We started this morning with introductions — there are US Fulbright Scholars from across the country here and everyone has amazing stories to tell. Stories about how transformative and singular the Fulbright experience is and how the power and legacy of the Fulbright experience continues beyond the semester or year abroad. Ambassadors here used these words and phrases to describe their experiences  – idealism, transformative, viral, intimate, passion, give, learn, build, inspire, mentor, unmatched, serendipity, acculturation, community, writing, gift, giving and getting back much more in return, adventure, perspective, creativity, networking and friendship.

Athena Mison Fulay, Manager of Outreach, IIE/CIES

Reflecting back on my personal experience and story is an endless wonder.  A year spent living in Ireland — learning about the culture and the people, and acculturating deeply into my Limerick and Dunqiun communities and the Irish arts community — was a rare and transformative experience. I met so many wonderful people — students, faculty and administrators in many Irish universities, community music-makers, working Irish artists and musicians, people working in social justice arenas and politics, and the amazing staff in the Irish Fulbright Commission in Dublin. And, during my sabbatical in spring 2011 in Dunquin, Co. Kerry, my Fulbright experience from 2006-2007 was beautifully deepened and enriched as I extended my Irish-based work, vision and networks.

I met Martin Kearney in Dunquin during my sabbatical year in Ireland, and spent my sabbatical semester five years later  focused on his life and the history and culture of the Blasket Islands — past and present — in Dunquin, Co. Kerry, Ireland and the transmission of that culture in Springfield, MA communities. The Fulbright Scholars program allowed me the time and space to really focus — to read, study, learn, write, think, live and be a part of a community in another place and culture. Those  experiences moved me to want to do more. This will be engaging and passionate lifelong work for me — and for my colleagues in the Fulbright program as US Scholars and as Fulbright Ambassadors.

Take a look at The Fulbright Experience, a film about the Fulbright Scholar Program — the nation’s flagship program for international scholastic exchange.

What a wonderful thing — I am a Fulbrighter. My story and experiences, and the stories and experiences of all of my Fulbright colleagues in this room today and beyond, continue to inform and transform my concept of the world and my identity and work as a cultural ambassador.

Fulbright Ambassador Program Meeting, IIE/CIES, Washington, DC

One Fulbrighter here at the meeting today was a Marine in Vietnam and then joined the Peace Corps and worked in social justice issues and international diplomacy before landing in his current position as an International Education Administrator. Another is a practicing attorney who worked in South America on dispute resolution issues. Another taught Israeli Studies at the largest Muslim university in the world. We are artists, diplomats, scientists, technologists, writers, thinkers, lawyers — teachers, learners, mentors, leaders, explorers, connectors and scholars. We are people who believe in the power of travel and study to provide opportunities for deep acculturation and learning about another culture on their terms — in order to break down barriers and build bridges between countries, communities, people and ideas.

Michelle Johnson, Acting Director, Office of Academic Exchange Programs
Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, US Department of State

Michelle gave the opening remarks this morning and shared this information:

• There have been over 310,000 Fulbright alums from programs in 50 countries
• Congress is on of our stakeholders
• This is a US State Department-sponsored public diplomacy program
• We are cultural and educational ambassadors
• Many people are eligible, at all levels and across all disciplines
• Diversity is encouraged – geographic, ethnic, and institutional

She discussed how to demonstrate Fulbright’s impact – helping others  understand why it’s an important program and its incredible impact. She highlighted the program’s cost effectiveness, while also pointing out budget austerity measures and she discussed the institutional impact of Fulbright and its value – and why it’s important for administration to offer support (sabbatical, etc.) for Fulbrighters. She discussed the importance of educating students and colleagues about the program, creating international environment, and both sending and receiving Fulbright scholars. Michelle said that Fulbright is looking to social media to showcase and advocate for the program,  and to gather fans and followers to enhance and further discussions. This scholar demographic is growing quickly – many are engaging in online discussions.

Fulbright Ambassador Program Meeting
IIE/CIES Offices, Washington, DC 

It is an amazing program and I feel so fortunate to have had a Fulbright and to be a Fulbright Ambassador. I will always be a Fulbright Ambassador — after my active appointment ends, I will become an Ambassador Emeritus  and continue to do outreach and advocacy for this wonderful program and its people — here and across the world.

Take a look at the Fulbright Ambassador program.

