Photo © Katharine Gilbert
By Sabina Clarke
On An Irish Island
By Robert Kanigel
Alfred A.Knopf, 2012
$26.95
The inspiration for this book was serendipitous and happened by chance in 20005 when the author, on his honeymoon in western Ireland, visited the town of Dun Chaoin and became intrigued with the history of the Great Blasket, An Blascaod Mor, the largest of a group of seven small islands off the west coast of County Kerry.
For centuries, fisherman and their families lived on this remote island in stone houses carved into the slope of the hill, supporting themselves by fishing, hunting rabbits, and harvesting oats and potatoes from the almost barren soil.
They had no plumbing, no electricity, no school, no taverns, no shops, no post office, no doctor, no priest, no nurse—in essence, they had little connection to the outside world.
Their vibrant culture was totally self-invented– filled with folk stories, music, storytelling and dance. And, though few could read or write, these Irish speaking people found abundant joy in everyday life.
Kanigel captures the wild bleak beauty of the island while weaving an intricate tangle of relationships that developed between the islanders and the visitors they befriended. And from his absorbing tale, we learn that many of these simple peasant islanders were quite gifted and destined to leave behind a rich and lasting legacy in words.
The Norwegian linguist Carl Marstrander laid the ground for the fertile literary phenomenon that would blossom on the Blasket by convincing the people of the island that they were special. His tutor in Irish, islander Tomas O’Criomhthain, eventually became an author himself with the publication in 1986 of Island Crosstalk. O’Criomhthain said, “I have done my best to set down the character of the people about me so that some record of us might live after us; for the like of us will never be again.”
Brian Kelly, a graduate university student at Trinity College in Dublin was a mentor to O’Criomhthain, urging him to write about his life; after which Tomas wrote The Voice in the Afternoon. An Guth ar Neoin. A less accomplished scholar than the others, Brian Kelly was said to have ‘the gift of friendship.’ In a letter to British Museum curator Robin Flower, Tomas said that many come to the island but “no one of them looked after Tomas but one”. He was referring to Brian Kelly. Tomas always wrote with the cherished Waterman pen that Kelly gave him.
George Thomson, the British classicist and university student who was 20 when he came to the island and “close to tears when he left six weeks later”, encouraged islander Maurice O’Sullivan to write his book Twenty Years A—Growing, which became a literary sensation. His friendship with O’Sullivan was the most important of his life. When O’Sullivan died, Thomson was devastated. Thomson’s daughter talked to Robert Kanigel about her father’s grief saying that he never got over O’Sullivan’s death.
Others deeply affected and forever changed by the Blasket were the Irish playwright John Millington Synge, the British Museum curator Robin Flower, beloved by the islanders and affectionately called ‘Blaithin’ or Little Flower, and the French scholar Marie-Louise Sjoestedt, who committed suicide by jumping out a window when the Germans invaded Paris in 1940.
Initially, they all came to hear spoken Irish but went away with much more. It was because of their interest, that the oral history of the Blasket was preserved and an important literary tradition burgeoned.
By November 1953, the Blasket was abandoned as the remaining twenty-one islanders were repatriated to the mainland. Their exodus was ordered by the Irish government. Reluctantly, they left the only home they ever knew to succumb to the pace of a different world.
In a letter to former island visitor and her close friend George Chambers, about her life on the Blasket, native islander Lis Ni Shuilleabhain wrote, “I have one gifted thing to tell you about it. I was always happy there. I was happy among sorrows on this island.”
Beyond being a fascinating slice of history, Kanigel’s riveting narrative prompts one to question what we may be missing that the islanders, in all their simplicity, found.
Recently, I met with the author to discuss his latest book.
What impact has this story had on you personally and has your perspective changed as a result of writing this story? It has made me question the way we live today and the way I live. It forced me to think about what is lacking from my own life and what we are all looking for; what moments we may be missing. Traditional villages like that are disappearing. Maybe there is something we can learn from that world.
What was your objective in writing this book? I wanted to deposit my readers on this island and let them see through the eyes of the visitors and feel what it is like to leave all the trappings of academic life behind.
You do a masterful job of creating and bringing to life characters that have been long dead. How do you do that? I immersed myself in their lives. I read everything that they wrote. I read Marie-Louise Sjoestedt in French; I went to George Thomson’s house and Robin Flower’s house. I went to the cemetery where Mary Kearney is buried and the cemetery where Maurice O’Sullivan is buried. I try to immerse myself in the world of my characters as much as I can.
Of all the characters in this book, who is your favorite? The British classicist George Thomson. I appreciate him on so many levels. He was a generous person, a loving person and a brilliant person.
About the Author: Robert Kanigel is the author of seven books and a biographer and science writer of more than 400 articles, essays and reviews. He was professor of science writing at MIT and helped launch its Graduate Program in Science Writing which he directed for seven years. Recently, he retired from MIT to devote himself to writing full-time and is currently working on a biography of Jane Jacobs.