Blasket Spirit Read online

  I walked down the path to the cliff overlooking the slipway. The two brothers were lowering the inflatable dinghy into the water. The dark-haired man and the woman from the hostel climbed aboard with their bags and a little pup. Two other young men followed, carrying an empty gas cylinder. The ferryman shouted at the third man, who had remained on the slipway to help people aboard. The sea was choppy, spray soaking the passengers and their bags as the dinghy struggled out to meet the red ferry, which swayed up and down like a demented rocking horse. As I watched, the four Canadians hurried down the path behind me, straining under the weight of enormous backpacks. ‘Hello there. We didn’t see much of you for the past few days!’

  I just smiled. ‘No’ was all I could think of saying. The first man lingered, seeing that they were on time for the ferry after all.

  ‘Are you staying out on the island?’ Strange the way he said ‘out on the island.’ The locals and the old islanders always said ‘in on the island.’ The island was the heart, the centre, the ‘in’.

  ‘Yes, I’m staying in on the island.’

  ‘Gee, you could be in for some pretty rough weather!’

  ‘Not too bad I hope. Is everybody else leaving the hostel too?’

  ‘Yep, Seán and Laura have gotten down there before us. It’s all shut up now.’

  Only Seán and Laura, who managed the cafe, had gone down before them with the ferrymen and the three other men. There were no children to be seen. I stood on the cliff and watched the two ferries disappear across the Blasket Sound and around the headland into Dingle Bay.

  I was baffled. The only people with whom I had had any contact over the past few days were the two children, and yet nobody in the hostel or in the ferryman’s house knew anything about them. As I came back up from the landing slip, I could see smoke rising from the weaver’s chimney: she would regard my visit as odd, after my apparent unfriendliness over the previous five days.

  The yellow door was open as usual. I called out, unable to see anything in the darkness inside. Her voice answered. ‘Hello. So you’ve not left then? Come in.’

  I stepped inside the room. I couldn’t see a thing. Outside, the brightness of the sky dropped into the sea on all sides. Inside, two tiny windows, cluttered high with books and baskets of wool, ensured that the small room remained almost totally dark. As my eyes adjusted, I met her smile. ‘Clear a space and sit down,’ she said. She stood at the table, elbow-deep in a bowl of flour. I didn’t know where to start. Stacks of woven rugs, shawls and baskets were everywhere. Balls of different coloured yarn littered the floor, like dozens of young feeding off the great wooden loom in the centre. I stepped onto the hearth, the only free space available. ‘Just put the rugs on top of that lot and you’ll find a chair,’ she said helpfully. I moved as much stuff as I could, and then perched myself on the edge of an ancient-looking chair. ‘So are you enjoying your stay in Ray’s?’

  ‘Yes, it’s got everything I need, thank you.’

  ‘You won’t be able to walk too far for the next few days. The weather’s set to turn bad. Fergal and Lorcan will be sheltering the ferries in Dingle, so you’re in for a quiet time here.’

  ‘Yes, one of them told me.’

  She began to knead the dough on the table. After a while she asked, ‘Did you get to walk to the back of the island yet?’

  ‘No. I’ve only been over the hill to where the two cliff roads meet. The mist was too bad to go any farther. Is it far to the end?’

  ‘Three miles. From the crossroads, you continue on up the next hill to the Iron Age fort. From there, the path is close to the cliff, and it’s a 300-metre sheer drop to the right. The island falls at the western end to a site with the remains of beehive huts and then there’s nothing but sea. I don’t get to walk to the back of the island much in the summer, except when there’s no ferry running. Then I can catch up on some weaving and close the door when I want to and go walking.’

  She continued flouring a tray and cutting a cross in the top of the bread without once throwing a glance in my direction. Her ease and detachment made me relax. She was well used to hundreds of curious tourists passing through her one-room island shop. I was just one more. I watched her fill the bowl with hot water from the kettle and wash up the baking things. I offered to dry and she handed me a teacloth.

