Blasket Spirit Read online

  We sat at a table looking out over the White Strand. He produced a pot of tea and a lemon cake, much to my delight. After sitting in silence for a while Seán said, ‘I hear you saw something over near Ray’s.’ He continued to look out the window. I knew I was not going to be ridiculed so I told him about my encounter with the two little girls.

  ‘Did you ever see anything else?’ he asked, as if I was leaving something out.

  ‘No. Nothing else and that was a few weeks ago now.’

  He did not say anything as he continued to stare out the window.

  ‘Why? What have you seen?’ I asked. I felt sure there was something. He shrugged and took another drink of tea.

  ‘I don’t believe in things like that.’

  ‘I know. Nobody does, but what did you see?’

  ‘It started maybe three months ago, when I started working out the back. I didn’t mind it at first. I ignored it, but it kept getting stronger. I was in on the island working by myself then. There was nobody else here. The weather was dire. Even Sue had gone out to the mainland. There was nobody else on the island.’

  ‘What got stronger? What was it?’

  ‘I used to feel that I was being watched. I didn’t mind it first, but it became so intense. You couldn’t ignore it, like there was someone breathing over your shoulder. It got really bad over a three-day period. On the third day, the feeling came over me as soon as I went out. That was the first time I was really nervous. When I looked around, there was a dark shadow of a figure standing behind the cafe. It was tall and wore a high hat. I couldn’t make out the features, but I knew it was watching me. Then, it gradually faded as I was looking at it. I know I saw it. I stopped working out the back for the rest of that day.

  ‘Next day, the boss came in and the ferry was running too, so he told me to put the digger away. The minute I turned the key in the ignition, I got the feeling again but I deliberately didn’t look at the thing. It makes you really uneasy though. Then I was told to take the inflatable dinghy round to the Gravel Beach, to check out something. I had that awful sensation the whole time. It was so strong that I couldn’t bear to look back up to the island.

  ‘I had never capsized until that day. The wave just came out of nowhere. Luckily, the ferry was in, and the lads came over to pull me out, but I felt a bit shook after it. The boss told me to take the rest of the day off, so I came back up here to dry off. At the top of the stairs over there, I got a powerful heavy feeling again. The shadow was there once more, but now it was actually inside the house. I was probably weak and frozen from being in the water so long, but I lost my footing and fell down the stairs. First time that ever happened to me and I stone sober. Some of the girls that worked in the cafe over the years said that there was something strange in this house. They didn’t like sleeping upstairs here at all.’

  I felt quite uneasy, as I looked over his shoulder at the wooden stairs at the far side of the Ryan’s Daughter counter.

  ‘I’m always so careful about locking in Captain Jack when I’m working. I keep the bottom half of the door closed and I always check it. I don’t know how he got out. This happened on the morning after I’d capsized. I went out to start work and somehow the pup followed me out. The minute I turned the ignition, I got the suffocating feeling again. I could hardly breathe. As I felt it, the shadow of the man crossed right on front of the dump truck. I won’t repeat what I said to it, but I just drove forward, ignoring it.’ He stopped talking for a minute as he fondled Captain Jack’s ears. The pup had his front paws on Seán’s lap with his nose cradled between his knees. His two big brown eyes looked up mischievously. ‘Anyway, the wheel rolled forward, right on top of this little fella.’ I could feel his guilt and upset still as he said it. ‘That meant back across into Dingle for a few weeks of visits to the vet. You’d never guess to look at him now, would you?’

  As I reached down to pat Captain Jack, he scampered over to lick my hand and tug at the tail of my shirt again. I picked him up onto my lap and ran my hands down the length of his body. ‘Not a bit. He looks perfect.’

  ‘Well, the few weeks in Dingle held the work up again. There’s a lot to do in the cafe and hostel, so it was mad busy when I got back into the island.’ I could appreciate that, but somehow I couldn’t help feeling that he was reluctant to start up the digger again.

  ‘So how was it being back in?’ I urged him on.

  ‘Fine. Nothing… just like it had been before.’ He hesitated again.

