‘The sunlight fell warm on the moor. The sheep that had lain all night in the shelter of the great menhirs were beginning to move among them and feed; and under their feet, he knew, lay the empty graves of Celtic priest and chief, not dead, but alive to-day, dust and spirit, in the beating hearts of men’
See (i) of Notes for more information on The Evergreen.
- George Eyre-Todd, ‘Night in Arran’, The Evergreen: A Northern Seasonal, Summer 1896Ursula O’Sullivan-Dale and
Aisling Ní Choibheanaigh Nic Eoin
For this, the second issue of Aimsir, we are particularly indebted to Robbie MacLeòid, whose work we are thrilled to publish in these pages. We feel very privileged to have him working with us to broaden the scope of Aimsir, and to encourage the continued engagement between Irish and Gàidhlig in these islands. Tapadh leat, a charaid!
We are also very grateful to Fañch Bihan-Gallic, who graciously translated the poem ‘Tairngreacht’ into his native Breton. This translation process has been a wonderful and introspective project, and we are proud to include this piece in multiple languages, and map its progression through several voices from across the Atlantic Archipelago. This achievement would not be possible without both Fanch and Robbie’s help.
We must also thank Breesha Maddrell, of Culture Vannin, who has been in dialogue with us for a number of months regarding the possibility of including Manx-language work in this journal. Her knowledge and assistance has encouraged us to continue strengthening the linguistic and cultural links shared by many regions in the Atlantic Archipelago. We are also delighted to present some beautiful Manx-language poetry from Annie Kissack within these pages and hope to expand our connections with the Manx community in editions to come.
Finally, we believe a special mention needed for the beautiful front and back cover art of this issue, done by Niamh Hughes. This considered piece signals the patterns of daily life within which many seasonal traditions are rooted and offers a thoughtful reflection of the goals of Aimsir, and of our first Bealtaine issue.
As we watch the year advance, with those short nights creeping back into our daily consciousness, we are reminded of the many summers which have come before this one, and which will come after it. We think of the communities who have celebrated this same point in the year through the centuries, and across these islands. Bealtaine, meaning May in Irish, signals the beginning of summer, and the celebratory rituals of Lá Bealtaine, which were often intended to protect cattle throughout this grazing period. Bonfires were lit, holy places were visited and feasts were shared by the community. The ashes, smoke and embers of these fires were believed to have great spiritual significance, and were often used to re-light the fires of those in the community after their celebrations. We have selected the word ‘Bealtaine’ as the name for our second issue (and for all the summer issues to come), to retain the symbolism of the word ‘May’, still referred to as ‘Bealtaine’ in Modern Irish, rather than to draw directly from Anglicised names of May’s associated festivals (such as Beltane or Beltaine). That being said, we do wish to acknowledge the variety of beautiful traditions that have taken place in communities across the Atlantic Archipelago under a number of related and different names, some of which include the Scottish Latha Bealltainn, the Manx Laa Boaltinn/Boaldyn and the Welsh Calan Mai/Haf. We are honoured to have been trusted by our contributors with this wonderful collection of multilingual pieces, and we are particularly happy to be welcoming Manx, Gàidhlig and Breton into our pages for this issue.
Despite the significance of these ceremonies or rituals throughout the annual routines of our ancestors, our lives, in so many forms, have become disconnected from the power of the shifting seasons. Notably, for those of us living in cities, preparing for winter can now be as simple as retrieving a winter coat from the back of the wardrobe. The food we eat can be accessed all year round. When leaves turn green, then copper and red, and eventually fall, it doesn’t signal the closure of a universal cycle with which our lives are intimately entangled. Over the years, something of this intimacy has been lost.