  ‘Now we can have a cup of tea,’ she smiled. As I relished my scone and jam, she told me that her name was Sue, that she was Welsh, and that she had been living on the Great Blasket Island for seventeen years. She made her living weaving and selling her work to summer visitors on the island. During the very bad winter weather she stayed out on the mainland.

  By the time I had finished my second cup of tea, I still had not mentioned the children. Part of me was beginning to wonder if I had finally lost my mind. I rose to leave, aware that she had to make the most of the daylight to do her weaving. ‘Were there any children staying on the island over the past few days?’ I suddenly heard myself blurt out, as I stopped in the doorway.

  ‘No, we haven’t had children up in the hostel since a German family stayed there over a month ago.’

  I explored every ruin in the Blasket village that day. There wasn’t sight nor light of anybody. I went across to the hostel. Both half-doors were padlocked. Beyond it, the cafe, too, was shut and deserted. As the rain got heavier and the wind picked up, I retreated to my little home and settled down, determined to read. I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking of the children and, strangely, I became more and more convinced that they knew everything about me. After dinner, it got dark quickly. Sue would have finished her weaving. I pulled on my raingear and headed down to her glowing doorway. A fire burned in the hearth and the two chairs were pulled up in front of it.

  We talked until I could hardly make out her face in the glow of the dying fire. It was time for her to light a candle and head to bed, ready for first light and another day of weaving. As she closed the door on the night air, I set off up the steep path towards my little home. I felt light and relaxed after the warmth of the fire and our friendly chat.

  Above the hillside rose a half-moon, glossing the edges of billowing clouds. Below, surf roared on the strand. Across the Blasket Sound the great dark bulk of the mainland slept. A distant beam of headlights pierced the night sky as a car crossed over the mountain road from Dingle and disappeared. Over there was another world.

  I turned back to my world and my climb back up the hill. This time I had no warning of chatter or laughter: the two children stood hand in hand in front of me. Their stare bored through my chest, vibrating through my whole body. They knew every aspect of my life and yet they smiled at me silently. I said nothing either and smiled at them. I don’t know how long we stood there, looking at each other. I was conscious of the rain beginning to fall and trickle down my face. They remained perfectly dry. I should have noticed that before when I saw them running around in the rain. As they gazed at me, I felt a wave of sadness come over me. On some level I was aware that I would not see them again. I did not dare divert my gaze.

  As they began to fade before my eyes, I could see the smaller girl dancing from foot to foot as she had done the last time I had seen her. The skinny girl was waving to me as they disappeared. Suddenly, I could feel the coldness of the rain, the wind and the surf roaring in my ears. There was nothing but dark, wet grass on the pathway before me. I knew I would not see them again. There was no more need.

  The following morning, as I set off on my first trek to the back of the island, I called in on Sue. She declared an official tea break and we sat on an old bench outside her door watching two choughs teaching their chicks how to fly. Once again I had slept the whole night through and felt as confident and relaxed as I had done during the previous evening’s chat. As I passed by the ruins of the old National School, I took the chocolate bar that I had been saving for the little girls and placed it inside on the hearth. Perhaps it was only the wind and the sea that heard my thanks.

  I never
saw the two little girls after that night on the Great Blasket Island and I never spoke about them until the night the three sheep farmers stayed in on the island.

  Páidí’s Trail

  The gale blew from the north for several days. Towards the end of the week I was woken constantly during the night by violent gusts funnelling through the gaps in the walls. Manx shearwater flew in from the sea over the island. In the darkness their chilling human-like cry sent shivers up my spine. It is said of the shearwater’s cry that it led to tales of wailing banshees in our ancestors’ time. I burrowed deeper into my sleeping bag.

  I slept late. When I woke, I could hear nothing but gusting wind and the roar of the surf below. White horses fled before violent gusts along the Blasket Sound. The forecasts had predicted winds from the north increasing to storm force. There would be no ferries appearing for several more days.