Take a look at the programs that Fulbright offers.

If you have questions about the program or would like to schedule a Fulbright Ambassador presentation, please contact the Council for International Exchange of Scholars.

Dr. Andy Riess, Assistant Director for Outreach
IIE/CIES, Washington, DC

Andy Riess, an amazing and deeply committed global citizen, closed our work today with a discussion about numerous advocacy initiatives in the Fulbright Program and the power of Ambassadors sharing their work and stories in the world.

Take a look at internationally renowned glass artist, Dale Chihully, speaking about the impact of the Fulbright program.

Over the coming months, I will be adding posts that provide details of daily work and reflections, travel experiences, and interviews and stories – from Springfield, MA and Dunquin, Co. Kerry, Ireland. In a few weeks, Brian and I will be headed back to Springfield for a few days, to do some follow-up interviews and take more on-site videos.

Thanks to everyone involved in encouraging and supporting this project, and I look forward to sharing my ongoing work and hearing your comments and stories. Please pass along this blog address and feel free to encourage the Blasket Islanders and descendants that you know (here in the US and elsewhere) to share their stories under the “Your Stories” tab on the front page of this blog.

Special thanks to all of the good people in Springfield and Dunquin who shared their time and stories so generously.

This project is about telling Martin Kearney’s story – as an islandman, an Irishman, and an American. In this quest to discover Martin Kearney, I found a community. Thank you, Springfield and Dunquin friends. I look forward to our continued work, stories and friendship!

Downstairs, there is a large bar in the center of the room, with chairs and tables spreading out from there. There are several large-screen TVs hanging from the ceiling, and Irish posters and paraphernalia everywhere. As we enter and I get ready to set up, a grumpy barman complains that he wasn’t told we would be needing this space. Marty assures him he has made the arrangements with the President, a nice young man named Eric Devine, and we get to work.

Soon, Eli joins us, along with Marty’s brother, Brian, and his sister, Ellen. Tommy Moore is there, as well – his mother was a Blasket islander – Kate Pheats Tom (Sean Cahillane’s Aunt). Martin’s two last remaining siblings, Maureen Oski and Mike Carney, are there as well – both into their 90s, now. It is an amazing morning of shared stories about what Martin meant to this community, notions of “Irishness” and what home means, and the vibrant ties between Ireland and America. I’ll share some the stories collected today, in a later post – but suffice it to say, it was a poignant morning. Listening, especially, to Maureen and Mike, remembering their island home and missing so many family and friends, now – it was clear to all us in that room that theirs was a way of life that has passed and soon, these good people will be no more.

How lovely these people are to share their lives, memories, and stories with me and each other. It is a rare and wonderful honor for me to meet them all and to have the opportunity to tell some of these amazing stories of a unique cultural community – through discovering and sharing the life of Martin Kearney.

After breaking down my equipment, Marty, Diane, Eli, Ellen and I went to lunch at O’Brien’s – a local pub with all things Co. Kerry and Blasket on the walls. There were Co. Kerry license plates, an old guesthouse sign, photos and paintings of iconic Blasket images (Dunmore Head and the Blasket Sound, fisherman in a currach or naomhóg - Irish boats with a wooden frame, stretched with animal skins), and lots of sports advertising and apparatus. Everyone shares more stories over lunch – good, simple American food. Martin’s favorite saying was Tóg bog é – Take it easy – a fitting goodbye as we all head out on our separate ways. We’ll meet up later tonight to watch Kimberly compete in the Chicopee Colleen at the Chicopee Knights of Columbus Hall (with a proper Irish dinner at the local Chinese restaurant, first!).

To end a wonderful afternoon, Marty and Diane take me around to the places Martin lived and loved, and I take still photos, asking endless questions and hearing more stories. We visit Martin’s gravesite and the funeral home “where he was laid out,” the first home he lived in when he moved to Springfield at 23 years of age (the home of an Aunt who served as his sponsor), his church, and the three restaurants he frequented and “held court.” It is a lovely experience, and I am happy to be able to see the places that were important anchors in Martin’s life and to walk a wee bit in his footsteps in this part of the world. I am looking forward greatly to learning more about Martin’s life on the Blaskets in new and more keenly aware ways, when I am there later this month.

