Day 4

Day 4 Monday:  “Cead Mile Failte” – means 100,000 welcomes!  I feel so welcomed here even though I awoke with chapped cheeks from the Irish wind.  I am staying in Bundoran, county Donegal.  Niahm (pronounced Neeve) and John are our hosts.  I have a lovely apartment overlooking the Atlantic coast and hear the cries of gulls and other birds every morning.  I am grateful for my student’s stories, the struggles they have shared with me, their excitement of being here, their curiosity, their joy at learning.  All seem to thrive on fresh air, natural food, good conversation, and new experiences. 

Today we leave the 5^th Century of Celtic civilization and fast forward to Celtic Christianity, which lasts for about a 1000 years. St. Patrick is brought as a slave to Ireland, later after escaping and becoming a monk, he returns to this land in 432 A.D. and shares the shamrock as a metaphor for the church: father, son, holy spirit; thus, begins the comprehensive, persuasive cultural take over from pagan to Christian.  This fusion of Celts and Christians—known as Golden Age of Ireland from 500- 1200 A.D.—was the time of saints and scholars, flourishing arts, musicians and storytellers, and a time of writing and education—from which there is still the appreciation of arts and teachers today.  The current president is a much beloved poet, and teachers are paid well and well respected.  I am living in the wrong country—though many of us have decided this. 

Now in the 1500’s, we hear the trumpets sound as nation states emerge and the Church is reviled for its lack of piety.  King Henry VIII, divorces his wife and the Catholic Church, and works to subdue Ireland since he worries about English vulnerability via attack through the Emerald Island.  Queen Elizabeth decides the way to continue to subdue the Irish is by forcing and buying loyalty and conquering.  The O’Donnel and O’Neill clans from Ulster in the North are the most rebellious.  For nine years, from 1593-1602 the Irish hold the English armies at bay, in the end, on the very day the chieftains surrender, Elizabeth dies. The earls flee and King James makes two decisions that have ever lasting effect on this land, turning it into a British colony.  First, he gave Irish land to Scottish and English gentry, making the Irish now subservient to the newcomers.  He moved some 10,000 Protestants and Presbyterians to Ireland to farm land from 1610-1640, particularly into the area we now know as Northern Ireland.

To make this history come to life, we visited St. Patrick’s Well where a pagan wishing tree and a St. Peter statue are side by side and still visited today.  Then we traveled to the O’Donnell Castle which became the Brooke Castle when the English family took over.  Donegal Town yielded a fabulous little tea house for a tasty lunch and then we visited the Franciscan Abbey where The Annals of the Four Masters was written—basically Ireland’s history from 4,500-1616.  The Annals are a compilation by priests before the Abbey was burned to avoid letting the English occupy it.  Now the Annals are a or the primary source when doing Irish research and are housed in the National Museum in Dublin.

I loved the fresh garlic permeating the area where mass was held during the early 1600 in a local cave in order to avoid English persecution.  We also learned about the island off shore where huge boulders stand and people go to these cursing stones to confess their anger and pain with others.  They whisper their rage to the stones who keep the confessions, releasing their owners of poisonous power of anger.  Even today this therapy demonstrates the power the stones hold here in Ireland.

Now an hour and half later from when I began writing, I am tired and my eyes burn.  The music from earlier has been replaced by the howling wind.  Midnight approaches and my room grows cold; my warm bed calls.