  ‘You didn’t feel anything?’

  ‘No. While I was busy in the hostel and the kitchen – nothing.’

  ‘So why did you stop work at the back today? The ground wasn’t slippery.’

  ‘A while before you interrupted me, I felt it again. That was why I was a bit slow to turn around. I was a bit taken aback when I saw that it was only you.’

  ‘I thought you were annoyed at being interrupted.’

  ‘Not at all. When you’re weeks in here alone, it’s great to meet someone and have a chat, not to mention someone from Kilkenny!’ he smiled.

  ‘So what did you do when you felt it today?’

  ‘Just ignored it. I’m behind on the foundations. I have to get ahead with the work. I just told the thing where to go and I’ll beat it. That’s the answer.’ That seemed to be an end to it, as far as Seán was concerned. I was not so sure. I felt genuinely worried for him.

  ‘Have you told your boss about it? Maybe you should tell him to stop the excavations.’

  His look said it all. He didn’t speak for some time and then: ‘Maybe it was a trick of the light. Maybe when you’re on your own for a while you begin to see things.’

  I thought about this for a while. ‘Perhaps you do begin to see things. However, it doesn’t mean that they’re not there. Maybe when you’re on your own for a while you become quiet enough on the inside to be sensitive to other wavelengths. Like the dial on an old wireless, the slower and more sensitively you turn it, the more stations you pick up. Flicking madly from one thing to another, as we do in today’s world, we miss most of what is around us. I don’t think you imagined that man. I don’t think that I imagined the two young girls, but I do think that you have to be in a certain frame of mind to be aware of them. I know that I wouldn’t see the two girls now.’

  I didn’t know if that made any sense to him, but it was beginning to, for me.

  ‘So, what’s going on? What is this fella with the hat doing behind the cafe, and what’s he got to do with me?’

  ‘I don’t know. The patch of ground that you’re excavating – what was it originally?’

  ‘It’s only the back haggard, outbuildings and walls of the old house here. Used to belong to a man called the Buffer Keane.’

  ‘Well, maybe it’s him and he doesn’t want you digging up the back garden, walls and sheds he spent a lifetime building.’ I could feel the frustration of my earlier conversation with Sue resurfacing. ‘I know they only look like a few old stones to us, but there are layers of real people’s lives in that ground. Maybe they want it left alone.’

  ‘If that is the case, nothing new would ever be built. The showers and toilets are needed. You can’t expect people to live as they did a hundred years ago. It will all be tastefully done. There’ll be a fifty-seat restaurant and the cottages will be restored to show tourists what the original dwellings looked like.’

  I could feel my colour rising, but I bit my lip. What was the point in venting my frustration on Seán? He was only doing his job.

  ‘I think the Interpretative Centre on the mainland does that job already. That’s where the restaurants, exhibitions, reconstructions, interactive displays and bookshop are. That’s where they belong. It’s a window into the layers of Blasket history and life. Then people come over here to experience that beauty, isolation and spirit. After what’s happened to you, do you not think the island should be left to its spirits and to nature?’

  ‘I can’t see what harm a few buildings will do.’
We sat in silence for a while. Neither of us wanted to argue.

  I thought of Inis Mhic Uibhleain where Charlie Haughey had said he felt like shaking the stones. ‘They know all the secrets of the past,’ he had said. He had left them intact, however. I kept my thoughts to myself.

  ‘I don’t want to see the island overdeveloped either, but facilities are needed,’ Seán continued.

  We had come to a stalemate. I poured him another cup of tea as a peace offering.

  ‘Well, I don’t think the Buffer Keane will let go of his back haggard that easily. Sugar?’

  Just then Seán’s mobile rang. I jumped out of my skin. It was a sound that had become very unfamiliar. He picked it up. ‘It’s the boss,’ he said, moving over to the doorway where the signal was stronger. I played with Captain Jack. The call was short. Seán came back and sat down, flattening his hair back on his head. He said nothing. I sat looking as disinterested as I possibly could. I was not going to say anything, but I did not have to.

