Hi friends. Some new pieces of mine are up at a couple sites, so I'm sharing the news and links.
Today the latest issue of Literary Orphans went live. It's the Orphans' gang's 12th issue and it's themed around Ireland and Irish writers--with master satirist Jonathan Swift serving as the issue's granddaddy and inspiration, and master storyteller James Claffey serving as the issue's guest editor (taking over the role from LO's ed-in-chief, Mike Joyce). Here's a link to Claffey's editor's note with his thoughts on the issue and how the pieces in it confront and challenge Ireland's long literary history and Irish writing's more tried and tired themes.
There's a piece of mine in this issue. It's called "All Apocalypses, Bitter and Sweet." It's about a few things. An Irish saint named Gobnait, for one. Also bees, women, broken hearts, apocalypses, the Aran Islands, and the search for resurrection. Given that today is Easter, the ultimate day of resurrection in the West, maybe you'll find my story a good fit for Easter reading. In any case, I hope you give it a read and hope you enjoy it too.
Cill Ghobnait on Inis Oirr, looking towards mainland
Altar of Cill Ghobnait, Inis Oirr
Humble Cill Ghobnait with grave in foreground
I should say that this particular publication is a pretty big deal to me. Literary Orphans is a fine and fearless literary project--and homegrown in my hometown of Chicago to boot. As well, I recognize a few of the names attached to this issue--there are some true rising-star writers here and it's an honor to be featured in an issue alongside them. I hope you give all the pieces in this issue a read. And thanks again to James Claffey, Mike Joyce, and Scott Waldyn (managing editor at Literary Orphans) for accepting my piece and for all the hard work they put into this issue.
February was not a good month. I wish that complaint was solely in reference to the perpetually freezing temperatures we've been enduring this year in Chicago, including all through February. But bad weather was just the half of it this past month.
At the beginning of February, the bakery where I work part-time was damaged by a big fire that started in the restaurant right next door. The fire started about 3:45 AM on a Sunday morning in the basement of a Japanese restaurant housed in an old (by American standards) building in town. It took 4 hours for the fire departments (note the use of plural here--several in the area were called out) to put it out. There were two bakery employees--the night bakers--in the building at the time. Fortunately, they smelled smoke and got out in time. So did all the residents and pets who lived in the apartments above the restaurant and elsewhere in the building. But those residents all lost their homes in the fire; the restaurant and a neighboring realtor's office and the town's chamber of commerce were severely damaged and are set for demolition; and the bakery has been temporarily displaced since the morning of the fire. Here's a video with footage of the fire:
While a firewall and the work of the firefighters kept the fire from spreading into the bakery, the bakery got some water and smoke damage and has yet to have its power restored. Until the store can be reopened, the bakery is fortunate in that it has a wholesale facility in a neighboring village where it can bake (but not sell) most of the same products it made at its store location. For 2 weeks after the fire, the bakery sold out of a small room in the village hall (where it kind of looked like we bakery employees were just having a community bake sale). Since then, we've been working out of a temporary location a couple blocks from the original location.
This fire came at an especially bad time for the bakery, as it happened just a few weeks before its biggest time of year, Paczki Fest. Paczki, for those of you who sadly don't know, are Polish jam or cream-filled pastries that are traditionally made and eaten in the days leading up to Ash Wednesday and the long Lenten fast. They're a big deal around here in Chicago, where the Polish population is second in the world only to Warsaw. The bakery I work at is owned by a Polish-American family who have been in the business for decades. During Paczki Fest, the bakery gets more customers than during major holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving and sells nearly 50 varieties of paczki. Needless to say, this fire was one of the worst things that could happen to Chicagoland's north-side Polish and otherwise paczki-loving community. Paczki Fest prevailed, however, and went ahead as always. Never underestimate the power of the paczki.
I wish that was where the bad news of February ended. But near the end of the month one of my mother's closest friends lost a long and very courageous battle with cancer. Though her friend's death wasn't sudden or a surprise, my mother was upset and already misses her friend greatly. She was a unique and strong person and a friend to my mother for over 60 years.
Two days after this came the shocking news that an old friend in Ireland died when he fell into the sea off one of the Aran Islands. He was only in his early 50s. He was a popular man and an unforgettable character, and he was friends with many of the visitors who've come to the islands over the years. He had a mighty laugh. I saw him last time I was in Ireland, last fall. It is hard to imagine the island without him.
It's the 7th of March now. February is over. The cold weather is still here, still being stubborn, and there's still at least 2 feet of snow on the ground around here. But the beginning of this month brought a little good news--for me at least. An essay of mine will be published in an upcoming Irish-themed issue of the wonderful online journal Literary Orphans next month. And some pictures of mine will be featured on a blog project that started up this year that explores the "new Americana," called Rockwell's Camera Phone. I'm thrilled of course. Acceptance always makes me feel like maybe I'm finally doing something right. As with the poems I mentioned in the previous post, I'll post more info and links when the publishing/posting dates arrive for all these pieces.
Hope a better, warmer wind comes along for this 2014 soon.
The folks at the Aran Islands info website were kind enough to share a story I wrote on their blog: Island Luck. It's just a light, lovely, little fishing tale from my days on Inis Oirr. Check it out!
Tea and the sea
Sleeping currachs
Look what the waves tossed up: seaweed and seagulls
Years ago when I lived on the smallest of the Aran Islands, Inis Oirr, I used to go for long walks around the island nearly every day. I nearly always walked alone (except for an occasional restless canine partner) and so had no one to interpret the strange island landscape for me. Over the years I learned tidbits of information about the island’s geology, flora and fauna, archaeology and such that I gathered from the islanders, from books and articles, from my own guesswork and estimation. But it was a crazy quilt history of the island I ended up with, just like the basic, broken, patchwork Irish I picked up over the years (or Frankenstein Irish I’d call it with honesty, horror-show Gaeilge).