Sean Cahillane and I had breakfast at my hotel, and he introduced me to Anna May Cavanaugh Reeves. She was born in in Mhuiríoch – a village on the Dingle Peninsula across from Smerwick Harbour between Baile an Fheirtéaraigh (Ballyferriter) and Baile na nGall (Ballydavid). She told me a bit about her early life and recounted some stories about her childhood and growing up on the mainland across Blasket Sound. We talked a bit about the situation in Ireland now – with the financial excesses of the last few years and the subsequent fall of the Fianna Fáil party – and the consequences for Ireland of being a part of the “common market” that is the European Union.

She remembers that, as a child, they had everything they wanted and needed –  good, fresh food that they grew in the garden or raised or traded with neighbors for other food and things they needed, and plenty of fresh fish from the sea. Now, with new EU fishing rules and strict access regulations as well as new corporate farming business practices over the last few years, the cost of fish (for folks living on the peninsula and elsewhere in Ireland, as well as for restaurant owners) has skyrocketed and it’s “just plain hard to get fish.” The irony, says Sean, is that “the sea is right there.”

Sean then took me on a quick spin around Springfield and Chicopee, and told me stories about the places and events in this community that Martin would have been a part of – Our Lady of Hope church (we also drive by Sacred Heart church, Sean’s family’s church) in the Hungry Hill area of Springfield (which Sean says may have been so named by cops on the beat in this area, an area that had no restaurants or any other places to eat) and the restaurants where Martin had breakfast every morning and held court. Sean said it was a special, close-knit community, back in the day. You could take the bus to downtown Springfield or Chicopee from Hungry Hill – but within the community, you walked where they needed to go, you knew everyone (and were probably related to, in some way), and you could just walk in the front door to say hello or ask for help. There were no locked doors and there was both comfort and safety in that level of trust and tribalism in the community. And families and community members took care of each other.

Next, Sean delivered me to the Irish Cultural Center on the campus at Elms College in Chicopee, and I talked with Judith Kappenman, the Executive Director. She gave me some of the background on the founding of the Center and its mission, and we had a delightful discussion about the significance of the Blasket culture in this area and how beloved Martin Kearney is in this community.

I also talked with Sean about his side of the family on the Blaskets (he and Martin Kearney had the same Blasket grandfather). He talked about how much the community has changed over the decades, and that, as the last of these old Blakset islanders pass, much of their history, stories and way of life is going with them. We talked about identity in this community of Blasket Island descendants (now largely dispersed outward from Hungry Hill into surrounding towns and suburbs) and what it means to be Irish-America, in the context of having this amazing connection to Co. Kerry and the Blaskets.

My discussion with Mary Ellen Russell O’Brien, whose parents were from Ballydavid, Co. Kerry, was profoundly moving. The passion with which she talks about these places and these people is palpable. Her stories about Martin were lovely, and her recall of what Springfield used to be like and the history of the place is amazing. It was a magical day.

As the sun was just starting to go down, Marty (Martin’s oldest son) picked me up on his way home from work and drove me to his mother’s house (Eleanor, or Eli, as she likes to be called) – the house on Gold Street where Martin and Eli lived their whole married life and raised their five children. Marty arranged a Kearney family get-together, so that I could meet and talk with Eli, and other members/generations of the Kearney family. Some were working and couldn’t  be there, but I hope the’ll share their stories on this blog – and I hope to come back in the summer and do additional interviews and research.

Eli’s stories about how she and Martin met, and their early life together were lovely – theirs has been a great love story, everyone says. She talked about the work they each did, how holidays were spent, and the love of home and family so central in this culture and community. I talked, also, with Marty (and big thanks to Marty’s Diane, who has been such a supporter of this project), two of Marty’s sisters (Lynn and Karen), Karen’s husband, Chris, and four of Martin Kearney’s grandchildren (Kimberly, Jason, Nick and Ian) and Erica, a future granddaughter-in-law). The grandkids ranged in age from 13-30, and they were amazed to hear stories they’d not heard before and they were very happy that their grandfather’s story would be told. We all piled into Eli’s living room, and as each person (or group) was sharing stories, other stories arose – there was much laughter and many tears – this was a man who was loved deeply by his family and his community. Everyone I have spoken with has told me that Marty was a sincere, quiet guy who liked to be in the background, and although never demonstrative, loved deeply and cared about everyone else’s welfare above his own.

