Operation Fanacht

 Operation Fanacht;

The Gardai will be 'manning' (is that even a word any more?) several hundred checkpoints all across the country over the next three weeks, to ensure that we, the Irish people, remain close to home, (we're on an island lads, ffs), during the newly imposed Level 3 Covid19 Lockdown.
Operation Fanacht will hopefully finish on the 27th of October, a couple days before Halloween, when we will not allow our children go 'trick or treating', or apple-dunking, or other spit-swapping activities, for obvious reasons, though mask-wearing will be allowed, even encouraged.
Operation 'Fanacht' is the cutesy code-name for the enforced restricted movement of people around the country and within their own home-districts.

'Fanacht' roughly translated from the gaelic, means 'Wait', or 'Stay', in Irish, so it is an appropriate word for the mobility restrictions inherent in the Level 3 Lockdown, but as a stand-alone word, it is ineffective. 

Perhaps they ought, more properly have called it Operation 'Fanacht sa bhaile' or 'Stay at Home'. giving us clearer instruction?
Pronounced badly, by non-Irish speakers or careless announcers, 'Fanacht' can sound like, and be easily confused with another Irish word, 'Fánach'.
Now in my humble opinion, 'Fánach' would have been a far better code-name for the current restrictions. Fánach means 'wandering, straying, or vagrant'.
Given our history of emigration and our penchant for hopping into our cars, (or these days, mounting our bicycles or electric scooters) for the slightest reason, going to a third-cousins communion, or a distant friend's neighbor's funeral, or a sale in Harvey Normans in any town other than the one we live in, well, 'Fánach' would have been a far more appropriate codeword.
Most of us were first introduced to the word 'Fánach' in the poem we learned in primary school, 'An Spailpín Fánach', a poem that recounted the misery of being a paid labourer on the big farms and how much better life could have been had he not gone off to fight for a foreign army, where he in turn learned that the hills faraway were not as green as he had hoped.
Truth is we are an island nation and our global peregrination defines us far better than we can know.
'Fánach' also means aimless, purposeless, vain, and futile. Curiously that is the mood of many people in Ireland today under lockdown. Many of us have lost our way, lost our can do attitude, our 'joi de vivre', our reasons to be cheerful, part II.
'Fánach' also means random, or haphazard, and surely that is the definition of how we are currently being governed, in an unplanned, knee-jerk manner, with decisions being foisted on un without proper fore-thought, planning or empirical proof.
'Fánach' also means occasional, rare, or seldom, which I believe is the general response to the Covid 19 restrictions imposed on us this past six months, only occasionally, rarely or seldom have we disobeyed the rules, the morally and socially imposed mores of keeping ourselves safe and uninfected by this infectious virus, and signs by, very, very few of us have 'caught' the virus, only 1% or so of our population have been exposed to the disease, despite our 'lax' laws, mostly unarmed police, and happy-go-lucky younger folk, whose lives have been completely overwhelmed by the panic surrounding this pandemic.
'Fánach' also means sparse or little, which sometimes reflects the quality of our leadership these days, with very few people, politicians, business leaders, medics having the courage to stand up and lead by example, and I'm not even going to refer to the infamous game of golf in Connemara.
Finally, 'Fánach' also means trivial, insignificant, words that none of us use when speaking of this killer virus. We all need to work together, doing everything we used to do, but carefully, and in moderation, if we are to successfully emerge from this global pandemic and resurrect our communities, our vibrant towns and cities, protect our older generations while allowing our younger generations to live and thrive, and also, to safely reopen Ireland for tourism and safeguard the jobs and futures of the huge percentage of our population that rely on the hospitality and related industries.
Yes, its a pity they called it 'Operation Fanacht' or 'Operation Stall the ball', when we could have used an Irish word that isn't mono-theistic and could be so much more 'hopeful'!
Stay Safe.
Isn't the Irish language amazing!

