Galway City
I just walked smack into a rainbow--anchored in Galway Bay and framed by my hotel room window. The scene is so eerily like the cover of the book, if you ignore the gas tanks and imagine a sailing ship, that I'm a bit stunned. It's nearly 10pm but still bright out. The sun won't go down into Galway Bay for awhile yet on these long days. Since I arrived in Galway on Wednesday I've had this sense, to paraphrase Seamus Heaney, of being in two places at the same time and two times in the same place." I've kept the 19th century in my mind so much it's disorienting to be in the 21st century city. Today I participated in a panel as part of the American Conference for Irish Studies, the group that has done so much to make Irish Studies an honored part of the curriculum at so many colleges and universities in the US and now throughout the world. The conference is taking place at the National University of Ireland, Galway, which was opened during the Great Starvation. As I walked through the campus past the old stone building I thought of Honora, my great-great grandmother. She must have passed by this place, perhaps when walking home after selling the catch that saved them during one of the desperate times. Yesterday, Friday, I stood under the Spanish Arch looking at the space that was the old Fish Market and imagined Mam, Maire and Honora here in the "before times," joking with the other woman as they called out the merits of their fish. As I crossed the bridge a great commotion broke out. A fisherman was pulling a salmon from the river. A crowd gathered. Two taxi cabs pulled over and their drivers, members of Galway's African community, ran over to take pictures with their cell phones. We all cheered when the fish was landed and held up for us to see. Seventeen pounds--impressive!
Then early on this Saturday morning as I crossed the quiet campus headed for the conference I felt as if the whole Kelly-Keeley clan had left the pages of the book and are walking with me. I passed through a kind of green tunnel of trees that leads from the oldest part of the University campus to the new Millennium Arts building where the panel was taking place. Are you pleased Honora? You are remembered here in your home city. You'd be delighted with the Centre for Irish Studies at this University. Such respect for the past, for the culture that endures while at the same time engaging with the present. Last night Sean Nos singers sang for us in that beautiful hypnotic style. Two were from Carna. I spoke to Josie Sheain, Jeain Jeaic Mac Donncha about you and our family. You would have heard these songs, he said. A long time ago is never very far away in Ireland. The clan was with me too as I went into the classroom for the presentation. Two very fine papers by Mary Mullen on George Moore and Elizabeth Tasker on Frances Sheridan, mother of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and a novelist herself, preceded mine. Laura O'Connor was the moderator. I talked about my search for you, Honora, and spoke of the Family History Center, The Galway County Library and of Sister Maire who helped me so much. All are based less than mile from here. Three of the audience have read Galway Bay--two friends from Chicago and a woman whose name I didn't get. It's wonderful to know our family has been taken into the imagination of others. Now that's hospitality!!
And talking about hospitality I received a wonderful welcome from Sheila Pratschke in Paris last week. She is the director of the Centre Culture Irlandais which is in the centuries old Irish College, a haven for students during the penal days when education for Catholics was forbidden in Ireland. My newly-met cousin Peggy Kelly, and her husband John Cummins, who'd spent the year studying at the Sorbonne, were there as I presented "Galway Bay" to Sheila for the library. A French friend joined us and we all concluded by singing "Galway Bay."
We sang at the conclusion of the panel at the conference too. "If you ever go across the sea to Ireland..." Well I'm here and so is Galway Bay. It's Sunday morning now and I've been down for an early breakfast. A young family was in the dining room. Ths sun is shining on the Bay out the window and the food is great and there's plenty of it. The little girl and her younger brother laugh as their father starts singing "Michael Row the Boat Ashore," perhaps because a boat is moving out into the Bay. The mother looks over. Are they disturbing me? Oh no--what could be better than a song on a beautiful day. As I watch this Irish father and his children, their joy, I think of writing the scene when Michael Kelly, who resists going to Amerikay, tells Honora that a man should be able to raise his children in his own land. Whatever the pressure of the moment on the Irish economy that opportunity is here and others are coming to join in. A lot of thinking for a gorgeous Sunday morning and I'm heading out to Bearna and Carna myself now thanks to Des, my husband's nephew.
posted by Mary Pat Kelly at
3:35 AM
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