We shared a comfortable dinner of pizza and salad, and said our goodbyes at the end of the evening – a wonderful evening where I learned more about Martin’s life on the Blaskets and in America.

I’ll share some of the stories, in later posts.

If you are a Blasket Island immigrant or descendant – or if you have stories to share about folks you have known or know now who are Blasket Island immigrants or descendants, please share your comments and stories here, or drop me a line!

Seánín Ó Cearna was born in 1922 and died on the island of meningitis in 1947, at the age of 25. His death, the lack of assistance and services available during a brutal storm, and the consequent immigration of many Blasket islanders to America, prompted the 1953 government-sponsored evacuation of the island and signaled the end of the Blasket way of life.

From the dramatic opening page of Hungry for Home, describing the storm that gathered as Seánín Ó Cearna was dying:

Christmas Eve 1946

This is the end of the world. The air is full of a terrible wailing. A gale scalps the waves, spilling foam. Gulls shriek as they tumble, caught between the spray, the rain and the low, dark clouds. A mountain stands alone in the sea, its back breaking the wind so that the invisible forces are scattered over its slopes as raiders from the north once were, howling and running down from all directions on to the shuttered buildings of a settlement.

Moreton, Cole. Hungry for Home – Leaving the Blaskets: A Journey from the Edge of Ireland. NY: Viking, 2000.

I do a bit of looking to find the bit in Cole’s book that talks about Sean’s father, Maurice Cahillane, who came to the US in 1949. He was a mainlander, born in Ballydavid, up north around the peninsula on the R559 across from Smerwick Harbour. In Hungry for Home, Sean recounts that he and his sister and brothers lived early on in the North End, close to the center of Springfield, and moved later to the more affluent Hungry Hill area where nearly everyone had western Kerry roots. Sean, born in America, thinks of home as west of Dingle and says, in the book, “…when you’re talking about home it’s Hungry Hill. We’re Americans, no doubt about it. But we like being Irish too.” [p.247]

Sean tells me about a Ventry woman (a village on the Dingle Peninsula, south of Slea Head from Dunquin) who has done extensive interviews with and research on women in Ireland, a project named Bibebeau, after the white bibs that working Irish women wore. She did interviews in Ventry and in Springfield. I am eager to talk with her, and hope to do that while I am in Dunquin.

Click here for a recent review of Hungry for Home and additional information on Seánín Ó Cearn’s death.

Click here for a review in The Observer, and a conclusion that states:

There is no road of return for the exile, no possible life, nothing to return to. We leave home and are transformed forever. But that knowledge does not kill the hunger we carry around in our hearts.

I am looking forward to meeting Sean, hearing the stories about his family on the Blaskets and inSpringfield, and what home means to him.

Martin’s oldest son, Marty, has been an incredibly hospitable and generous help in arranging opportunities for sharing family and community stories, artifacts and historical documents, and contemporary, significant community places, events and activities. Many, many thanks to him.

I am looking forward to touring the campus of Our Lady of the Elms College in Chicopee and the Irish Cultural Center located there, and meeting Sean Cahillane and Sister Judith Kappenman. The  Center is a forum for Irish cultural events, including lectures, musical presentations, films, and exhibits. The Center facilitates opportunities for studying the Irish language, and sponsors genealogy group meetings, a monthly book club discussion, and a bimonthly newsletter. The Center’s mission focuses on “keeping the Irish arts alive” through preserving, sharing, and promoting “the great heritage of the Irish people, so that future generations of Irish and Irish Americans will have the opportunity to appreciate their rich legacy.” Click here to read about how the Center was founded and its rich connection to the Great Basket Centre in Dunquin.

I’ll meet and talk with Marty and many members of his family – including his mom (and Martin Kearney’s wife), his wife, Diane, his sisters, and some number of Kearney grandchildren and cousins. I am very eager to see Marty, Diane, and Eleanor again, and looking greatly forward to meeting more Kearneys and listening to the ways in which three different Springfield generations define themselves and think of home. I will visit Martin’s Springfield home and get a sense of the places and people he loved.

I’ll meet and talk with other Springfield folks, at the John Boyle O’Reilly Club, including the young President of the club and Mike Carney, Martin’s older brother. The club was, according to their website, founded in 1880 and is dedicated to preserving and promoting Irish Heritage (their motto – Culture, Family and Tradition – honors tradition and future). I am especially eager to meet Mike, and learn about how he thinks about issues of place, identity and home, and what this club has meant to Springfield and Blasket communities.

