Blasket Spirit – Stories from the Islands: Stories from the Islands

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Michael Carney at his home in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Perhaps no one personifies this dedication to the Great Blasket more than Dr. Michael was part of this tradition, leaving the island in in search of work and social opportunity. He spent his childhood and early teen years on the island, eventually moving to Cahersiveen briefly, then Dublin, and in , to the United States, settling in Springfield. His memoir, From the Great Blasket to America , was published in , adding the emigrant perspective to the canon of island literature.

The walls of his living room were decorated with photos and paintings of the Great Blasket, and I was welcomed warmly to sit beside him and talk about the island.

At 94, Michael has lived the majority of his life in America, but his voice still holds the soft accent of a native Irish speaker. We thumbed through my photographs of the island, letting the familiar landmarks of his childhood home spark stories of island life.

He is quick with his humor, and a vivid storyteller whose absolute dedication to the Great Blasket is quickly apparent. We would snare rabbits to eat, setting the snares on their runways. We would collect gull eggs from Beginish. You had to watch your head as you collected them, with the gulls swooping down at you.

You played football on the strand—our ball was made of old socks stuffed with grass. There was tug-of-war, dancing, storytelling. You became one family, because otherwise you had no reason to be there. My father had a flock of seventy to eighty sheep, and we would farm potatoes, cabbage, and turnip. If someone ran short we would share.

When you had to borrow something like milk, tea, or sugar when you ran short, the first thing you would do is return it when you got more. You never owed anyone anything. Few young people remained, and those who did struggled to find a way to support themselves on the island. The winter of —47 brought some of the harshest conditions that the islanders had seen in recent years. The rough weather resulted in complete isolation.

He was 24 years old. The islanders came to the conclusion that it was no place for them to live. It was time to move on. He also approached members of the Irish Parliament, exerting pressure to get aid for the islanders. De Valera visited the island in July to see the conditions for himself, but did not act before being ousted from office in This resulted in six years of frustration for the islanders, with the new Taoiseach, John Costello, not moving on behalf of the community. De Valera came back into office in , and the government soon decided that all remaining islanders were to be moved to the mainland.

That came in , with just 22 people living on the island. They were given homes and land in Dunquin, where they could fish and farm within view of the Great Blasket.

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Although islanders continued to raise sheep and spend some weeks of the summer on the island, the Great Blasket was essentially abandoned after the evacuation, the village left to the elements and the island to the seabirds and seals. In the s, property began to be purchased from former island families by an American developer with plans to create a resort on the Great Blasket.

The reaction in Ireland was similar, with many shocked at the potential private sale of a place that held such cultural significance.

West Kerry locals worked to establish the non-profit Blasket Island Foundation in , with a mission to keep the spirit and memory of the island alive. From Springfield, Michael and the Blasket community supported this objective with fundraising efforts.

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The group funded a study on the creation of the Blasket Centre in Dunquin, which paved the way for the government to invest in the project. The Blasket Centre was built in , and serves an important role in preserving the island legacy, drawing over 40, visitors each year. Michael has played a role in the process, meeting with members of the US Congress and two Irish presidents to promote preservation of the Great Blasket.

Moving the island from private to state ownership has been a slow and complex process. Presently, approximately 70 percent of the island is in government hands, and while the island is not yet officially a national park, Michael is hopeful that that day will come soon. Then I will sleep better. Kathleen Walsh Buchanan lives in Thomaston with her husband and two children.

The author sketching on a hill near the western end of the island. Thank you for this lovely essay and for helping to keep the flame of these islands and their people. I have not visited the islands — only gazed longingly from the mainland when the conditions were too rough to take the ferry over. I was asked to review the book for the Independent Scholar Quarterly and subsequently was completely taken by the Blasket story.

I enjoyed your piece and would love to see your visual work sometime. Meanwhile, my very best wishes to you. Haunting, intimate, contemporary, ' Blasket Spirit' takes you into Anita's experiences and gradual transformation. At the end of a difficult year teaching and coping with bereavement, Anita was suffering from physical, mental and emotional burnout.

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To get away from it all, she sat into her car and drove, ending up at the ferry in Dunquin, bound for the Great Blasket. Anita spent the summer alone on the Great Blasket Island in a tiny barn. This is her account, written by candlelight, of the gradual thawing of her personal isolation through the friendship of the characters of Blasket Island life today; fishermen, ferrymen, backpackers, islanders' descendants, a dolphin, a weaver, a trio of seals and even a former Taoiseach.

Anita weaves a tapestry of tales: Blasket Spirit reveals a timeless place where the souls of the past and present are inextricably linked with the emotional and physical struggles of island life. Into this story of personal healing and recovery, the island stories, its people and places and wildlife are interwoven to form an original and multi-layered memoir. Having worked for many years in Portugal and England she returned to live in her native Kilkenny with her daughter and now teaches English and Drama.

David Looby The sea and being out on the water in his charter boat, the Rebecca C, meant the world to Martin Colfer, who died tragically young aged 46 on Tuesday. Anna Hayes Wexford gardai are encouraging young people to think before they act in a new campaign aimed at reducing the number of assaults on the county's streets.

Ramsgrange family Ollie, Pauline and Siobhan

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