time of it as a young lad.

I asked him to bring the umbrella.

I asked him would he bring the umbrella.

This will take some practice: set yourself the task of turning one declarative sentence a day into a conditional statement. You would want to spend a fair bit of time on it, like.

And where would you be from, now?

And where would you be from, now?

Lesson 4: Pronouns

Pronouns! Most of them are the same as English elsewhere, but with two important differences.

You/Ye. If you look up the word ye in a dictionary it will tell you the word is archaic, and died out in general usage several hundred years ago. Not in West Cork! It is in common usage, here and elsewhere in Ireland, as the plural of you. So, if you meet a group of people and are addressing them collectively, you say “How are ye?” I must say, this make eminent sense. How often do we have to qualify you by saying “I mean you, plural?” Or, “I mean both of you?”

Herself would have raised the ducks.

Herself would have raised the ducks.

Now so, are ye ready for the last biteen (we’ll deal with that word another day) of the lesson? On we go, so, to reflexive pronouns – those are the ones with self at the end of them. They are used in Ireland in a variety of ways. Himself and herself are sometimes used to denote a husband or wife, but also can have a slight suggestion of amusement or mockery.

Himself would be holding forth about politics the whole evening.

I’d like to stay a while longer, but herself has the tea on the table at six sharp.

Is it yourself? It is indeed.

It will be time for a quiz soon, so ye should study what we’ve learned so far and I’ll think about a suitable test, and maybe some prizes. Wouldn’t that be grand? Himself thinks so, too.

Is it yourself, Sean?

Is it yourself, Sean?