One evening will be spent in the company of Marty’s family, at the Chicopee Knights of Columbus Hall, to attend the 2011 Springfield Colleen and Scholarship Contest and dinner. This is a contest for young women of Irish Descent, aged 17 to 22. One of Marty’s nieces will be competing, and I am excited to learn more about this popular community activity and how it ties into area and regional St. Patrick’s Parade celebrations, cultural heritage events, and issues of identity.

And finally, a full Irish breakfast celebration with the Kearney family and a few hundred other Springfield folks, at the Monthly Irish Breakfast held in the John Boyle O’Reilly Club. Marty assures me the place will be packed, the food will be tasty and quite affordable (rashers, and black and white puddings, included, yum), and the company will, of course, be delightful!

I look forward to listening and learning, connecting with friends and meeting wonderful new people – people from multiple generations that were significant in Martin Kearney’s life in Springfield and on the Blaskets.

A few days ago, I met with a fabulous Kansas City-based artist, Fred B. Mullett, for coffee and a wee chat about life, artistic identity, and the importance of place. Recently relocated to KC from his beloved Seattle, Fred is trying to navigate his way through these thorny and complex issues. We discussed the very topic I have been recently contemplating – Martin Kearney’s identity as an islandman, an Irishman, an American.

It sounds cliché (and so typical of Irish-Americans), but the very first time I visited the Dingle Peninsula and the Blaskets more than a decade ago, I felt a deep connection to the physical look, feel, sound, and smell of the place – the intense, richly-varied colors of land- and seascapes (yellow and orange broom in the hedgerows, tiny scarlet fuschia plants lining the narrow lanes, shimmering, subtle shades of green too numerous to describe, the soft grays and browns of dry-stone fences, the bright blue of the sky in summer and its steely, misty gray in winter, the turquoise, aqua, cerulean, cyan, sapphire, teal and blackish blue of the sea) – the soft moisture always present in the air (the damp mist erupting into wild storms, without lightening, that arise without warning and persist) – and the scent and sound of the sea (rhythms my body and spirit seem deeply attuned to). I loved the lilt and creative ingenuousness of spoken Irish-English (and the complex sounds of the Irish language, so different in the different counties across the Republic and Northern Ireland) and the amazing, ferocious talent of the Irish traditional musicians, playing in regional styles with passion, tremendous skill and centuries-old respect.

I have, over the years, refined and deepened my knowledge of and appreciation for this amazing country – and I have developed a special connection to the place that is the Dingle Peninsula and the Blasket Islands and their people. When I am there – more than any other place I’ve been – I feel home. It feels as if the place is in my blood, somehow (quite inexplicably, really), and when I leave, I take with me a sense of longing so profound that I can hardly stand it. I quickly begin to dream about how soon I can go back.

What is it that causes this deep connection in me, to this place so far away? Is it genetic, something harkening back to my ethnic roots? Possibly. Is it aesthetic, something sparked by austere and lonely beauty, historic tragedies, and sad stories? Could be. Is it artistic, something deeply beckoning to my creative muse? Most probably. All of these things contribute to my personal sense of place and identity – in this beautiful place where I was not born – but which feels like home.

Contemplating living in Dunquin for two months during this sabbatical brings tremendous joy, hope and gratitude. I will be thinking, reading, writing, reflecting, and composing – in a place where my identity as an artist feels free and inspired, nurtured, and deeply at home.

These are things I wish for Fred B.Mullett, in his quest for home – place and identity.

Please visit Fred’s site, Stamps from Nature Prints, for a taste of his expressive, exquisite art work.

Here’s a photo of Fred preparing the lovely gift of his 2011 calendar for me, designed using works in his Maquette Series (“a maquette is a small working model or sketch usually intended for something larger”). Good things do, indeed, come in small packages. Thank you, Fred.

Fred B. Mullett Company/Stamps From Nature Prints
http://www.fredbmullett.com/miva/merchant.mvc

Brothers, Martin Kearney and Mike Carney
Photo taken in Dingle, 2006

Sister, Kate Kearney
Photo taken in Dingle, 2006

I recognized those names and faces.