Here is the first part of the poem, in the original Irish, then in English (my translation). The poet by the way is not known, or at least as far as I know, he is unknown.
'Go deo seo aris ni rachad go Caiseal.
Ag diol na ag reic mo shlainte
Na ar mhargadh na saoire im shui cois balla
Im’scaoinse ar leataoibh sraide
Bodairi na tire ag tiocht ar a gcapall
Da fhiafrai an bhfuilim hiralta
O! teanam chun siuil, ta an cursa fada
Seo ar siul an Spailpin Fanach.'
Translation
'Never, ever again will I go to Cashel,
Selling life and health for nought,
Nor to the hiring-fair, me sitting by the wall,
nonchalantly lazing by the roadside,
Well-fed country-farmers strutting on their horses,
deigning to ask me if I'd been hired,
"No, c'mon so, let’s go, the road is long"
And off with him, the Spailpín Fánach.'
and finally;
Random photo of Morris Minor at Achill, taken by Sean Calvey, included for no good reason. 

Brian Nolan 7/10/2020

Smile for the camera, 1854.

They look what, about ten or eleven year old, survivors of the famine, yet they'd probably lost everything, their families, their home, their hope, abandoned, living now in the workhouse, or just been let out of it, to do day work for a local farmer, back-breaking work, for them, them that were hungry all the time, and had no energy, no advocate, no one to be their protector, advisor, father, or mother. Imagine them, 1854, never having seen a camera, not having any clue what it did, or what a photograph was, never having spoken to a 'toff', a Colonel, looking at his rich clothes, afraid, completely terrified of his authority, of his status, hoping he'd hurry up at whatever it was he was telling them to sit still for so long for, and hoping, praying that he'd be true to his word, and give them a penny each, or tuppence, thinking they should have asked for a shiny tanner each, or even a 'bob', sure weren't they worth a bob? Or had they been told often enough already, they weren't worth a bob! They'd be worth a bob when they took the King's shilling and joined the army, yes, they'd be worth a bob then, little drummer boys, or worse, but anything would be better than their lot right now. Next year, when they are twelve, They'll tell them they are fourteen, next year they will get a uniform like that gentleman. Has he finished yet? What's he doing, he's still under that black cloth behind the camera, maybe they could just leave, what, leave without their tuppence, not a chance, they will wait as long as it takes, however long it takes him to fix whatever he's doing behind that box, they'll wait, like dogs at the back door, they have all day.

(Photo taken in 1854 in Templemore Tipperary, by Alfred Capel-Cure, 1826-1896, then a Brevet Lieutenant Colonel, stationed with his regiment in Tipperary, and a pioneer of early photography).

Gale Days and the Curse of the Púca!

Gale Days and the Curse of the Púca! (And I am not talking about tonight's windy weather).

Michaelmas, or the Feast of 'Michael and All Angels', is celebrated on the 29th of September each year. Michaelmas is associated with the end of the harvest, the beginning of autumn and the shortening of daylight hours as winter approaches and the nights grow longer, darker and colder.

Michaelmas is one of the 'quarter days'.

There were four traditional 'quarter days' in each year, even going back to pre-christian times and they marked out the year for our ancestors. Lady's Day was celebrated on the 25th of March, Midsummer's Day on the 24th of June, Michaelmas Day on the 29th of September and of course Christmas Day on the 25th of December.

It is no coincidence that they coincide roughly with the solstices and equinoxes, which were always celebrated since ancient times, especially by the earliest settlers in Ireland, call them what you like, the Fir Bolgs, Formorians, Milesians, Tuatha De Dannan, whomever, the end and the start of each season, be it Spring or Summer was always marked by them, by fire and by feast.

The 'quarter days' were closely associated with the four Celtic seasons, Imbolc, Bealtaine, Lughnasa and Samhain.

With the arrival of Christianity, they became associated with christian religious feast-days, and with our modern seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

More importantly, in the modern era, from the 17th century onwards, ever since the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, the Down Survey and the forcible confiscation of 95% of land in Ireland from Irish, and Norman Irish families and clans, and transfer of same into English settler hands, the Irish became tenants on lands that we used to own!

Now, by dint of conquest, we were obliged to pay rent to these colonial settlers, to live on our confiscated land!

Those rents came due, usually, twice a year, coincidentally, or perhaps not coincidentally, on two of the 'Quarter days', traditionally, Ladys Day and Michaelmas Day.