Yet, something in us still responds to this primal link. Our moods are lifted with the brightening days, and we draw inwards when the clouds are stirring overhead and darken the spaces we inhabit. Drawing on the multiplicity of the word ‘Aimsir’ itself, which can mean weather, season, world, tense or time, this journal’s second edition embraces the idea that seasonal changes are themselves varied, as are our experiences of them, based on where one is living or a personal, emotional state of being. Though we no longer feel the need to light sacred bonfires to survive the months to come, or to entrust our lives to the handing over of deities
between seasons, we still acknowledge the impact of these changes in weather, season, tense or time, this journal’s second edition embraces the idea that seasonal changes are themselves varied, as are our experiences of them, based on where one is living or a personal, emotional state of being. Though we no longer feel the need to light sacred bonfires to survive the months to come, or to entrust our lives to the handing over of deities between seasons, we still acknowledge the impact of these changes in weather, season, world, tense, time—in living itself. Safety and shelter are assumed by many and no longer tied to the changing light, nor are they shaped by the weather. However, as we come together to mark, in some small way, these movements of the world, and the beginning of summer, we must remember those ties that older modes of living had to the environment, and how we can find space and meaning for them in our lives now. We must acknowledge that, rooted deep inside of us, deep in the communities that pattern these islands, there exists a great reverence towards the spiritual and natural connections upon which we once relied.
As George Eyre-Todd concludes in his piece for the Summer issue of The Evergreen, ‘under their feet, he knew, lay the empty graves of Celtic priest and chief, not dead, but alive to-day, dust and spirit, in the beating hearts of men’.
Thar tinte na Bealtaine, thiontaigh sí dom.
-- An bhfuil tú sásta, a Orla?
A leithéid de cheist! -- Sásta?
Tharraing sí ar an toitín. -- An bhfuil aon rud uait?
Smaoinigh mé ar feadh nóiméad. -- Aon rud, b’fhéidir.
Robbie MacLeòidD’ofráil sí an toitín dom. Rinne mé gáire, agus, ar dheireadh, thuig sí. Tháinig sí i mo threo.
Bhí óganach in aice le tine chnámh, ag canadh faoi Eileanóir na Rún.
freillt, fliugh as bane ayns oor fo chay ta ollan croghey veih dress noa,
fest neesht, ta bineyn fliaghee leayr er’n lhiabbee olley foast nyn lhie, scoan ta ny cruinneenyn soit magh dy chionn, ayns dagh unnane, ta sollys ayn.
Annie Kissack
caught, white in a mist-hung hour wet wool looped from a new sprung briar, held too, raindrops resting fat and full upon a backdrop of shed wool, rationed, tiny beads that sit there tight in their glassy goblets, mediated light.
Annie Kissack
(translation from Manx done by the author herself)
Splinters attacked my woolly tights
My sister hoisted my little body over the rotten fence
Sarah KellyI was little and awed by the smell of compost, the prickle of thistles, the scratch of grass.
We laid tiny claim to stretching March evenings, extending, expandingMore space for dramatics, more clouds of little midges, Leaving itches-to scratch in the next day’s class.
I touched weeds and stinging plants. Wildflowers. The trees dropped their conkers, and were lit by candlesticks. We hung from their lower branches.
A pit of long grass and trees dropped there, between the garden and the main road. Limestone had been quarried from its rainforest depths. Now it birthed horse chestnuts, daffodils, dandelions, grasses, beech and ferns. We spent endless evenings with our hands in its dirt.
Winter wind toppled trees, their nerve-ending-roots ripped up craters
Amongst these we discovered antique secrets; Yellowed Tayto packets straight from 1996. A Bulmers bottle. A toy car.
Here another law existed completely, some archaic democracy, Sometimes a violent squabble would erupt, rippling out on tell-tale tongues. The quarry’s ancient hum drew us inexorably back. The light was short, we didn’t waste it. We held the light.
And the quarry hummed and the quarry hums still.
It whispers about its buried Barbies, burnt litter, lost jumpers. Daffodils torn out for mothers, It sings; slide, tumble, stumble, clamber
Tonight it’s this sweetness that my hoarse hangover seeks Carried on cold Spring evening air, and the sun’s setting, the evening’s expanding. Waiting for a bus on the quay by the Lee.
I am enveloped in fervour, deep longing for splinters For chilblains and itchy fingers, for an end to Winter.
The quarry calls me, My root nerve endings remember.