  Despite the cold wind, the island was bathed in sunshine. A dolphin nuzzled the barrel moorings below and jumped friskily between the buoys. We would have the island to ourselves again. I took my towel and set off through the ruins down to the cliff path and then headed towards the beach. I inched my way down the slippery cliff to the White Strand. The sand was dark and cold after days of rain. I abandoned my clothes on a flat rock in the shelter of a cove at the village end and raced into the waves. Initially, the assault of the breakers numbed any feeling of cold. I whooped and gasped as I ducked and slapped my hands over my body in an attempt at a cursory wash. The dolphin continued to play, favouring the black barrels over the manic white spectacle thrashing around in the shallows. Within seconds, I was back on the beach, wrapped in my towel, chattering and stamping my feet.

  After a late breakfast of porridge, honey and black tea, I set off on my daily expedition. I chose the south path, away from the wind. Once I had climbed high and had turned the corner of An Gob, I left behind the deafening noise of the wind and the waves.

  The shelter and stillness were staggering. Skylarks hovered in blue light and sang their hearts out. Suddenly, they plummeted like stones into the heather and disappeared before their song took flight again.

  Wheatears obligingly alighted on rocks or bracken against the skyline, as if ready for inspection. They looked smart, in fashionable silver with black wings and matching black eyeliner. I began to recognise their habits. The wheatear ducks its head, neck and chest forwards and back, like a rocking horse, as it chirps cheerfully. The crested skylark sinks its head right down into its shoulders as it sings. Pipits and wheatears stitched a haphazard path for me, making my progress slow.

  I had only just made it around the first turn when I met Sue wending her way home. She was wearing a thin rain jacket and was soaked to the skin. She was tanned peanut-brown and barefoot. ‘Have you seen the choughs?’ she called. I hadn’t. I had been absorbed by the wheatears, following their trail like Hansel and Gretel’s crumbs. ‘Have a look. The young have learned so fast.’ She took the big binoculars from around her neck and offered them to me. I could see the choughs with their scarlet red bills skirting the cliffs over 30 metres below. Their deep-throated caw carried on the wind.

  ‘Did you see Donie playing again this morning? Your door was still closed when I left for the back of the island, so I didn’t like to wake you up.’

  ‘You mean the dolphin? I didn’t know he had a name.’

  ‘Yes, he’s called after Donie the ferryman.’

  I remembered Donie, his sunburned skin red between his freckles, sitting in the dinghy in blazing sunshine the previous summer. I had offered him my sunscreen: I had never seen sunburn like it. ‘I wouldn’t be using that stuff,’ he laughed. I left the sunscreen behind on the boat, pretending that I had forgotten to take it with me.

  ‘He was still playing with the barrels when I set off this morning.’ Sue spotted another bird and directed my gaze along lines of heather and over rocks to where a little bird was perching on a tuft of heather. I would never have spotted him. He was a stonechat and his proud little rosy breast and gleaming white neck scarf hanging down over his shoulders made him look both distinguished and distinguishable from a distance. Then, as if he knew he had acquired two admirers, he flew back to a tuft of heather on the skyline, giving himself the ideal backdrop with which to highlight his magnificent plumage.

  ‘What the mind does not know the eye does not see.’ The saying was so true. Once Sue had opened my mind to wheatears and choughs, my eyes began to see them everywhere. I had never seen the stonechats before, although they had been all around me. Now I would see them for the rest of that day and every day.

  ‘Donie is much younger than Fungie, the Dingle dolphin, and he has a lot more energy. He began following the ferry from Dún Chaoin and then gradually began to stay around the island. Lately, he appears just after dawn below Páidí Dunleavy’s. He frolics around in the surf there for hours.’

  Talk turned to Páidí Dunleavy. Páidí was the only one of the original islanders who maintained the roof on his house and who returned faithfully every summer to live in the old ways. His cottage stood out like a beacon, even from the mainland. Unlike the tumbling grey ruins of the village, Páidí’s home was whitewashed. It was roofed in black felt and had its windows and door painted chocolate brown. It stood on the cliff edge above the beach. Right in front of it, Sue pointed out Rinn an Chaisleáin.