Those two days became known as the 'Gale Days', which I believe is an anglicisation of the Irish verb to 'seize or capture or confiscate', 'Gabháil', which to the uneducated English ear, that word 'Gabháil' sounded an awful lot like 'Gale' and by God, it certainly put the wind up us Irish! While the English relished in telling us that 'it's an ill wind that blows no good', we Irish had dozens of words for the wind, many of which augured bad cess! And of course, 'cess' was an old English word for tax! Go figure. No question, 'Gale Days' were the bane of a tenant farmer's life.

If they could pay the rent, then all was fine, but if the growing season had been poor, or wet or stormy, or for whatever other reason, through illness, theft, houghing, disease, laziness, rebellion or just plain bad luck, and the rent was not paid, or only paid in part, then that tenant was on the slippery slope to privation, eviction, starvation or worse.

Gale Days were 'grab' days to the landlord or agent, and 'give' days to the farmer.

Eviction was a constant threat and that memory of eviction has left an indelible mark on our people, even today.

For some farmers, who may have been short of cash on the Gale Day, and time had to be bought to gather the rent, a goose or two would be brought to the 'Big House', as a token, in exchange for a bit of 'give', a little leeway on the debt to be paid, for a consideration, an obligation, and to beg or gain, just a few more weeks to allow the tenant farmer to raise the monies for the rental payment, to sell the pig, or the turf or potatoes, their cap in hand, tugging their forelock, begging, on their calloused knees, for just a bit of a break! Sometimes their pleas fell on deaf ears, and the battering ram and the Peelers were sent on their merry work, throwing down the walls of the pitiful cabins, throwing the families and their meagre possessions onto th side of the road, at the mercy of the dreaded Workhouse, or if they were lucky, onto the deck of an over-crowded 'Famine ship'!

Sometimes, it was a case of waiting for the 'money from America' from a son or daughter who had emigrated from the farm, and on whose remittances the farm, and the future of his or her family now depended.

If that cheque was late, well, your goose was cooked!

Michaelmas was therefore a kind of settlement day, a sigh of relief, or a cause of great anxiety, an end to one season and perhaps, hopefully, the beginning of another.

Michaelmas was also the traditional day to begin a new lease, or tenancy agreement, and also the day to start an apprenticeship, or a position as a farm-hand or servant, and also, though not farming related, the day for electing magistrates and the beginning day of legal and university terms.

In that sense, Michaelmas was not the farmer's friend, though Saint Michael, The Archangel, was in fact the Christian God of the Harvest, the God of Plenty, the fearless God who gave succour during the Winter months, giving the farmer protection and strength to see his family through the harsh Winter, to combat want and disease and disaster, until the following Spring, from darkness into light. He was 'the man'!

In Christian terms though, Saint Michael had also usurped the ancient Celtic folklore surrounding the harvest. He it was, apparently, that threw the Devil out of Heaven and consigned him to Hell, though not before the Devil managed, as he fell to his fiery lair, to grab onto an Irish blackberry bush, and ripped and torn by thorns, spat and crapped on the blackberries, cursing them, and making them rotten, inedible.

That fallen angel, the devil, took the place of the ancient evil Irish fairy, the 'Púca', the mischief-maker, the crop-ruiner, the milk-spoiler, the hunger-monger! He was a bad egg!

The folk-memory of the malevolent Púca is still observed today, though we'd never acknowledge the pagan origin of this belief.

Truth is, no one I know would dream of eating a Blackberry after the 29th of September, ever! You'd never eat a blackberry that had been pissed on by the Púca!

It sounds far worse in Irish.

'Lá 'le Michíl a chacann an púca ar na sméara. Ní lubhálfadh máithreacha dos na leanaí aon tsméar ná mogall a phriocadh ó Lá le Michíl amach mar bhíodh na sméara go léir sailithe age an bpúca.'

Folklore Collection Máire Ruiséal, Dún Chaoin (CBÉ, 469:151)

***

And so, as Michaelmas ends, and the modern season of Autumn begins, we might all say a prayer to Saint Michael, the Archangel, the conqueror of the Devil, to give us the strength to weather the coming Winter, and to survive, and to beat the Covid19 pandemic, the modern day equivalent of the 'Curse of the Púca'!

Brian Nolan 29/9/2020

The Avengers

Diana Rigg (20 July 1938 – 10 September 2020), passed away yesterday, leaving those of us of a certain age, and of a certain sex, totally bereft.