During the summer of 2000, I took my first trip to Ireland, to attend a 2-week International Summer School of Irish Traditional Music and Dance (Blas) at the University of Limerick. More about that amazing connection in a later post; the experiences I had there, and the wonderful people I met and worked with, helped to shape and focus the future of my subsequent study of and passionate interest in Irish traditional and contemporary history and culture. My interest in the Dingle Peninsula and Dunquin had been ignited during my teenage years, and after my course at UL was finished, I rented a car and drove to the Dingle Peninsula, where I stayed for 3 weeks. It was a trip I had dreamed of since I was a young girl, and it was a transformative, life-changing experience.

I learned about and visited the Blasket Island Centre many times over the course of that first 3-week visit, and I fell in love with the place – the stories of the islanders’ difficult, primitive and dangerous existence on the Blaskets, the immigration of some of them to America, the amazing multimedia exhibits capturing a way of life, freezing moments in time and lining out a distinctive history and culture, the scholars and writers who came to visit, a rich oral tradition of story-telling, folktales, poetry and a vanished literary tradition – and the stunningly gorgeous land- and seascapes that are a deeply influential aspect of all of these things. I learned much about the Blasket Islands and the people who lived there, and came home knowing that, one day, I would go find a way to go back and stay for a substantive amount of time.

In the Centre, in a small exhibit room at the end of the long corridor that looks out to the islands, I first encountered and now remembered seeing the faces of Martin and Mike and their families, displayed in photos taken at their homes in Springfield, Massachusetts, and I remembered reading their stories about life on the Blaskets and life in America.

And now, owing to a lucky, random dinner choice in this Dingle restaurant, here were more stories and photos about the Ó Cearna family and their Blasket heritage.

A young man working at the bar in Lord Baker’s came over to me and politely asked if I had any questions about the articles. We talked for a bit – me explaining my interest in the history and heritage of the islands – him explaining that the people in the photos were his relatives. I was excited to speak to him and learned that his great-uncle, Martin Kearney, was in Dunquin for a few days visiting relatives. Would I be at all interested in meeting him, the young man asked. I was elated at the possibilities. He took my mobile number and said he would get it all sorted and ring me back with a meeting time and place, if possible. He also told me that a book had been recently published about the Ó Cearna family – the Kearneys – and their journey from one way of life to another. He wrote down the title, and the next day I picked up a copy in Dingle.

Later that next afternoon, while my sister, brother-in-law and I were in the Blasket Centre, my mobile rang. A meeting with Martin and his wife Eleanor was arranged. They would meet us in the sitting room at the B&B where we were staying in Dingle, and would it be alright, the young man asked, if a few others came along – Martin and Eleanor’s son Marty and his wife (along on the visit from Springfield), and Martin’s nephew Paud and his wife (living on the mainland, close to Dunquin). We were delighted! We had a marvelous meeting, and my sister and brother-in-law were brought into the bones of the place and Martin’s life in a personal and deeply poignant way.

A recent phone conversation with Martin’s son, Marty, solidified for me what that chance encounter had meant to his Dad. He was, Marty told me, so proud that I wanted to meet him and talk to him about his life on the Blaskets and his life in America. It was one of the most touching, humbling and wonderful events of my life, and I am so happy to be working on this project.

Martin Kearney died in November of 2009. I am sad that I won’t ever have the opportunity to talk with him again, but I am grateful and excited to be working with Marty and Eleanor, and wonderful people in Springfield, MA and Dunquin, Ireland. I look greatly forward to  doing the work of this project – and to writing songs which will help to tell the story of Martin’s life on the Blaskets and in America.

Following are some photos taken by my brother-in-law, Dave, during my October 2006 meeting with Martin and his family, and our interview and discussion.

Martin and Kearney and Judith Coe
Photo taken in Dingle, Co. Kerry, October 2006

After introductions, we all settled into comfortable places. Martin and I talked informally, and every now and then, someone in his family would augment our discussion or his answers to my questions, and add details or another perspective.

During a recent cybersearch, I found Caitlin Foley’s blog. Her grandmother, Mary (Sullivan) Foley, was born on the Blasket Island and is related to Martin and his family. Her school blog project was to research the lives of the people originally born on the Great Blasket who now live in the Springfield, Massachusetts area. She conducted interviews with several people, one of whom was Martin.

This photo of Martin is from Caitlin’s blog. Click on the link below to read her account of meeting Martin.

