Ireland: Real and Imagined
Posted on Friday, January 21, 2011 at 05:35 PM
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“An Irishman’s heart is nothing but his imagination.”
– George Bernard Shaw (John Bull’s Other Island)
Gabriel Byrne says that the line between reality and imagination is very thin. I concur.
Perhaps it’s because my father filled my head with stories of banshees and haunted fields with gates that never stayed shut. Perhaps it’s simply the beauty of the Irish countryside – some of the magic that you can see in Bill Doyle’s photos in the new issue of Irish America. I always feel close to the otherworld when I’m there.
As a child my belief in the supernatural grew stronger with every cloud formation. When the sun suddenly burst forth in a gray sky, as it tends to do in Ireland, I always thought it was God watching.
From a very early age, I was aware of, and believed in, a parallel universe where the ancients, including members of my own family who had passed on, cavorted.
All Souls Day falls on the day after Halloween, and on that day, or so we were told, the veil between our world and the otherworld is very thin and the faithful departed can return to share a meal with the family. As a child I always hoped that my grandmother would come back for a visit.
In school we learned from books that drew little distinction between fact and myth. The ancient people, the Tuatha de Danann, were so skilled in magic that they established an otherworld kingdom when they were driven underground by the conquering Gaels. The farm over from ours had/has a Fairy Fort that you knew never to set foot in. (I sometimes think that building that highway so close to the Hill of Tara, stirred up some ancient curse that brought down the Irish economy). Add healing wells (and the belief that the seventh son of a seventh son had the gift of healing), and the magic of the hawthorn tree (we had one in our front field) and you get some idea of the Ireland that I grew up in.
This is the Ireland that I took with me when I emigrated. It’s the Ireland that continues to exist in my imagination.
Like the Tuatha de Danann, those of us who had to leave created our own otherworld, a place that exists somewhere between Ireland and America, and involves living in one place but having a sense of belonging to another.
Sometimes, oftentimes, you have to leave a place to really see it. Irish culture, traditions and music became more valuable to me when I no longer held them in my hand. And the appreciation that Irish Americans had for Irish culture made me look at it anew.
I remember being astonished that the manuscript for James Joyce’s Ulysses was housed in a museum in Philadelphia. That Emory University and Boston College hold the papers of some of Ireland’s greatest writers. Could it be that Irish Americans have more of an appreciation for things Irish than the Irish? Particularly in the boom years there was a sense that Ireland couldn’t wait to “off with the old and on with the new.”
I like to believe that the Ireland of my imagination is still there, I just can’t see it for the make-over. But perhaps it is time to marry the imagination to reality – and take a look at all that modern Ireland has to offer.
A new campaign recently launched in New York could be just the thing.
“Imagine Ireland brings to American audiences a wealth of contemporary creators and a calendar of culture which will reshape and reinvigorate notions of Ireland, what it means to be Irish and the potential for Ireland into the future.”
That’s the promise of an Irish Government-sponsored campaign that will bring 400 Irish shows to 40 states and will include an operatic version of The Importance of Being Earnest featuring the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.
It sounds like a whole lot of fun. And I look forward to attending many events in the coming year. I’m hopeful too, that in addition to updating our notion of what it means to be Irish, the some 1,000 artists participating in the Imagine Ireland campaign will also look at Ireland anew, through the lens of Irish America. Perhaps they will discover some of the treasures of a latter-day Ireland that lie in the repository of our emigrant mind banks and take some of that back home with them. Imagine that.
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themurphia | Aug 06, 2011, 04:45 PM EDT
lookbackkid:That was my mother's wish to have her ashes scattered on the Irish Sea...I can't bear to do it...I think I have the books you mention... definitely Cailleach and possibly Waiting for My Clothes...must check...!
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patriot | Jul 15, 2011, 06:47 PM EDT
The Irish need to turn back to America and away from those cloddish brits, who are once again attempting to make Ireland over in the brit's images. Reject Anglicization! Remember Padrac Pearse!
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bonjouryall | Jan 30, 2011, 07:41 PM EST
Pardon the simple question but what is a banshee.? I'm from the American south. When I was a young kid, my mom would either tell us we were acting like a wild banshee or if there was some unknown or spooky sound, she'd claim it was a wild banshee. When we'd ask her what it was, she'd just say that we didn't want to know. So what's a young kid with an imagination to think but the worst!
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PolinDeB | Jan 26, 2011, 07:17 PM EST
Our whole world is imaginary - we create ideas whether 'I'm important in my job'
or 'I'm a Republican', 'Land of the Free' to sustain us. The reality of our existence is very different.
AS Jung explains - Most societies create symbolism to sustain them and the Irish one was no different.
Once those symbols are destroyed in native populations, they descend into chaos.
Bertie Ahern knew that Tara was the last bastion of the Irish people, as long as that
was revered we were undefeatable. When the M3 went through with no politicians fighting
for it, it meant the Irish people were abandoned and leaderless, they lost their way. So it is now.
Only by fixing up Tara, an easy 8 km of road if the M3 is re-routed with the Lenister Orbital,
can we rebuild. The section through Tara, built low in the valley, is a fog-trap anyway,
they have already had their first death in the fog - a mere 5 months in.
The road has only about half the guaranteed traffic, a bill the Irish taxpayer will have to pick up.
The Lenister Orbital can offset this as it will be the main North-South route.
It all makes sense to re-route away from Tara but it always did. So why did the road go through there?
By re-creating Tara, we can build a new Ireland, garment fashioned from both the old and the new.
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WoundedKnee | Jan 22, 2011, 08:14 AM EST
Many Americans don't know the reality of today's Ireland. Dublin, for example, has received so much immigration that its downtown area is something between Karachi and Kandahar. One person in ten that you see might be Irish--the rest are from the four corners of the world. The idea that Pakis, Indians, Poles, Russians etc. are going to perpetuate Irish tradition and culture is an obvious imbecility.
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lookbackkid | Jan 21, 2011, 10:41 PM EST
Being the first born daughter of Irish parents my imagination was filled with hard cold facts of Ireland. Not in a condemning way but the phrase black and tans still ring clearly in my ears. With our meager income the packages of trice worn clothes were shipped regularly from the Tudor City P.O. to family in Limerick and Tipperary. Both my mother and my father were strong oral historians. My mother talking about their "Kitchen" and sleeping quarters became fruitful when I visited Adare, historical park. We would hear about the lads "on the run" in Limerick. The "interruption" of the black and tans doing their body count in West Cork. We never talked of faries, banshees. We did here of the fear of the local priest. I must say my imagination is very much part of me as an artist, teacher, lectuer, historian. I must also say my teacher and best friend was the movies. One day after trying to figuer out my passion in life, being Irish was on top of the list. So I throw being Irish out there with my art, my lectures. I add my maiden name of O'Sullivan hoping to get the Irish vote. Not as acknowledged as I would have thought. My family from Limerick and Cork rose to the professional class in one generation. At the moment we are happy to have the Rooney Prize winner for the Best in Irish Literature 2010 in our family. Namely Leanne O'Sullivan who created an award winning book out of looking at a pile of rocks. Now that is passion and imagination. Leanne has two published books "Waiting for my Clothes" and "Cailleach-The Hag of Beara". By the way I will go the way of the mystical, the unknown by having my ashes thrown on the winds into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cahermore, Beara Peninsular, County Cork......and I will be very happy. Is that romantic enough????
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