She was the original pin-up girl for my generation, with her sultry looks and her daringly revealing cat-suit, she fairly set our hearts to racing. She played Emma Peel in the TV series 'The Avengers', and she, and her 007-partner, John Steed, played by Patrick Macnee, always got their man, and us too, every time, in that long-running, 51 episode, BBC spy-series which ran from 1961-69, leaving an indelible mark on our deeply-troubled and pubescent imaginations.
A few years ago, I asked a school-boy friend of mine, Pat Kilboy, the old chestnut, as to whether he dreamed in 'Black and White', or in 'Colour'?
I was hearkening back to the days of Black and White TV, which was standard issue in Ireland, well into the early 1970's, and not just that, we also only had one TV channel, RTE 1.
His answer to my question was ...well, very specific to the time we lived in. His dad had a few cows whose milk sustained the growing and extended Kilboy family. That was not uncommon in towns and villages all around Ireland in the late-1960's. Many families were self-sufficient in ways that are alien to us today, having their own vegetables, pigs (bacon), chicken, and milk.
Pat, the eldest child, used to be tasked to go to the pasture, a mile or so outside town, at the top of Mount Pleasant hill, where his dad's cows were grazing and bring them into town, to their back-yard milking parlour, where they would spend the night. They would be walked back to the field the following morning, again by Pat, before he went to school.
Needless to add, all chores, then and now were just that, chores, inconvenient ones at that, and always had to be done at awkward or unsuitable times, for us busy kids at least. I had to walk my dad's greyhounds, up and down that same Mount Pleasant hill, racing dogs in training, walked at a fast pace, hardly stopping to sniff a lamp-post, and in doing so, Pat and I often said hi, and bye, as we escorted our very different charges, in opposite directions before our breakfast or after our tea-time.
I was a few years younger than Pat, who was perhaps 12 years of age when The Avengers series started to be shown on our single-channel TV service, an event that changed our lives, completely.
His answer to my half-in-jest question about his dreaming patterns went like this;
"I dreamed mostly of Diana Rigg (Avengers). We had 3 cows for milking to be brought in to town in winter evenings. I bet the ass off them going down Mount Pleasant to be in time for the Avengers. Me dad wondered why the milk yield was down. If he saw them running with udders flying he'd wonder no more."
Which meant of course, that Pat, and I, and many's another boy in Loughrea, dreamed happily, in glorious B&W.
Rest in Peace, Diana Rigg, and thank you, your job here is done.

Collecting Kelp, Connemara, 1911

 This painting titled 'Collecting Kelp, Connemara' was painted in 1911 by William H. Bartlett, ROI, (1958-1932) and was sold at auction in 2015 for €10,000, considerably more than that ever earned by the kelp-gatherers of old.

A 'weed drag', is a type of long-handled, bent-tine, fork used for clearing rivers and lakes of weed. Seaweed gathering also utilised a drag fork like this, even today. Along the Connemara coast, in shallow bays and rocky inlets and islands, a variety of seaweed called kelp was cut above the root with a knife/saw attached to a long pole, and it then floated free. The buoyant kelp was gathered into floating piles or rafts, called 'cleimins', and towed, or poled to shore, or, if further out, on an island or deeper water, the weed was dragged into the boat with the special bent fork, brought to shore and spread along piers or walls to dry.

Harvesting seaweed on the Atlantic shore was hard and cold work, standing waist-deep in Autumn seawater, out below the low-water mark, cutting the seaweed by hand, and gathering it into bundles to be floated to shore. From there, someone had to carry the cut seaweed in bundles from the foreshore, up to the place where it was to be dried, before it was collected and loaded onto boats to be processed in Galway to extract iodine and potash. Men usually did the cutting and harvesting of the seaweed, while the women and children had the task of hauling the heavy, cold, wet, sea-sodden, smelly seaweed inshore. No seaweed baths needed for those hardy folk.

When the seaweed had dried it was burned in-situ, in sheltered rocky areas, to produce alkali or iodine. Alkali was an important and necessary commodity in the soap, glass and textile industries and

was manufactured from the burned ashes of vegetable substances (potash, kelp and barilla). Iodine became important for the advances in medicine and photography in the 19th century.