One of my usual walking partners.
Meanwhile I always wondered why Inis Oirr never had someone available who could take a visitor around and tell the true, full story of the island. There were pony and trap tours and wagon tours and even van and car tours of the island, but…Inis Oirr isn’t really that big of a place. It’s a place of all kinds of stone nooks and rock crannies and narrow, half-hidden boreens. A place that better reveals its stories and secrets to those who seek them out at a walker’s pace, a rambler’s tempo rather than any driver’s rush.
I was happy to hear that this year a new tour business was launched on Inis Oirr—a walking tour company called Aran Islands Walks. Finally—someone who can show off the island the way it’s meant to be shown off, on foot.
Eoghan Poil of Aran Islands Walk, in the Inis Oirr cemetery.
Aran Islands Walks was started up this spring by Eoghan Poil, a native Inis Oirr man who’s only lived off the island during his college years. He lives full-time on Inis Oirr now, serves as a manager for one of the Aran Islands’ football teams, and just married (only a few weeks ago) a woman from neighboring Inis Mor. “I didn’t go far,” he says and smiles, when I ask about his new bride, who has also partnered with him in getting Aran Islands Walks off the ground this summer. So far they seem to be off a good start, with a website and Facebook and Twitter accounts already set up and strong support from other island businesses. Indeed when I ask another recent Inis Oirr entrepreneur, Brid Ni Chualain, who’s recently begun teaching summer adult Irish-language courses, about Eoghan’s new business, she confirms that a number of her students this summer took tours with Aran Islands Walks and reported the walk as a highlight of their week on the
island.
A week ago while visiting the island, I met up with Eoghan and took a walking tour with him. There are many positive things I can say about Eoghan’s tours, and the best is that even after working on and visiting Inis Oirr over a span of 15 years, I still learned so much about the island that I never knew before.
The Plassey, a ship wrecked on the island in 1960
Grave of the island's patron saint, St. Caomhan.
English signal tower (foreground) and the first school on the island (background).
Interior room of O'Brien's Castle on Inis Oirr
Little stone face on exterior of castle wall
Aran Islands Walks offers three levels of walks based upon how much time visitors have and their walking ability: a 1 ¼ hour walk, a 1 ¾ walk, and a 2 ½ hour walk, the last of which takes in 14 historical/archaeological sites. The 14 sites include the island’s cemetery and patron saint’s church, which has sunken below the earth (or as Eoghan corrects me, was actually built on level sandy ground that blew up over time and buried the church), a shipwreck ruin that “landed” on Inis Oirr in 1960, a castle, an English signal tower, the island’s first school (a building I’d passed probably 100 times but never noticed—maybe for good reason, as Eoghan told me the island’s landlords only agreed to its establishment if it were built in an inconvenient location, thereby discouraging islander education), and a 10th-century church dedicated to St. Gobnait. Along the way you’ll also learn about the islanders’ field and stonework.
St. Caomhan's church in the island cemetery
O'Brien's Castle
Eoghan at the Plassey
Find out how a field like this...
...Gets cleared to look like this.
Side by side view of the two field extremes on Arainn
And this isn’t even including the “extras”—like the views of the Cliffs of Moher in Clare or the Twelve Pins in Connemara that you can see on a fine day from Inis Oirr, the walk from the pier past the island’s beautiful beach, the exercise in the fresh island air. And since I’m a women’s tour operator and take especial interest in women’s history, Eoghan made sure to tailor the tour to my interests, including the history of Cill na Seacht nInion, the Church of the Seven Daughters, a ruins in a hard-to-find field near the back of the island.
View of the island lake, the Plassey, and Cliffs of Moher beyond.
Eoghan at Cill Gobnait, dedicated to a female saint.
Remains of a clochan (beehive hut) at Cill Gobnait.
After the tour, I was glad to have met Eoghan and glad to have taken a walk with him. And glad he’s started Aran Islands Walks. Inis Oirr is a fascinating place—it’s captivated me for 16 years, if that’s any proof of its hold on the traveler’s soul and senses. A thorough, professional walking tour of the island for visitors was long overdue. Now it’s here for anyone up for a good stroll.
After the tour with Eoghan I return to my old walking partner, to share all my news about the island. He was so curious to hear it all.
This past weekend I visited Inis Oirr, the smallest of the Aran Islands. I happened to pick the weekend that Hurricane Katia landed on the tiny island's shores and ended up stranded for an extra night on the island, with all boats canceled for a day or two. Strong winds be damned, I walked about the island snapping some pictures of what the storm did to the island's landscape. Here are some of the shots.
Inis Oirr beach before the storm hit.
Same beach after the storm.
Seaweed-covered strand.
More seaweed than sand!
Seabird and seaweed.
Waves rolling in from Inis Meain.
The calm lake, the wrecked Plassey, the storm waves, and shadowy Cliffs of Moher.
Storm clouds haunting the Plassey.
Dog and foam.
Inis Oirr lighthouse looking out at the storm waves.
Shore.
Stones and storm waves.
Rolling in.
Crash.
Hurricanes can make everything go topsy-turvy for awhile. ;)
Inis Oirr pier, covered in seaweed tossed up by the storm.
Inis Oirr pier, closed.
Clouds, cemetery cross, and children crossing.
Cross and storm clouds.
Me on the beach.
On the boat leaving Inis Oirr, first day going out again.