  Rinn an Chaisleáin was a small, bare headland covered with a scattering of lichen-speckled rocks. I had noticed them. Each one stood oddly from the grass like a jagged tooth. She explained that these strange little stones marked the unconsecrated graves of infants, shipwrecked sailors and suicides who were not taken to the mainland for a church burial. After hearing that, I could never pass without leaving some wild flowers among the stones. Back in from this strange graveyard was Páidí Dunleavy’s cottage.

  By all accounts, Páidí was a character. He liked his drop of whiskey, his music and a good seisiún. Sue laughed as she recalled the story of his being wheeled home one night in a wheelbarrow. Unlike other islanders on the mainland, Páidí had no time for chatting to journalists and giving interviews. He scoffed at ‘the romanticising that they go on with. Life is tough but you get on with it.’ He was also infuriated by a report claiming that what had finally caused the islanders to evacuate the island was their confinement during three stormy weeks without being able to open the door even once. He nearly blew a gasket. ‘What do they think we did? Piss out the window?’ Many an ego-punctured journalist was seen retreating down the path to the pier, tail between his legs, Páidí’s wrath ringing in his ears.

  Sue spoke with great fondness for the old man as we stood surveying the village. To fishermen, sheep farmers and summer tourists, Sue had become the island matriarch. Many a storm she had weathered over the seventeen years, spinning and weaving on the island alone. The VHF radio operated from her house. For seafarers, she was the voice on the Blasket. To the steady stream of exhausted tourists and strays that flopped onto her doorstep in the summer months she offered drink, rest and a friendly ear. Páidí had certainly taken to this vivacious Welsh woman. In latter years he walked her around to the lovers’ bench. Courting couples used to meet there, safe from the censure of village eyes. He showed her the names of friends long departed either to the New World or the Next World, which were etched into the rock. Today, the rough stone seat is only surveyed by kittiwakes and the odd black-backed gull that drifts by. The only ones to linger and play there are the nibbling rabbits.

  ‘Páidí was determined to leave his mark. Every summer when he was in on the island he would find another wall or a rock to carve his name on. Have you seen it?’

  ‘No, and I’ve been in every ruin on the island.’

  ‘Well, it’s like you say: “What the mind doesn’t know, the eye doesn’t see.” You’ll begin to see his name all over the place now. One of his most conspicuous signatures is on the plaster on the gable wall of the Kearney house, just below the schoolhouse.’

  I had wandered
through there many times and had never noticed anything of the sort. But then, I was otherwise distracted.

  ‘Another place that Páidí used to visit, when he was in, was a huge slab of rock in Gleann na Péiste. Half the islanders who ever lived here carved their names into it. Every summer, if he was strong enough, he would make the same pilgrimage back to the glen to carve his name and the year. Every year he told me it would be his last, and soon there would be nothing left of him but his name. Then, one year, it came true.’ With that, Sue slung her binoculars around her neck again. ‘I must get back and dry out. I’m going down on the low tide to pick lichen off the rocks.’

  ‘What colour do you get from that?’

  ‘A rich golden tan. It depends on the time of year you pick the lichen though. The shades can vary a lot.’

  ‘If you need a hand, I’ll come down when I get back.’

  ‘Great, but don’t cut your walk short.’

  ‘Well, I won’t go to the end. The wind is lethal, so I might just climb up to the fort. Do I pass anywhere near Gleann na Péiste on the way?’

  ‘It’s fairly hard to find. It’s well off the track. Do you know…?’ I didn’t. ‘Do you know… ?’After naming nearly half-a-dozen rocks and ditches, I was still none the wiser. I knew none of them, yet it was evident to Sue that I was not going to give up. ‘Right, I don’t think you’ll find it this way, but climb up to the fort. From there, look down to the southern cliffs and you’ll spot a long bank or ditch. Walk straight down to that and follow it to the west. You can’t miss the rock. It’s a huge, almost flat, slab, covered with names and dates. I haven’t seen it in a while, so it may be covered in lichen again and hard to read.’