Archaeological evidence for the kelp industry includes kilns, drying-walls and storehouses which are found all along the Atlantic coastline from Wexford to Antrim.

From the 1850's the dried kelp was transferred by boat, usually Galway 'Hookers', from the scores of harbours along the coast, and from the Aran islands, to the Claddagh quay, and then carried onwards on smaller boats, through the locks on the Eglinton Canal into the Corrib, and on to Menlo where the Galway Iodine Works was located. There it was burned and iodine was extracted. The remainder, ash mainly, was used as fertiliser, and also used in the photographic, munitions, bleaching, glass-making, soap-making, ceramics, salt and linen industries.

The business of converting seaweed to iodine was very labour and fuel intensive, quite polluting, and was subject to.and later on victim of, competition from European and S. American sources of potash.

After WWI synthetic iodine replaced seaweed iodine, and that seaweed-based industry became obsolete. Seaweed was also harvested and burned locally, to produce fertiliser, though that practice has also died out, and was never really sufficiently financially rewarding to be sustainable.

Seaweed is still harvested in Connemara, and elsewhere on the Irish coastline, and is used to produce ingredients for cosmetics and food-additives. It is now collected 'wet' and does not have to be dried on the walls along the coast. Controversy still surrounds the sale of seaweed-collecting rights in Connemara to a Canadian cosmetics company, Arramara, around 2014.

You can buy seaweed to eat, Dulse and Carrigeen, to enjoy at home, from several Irish companies, healthy and worth supporting. You could also go for a seaweed bath, Leenane and Enniscrone are two of several locations on the west coast where such baths are offered today. Indeed Salthill, Galway was originally a victorian seaweed spa town, where folks took the salt air and the baths, for health in the late 19th century. The seaweed baths were where Seapoint now stands.

1Brian Nolan

Canary in the Coal-mine - The demise of the Irish Pub

Canary in the coal-mine! The demise of the Irish Pub.

Dessie O'Brien, whose pub in Kilrickle, between Loughrea and Aughrim, like thousands of others around the country, is Covidly-closed until the 1st of September, at least.
This man has put his all into keeping a beautiful, historic, culturally important rural pub alive. Over the past few years he has absorbed the missing grocery, the out of business newsagent, the the closed post office, and the non-existent coffee shop in the little village into his pub, re-inventing his welcoming hostelry as a catch-all, sell-all, serve-all, help-all 'general store and pub', a haven to provide a place of welcome and support for the good people of this rural hinterland, forgotten and by-passed, consigned to the rural dung-heap, so maligned by urban politicians, upwardly mobile urban civil servants and uncaring urban media.
Yet the people remain the same, strong, resilient, faithful, christian, talented, industrious, hard-working, friendly, community-oriented country folk, who like nothing better than to throw off the cares of a long day tending their farms (or double-jobbing to keep their farms), by popping into their 'local', for a pint and a chat, a friendly catch-up, a physical and conversational interaction, a local news bulletin not covered by RTE or GalwayBayFM, a face-to-face dialogue with a real, not a virtual 'friend'.
Psychologically, this pub (and all the others like it) is on the front-line, it is the tipping point, the fracture-joint, the point of no-return, for rural Ireland.
This crisis is akin in every way to the worthy efforts to 'save the corncrake and the curlew'. The rural pub is now firmly on the endangered list, threatened with imminent extinction!
Who cares you say! Who indeed... but mark my words, when these unimportant, unassuming, unnecessary rural pubs fail, close and disappear, and the dust settles, you will then be able to see the long line of dominoes tilt, and tip, and fall, bringing with them a treasury of cultural and community icons, the traditional music, song and dance scene, the art of story-telling, the local history buffs, the animal husbanders, the quaint cottiers, the characters, the quiet men, the wise women, the happy-go-lucky kids, the drop-outs and the geniuses, the cute hoors and the spiritual believers, the farmers, and the farm-hands, the hermits and the herb-growers, all of whom form and inform the very essence of rural Ireland, all of whom rely on the soon-to-be forgotten Irish Pub.
My words aside, this two photograph speaks volumes.The poignancy of these two images of Dessie O'Brien's empty, closed pub in Kilrickle brought a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat tonight. 

