REKINDLING THE EMBERS

Published in Roman Catholic magazine, Intercom, in 1996.

Dara Molloy

To the Connemara woman, Aran appeared to be on fire. It was the night of January 5th ‘Oíche Cinn an Dá Lá Dhéag’. Every house had candles burning in the windows. 12 candles to be precise. Some houses had three windows with four candles burning in each. Others had two, with six and six. One or two houses had all twelve candles burning in one window.

 

This was twenty years ago, when Aran still had no electricity. To people in Connemara, the sight of Aran ‘on fire’ on the eve of January 6th was spectacular. There were other times too when they witnessed strange things happen on Aran. On St John’s Eve, June 23rd, the eve of the Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist, Aran appeared to be wearing a necklace of bright pearls. This time it was bonfires, as many as fifteen or twenty, lit in every village across the island.

 

Many other dramatic events on Aran the Connemara woman never saw. Aran was an island that she rarely if ever visited. The men went there in their hookers to sell turf and buy fish, but the women stayed at home, unless it was a pilgrimage they were going on.

 

The pilgrimage to An Ceathrar Álainn was popular. It was a tough pilgrimage. You spent the night lying on the graves of the four saints, Conall, Fursey, Brendan and Berchan. When you got too cold you could do another round - seven times around the path past the well and the old church, saying your prayers and dropping a stone at the well each time you passed. An old holy-water font, dislocated from its originally intended position, had nested itself in the middle of a roughly built stone wall in a field nearby. They say it never ran dry of water, rain-water or dew, no-one knew, and if you bathed your eyes in it, you would be healed. Some were.

 

In those days, life for the Aran people appeared to be full of meaning. That meaning was woven into the fabric of their daily lives - even literally. The Aran jumpers had patterns knitted into them that identified the knitter and the family that would wear them. The cable, the blackberry, the honeycomb - all spoke of the life the people lived and the faith that they professed.

 

Halloween was a particularly magic time. Adults dressed up so meticulously that no clue would be given as to their real identity. Then they glided silently through the night entering into houses they would never have dared enter before. On Halloween night all the doors were open. The house could be inspected and fun poked at the people there, who were busily guessing who you might be. Then back out into the night. On the road and pathways, eerie men and women of the other world passed within arms length of people of this world. Two worlds met and embraced. It was the time of transition, the Celtic new year.

 

There appears to have been no end to the richness and depth of this Aran way of life. Tuned as they were to the rhythms of nature, the people’s lives were orchestrated by the weather and the seasons, by the life-cycle of the animals and the plants, by the light and the darkness. Their faith found expression everywhere. No boat went to sea without some holy water, the sign of the cross and a prayer. There was a prayer too for the lighting of the fire, the baking of bread, the walk to the Church, the passing of the graveyard. The cow was blessed with the fresh milk taken from her that morning, the seed potatoes were sprinkled with holy water before being planted in the field. Good Friday was a special day for planting potatoes, and anything planted on that day would grow well. Lá Fhéile Máirtín, November 11th, was the day to kill an animal or a fowl and the blood was put on your forehead and on the doorposts of the house. Lá Fhéile Bríd was the day to make a new cross out of rushes which would then hang above the door to protect the house against fire.

 

Now the fire of this way of life is reduced to dust. The embers remain red, buried in a trampled sand-castle of ashes. Some say let it die, clean out the hearth, block it up. We have our artificial gas fires now and our microwaves. Our children no longer learn at Dadó’s knee in the half-light of the glowing turf. Now we have schools, education, certificates, and Dadó is far better off in the old-folks home twenty miles away. We don’t need holy water in the boats now or St Brigid’s Cross above the door — insurance policies against fire and accident cover that, and of course better boats and houses, safety regulations, accurate weather forecasts, inspection certificates, fire alarms, and a host of other things that make life ‘better’. We don’t need candles in the window now — we can just flick a switch and the light comes on. It’s magic alright, but no need to say a prayer as you do it — just make sure your ESB bill is paid. And if a visitor is expected, sure just switch on the outside light and that will be welcome enough. But keep your front door locked. People who leave the key in the door are very foolish. You never know who would be prowling around in the night. And if they stole all you had, where would you be?

 

Progress to me is an illusion. We may be moving forward, but if we are, the good is being left behind. The more we appear to acquire, the more in reality we lose. Gain the whole world but lose your soul. We have lost so much of a way of life that was really good. Can we say that our present way of life is really good?

 

Some years ago, I got sick of our modern way of life — literally. I got sick when I watched and participated in what school was doing to young people, maiming and disabling most of them, while a few were made to feel cock sure and superior. I got sick when I experienced what for me was the sham of religious life - power, status and wealth with vows that proclaimed the opposite. I got sick with food that had the right nutritional content but could not nourish my spirit because it was produced by destroying the earth, enslaving many people and abusing animals and nature. I got sick with using the money of the world that was tainted with the nauseating smell of Third World debt and the sin of usury. In one sentence, I got sick because I saw teaching become education, hospitality become hospitals and hospices, love become professional care, knowledge become science, conversation become electronic communication, religion become an insurance policy and wisdom become irrelevant. I got out before I became a cybernetic biological organism (cyborg for short) with a dog-collar.

 

There is no way back to an earlier time. That time is gone forever. The dark night of the soul, both for me and for our country, has been a particularly long and chilly one. Many have died from spiritual hypothermia. It is nearly too late to rekindle the fires that were once lit in every hearth in the country. But now I live on Aran. On Aran, beneath the trampled sand-castle of ashes in the hearth, the embers still glow when stirred. My life’s work now is to blow life back into those embers, to patiently protect and build on the heat that is there. It will be a new fire, but built on the old. That fire is a fire that burned brightly in Ireland for thousands of years. I am not going to let it go out now.

 

Happily on Aran the candles are still lit on the eve of the Epiphany and bonfires burn on St John’s Eve, the adults still dress up for Halloween and the holy water barrel still gets emptied fast after a fresh fill is blessed. But can it be preserved, or will it eventually go the way of the rest of the country? It will probably go. The forces of change are too strong and the old forms have not been able to resist. The old forms will die away. New wine requires new wineskins and you don’t put a new patch on an old garment.

 

I cannot change the world, I cannot prevent the world changing, nor can I make time stand still. I can only change myself. This was the belief and the example of the early Irish monks. They were not preachers and evangelisers in the strict sense. Even when they travelled abroad they were primarily choosing exile for Christ’s sake and allowing the currents and winds of the Spirit to lead them. Wherever they landed they set up home — a monastery, that inevitably became a beacon to the surrounding neighbourhood. In that monastery they worked for their own continuous conversion, purifying their lifestyle, their relationships and their prayer. It was this that attracted others. It was not their preaching. They did not have to go out onto the streets to call people to conversion. On the contrary, people were drawn to conversion by the exceptional witness of the monks’ lives.

 

This I can do. I can work on myself. I can extract myself from the compromises of modern life. I can withdraw to the desert like John the Baptist. There I can discover again the overgrown and neglected paths of the spiritual life — those paths that were the pilgrim ways of thousands before me in this land but are now forgotten. Perhaps if I begin to walk these paths they will become easier for others. Perhaps I can clear them a bit to make them more accessible and more visible. Then perhaps others too will walk them with me. This I can do.

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