WEDNESDAY MAY 6, 2009: BALLYVAUGHAN
This morning Meadowfield’s doorbell rang around 8:00 a.m.; Joe and Rosalie Novara had arrived from Shannon airport after their overnight flight from the U.S. They had rented a car and Joe had drove from Shannon to Ballyvaughan. Breada made tea and coffee and served them a light breakfast. I welcomed them to Ireland and joined them for coffee where we discussed their flight and drive to Ballyvaughan. When they had finished their breakfast we agreed to lunch together in the early afternoon. They, then, retired to their room in order to catch a few hours sleep.
I took my cup of coffee and went to the studio and worked throughout the morning until the early afternoon. Around 1:00 Joe and Rosalie were rested and ready to walk to the village for lunch, I took them to Logue’s Lodge. We entered Logue’s and walked to the back of the restaurant to the large dining area. We chose a table near the bar at a window. We were the only guests there but soon a crowd arrived and I realized by their dress and the amount of children with them, that they were celebrating the Confirmation that had taking place earlier. It was a lively crowd.
Joe asked me to show them the Burren College of Art – so, after lunch, we rode out to the college in their rental car. There were no students about when we arrived and the café was not open. The wind was still blowing fiercely and made great howling noises as it whipped around the college buildings. I looked at the sky and saw dark clouds moving over the mountains. I led them into the gallery space of my exhibit and set up my computer so that they could check their e-mail. While they were doing this I went to the reception office and talked with Anna Downes. When I returned to the gallery I asked Joe and Rosalie if they would like a little tour of BCA. Newtown Castle was open, which we visited, I relayed the background of the college and the restoration of the castle. I told them of Michael Greene and the story he told me the first time I visited in 2000 about the gold buried up on Cappanawalla Mountain.
The BCA Library was opened so we visited there, as well. I pointed out their reproduction of the Book of Kells. Joe and Rosalie looked around while, Deborah, the librarian helped me locate a copy of Moya Cannon’s book of poetry “Oar”, which I checked out. She, also, helped Rosalie do some research regarding her namesake from Donegal.
Before we left the college I took them in to see the BCA student exhibit. When we entered, we discovered that some sort of workshop was taking place there – but at this time the only evidence of that were empty chairs and left-behind books and notebooks. We walked through the exhibit and when we were nearly finished looking, the workshop participants returned and started taking their seats. Martin Hawkes spotted us and gave us a friendly wave; I smiled and waved back and led Joe and Rosalie out of the building. We drove back to Meadowfield where we agreed to go together to Greene’s Pub that evening for the traditional music session.
Greene's Pub, Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare, Ireland
I spent the rest of the day in the studio breaking away to make a sandwich for dinner. Joe, Rosalie and I walked from Meadowfield to Greene’s Pub around 9:30 p.m. When we entered we found the pub populated with a handful of locals and two professors and two students from the Kentucky group. I greeted Marie and I asked for a glass of wine. After Joe and Rosalie got their beverages, Marie suggested that we sit at the table next to where the musicians would be so we could have a better view. We sat near the Kentucky group; I looked around the pub and saw that Beanie and Martin were sitting at the bar. Soon Sean Tyrrell and two other musicians came in, Sean had his banjo and bouzouki and the other musicians had a guitar and a concertina.
The musicians started with instrumentals with Sean Tyrrell leading them. Soon the guitar player started singing songs. Sean Tyrrell sang two or three songs then left Greene’s around midnight. When Sean departed the Kentucky group left Greene’s, as well. The evening was unlike other sessions I have been to at Greene’s for Marie’s brother-in-law sang two lovely, melancholy songs, Marie sat with the musicians and had a whiskey, and there was a sing along of various songs like “Stand By Your Man” and some American folk songs that the locals all knew but that Joe, and Rosalie and I had never heard of. It was an especially fun evening, the concertina player talked with us a lot and the guitar player talked with us about his upcoming travels to the U.S., and Joe sang two songs. Marie let things go on until she closed up at 2:00 a.m.
TUESDAY MAY 5, 2009: BALLYVAUGHAN
A VISIT TO THE KEANE’S FAMILY HOME
Another dark and very windy day. I worked in the studio in the morning, Mary, Breada’s sister-in-law drove down to collect me to take me up to Lismacteige on Cappanawalla Mountain to the home of Mrs. Keane (Breada’s mother) for a visit. The day was very cool and a hard wind was blowing, I had hoped that the weather would clear so I could walk up to Lismacteige, but was grateful that Mary came to take me up when the weather turned out not to be conducive for such a long walk.