This poignant photograph of the empty pub reminded me of a song from the musical 'Les Miserables'.. 
'Empty Chairs at Empty Tables'.....

Mystery of the missing Menlo Castle Doorway.

In July 1907, James Joyce and his young son Giorgio, briefly visited Galway to meet his mother-in-law, Annie Barnacle, Nora's mother, for the very first time. They got a great welcome by all accounts and that led to a 3 week family visit by the entire Joyce family, a kind of belated honeymoon, in July 1912.

During this visit, Joyce toured Connemara, visited the Aran Islands, went racing to Ballybrit and attended the Galway Regatta, watching the hotly-competing boats from the slipway at Menlo castle, ancestral home to the Blake family for five centuries, and major sponsor of the Galway Regatta, but it was by then, in 1912, completely in ruins, having burned down in an accidental fire in 1910.

Built in 1569 by the powerful Blake family, the castle accidentally and tragically burned down on 26th July 1910 claiming the lives of three women, including the owner's daughter, Eleanor Blake. Sir Valentine Blake never rebuilt the castle, perhaps his fortunes had changed or maybe he could never again contemplate living in the house his daughter had died in. Who knows?

Today Menlo Castle's ivy-shrouded windows and tall, stark chimneys stand sentinel over fishing boats, river cruisers, kayaks and racing sculls as they speed past, parting it's haunting reflection in the Corrib river.

The city of Menlo Park, in California is named after this castle and village. The Californian city was so named after a farming ranch owned by Denis J Oliver and DC McGlynn, who had emigrated to the US from Menlo, and went to seek their fortune and find some gold in the 1849 'Gold Rush'.

They, did find gold, and bought a tract of land, the Menlo Park Ranch, named after their native village, around 1854. Later when the Trans-America railroad came through their land, the railway station was named after the Menlo-men's ranch, and later still, the city of Menlo Park, which had grown up around the rail-head, was incorporated, a unique link to the Menlo Castle ruin.

There was some 'talk' about the castle being restored, even mention of turning it into an apartment development, with a penthouse apartment being incorporated into the secured facade. There was also some laudable mention of a plan to make the castle into a heritage centre along the lines of the Museum of Country Life in Castlebar. Certainly, the ownership was in doubt, but it is now apparently owned by Galway City Council, but I cannot verify that.

All through the twentieth century the castle has been an iconic landmark for those traversing the river Corrib, though hardly noticed otherwise, nestled in a somewhat hidden site three miles from the city. Up until the 1980's one could rent a boat at the Boat Club by the university and row up to the castle ruin, docking at the still extant slipway that James Joyce had stood at while watching the Galway Regatta, which is still held annually.

People taking their dogs for a walk, players and athletes playing sports on the University pitches at Daingean are treated to a splendid view of the castle on the opposite river bank.

In the 1930s, a photographer named Domhnall Ó Cearbhaill

working for the National Folklore Collection, took two black and white photographs at Menlo Castle, one featuring a young boy. That photo with the boy, was recently colourised by 'Old Ireland In Colour' and that is the photo that caught my eye during the week.

The photo of the boy is, well, ordinary. The boy is nonplussed by the camera, perhaps impatient, wanting to go play in the castle ruin. By the way, his identity is unknown, he may even still be alive today, so yes, does anyone know his name?

Boy aside, what really caught my eye was the archway under which the boy is standing. It features three fabulous carvings, and judging by its dimensions and decoration, it was probably the front door of the castle.

If you look closely, you can see the buckling of the slates above the arch, testament to the ferocious heat generated by the fire, some twenty years earlier.

My question is where is that arch and carvings now? There is not an arch or a carving in Galway as interesting as this in Galway today, yet this one has completely disappeared!

No trace remains. Was it vandalised, stolen, or sold off unscrupulously by persons unknown? Or was it safely taken down and preserved, perhaps stored away in a private or public collection?

So, today's quest is to ask what could have become of this unique, historic Galway doorway, that if it still exists, should really be preserved and celebrated. Wouldn't that be cool?

Photos featured in this post are from various sources, including some of my own photos from Walking Tours of Galway. Some have appeared on this page before Galway Memories and others on Old Ireland in Colour

Thanks for your time, I hope you enjoyed reading, and yes, please do share and comment.