Photo of Martin Kearney
Source: Caitlin Foley’s blog, Blaskets to Springfield, May 13, 2008.

Síochán leat (peace be with you), Martin.

Following is information from the guide:

The Great Blasket Island, lying 5 km off of the West Kerry Coast, was inhabited continuously for at least three hundred year until finally abandoned in 1953. Because of its isolated location, the Blasket islanders retained their own culture and tradition, at the heart of which lay their continuing use of the native language of Irish. The Centre tells their story and celebrates their unique literary achievements.

The Great Blasket Centre, is the result of a partnership between the Blasket Foundation, a local organisation, and the Irish government. It is now managed by Dúchas – the Heritage Service of the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands.

The Literature
In the early years of the 20th century scholars visited the great Blasket to learn Irish and to collect folklore. They encouraged the islanders to write their life stories in their native tongue, and the books they wrote give a unique insight into the hardship of Island life. The three best known Island books are – An tOileánach (The Islandman) by Tomás Ó Criomhthain, Peig by Peig Sayers and Fiche Blian ag Fás (Twenty Years A-Growing) by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin.

Tomás Ó Criomhthain
Born on the Great Blasket in 1855, Tomás spent his whole life fishing and farming. He had learned to read and write in English at school, but it was only in his fourties that he learned to write in Irish, enabling him to describe his life in his own language.

An tOileánach (The Islandman) by Tomás Ó Criomhthain, translated from the Irish by Robin Flower. Published in Oxford by Oxford University Press, 1951, reissue 2000 (and previously in Dublin by Talbot Press, 1929, and in London by Chatto & Windus, 1937).

Peig Sayers
Peig was born on the mainland in Dunquin in 1873 and married and islander when she was 18. She became a masterful storyteller and of all the island writers Peig resorts most often to traditional tales to illustrate her own observations. She never learned to read and write in Irish and it was her son Mícheál who wrote down her stories from her oral account. She died in 1958.

Peig: The Autobiography of Peig Sayers of the Great Blasket Island. translated from the Irish by Bryan MacMahon. Published in Dublin by Talbot Press, 1974 (and previously in 1936).

Muiris Ó Súilleabháin
Muiris was born on the Great Blasket in 1904. The English scholar George Thomson, who visited the island for the first time in 1923, encouraged Muiris to write. His book Twenty Years A-Growing describes his early life on the island. Muiris left the island to join the Gardaí and was tragically drowned in 1950 at the early age of 46.

Fiche Blian ag Fás (Twenty Years A-Growing) by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin, rendered from the original Irish by Moya LLewelyn Davies and Geirge Thomson. Published in Oxford by Oxford University Press, 1953, reissue, 2000 (and previously in Harmondsworth by Penguin in 1938, and in London by Chatto & Windus, 1933).

Island Life
At one stage there were nearly 200 inhabitants on the Great Blasket. They lived a harsh life with few facilities. There was no shop, doctor or priest on the island so they had to make the hazardous journey to the mainland to avail of those services. For a time there was a primary school, but it was often difficult to get teachers to stay on the Blasket. The priamry school closed in 1941 when only six pupils remained on the roll. As the island had no secondary school most island children completed their education by the age of twelve or thirteen.

Mackerel and pollack were the main fish eaten. The Islanders preferred their fish boiled. Salted fish was the staple diet in the winter months. They also had potatoes, mutton, homemade bread, eggs and milk, but would have eaten meat only at certain times of the year.

Abandonment
Like many of the communities on the mainland, emigration stole the young islanders away to America, leaving only the old and the infirm. The Irish government, after considering pleas from the islanders, decided that the Island should be abandoned and 17 November 1953 was set as the official evacuation date. The last family left the following year. The Government provided the remaining Island families with a house and a few acres of land on the mainland in Dunquin, where very few of the islanders and their descendants remain today.

Art Works
As part of the overall architectural design, art works have been incorporated as integral elements of the building and exhibition. These include The Journey the glasswork window at the Reception area, designed by Róisín de Buitléar and executed by Kawala’s Glass Studios. It is probably the largest secular glasswork in Ireland. The life-size stone sculpture outside the building of the Islandman was designed by Michael Quane, while Cathy Carmen’s Women at the Well bronze work is art of the Island Exhibition. There are plaster casting by Brian King on the right hand wall of Slí an Bhlascaoid, the long corridor. Barbara Lavery designed and executed The Place of Loneliness. Patricia McKenna designed the woven piece.

