Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 134, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1916 — On Achill Beg [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

On Achill Beg

AT LAST we came where the road ended and stood opposite the seldom visited Island of Achill Beg. There was only ontf thing for us to do —that was to shout and shout until someone on the island heard us and launched a boat to ferry us across, writes a traveler to the Emerald Isle, in Ireland. We talked while we waited about the ul-tra-nationalism of the friend we were going to visit. There had been a project to build a causeway from this peninsula of the mainland to the island of his sojourn. Our friend objected because he did not want the 25 families he lived amongst to be corrupted by an alien culture. We shouted again. Then we saw a stir on the Island and knew that a boat was being launched. Another wayfarer had come up and was waiting to cross over with us. This was a young woman who thought little of nursing her baby while she waited. She had taken the child to some far-away dispensary upon the peninsula and had received a pronounc’ement upon its sickness. Now she held it and talked to it as if it was a treasure —as if it was wonderful she had got the child back so far. This young woman took our phrases in Gaelic as good conversational coin. Most native speakers talk to learners either scornfully or patronizingly, but she talked trustingly, as if we had the Gaelic “like the flowing sea,” as they say. It was evidently that our friend on the Island had brought no hint of paucity in ’Gaelic speech. He lived with one of the island families in the utmost discomfort. Meat the people seldom saw, and they burnt it when they undertook to cook it. They boiled potatoes well enough. But no amount of repetition could get them to make drinkable tea. Our friend had a room that had no catch on its door and hk was waited upon by a barefooted girl. His mental nourishment seemed as zestless as his physical fare. There were books on his shelf, but they were dictionaries, grammars, textbooks, handbooks, exercises in translation, volumes of propagandist journals. There was one thing in the room that promised some delight—our friend’s fiddle. We knew how well he could play the music of fishers and shepherds of Gaelic Scotland and Ireland?

A Stronghold of Gaelic. He held this remote island as a lonely post in a battle that seemed long lost—a battle of languages and civilization. Gaelic might be surrendered or sold on the mainland or in the big islands, but here 25 families would be drilled to hold and keep it. Actually he had made this island the one spot in tjie British islands where English is a decaying language. He had found it flourishing here and Gaelic weak and ready to give out. He had restored Gaelic. The young men and young women who would spend six months of the year in the fields of England and East Scotland spoke_ no-Bngttsh“fi"efe7 We saw him fling the door open and dart out like a weasel when he heard an English phrase used by someone in the main room. But the harvester was speaking of “The Midland Great Western Railway” and how could a name like that be put into Gaelic? He was giving a lectqre that night, and we followed him as he went, lantern in hand, to the schoolhoase. We passed closed houses before which geese seemed to sleep standing. We walked amongst ducks that gave one the impression that they were truants from school —they slipped into pools of water and pushed out. “They’ll say nothing about It; they’ll say nothing about it," they v told each other In quacking undertones. We crossed the stepping stones and came to the schoolhouse.' Inside we lighted lamps and waited. Have you seen a herd, of mountain ponies break down a road? So they rushed In, the island girls who came to our friend’s lecture. No one else came. They flung themselves about the room until they were winded. Then they became less disorderly. At last, having trepanned them between school desks, our friend began his lec-

ture. When he was three-quarters through they showed some disposition to break away. But the power of the human eye held them for a space longer. Then it became necessary to apply the voice threateningly: "Now Brighid,” “Now Oona,” “Now Slav.” At last, by opening wide the door, he signified that the lecture was over. Brighid, Oona, Slav, Cauth and the others bolted out. Comfort of Peat Fires. The peat fires make it possible to live in houses that are drenched with constant rain. On the outside walls where the thatch drips down you see the green of the damp. But inside, with the pile of burning peat on the hearth, everything is dry and warm. Naturally, the people do not keep their good friends the horse or the cow from the kindly warmth. The family sits about the fire, and at the end of the room the horse stands as quiet and as well-behaved as a guest could be. From infancy the children are intimate with the animals: at three one can drive the cow where it should go, at five one rides on a pony behind hampers of sea weed. The people have a fuller life than those who have no friendliness with horses or cattle. And yet we have heard H. G. "Wells speak of such people as parasites living upon animals. We suppose it would be impossible for the great prophet of machinery to understand that people may live with animals, and be better human beings for the experience. In the house where my friend stays, around the fire in the living room, a few young men are seated. They are not dressed in the flannels of the island, nor in the ready-mades one might buy in a town on the mainland, but in ragged clothes that suggest Lancashire. They are returned harvesters. From April until October the young men and women ot the island work for she farmers of England and East Scotland, crossing over with the gangs that go from the west of Ireland. For the rest of the year the young men stay on the island, putting in their time working on fields on which the plow cannot be put or fishing in boats that do not go miles out to sea. The main income of the island is earned abroad. The young men and women come back with from £l2 to £2O in their pockets. This goes to pay the rent, the shop debts, or buys tea and the bag of flour or meal. The English that the young men can speak is scanty and is eked out with a good many oaths. Abroad they have the name of being good workers.

Music of Crickets and Sea. In our friend’s room the peat fire is lighted also. He takes up his fiddle and sits down on his bed until the barefooted girl comes into the room with an apron full of peat. “ The fire is renewed, and it is time to go to bed. A mattress is laid on the floor, and our friend shows us how to make a sailor’s bed, folding the blanket into a sleeping bag, into which we insert Then W° qf t hft — fire. The visitors have left the room above and the people of the house have gone to bed. It is now the hour of the crickets. They riot about the fire in the living room, making a continuous noise. And the noise of the crickets has for a background the noise of the sea—a score of yards from the house it dashes upon the island. But at last comes sleep, and we hear no more until a sea bird cries in the silence of the morning. Then a young harvester comes into the room with another armful of peat, and the fire, which was slumbering down in the ashes, breaks up again. Bread and tea and eggs soon come our way, and otir friend talks of taking us to shoot wild goats on the high places of the peninsula.

HARVESTING ON ACHILL ISLAND