To note that this poor
sailor and night-watchman was ready to rise up and criticise an
eminent dignitary and scholar on rather delicate points of
versification and the finer distinctions between old words of
Gaelic.
In spite of his singular intelligence and minute observation his
reasoning was medieval.
I asked him what he thought about the future of the language on
these islands.
'It can never die out,' said he, 'because there's no family in the
place can live without a bit of a field for potatoes, and they have
only the Irish words for all that they do in the fields. They sail
their new boats - their hookers - in English, but they sail a curagh
oftener in Irish, and in the fields they have the Irish alone. It
can never die out, and when the people begin to see it fallen very
low, it will rise up again like the phoenix from its own ashes.'
'And the Gaelic League?' I asked him.
'The Gaelic League! Didn't they come down here with their organisers
and their secretaries, and their meetings and their speechifyings,
and start a branch of it, and teach a power of Irish for five weeks
and a half!' [a]
'What do we want here with their teaching Irish?' said the man in
the corner; 'haven't we Irish enough?'
'You have not,' said the old man; 'there's not a soul in Aran can
count up to nine hundred and ninety-nine without using an English
word but myself.'
It was getting late, and the rain had lessened for a moment, so I
groped my way back to the inn through the intense darkness of a late
autumn night.
[a] This was written, it should be remembered, some years ago.
Part IV
No two journeys to these islands are alike. This morning I sailed
with the steamer a little after five o'clock in a cold night air,
with the stars shining on the bay. A number of Claddagh fishermen
had been out all night fishing not far from the harbour, and without
thinking, or perhaps caring to think, of the steamer, they had put
out their nets in the channel where she was to pass. Just before we
started the mate sounded the steam whistle repeatedly to give them
warning, saying as he did so -
'If you were out now in the bay, gentlemen, you'd hear some fine
prayers being said.'
When we had gone a little way we began to see the light from the
turf fires carried by the fishermen flickering on the water, and to
hear a faint noise of angry voices. Then the outline of a large
fishing-boat came in sight through the darkness, with the forms of
three men who stood on the course. The captain feared to turn aside,
as there are sandbanks near the channel, so the engines were stopped
and we glided over the nets without doing them harm. As we passed
close to the boat the crew could be seen plainly on the deck, one of
them holding the bucket of red turf, and their abuse could be
distinctly heard. It changed continually, from profuse Gaelic
maledictions to the simpler curses they know in English. As they
spoke they could be seen writhing and twisting themselves with
passion against the light which was beginning to turn on the ripple
of the sea. Soon afterwards another set of voices began in front of
us, breaking out in strange contrast with the dwindling stars and
the silence of the dawn.
Further on we passed many boats that let us go by without a word, as
their nets were not in the channel. Then day came on rapidly with
cold showers that turned golden in the first rays from the sun,
filling the troughs of the sea with curious transparencies and
light.
This year I have brought my fiddle with me so that I may have
something new to keep up the interest of the people. I have played
for them several tunes, but as far as I can judge they do not feel
modern music, though they listen eagerly from curiosity. Irish airs
like 'Eileen Aroon' please them better, but it is only when I play
some jig like the 'Black Rogue' - which is known on the island - that
they seem to respond to the full meaning of the notes. Last night I
played for a large crowd, which had come together for another
purpose from all parts of the island.
About six o'clock I was going into the schoolmaster's house, and I
heard a fierce wrangle going on between a man and a woman near the
cottages to the west, that lie below the road. While I was listening
to them several women came down to listen also from behind the wall,
and told me that the people who were fighting were near relations
who lived side by side and often quarrelled about trifles, though
they were as good friends as ever the next day. The voices sounded
so enraged that I thought mischief would come of it, but the women
laughed at the idea. Then a lull came, and I said that they seemed
to have finished at last.
'Finished!' said one of the women; 'sure they haven't rightly begun.
It's only playing they are yet.'
It was just after sunset and the evening was bitterly cold, so I
went into the house and left them.
An hour later the old man came down from my cottage to say that some
of the lads and the 'fear lionta' ('the man of the nets' - a young
man from Aranmor who is teaching net-mending to the boys) were up at
the house, and had sent him down to tell me they would like to
dance, if I would come up and play for them.