My father stopped the car near Port Jack Glen, the same battered thing, older than me, and hardly cleaned. Summer beamed through that greened window, the same gem emerald as the forgotten bottle of Sprite at my feet, that rolls around when he breaks, bumps my shoes, and bakes in the heat. He stops, we sit, we do not speak.
We’d been up to Ramsey, past Maughold and Cornaa, where the hills puddle and dissolve into a grassy flat. An awkward conversation, stilted and slim, like our shared namesake, a bird neither of us have seen. He limps now - he’s slow, he stutters, chews on gum with tombstone teeth, but the car runs quick and smooth as ever; a lick of dusty silver, like the basking shark that floats off the coast. A cigarette burns in his hand, dangled out of the window, as it has been for twenty years.
There’s not much to do on the islandit’s tired, sun-bleached, storm-weathered and piled with sandbags, in case the ocean stakes claim on the promenade. Despite this, the airport welcomes you, failt erriu dys Mannin, the walls plastered with activities we’ve never done, places we’ve never been.
Erin CraineInstead, we visit the same ones over and over, tying ourselves in knots, strangling. Yesterday we’d been to the Sound, then up, through Craigneash and Ballasalla, the road near Snaefell, where my mother would hide in bus stops, sixteen, clutching Breaker lagers with wind-bitten hands.
There’s nothing spoken between us, the weight of it seatbelted in the backseat, watching him pull the hand break, stewing in our silence. It’s as if she was therethat thing no one spoke of, despite the flesh and blood. Her name hangs from the rearview mirror, tinkers like tin cans stringed to the back bumper, blasts from the vents when the air is turned on, but he doesn’t say it. Not to me, Not out loud.
Beneath us, the sea stretches out beneath those cragged rocks, the Ben-my-Chree scratching its whorled surface, hardly touched by light pollution. It falls out from bounds of hills and straps of white houses, that zigzag the cul-de-sacsteeth on a zipper.
Maybe this is last time here, for a few years, at least while everything is as it is now. With him still here. Yet, there’s nothing to talk about,
the silence buzzes on bee wings and seafoam, a thin thread strung between us. Manannan’s salted whisper sings instead, and he smokes, we sit, we listen.
The M57 fences Liverpool in, Or perhaps keeps the wools out. It skirts along the outside, curls the petals, trims its fringe. Knowsley curves along the tarmac, stretching its fingers, reaching over to bridge Lancashire to Merseyside. it curls gelled hair between its index and middle, raises it to the gleam of sheep shears, and cuts.
The M57 brought Mam down from Heysham, ferried over on the Ben-My-Chree, crossing borders, pinballed, from Douglas, to Dublin, and back again. She lives in fringes, lies about where she’s from, says ‘depends who’s asking’. Manx to the English and English to the Manx, though she was not picked from hardy damson trees, or fished from the Irish Sea among kippers and queenies. She planted seeds in dry concrete, dragged them to flower by the scruff of their necks, in that rotted estate that tinkers, hollow, on the grey borderline between Fazakerley and Kirkby. When she gardens, she stoops low, pulls the stems tight in her fist, and cuts.
The M57 howls behind my house. It screeches in roars in the morning, carried on the December chill to my front door.
Erin CraineIt rattles me by the shoulders on the way to school, as Mam blasts the heating to defrost the windscreen. There, my accent sticks out, juts like a blade on a pair of scissors. The native ears sense the kick of my T’s and K’sthe product of wools, and of borders. But I have been steeped like a teabag in their humour, had my ears tuned to the frequencies of their voices, taught the lyrics, but not the melody. I am not one of them, but I am not anything elseScouse to the English, And English to the Scouse. When I come home, every so often, I am sat down on the squeaking, sticking wheelie chair, held still as Mam pulls my fringe between her fingers, straightens it up the blunt, blonde strands, and cuts.
sat between his hands, resting on his lap, and he sat on the stage in a shirt and a short beard. Around him but obscured to me by the heads of the crowd, are almost nine concertinas of varying sizes – he holds the first, and one of the largest in his lap, and he begins.