  ‘Planning permission has been delayed. I have to stop work out the back again.’ He looked stunned.

  ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘No, he’s just got word.’

  I raised my mug in the direction of the staircase. ‘To the spirit of the Buffer Keane and his back garden.’

  Once I passed the Dáil and was out of view of the cafe, I dumped my bag and raced down the path to Sue’s. I was laughing and shaking with excitement. The island was safe. Well, for another while anyway.

  The Ebbing Tide

  The evenings were drawing in by the end of August. The crisp scent of autumn carried over the waves to the island. Fewer day-trippers visited the Great Blasket Island, as families backed up and returned home for another winter of work, school-runs, football matches, and homework. Aisling closed up the bookshop in Teach an Rí and returned to Galway for her next year of secondary school. Sigrid walked the island one last time and returned to Germany for another year of teaching kindergarten. One morning, the dolphin disappeared out to sea and we did not see him again. The sheep men collected the last of the fleeces from the clochán down at Páidí Dunleavy’s. We chatted and laughed, but I had no tea left to offer. They warned me they’d be looking for cake, too, the following summer. I watched their boat fade from view on the ebbing tide into the mist under Dún Mór Head. As each ferry left the island for the mainland, my stomach tightened in its wake.

  Then, one morning, it was my turn to leave. Once the robin had woken me at daybreak, I was alert and ready to savour every precious last moment. As I lay listening to the thundering of the waves, I wondered how I would ever sleep without their soothing rhythm. Outside, every sound and scent was heightened. As I wove my way down through the maze of tumbling walls and gables to the clifftop, I was saturated with sensation. The chill wet dew on the grass sent shivers of anticipation through me. Blue sea, green headlands, orange lichen and yellow tormentil flashed around me, more boldly than in any other morning scene. The booming of surf in the shadow of the caves resonated in the pit of my stomach. The rosy red flight of a stonechat would stitch a path through the depths of my mind long after he had disappeared from view.

  As I lay back in the water, looking up at the Great Blasket Island, the door of the Buffer Keane’s yawned open. To its left, Seán emerged from the white washroom and stood gazing over the Blasket Sound before disappearing into the darkness to prepare for a day of visitors. The two donkeys grazed in a field to the north of the cafe, following their usual pattern. At the other side of the tumble of ruins, Sue’s yellow door was open. She appeared suddenly, sluiced a basin of water over the stone wall. Then she returned inside, just as quickly. High in the blue above the slopes behind the village, the chough family called to each other on the wing. The chicks were ready to move on.

  I walked my green mile back up to the hut. I felt like one condemned, clinging to the last images of life. In fact, my life was beginning again, restored by the spirit of the island. The prospect of leaving its sanctuary was terrifying. The essential living on the island seemed to bear no resemblance to my previous manic survival on the mainland. I wondered if I could maintain that real life and avoid donning the familiar cloak of illusion.

  As I swept out the hut and set fresh candles in all the holders, I felt lost. My bags were piled outside the doorway. I stuffed my sleeping bag and pillow into a plastic bag to keep them dry on the ferry crossing. For the first time in weeks, thoughts of driving the car, checking the answering machine, getting money, paying bills and preparing for work entered my mind and filled me with anxiety. I took my camping stove out of the hut and set it down on the grass. I zipped the car keys safely in the side pocket of my backpack and tied my boots to the strap.

  Across the Blasket Sound, cars glinted on the cliff in the sunshine. I wondered if my old Honda was still there. I had not given it a thought all summer. I went back in one last time, before padlocking the green door. The scent of sandalwood still hung in the air. I sat on the bed and touched the lace ferns that grew from the stone wall. Suddenly, the sound of the surf washed through me. The room was filled with the breaking of waves. For some time, I was aware of nothing else. Then I left the hut and locked the door behind me.

  With my routine gone, I seemed to be fumbling in slow motion. What should I do next? I walked over to the cafe to say goodbye. Laura was gone out for a walk, so I wrote her a note. I was relieved. It was less painful. Seán was busy preparing food.

