… so don’t expect much coherence. You find me on Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands, and it’s another majorly sunny day, with views all the way to the mainland mountains. We’ve just made the rocky climb to Dún Aenghusa, and we’ve also walked about the island a bit, so I’m rather in the way of nodding off and that’s the truth of it see.
Things here are somewhat surreal, which accounts for the dreamy as well as the sleepy… The shiny black heads of the seals off the little stony beach we just passed were a strange sight. When you pass the islanders, they’re speaking weird soporific Gaelic. Tea and scones in front of a blazing hearth in a thatched cottage at the foot of the old fort deepened the deep calm.
Outside, church bells ring, and bicyclists with broad smiles on their faces follow the curving stone walls of the villages.
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Conversation one flight down at the internet cafe. Here’s what you need to know: The police are currently in the harbor searching for a body. (Could the parallels with Joyce’s Ulysses be any more exact??)
“I don’t think he jumped. It was a fuckin tragedy Christ it’s hard but I don’t think he jumped. He was takin pictures and leanin out and the weather was bad.”
“The weather was bad that night. He didn’t jump. Jesus it was a fuckin accident for sure.”
“Have you had a boat out yet? Any fishing?”
“No, no, not yet.”
March 18th, 2011 at 1:41PM
Inishmore is *always* surreal, particularly Dun Aengus. It could have been, but wasn’t, the setting for Flann O’Brien’s novels where the line between real and unreal is pretty thin. But where would you rather be?
March 18th, 2011 at 1:43PM
But surely the “Jesus” in the quote came out “Jaysus,” didn’t it?
March 18th, 2011 at 4:24PM
Jaysus? The way my Irish Grandpa used to say it. Last night at an Irish pub in West Roxbuy for the best corned beef ‘n cabbage in 50 yrs. Lotsa Guinness.
“Ah Ireland,” Grandpa said, “the grass was so green and the sky was so blue.”
“And why did you leave Ireland, Grandpa?” we grandkids replied.
“I was starvin'” Grandpa said.
And we all laughed uproariously.