To watch Cormac Begley play the concertina is to see air made tactile. It is the instrument in its totality that is played, not simply the sounds squeezed from its lungs but the air it breathes, the light stamp of his leg keeping time, the sound of its buttons being pressed.
It is in his rendition of O’Neill’s March where this tactility of sound is most clearly apparent, as he swings and slams the bellows of the concertina – stretching the instrument past what looks like the point of no return; the slam of air through the crowd is as much a part of the performance, of the music, as the tune itself. So it is sound embodied in an intense way, Cormac Begley’s playing. Here is no automaton, here are fingers, a jigging leg keeping time, and sweat from his brow, his breathing and the breathing of the instrument being pulled and squeezed on his lap.
At one point, Begley stretches the extremes of the tune he is playing, quietening down to an intense degree so that the tune is barely recognisable, barely existent, and soon the tune vanishes altogether, and all the room and the crowd can hear are the amplified sounds of his fingers softly hitting the buttons of his instrument, playing a tune and not playing a tune – this percussive melody.
Ultimately, however, this is music to dance to. Stephanie Keane supplies one of the two accompanying dances, and the abandon with which she dances a polka makes it all make sense. Keane brings a liberty to the stereotypical strictures of traditional Irish dance, hair flying wild, limbs swirling with joyous abandon. She dances with a glorious combination of extreme precision and a contrived sense of spontaneity. The crowd cheers and squeals.
Begley is accompanied later by a group of set dancers – and again the percussive extremity of his playing is allied with this most fundamental purpose of traditional Irish music. It is dance music, music to move to, and Begley draws from this
tradition in a way that is rarely seen in traditional performances in mainstream music venues. It is odd – to see dancing as such in a venue such as Vicar Street appears like something of an anachronism. It is all changing, of course. The pub down the road from Vicar Street, where we saw Begley perform, has been renamed and renovated. I first had a pint there almost seven years ago, waiting, as I was this time, for a gig to start a few doors up. A man on a guitar was taking requests and, surrounded by a circle of red-faced onlookers, a middled-aged couple danced to his rendition of some 80s ballad..
His pint was sat on the bar but she held a goblet of gin tonic in her hand. The crowd seemed younger this time, and there was a poodle lounging on one of the new fake leather couches.
But here is this tactile sound, coming from Cormac Begley’s strained lungs. He pulls and squeezes his concertina, and I can reach out and touch the tune he plays, I can feel his fingers against my skin, and his breath mingles with mine in the air.
in the hush of the evening sky legs gathered beneath the weight of ourselves wool tucked under toes your arm curled behind the crook of my neck
the pull of our bodies as we lean into each other the pull of your warmth your hand fitting the shape of mine
the something solid feeling in that
the way your body stretches on and on and I will never know all the lengths of you like water running to the sea
but I will trace the lips of you, listen to the sound of your blush catch your words in my palms and drink thirstily
like a child at a bathroom tap
Jane Paul
and the sky will keep opening before us on and on and I will watch you while you catch light in your eyes
when the sun unfolds; gold peeling through trees our careful footprints through worn roots, birthed blue bells, sapling maples.
we draw each other in; backs pressed against tree trunks. my body folding over fallen leaves; you picking them from hair with sure hands.
when the night comes you fold around; limbs intertwined, quiet spaces stretching in the night.
birds calling through the window. you paint my skin with lover’s licks; pink, purling lilac.
the music of voices catching; moans draping across your naked back; hair lost in hair, eyes lost in eyes;
a familiar wood growing leaves. we walk, unearthed steps, bare feet along ground. is this how it feels to breathe?
Jane Paul
when the day comes, we circle your room clockwise. sun catching in our hair, on our bare skin, breath catching in our throats.
we meander through the veins of our city; sun pouring on our stained glass skin. lovers shattering in the night. blue angels flitting at our feet.
Tairngríodh go bhfaigheadh sí bás mar seo, ag luí ina haonar, a béal ar oscailt, ‘s dabaí seile ar a haghaidh.
Ina scámhóga, tá tuamaí folmha atá líneáilte le fíochrán lofa, fíochrán atá ag scáineadh, faoi mheáchan na gcathracha.
