Soothing your griefs in Ireland

By Peter Aiken, Globe Correspondent, 03/17/02

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SHANNON, Ireland - My extended family is not fanatical about things Irish, but there had been a death in the family, and we decided to soothe sorrowful moods in proximity to the soft syllables of an ancient tongue in a land where we had roots.

Our mother always wanted to visit, but died before making it. Then, over the summer, my brother-in-law died while jogging, a young man of 53. So, while the remaining family members still pushed air from our lungs, we planned to go en masse in November to the Irish-speaking part of Ireland, the Gaeltacht, and seek peace in dark rooms amid the earthy smell of smoldering peat.

The Irish language is a survivor. It suited people in the far west of Ireland where native speakers had been driven by English colonialists. Irish (preferred here to the term Gaelic) was outlawed by the English, and the country's Roman Catholics were pushed onto the worst land, west of the Shannon River. The Penal Laws of 1695 restricted Catholics from education, bearing arms, and having a horse worth more than five pounds.

The land looks less and less arable the farther west one goes. The bleakness extends all the way to the Aran Islands, among the most barren, rocky ledges of earth that people could hope to survive on. Ironically, Aran Islanders in the 19th century would not be as affected by the great famine because they had to be self-sufficient and live off the sea.

The first few nights after our arrival at Shannon were hectic. Whoever travels as an extended family anymore? Our group consisted of me, my brother, his wife, my two sisters, and two nephews. We had no group leader, that being a predicament of equality. With two rental cars, we got separated outside Lahinch in a manner I had worried about: The women will have a "to do" list that will involve endless driving. The men will want to hike the hills and cool down over Guinness in cozy pubs.

There was my elder sister the first night in a Lahinch pub who, after telling us she would be going to Dingle, turned to my brother and said, "You mean you don't also want to include Donegal?"

We had a week in Ireland, and here's Judy talking about driving from central Shannon to Donegal in the far northwest, then to Dingle in the far southwest, when she knew we had a night or two on an Aran Island out in Galway Bay. We would have to be maniacs to accomplish her trip, all tanked up on expensive gas and the terrible coffee they dole out in most of Ireland.

In the back of our minds we worried how Judy would act on the trip. The death of her husband was sudden and shocking and came at the same time their son moved out to live on his own. Judy was in a house alone now. Was her driving urge the old American response to hit the endless highway for emotional escape? If that were true, Ireland wasn't the place for it. The roads here were narrow and littered with sullen cows and the hind quarters of countless plodding sheep. Country roads were bordered by high stone walls that obstructed vision. The roads were precarious.

We moved to the next Lahinch pub that had a live music sign outside. We were rudderless and needed more drink and song. The room with the performer's stage was nearly empty.

"When's the live music start?" I asked a table of locals near the door.

"10 p.m.," said a woman. "Take a seat."

"We've been up all night flying," I said. "Can't wait that long."

"Then buy a round of drinks, for God's sake," the woman said, "and I'll sing for you right now."

We were too tired to take up the offer and went to sleep in a local B & B. The next day, after temporarily losing track of our sisters, we left cars parked at Rosseveal, rented bicycles, and caught a ferry to Inishmore Island.

Inishmore is the biggest of the Aran Islands, and a desolate, rocky sight it was. The islands were part of the same geology as that of the Burren on the County Clare mainland, which, a local had described, "lacks the wood to hang a man, the water to drown him, and the soil to bury him."

Our B & B was called Clai Ban, meaning "white wall" in Irish. Bartley Hernon, the kind owner, addressed his newly walking daughter in the Irish language, as he did all the other islanders who came in for tea. Irish first here, then English. Why was I glad about that, when I couldn't speak a word of the language or even pronounce the words spelled out on a page? At least this place was holding out, and it appeared to be holding out in strength.

We stayed two nights near Inishmore's Kilronan town. The days were filled with bike rides and hikes, and the nights with pub stops. In one pub we found our live music and learned what uilleann pipes were: an Irish form of bagpipe in which, unlike Scottish mouth-blown ones, the air was produced by a bellows squeezed by the musician's elbow. The sounds produced were haunting and, with a light rain outside, suited our moods. You could be completely blue in Ireland and yet be content. Is that why we were here?

Inishmore's prehistoric rock forts were hypnotic. I photographed chevaux-de-frise (horses of the Frisians) at Dun Aengus over and over. Limestone slabs jutted out at all angles from concentric pits, sure to slow down even foot soldiers under barrage of arrow, spear, and rock. The slabs were named after similar barriers around forts the French found on the Frisian Islands.

On the old coast road of Inishmore one could see furrowed fields heaped high with fertilizing seaweed and the ruins of ancient churches. A class of art students from Dublin ringed one stony beach with easels. At the small fishing village of Kilmurvey there remained cottages used in the classic film "The Man Of Aran."

Our clan of Aiken-Doran-Johnson had mellowed on the jagged isle, and we returned to the mainland with a plan. The women would see where the male clan members went to hike, and we would devise several fall-back plans to meet later for dinner.

The first hike we took on the mainland was a disaster. We were driving to Connemara National Park after a night at the very comfortable Abbeyglen Castle Hotel in Clifden. Between Moyard and Letterfrack, we saw a dirt road with a hiking sign beside it. A short drive took us to Cregg Hill, with a view of a lake so desolate and wild-looking that we had to get closer. We hiked beside a stream and stepped over sod clumps that sank with every step. The lake was merely the deepest part of a huge, boot-sucking bogland. We were soaked through by the time we returned and could barely wait for the car heaters to kick in. Nephew Chad, 14, didn't think it funny. He had brought trendy, expensive clothing for this trip and it was now covered in black muck.

But I loved hiking and loved the photos I got from high ground. We'd try again. Once inside Connemara Park, we stopped at Inagh Lodge and left the women. I told the menfolk we would hit the mountains where the land appeared dry in the sun up around the summit of one of the Maumturk Mountains. It was only long afterward back home that I found an Irish walker's guide that described the Maumturks Walk as "scenery as dramatic as anywhere in Ireland."

The side road we turned down led to a paved section of The Western Way, a hiking route that went to the coast. There was one farm and then a field of patient cattle and a trail going upward. The land that looked dry from below was wet, too. But the Maumturks were famous for the beautiful white quartzite rock that jutted above the turf, and we could climb concentrating on the quartzite as stepping stones.

The sun cleared from behind streaming clouds that rushed from the seacoast. The view from just below the summit was spectacular: angled sunlight over the white stone, a rushing stream that zigzagged to a plain crisscrossed with furrows made to salvage peat. The neat peat piles lined a cattle path to the road and, across the valley, the mountains known as the Twelve Bens lolled above Lough Inagh.

At the horizon was the sea. I thought I could make out the Aran Islands, but the sun began hiding behind clouds again. Connemara locals have a saying: If you can see the Aran Islands, it is going to rain, and if you can't see them, it is raining.

I took out the detailed map and easily found our trail. We were on a peak called Cnoc na Uilleann, the same name as that of the Irish pipes. I traced the morning route that we took miles away and saw that the lake was named Lough na Uilleann. That made them either "elbow lake" and "elbow peak," or some old musician had played great pipes around here. I preferred the latter meaning and pictured an Irishman, standing at this spot, squeezing out a mournful dirge in memory of my departed brother-in-law. I heard a melody of thanks for knowing the man as we slid down to the flat land before evening. Connemara had a landscape you could cry in, and the soft rain would hide tears.

Peter Aiken is a freelance writer who lives on Nantucket.