Irish on the Moon

We’re moving out to Dùn Chaoin. Dùn Chaoin I think, was never a place to live in, only a place to visit. I can picture it now, the houses thrown up onto the shore as if by a child’s hand, the gentle slope of the Great Blasket Island and Am Fear Marbh, The Dead Man Island, steady on his eternal pyre, the ocean’s funeral dirge.

When Lucia speaks of Dùn Chaoin her eyes light up, and her words run into each other, ‘it will be lovely,’ she tells me in Irish, ‘a real fire, and on Christmas Day when can go down to Krueger’s pub, that’s where everyone goes, and everyone speaks Irish.’ Dùn Chaoin, the most westerly settlement in Ireland still collects a smattering of colorful characters. Louise Mulcachy, the head of the pottery empire, an Irish learner himself, fully fluent now, Matt McCarthy, an American who native speakers mistake as one of their own, and whose passion for the language flourished finally into an Irish language software program.

And of course, the handful of natives whose families have always been there. Tenacious as barnacles they cling to the steep shores, and like all the rest, ignore the claims that the village is losing its sustainability. First when the store left, then when the pub closed, and increasingly through the years, as empty summer homes spring up randomly and regularly across the hills, like pieces of froth thrown from the waves, with as little thought and somehow, the same sense of vulnerability. I like to imagine a strong wind could lift them as easily from their frames as foam from a sandy beach.

Sure I think, people say Dingle is isolated, might as well go all the way. Might as well sit my self-down at the end of the earth again. I wonder what language they speak on the moon? Still, the thought of a real fire, a vibrant, if small community, isn’t without its appeal. And there’s something about being that close to the sea even a mountain girl can appreciate. If I’m close enough, long enough, I can feel the tide start to pull my blood, it’s an intrinsic and natural to me as staring into a fire. I think, I’ve done this before, a thousand times. It’s my blood memory, and the story twists, ends and loops around again in the ladders of my genes.

As for really learning the language, I can’t think of a better place. It’s starting to come quicker to me now, the other night; Lucia brought me with her to the planning meeting for the Pan Celtic Festival to be held in Dingle in the spring. The first half of the meeting was held in Irish, and I understood a good 80% of the conversation. Lucia is introduced as the Galician ambassador, myself for Gàidhlig and the Scots, I assure everyone I’m sure the Scots will be thrilled to have a Northern New Englander represent them. I’m to welcome them to the festival in their language, to make sure they’re happy and mingling with the locals.

A thought crosses my mind, and not for the first time, will I still have Gàidhlig in the spring? Already Irish is starting to encroach into the spaces of my mind that were once solely inhabited by Gàidhlig, I struggle sometimes to find the Gàidhlig equivalent to words that come in Irish now as easily to my tongue as mud to my shoes. But still, when I turn on Coinneach Maciomhair’s radio program or make a call to a friend up north, it all comes flooding back to me. The spaces fill up again with the more familiar tongue, and I feel light and a fresh breeze enters into the rooms and hallways of my mind. They in turn shake off the rust and disuse of winter, like an old home re-opened for the spring.

I hope I won’t have to sacrifice one language for another. I hope the two can be mutually sustaining. In the meantime I’ll move even farther west, hunker down for the winter, and hope to come out the other side speaking something more than a mix of the two. I’ll see what the Pan Celtic festival brings. There are talks of more Bretons, a parade, a display of crafts from each of the nations; something to show the inter-connectedness of it all.

The subject follows me wherever I go. At the Ennis Trad. Festival this past weekend, I had to confess to all why I was in Ireland. Moving to a place like Dùn Chaoin seems to warrant a natural concern. On the cab ride home from the Trad. Disco Friday night, an unexpected cab partner, a young Ennis fellow, seemed impressed that I wanted to learn the language, but concerned that I was moving so far west. In between a smattering of ‘Go away ‘wit ya’s’ he and the cab driver both managed to attain my cell number. ‘We’ll text you!’ they promised, then disappeared in a shower of exhaust and rain, though I was miles away, I could see the sharp slopes of Am Fear Marbh, rising dark and distant, in my mind’s eye.