Do chroísa, beo faoi do chraiceann, idir na néaróga, ‘s na féitheoga; mothaíonn sé an buille aisteach sin a thagann ón gcré.
Buille neamhrialta, ag árdú is ag titim; daoine ag tochailt, ag análú, ‘s do lámha sa chré chráite sin.
Ar shlí éigin, tarraingíonn sí d’anam chuici, faoin talamh, faoi na coirteacha salachair, ‘s an dríodar sin atá fágtha, ag críoch an tsaoil.
Aisling Ní Choibheanaigh Nic Eoin
Ise, a craiceann spuaiceach; glaonn sí abhaile thú.
*See Notes section (ii) for more information on this translation project
Chaidh innse gum faigheadh i bàs mar seo, a’ laighe na h-aonar, a beul fosgailte, agus bleideagan seile air a h-aghaidh.
Na sgamhanan, tha tuaman falamh a tha lìonta le maothran lobhta, maothran a tha a’ sgàineadh fo chuideam nan cathair-bhaile.
Do chridhe-sa, beò fo do chraiceann, eadar na leithean, is na fèithean; tha e a’ mothachadh na buille àraid a thig on chrè.
Buille neo-riaghailteach, ag èirigh is a’ tuiteam; daoine a’ cladhach, a’ tarraing anail. is do làmhan sa chrè chràidhteach sin.
Dòigh air choreigin, bidh i a’ tarraing d’ anam thuice, fon talamh, fo na breathan salachair, is a’ ghrùid sin a tha air fhàgail, aig deireadh na beatha.
Ise, a craiceann builgeach, glaoidhidh i dhachaigh thu.
Robbie MacLeòid(English translation of ‘Tairngreacht’)
Aisling Ní Choibheanaigh Nic Eoin and Ursula O’Sullivan-Dale
It was predicted that she would die like this, on her own, lying with her mouth open and flecks of spit on her face.
A look inside her lungs shows empty tombs lined with rotten tissue, shows flesh that is crumbling beneath the weight of cities.
And your heart, alive under your skin, between the nerves and the sinews. It feels the strange rhythm that comes from the clay.
An irregular thump, rising and falling, people digging and breathing, and your hands in that wounded earth.
Unknown to you, she pulls your soul towards her, deep into the ground, and through the layers of grime, and that alluvial sediment that is left, at the end of life.
She, skin blistering; she calls you home, to her.
Diougan
(Breton translation of ‘Tairngreacht’)
Diouganet e oa e varvfe evel-se, Gourvezet en hec’h-unan, He genoù digor, Ha Bannigoù skop war he dremm.
En he skevent e kaver bezioù goullo goloet gant gwiad brein danvez o vreinañ dindan pouez ar c’hêrioù.
Da galon, bev dindan da groc’hen, etre an nervennoù hag ar stirennoù; klevet a ra al lamm iskis-se o tont deus ar pri.
Ul lamm direizh a gresk hag a gouezh; tud o kleuzañ, oc’h analañ, ha da zaouarn er pri poanius se.
Mod pe vod e sach da ene daveti dindan an douar, dindan gweleadoù kramm, hag al lec’hid a chom war-lerc’h, e fin ar vuhez.
He c’hroc’hen klogoret; He az kalv d’ar gêr.
Fañch Bihan-Gallic
Tá sé deacair glaineacht a bhaint amach na laethanta seo, tá gach rud monaraithe, Agus tar éis tamaill beidh fonn ort an fíor-rud a bhaint amach, is caithfidh tú tú féin isteach sa chré, Ach fiú ag an am sin, beidh roinnt de do chuid luaithrigh in adhmad silíní, le vearnais snasta,
Éist le hamhrán an traonaigh, nuair a éiríonn an aimsir níos teo, Féach ar an laghairt a léimeann ón bfhód móna a phiocann tú suas, Éist le do chorp níos minice, in áit d’intinn.
