Saint Gobnait, patron saint of bee-keepers in Ireland.

‘The voyage of Saint Gobnait’.

Artist; Kathleen Furey.

One part of the Áras Éanna art installation of 30 painted currachs at the NUIG quadrangle (free to view). This currach is on display, not at NUIG but in the mortuary chapel inside the Galway cathedral. Kathleen Furey has taken inspiration for this work from the stain glass artist, Harry Clarke’s window depicting St. Gobnait, the 6th century female saint from Ballyvourney, County Cork. Saint Gobnait was from county Clare and lived for a time on Inisheer, tge smallest of the Aran islands wher a church ruin is named for her. She sailed to Cork, traversing the river Lee and it’s tributary Sullane, by currach. She had a vision in which she was told by God to found a monastery where she saw a herd of snow-white deer. This happened at Ballyvourney. She was a healer, using honey as a salve, and was revered as patron saint of bees and bee-keepers. When a terrible plague visited the area, killing many in a pandemic, she and her honey saved the locals from infection. Artist Kathleen Furey has featured all these references, so appropriate for today’s pandemic, and incorporated them into her lustrously decorated currach. Well worth a visit to the cathedral to view.

Brian Nolan Walking Tours of Galway

Beware of Michaelmas and Blackberries.

'Don't go eating blackberries after Michaelmas Day because Lucifer spits on them, or even pees on them after that date!

#Michaelmas' which we celebrate on the 29th of September, is the feast-day of the three Archangels, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. (There are actually seven archangels, but we celebrate only 3 or 4 of them usually. They are Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, Chamuel (Camael), Raphael, Jophiel, and Zadkiel.

I know, it's confusing, but that's just the way it is.)

'Course Archangel Michael did cast Lucifer into Hell, but he, the big L, gets his revenge each year by spoiling our wild fruits after Michaelmas Day, or so the tradition goes.

"We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.

But when the bath was filled we found a fur,

A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.

The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush,

The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.

I always felt like crying."

#SeamusHeaney

Photos by Brian Nolan

With thanks for the day to Lorraine, and her twitter account @IrishHistorybitesize

 Tomorrow, the 6th of January, is the feast of 'The Epiphany'. It's better known in Ireland as 'Little Christmas', or 'Nollaig na mBan' - 'Women's Christmas'.

It was a day in the calendar when our women-folk were 'given the day off' in their honour. Such a holiday belongs to another era perhaps, but I think it's just as relevant today, to recognise the unpaid work that so many women did, and do.

So, to honour the day, here's a piece I was inspired to pen five years ago, for the day that's in it.... and all the trouble in the world. Enjoy the English language version, but if you can, read the Gaelic language version, it's beautifully couched in glorious west of Ireland Irish. Try it...read it aloud, to someone, or yourself, there's no wrong pronunciation, nobody will look at you askance, or give out to you...just say the words, and taste the honey and the humanity! Go on... really, it's both a salve, and a prayer, for all of us. It's short, and worth the read, I promise.

'Cuireadh do Mhuire' was composed by Máirtín Ó Direáin (1910 – 1988), the great Irish language poet from the village of Sruthán, on Inis Mór, (Inishmore), the largest of the Aran Islands, in Galway Bay.

Ó Direáin penned this beautiful and delicate verse at Christmas 1942, when the whole world was at war and his little piece of Ireland, perched on the edge of the vast Atlantic, was helpless to influence the world's powers in any way, save to offer hospitality to the displaced, of whom there were millions.

Five years ago when I first posted this, we were witnessing the terrible effects of war and devastation in the Middle East, with emigrants and asylum seekers in their hundreds of thousands risking their lives to reach safety and peace.

Today we again see fear in peoples eyes as they shun strangers and limit personal contact because if the fear of contracting Covid 19.

This poem resonated with me five years ago and still does today when I read it. I hope you like it.

Cuireadh do Mhuire;

'An eol duit, a Mhuire,

Cá rachair i mbliana

Ag iarraidh foscaidh

Dod leanbh Naofa,

Tráth bhfuil gach doras

Dúnta ina éadan

Ag fuath is uabhar

An chine daonna?

Deonaigh glacadh

Le cuireadh uaimse

Go hoileán mara

San iarthar chianda:

Beidh coinnle geala

I ngach fuinneoig lasta

Is tine mhóna

Ar theallach adhanta.'

--------------------------

An Invitation to Mary;

'Do you know, O Mary,

Where you will go this year

To look for shelter

For your Holy Infant,

At a time when every door

Is shut in his face

By the hate and the pride

Of human kind?

Be pleased to accept

An invitation from me

To an island in the sea

Far away in the west:

There will be bright candles

Lighting in every window

And a turf fire

in welcoming hearths.'

Photo of Máirtín Ó Direáin's house at Sruthán, Inis Mór (Inishmore), Aran Islands is © Photo by and with thanks to Bengt Ason Holm.

Idea for this post prompted by 'The Naomh Eanna Trust'.

Happy New Year to you all.

You can find me any day at Galway Walks - Walking Tours of Galway galwaywalks.com, email: galwaywalks@gmail.com

Look me up if you ever visit Galway. Walking Tours of Galway