  ‘We’ll hook up in Kilkenny sometime,’ he promised. I knew we wouldn’t. He said that he wasn’t going to spend another winter in on the island. I felt very awkward, and we shook hands.

  I began hauling my stuff down to the ferry. The third fish box of gear was my last load. I nudged it over the bank and it took off like a drunken sledge, dragging me on the end of the rope down the steep path. Finally, after unloading the gear on to the slipway, I was set to climb back up to Sue’s with her fish box in tow.

  ‘Customs inspection in ten minutes,’ Fergal shouted from the clifftop.

  ‘You’ll be disappointed,’ I called back. The rule was: anything that could be consumed or burned stayed in on the island. My box of candles, new batteries, matches and remaining morsels of food were all with Sue and Laura. I took one last look back at my baggage. I spotted the sheep fleece that had covered my bed at night and my chair during the day. Sue would have more use for it than I would. I rolled it up and put it into the fish box.

  ‘You’re a different person to the one who arrived here at the start of the summer,’ Sue said as we hugged. I don’t remember if I answered. I just thought how true it was. Like a shattered vase, somehow my fragmented spirit had been reconstructed.

  I climbed up the path to the old National School and stopped at the place where I had seen the two little girls. I pressed my bare toes into the softness of the grass and breathed in the warmth of the island. It had touched and healed a wound that the living could not see.

  I was the only passenger on Oileán na nÓg. I leaned against the rail, looking back up at the island that filled the sky. The boat rocked gently. All was quiet, but for the slapping of the sea against the hull. After a while, Fergal emerged from the wheelhouse. ‘It’s going to be another hot one. Last day?’

  I nodded, unsure of my voice. He did not seem to notice.

  ‘We’re in no rush.’ He opened the fiddle case. ‘The sea air is terrible on stringed instruments.’ He began tuning the strings. ‘Even an hour in this atmosphere and the strings are affected.’ Without another word, he leaned back against the rail and the music of the fiddle resonated in the caves, rising up the cliffs and over the Great Blasket Island. The notes sparkled on the surface of the water and I did not hide my tears any longer.

  As we set off, Sue waved from the low wall outside her house. I waved back and watched her disappear inside the door. The figure of Seán stood outside the half-door of the cafe, a little white dot scampering around his feet, before they too disappeared. Soon, their houses
merged into the jumble of ruins, and the ruins, in turn, gradually merged into the silhouette of the island. I sat on the ferry and watched the Great Blasket Island recede between the blue arch of the sky and the white fantail of the ferry’s wash. Waves of loneliness flooded through me, as they had for generations of island farewells before me, and as they would for generations to come.

  The Great Blasket Island.

  Glossary

  alanna anglicised version of ‘a leanbh’, meaning ‘my child’

  asthore anglicised version of ‘a stór’, meaning ‘my treasure’, ‘my dear’

  bothán small shed or cabin

  clochán stone beehive hut

  colleen anglicised version of ‘cailín’, meaning ‘girl’

  currach small wooden-framed boat covered in waterproof material

  dáil assembly house for meetings and distributing the post

  Dia dhaoibh greeting when meeting more than one person, literally ‘God be with you (pl)’

  Dia dhuit greeting when meeting one person, literally ‘God be with you’

  fáilte isteach ‘welcome inside’

  faoin aimsir outside, exposed to the weather

  Fear Marbh literally ‘the dead man’, popular name for Inis Tuaisceart. Also known as the Sleeping Giant

  naomhóg a currach or coracle

  Oileán na nÓg the island of the young

  púcaí spirits, fairies

  seisiún traditional Irish music session

  slán ‘goodbye’

  slán agus beannacht ‘goodbye and God bless’

  Teach an Rí the King’s house

  This book is a gift to my wonderful daughter, Holly Heverin, and is dedicated to the memories of Frank Fennelly, my father; William Fennelly, my brother; Éanna Ó Broin, my friend.

  Acknowledgments

  My grateful thanks are due to Ray and the late Joan Stagles, Sue Redican and all the island people for their hospitality, generosity and friendliness.