Where will I find you Berree Dhone? Up the heights of Creg ny Mohlt or under the deep pool of Cornaa, cold, but sliced by sunlight?
stone-clad hag, summit strider midnight’s thief, cattle raider, straying ox, flaying knife, hangman’s rope, so run for your life
Where will I find you Berree Dhone? On the long edge of Carraghyn or the mossy ridge of Beinn y Phott or on snow-scattered Sniaull?
behind the door, under the stone through the gap, across the glen, far beyond the mountain flank deep, deep down a sodden bank
Where will I find you Berree Dhone?
Lying choked on an ox’s bone, drowned for your deeds in an icy stream or caught in a tangled song?
never catch me, never name me, no man’s tune will ever claim me though the heather blaze behind me summer’s come, you will not find me
*Berree Dhone is a mysterious ‘cailliagh’ figure of Manx folksong and story. See section (iii) of notes for more information.
There are shadows that are cut out with the scissors of your fingers and that form black silhouettes on the white background of the painting there are your hands resting on the table that are not yours that are the hands of another that you don't know and who's drawing a drawing that you don't see because you are blind yes you are blind and the night is blind too and the day is blind and deaf so the day doesn't hear the music that you play that weird music that you play at night on your guitar the day doesn't hear the melody that screams the day doesn't hear the song that tells the gardens planted in the spring the day does not hear the sound of the voice singing and during that time the drawing is done by itself with your hands but without you in the same way the poem is written by itself with your hands but without you you are not there you have never been there there are these shadows cut out with the scissors of your fingers and which form like black silhouettes that you paste on the white background of a painting but of a painting that we would never have been painted there is no more day there is no more head there is no more drawing there there is no more silence there is no more madness there is no more distance between us here the night has been drawn like a curtain like a curtain on a painting a curtain among others drawn on a mass grave where the dead would be living and the living would already be dead.
It isn’t through conscious choice that Clodagh calls her mother on Sunday afternoons. Neither of them made the decision to call at this time, nor did either of them specify that this was the most convenient part of the week. It simply started happening.
It’s been eleven Sundays since Clodagh has heard her mother’s voice. She pulls the last few items of clothing she needs out of her suitcase: a pair of thermal socks and a newly-bought waterproof jacket. Outside, she sees the last turning of spring. The wallpaper in her hotel reminds her of the one in her childhood home, which winds around the landing and the curved wooden staircase. She lies down and closes her eyes, letting the weakness of her body pull her into a light and uncomfortable sleep.
It started with her short story, “Out on the Lake”, which appeared in a literary journal. A review of the piece followed, and meant she’d been mentioned in her local newspaper. She’d disliked how the article had hailed her as more successful than she was. It had also got her age wrong, making the smiling photo of her look warped, as if it had been taken in some moment of a life she hadn’t lived, of a woman with ghost-eyes.
The story itself, an extract of which appeared alongside the photo, had been about summers she spent in the yellow house, which sits on the edge of Lough Conn in Mayo, just out of sight of a peninsula that branches out into the lake. She never can call up the name of the man who built the house, confusing it with a story about the forming of the Lough, of floodwaters running from the feet of a hunted boar and the ancient sound of pursuing hounds.
“Out on the Lake” told the story of her going out to the peninsula when she was eight. She then comes back as an adult to bury a body there, on the same day, after the passing of twenty six summers, beneath an August sky filled with shadows. Looking out at the view from her hotel room, the cheapest one she could get at the last minute, she thinks of what she’s always wanted to say to her mother. The empty space left in her Sunday afternoons lets her take the time to fill these gaps. Clodagh tries to replay the last conversation they had, to recreate her mother’s tone. Instead, she wonders why she hadn’t just said nothing, as she usually did, and punished herself later.
After her mother read the story, she rang Clodagh to ask her why she’d written it, and if she was happy now that she’d alienated herself from her and the rest of her side of the family.
‘You’ve made it sound like torture being there, Clodagh. Why do you always come back to this? Why can’t you let it go? It’s like you see me as some sort of neglectful mother, the woman in this story is so cold.’
She recalls the dull static of the line, and how she couldn’t quite tell if her mother had been crying.
‘Of course not. How many times have I said it’s only fiction? I’ve just used a familiar point of reference, the island, and built something around that. It’s a story, I promise. That’s not how I see you.’