Mary, her husband Michael Keane and their three children live in Limerick but have a house in Ballyvaughan and try to visit every weekend. The children were off of school for the week and Mary and her family were spending the time in their house up on the mountain. Michael built their house so it attaches to the back of the original Keane thatched home. Breada’s Mother lives in the original home – the Keane family has lived here and worked the Burren land for 190 years.
We drove up around Cappanawalla Mountain past both the ruins of Glenaraha and Rathborney and on about another mile where we turned right to follow the road to the Keane house. As we approached, I saw that the house was a traditional, one-story, whitewashed thatched home. The small windows were trimmed with red and there were close cropped shrubs and tubs of flowers near the front door. I got out of the car and walked up to the half door where Mrs. Keane greeted me with a warm welcome and a smiling face.
When I entered the house I saw that I was in a rather large room, which Mrs. Keane referred to as her kitchen. She asked me to sit with her; I seated myself on one of the leather chairs that flanked each side of the fireplace. Facing the fireplace was a dark leather sofa full of colorful pillows with a black cat stretched out on it. The walls of this room were whitewashed stone and plaster; overhead was the underside of the thatched roof, the floor was black slate. There were framed black & white family photographs on the walls with a framed picture of the Sacred Heart and a framed picture of Pope John Paul II. Along the inside of the thatch, running right above the plastered wall was a row of small dark wooden crosses. The crosses were so tightly spaced that most of them touched one another, this horizontal row ran the length of the room. To my right was a worn dark wooden dresser holding delft dishes and a variety of mugs. Across the room was a wooden table and chairs with a colorful cloth over the table. The only light in the room was from the fire and the natural light coming through small windows. The windows were hung with white lace.
Mrs. Keane told me about the house – there were four rooms: a kitchen, a parlor and two bedrooms. She explained how she had cooked on the fire of this fireplace for most of her married life. She showed me the hardware that was built into the fireplace that enabled her to bake bread, and make stews and soups, etc. Recently, her son, Michael, had installed a small wood stove into the mouth of the fireplace to increase its efficiency. He had taken great pains not to destroy any of its original integrity. All of the original cooking hardware was still there, as well as the two “hobs” (seats) on either side of the fire itself.
I looked around carefully, trying to memorize the interior of this lovely place. I purposely did not take any photographs because I thought the flash would destroy the soft light inside the room that was now conveying the history of this house so well. There was an atmosphere here that no “point and shoot” camera could record. The following words of John O’Donohue helps to describe my meaning here:
The soul was never meant to be seen completely. It is more at home in a light that is hospitable to shadow. Before electricity, people used candlelight at night. The ideal light to befriend the darkness, it gently opens up caverns in the darkness and prompts the imagination into activity. The candle allows the darkness to keep its secrets . . . Candlelight perception is the most respectful and appropriate form of light with which to approach the inner world. It does not force our tormented transparency upon the mystery. The glimpse is sufficient. Candlelight perception has the finesse and reverence appropriate to the mystery and autonomy of soul. JOHN O’DONOHUE, ANAM CARA
I visited with Mrs. Keane for several hours while she spoke of what she referred to as the “early times”. She and her husband, P.J., raised their 5 children in this small home. When the children were young there was no running water, no electricity and no bathroom. Breada, who is now in her early 40’s, was fourteen when electricity was available on Cappanawalla Mountain. We spent several hours in conversation; when Mrs. Keane showed signs of tiring I knew it was time for me to go. Mary drove me down the mountain to the gallery at the Burren College of Art where my exhibit was showing.
It was around 4:00 when I unlocked the doors of the gallery, I unpacked my computer and checked e-mail and worked on my sabbatical blog. I was killing time waiting until the evening’s “Burren in Bloom” lecture started.
Breada Keane Moran at my exhibit at the Burren College of Art
Breada came visiting at around 5:30 and brought me some chips for my dinner. While she was in the gallery the students and faculty visiting BCA from Kentucky came in to look at the artwork and ask questions. The group was very friendly and had questions about the digital painting process and my drawing technique. Soon it was time for the evenings lecture to start, tonight’s topic was The Burren: a landscape molded by ice. An Oxford lecturer, Dr. Helen Goldie, gave the lecture.
MONDAY MAY 4, 2009: BALLYVAUGHAN
This was the last day of the Bank Holiday – the weather was cool, dark and very windy. I worked all day in the studio writing and reading. Breada’s nephews, Rohan and Richie, came to visit for the day.
Tags: Book of Kells, Burren College of Art, Cappanawalla, Greene's Pub, John O'Donohue, Keane, Linda Rzoska, Moya Cannon, Newtown Castle, Sean Tyrrell