_______________________________________________________________________

From the back cover of The Islandman – Tomás Ó Criomhthain’s sole purpose in writing The Islandman was, in his own words, ‘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.’ He was born on the Great Blasket Island in 1856 and died there in 1937, a great master in his native Irish, which he taught to scholars who came to see him from many countries.

He shared to the full the dangerous life of a primitive community, often stormbound, going hungry when the fish or the crops failed, living well when the storm drove a wrecked cargo up on the strand, and was a highly respected figure on the Island. However he possessed a shrewd and humorous detachment from the whirlwind of everyday crisis which enabled him to observe and describe his world. His book was published in Gaelic, and subsequently in English, translated by Robin Flower, during his lifetime, and is an absorbing narrative of this life, written by one who had known no other.

From the back cover of Twenty Years A-Growing – Muiris Ó Súilleabháin was born in 1904 on a remote island off the Atlantic coast of Ireland – the Great Blasket. In this classic book (here translated from the Irish) he tells the story of his youth, and a way of life which belongs to the past. He wrote for his own pleasure and for the entertainment of his friends, without any thought of a wider public, in a style derived from folk-tales which he heard from his grandfather and sharpened with his own lively imagination.

“If the read laughs at the schoolmistress and the matrons, and is moved by the dream of the butterfly inside the horses’ skull – then he is assured of amusement and emotion to come.  He is ready to go to Ventry Races, and to make the great journey from Dingle East… to steal out on Hallowe’en and catch thrushes above waves of the living and the dead, and see the Land of the Young in the west… This book is unique… for here is the egg of a sea-bird – lovely, perfect, and laid this very morning.”
– E.M. Forster

From the Wikipedia discussion on Peig – Peig depicts the declining years of a traditional, Irish-speaking way of life characterised by poverty, devout Catholicism, and folk memory of the Famine and the Penal Laws. The often bleak tone of the book is established from its opening words:

“I am an old woman now, with one foot in the grave and the other on its edge. I have experienced much ease and much hardship from the day I was born until this very day. Had I known in advance half, or even one-third, of what the future had in store for me, my heart wouldn’t have been as gay or as courageous it was in the beginning of my days.“

The book was for a long time required reading in secondary schools in Ireland. As a book with arguably sombre themes (its latter half cataloging a string of family misfortunes), its presence on the Irish syllabus was criticised for some years. From 1960 the Irish population was urbanizing, a process that led to the “Celtic Tiger” economy in the 1990s, and Peig’s tales of woe in rural surroundings confirmed to many students that Irish was a language of poverty and misery, while English was considered the language of science and commerce.

It led, for example, to this comment from Senator John Minihan in the Irish Senate in 2006 when discussing improvements to the curriculum:

“No matter what our personal view of the book might be, there is a sense that one has only to mention the name Peig Sayers to a certain age group and one will see a dramatic rolling of the eyes, or worse.”
— Seanad Éireann, Volume 183, 5 April 2006

The Blasket Centre, photo taken summer 2009.

The Blasket Islands (Na Blascaodaí) are a group of islands off the west coast of Ireland in County Kerry. They were inhabited until 1953 by a completely Irish-speaking population. The inhabitants were evacuated to the mainland on November 17, 1953, by the government. Many of the descendants currently live in Springfield, Massachusetts and some former residents still live on the Dingle peninsula, within sight of their former home.

The islanders were the subject of much anthropological and linguistic study around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries and, thanks partly to outside encouragement, a number of books were written by islanders that record much of the islands’ traditions and way of life. These include An tOileánach (The Islandman) by Tomás Ó Criomhthain, Peig by Peig Sayers and Fiche Blian ag Fás (Twenty Years A-Growing) by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin.

The Blasket Islands have been called Next Parish America, a term popular in the United States.

I feel fortunate and honored to have been granted access to the Centre’s archives and artifacts, and to be able to work there with Dáithí de Mórdha and the Centre staff. I am also extremely grateful and happy to continue discussions and listen to stories about Martin’s life on the Blaskets and in America, with Marty Kearney (Martin’s son) and many, many wonderful people in Springfield, and in Dunquin and its environs.