‘You know what, Clodagh, you always undermine my intelligence. I know what a parapraxis looks like, and I know why you wrote this.’
‘Mum, please, that’s not what this is. I don’t even like the story that much,’ which wasn’t necessarily a lie. Clodagh had always had a skill for ruining things for herself, for directing her actions through her mother’s words.
‘Can we please talk about something else? It doesn’t mean anything, it’s just how I write. I have to ground it in something familiar, or…I don’t know, I can’t do it otherwise.’
‘Something familiar? What about this woman who refuses to praise her daughter, and who is happy to leave her alone for two weeks with these “relatives” she barely knows, not caring about what happens while she’s away, is “familiar”? I just don’t understand why you’d write this unless, on some subconscious level, you wanted me to read it and dredge this all back up.’
‘I –’
‘And let’s not forget this trip to “Crete”, which is clearly about us choosing to go to Italy one summer,’ at this point, her mother began reading from the story, making Clodagh cringe down the line.
‘Something about the heat felt like a punishment. Not something vague and abstract, like a grand, cosmic injustice, but something of the self. She felt she could understand, then, the primal urge to see the burning of bodies, of exposed skin. How it cleansed. She wondered, perhaps for the first time, the true extent to which her religious upbringing,’ her mother emphasised the word religious here, ‘had shaped her, had sown this fear of her own body. As if it could all be connected back to that first bite of heat…what is this but a direct look back at your own childhood, at my own parenting?’
The women took a deep breath, together, before either of them spoke again.
‘Why does this conversation have to be like this? Why couldn’t you just ask me how I feel, or what it all means, rather than just accusing me?’
‘I’m not a narcissist, Clodagh, I know what narcissism looks like.’
‘Oh why, because you raised me?’
‘Don’t put words in my mouth.’
‘You know, of all the things in that story you could have focused on, you ignored the pain. All of it, all of…of a lost child who ends up turning a childhood memory into a grave. What do you think that says about my mind, how I feel?’ her voice was shaking with the effort of trying to stay measured. The end of the line was silent.
After a pause, Clodagh asked, ‘Mum?’, feeling like she’d given something up by speaking.
‘I am trying to think of how to respond to that, Clodagh. Give me a minute.’
‘Okay.’
For a moment, all that followed was a protracted sigh.
‘Clodagh, I am not trying to make light of the pain you said you felt or... feel. It’s just difficult, feeling like I’m still being punished, to use your words, like there’s something I’ve done wrong that you can’t let go of. You’ve just admitted to me that parts of this story are meant to be taken literally.’
Realising her mistake, Clodagh remembers clenching her teeth together, not seeing a way out.
‘Yes, but–’
‘This makes me feel like you only see your Mayo holidays as some sort of prolonged agony, and that you’re never going to be able to forgive me for that,’ her voice was starting to take on its preferred tone: raised and untouchable.
‘That’s not true though, Mum, I promise. I don’t…I,’ she paused, looking for the right words to make the pain leave her mother’s voice.
‘I can’t atone for the mistakes I don’t know I’ve made, Clodagh. Maybe this is a story about your pain but it’s clearly not just about that. There can’t be a victim without a bully.’ Her mother’s talent for sounding both fragile and righteous often both scared and impressed her daughter. Thinking back to it, Clodagh twitches, absorbing the familiar guilt, anger, shame, sadness.
‘Please,’ she said, not even sure what she was asking.
‘And…it makes me feel like you put all of this…pain, in one place, like my side of the family has just been some massive source of trauma. I don’t see any love in these words,’ as Clodagh listened, she looked out of her apartment window, and the grass patch breaking up the cement blocks of the square below. The ugly colour of city-grass, bottle-green. Something in need of nourishment and tending.
In her hotel room now, she feels herself falling backwards into this moment with her mother. How both women suddenly seemed far away from themselves, shouting across a long stretch of water, losing words in the wide, blue pulse.
Mostly, though, Clodagh wonders how she hadn’t foreseen this. She’d known the way it sounded when she’d submitted it, and she hadn’t objected when the editor had suggested she’d focused ‘more on the trauma’. She remembers writing the land, the unending churn of the lake and the enclosing trees, returning to the mounted deer skull knocking in the wind, calling out through the veil of the worlds, through the late summer-night air.
‘And don’t get me started on your father. All smiles and jokes and sympathy. I sound so cold next to him,’ her mother’s voice pulls her from one memory to another.
‘He’s barely in it, Mum.’
‘But what is there speaks volumes.’
‘But it’s fiction. I’ve taken the details from those trips, to build something else. It’s nothing more, I promise.’
‘I don’t think you’re seeing what I see, Clodagh. This is not some trivial detail to me, it’s a thorough accounting of…me, as a mother. That’s how this ‘invented’ life feels.’
‘Well, I’m truly sorry that it’s made you feel that way. That was not my intention.’ She let out a sigh.
‘I know, but you wrote it, Clodagh. That was intentional.’ Another deep breath, and the line went dead.
The memory of the conversation, and what was said exactly, is fading a little, but the warning in her mother’s voice remains, lingering with Clodagh in private, quiet moments. She resents the story, now, and the loss of that brief feeling of being freed by it.
It is this sense of being watched, of the slow burn of her mother’s voice, that she tries to push from her mind as she pulls up to the yellow house. The fading paint, the colour of old summers, flickers in and out of sight through the black bushes as the car makes its way slowly up the long, curved drive.
She feels herself sift into another lifetime, some other form, as she stops for her first look at the house in years. Fumbling for the old key above the door, she sinks into a smaller, more fragile body, and walks in and drops her bags down in the kitchen. She does not bother with putting them away right now, instead starting to pick at the skin of her arm. With the bags offloaded, she walks into the room she’d stayed in as a child, and thinks about how, before she left the next morning, her mother would always tuck her in on her first night.
It takes three hours to pull the boat out from the old shed, through the trees and down to the bank. Her muscles ache and tear at the surface of her skin from the labour of it. The path out of the trees and to the Lough is overgrown and full of sharp and itchy plants, which move in and out of their once familiar shapes in the half-light of the moon. Its faltering curve rests on the lake, bringing the peninsula clearly into her line of sight as she moves forward. The night is cold, an Irish summer night, and the brightness of her skin in the thinning moonlight makes her ethereal, bringing her closer to the last passage out of this life.
She rests, for a moment, caught in the slow speech of the wet earth and the tide lapping at the bank. After a minute, she pulls the large bag up to the side of the boat and hauls it over the edge, causing a hollow thud as it hits the flat bottom. It’ll be another couple of hours until she’s back on land, she thinks, packing oars into the small vessel, in case the engine fails.
The next few hours are difficult, as she predicted. Movement through the water feels rough, despite the windless night, and she finds herself longing for a companion on the ride.
The following morning, Clodagh wakes to an unsettling pale light, which falls through the gap in the blind. The child’s bedroom, which sits at the front of the house on the ground floor, looks onto a field, where there are sometimes cows. In the summers of her childhood, their noises would often find her and disturb her sleep, scaring her into thinking something else might be out there. The grey sunshine creeping into the room belongs to a specific place and time; by being back here, she is intruding. Any minute now, and the other occupants of the home, of this house meant for a large family of six or seven, are going to come in and pull her from the bed and throw her into the Lough, or leave her in the shade of the woods, which creep and curve around the house like ribs. The family will start unloading shopping from the Dunnes in Ballina, or bringing in shells from the beach at Enniscrone, or rocks from the strand at Killala. The children will groan and drag their feet because they all have to go to Céide Fields, for its historical value, and long for sand and swimming, despite the cold. All the while, the parents will make sandwiches, sharing secret smiles as they check swimming costumes and towels are packed, rub suncream on unwilling faces and perform final shimmies of the keys in the door, though it’s not really needed around here.
Instead, the house fills with the sounds of one. One woman, who gets out of bed and finds the route to the kitchen with her eyes half-open. Who follows the lines of the house, which belong somewhere in her, and are familiar like the contours of a raised scar.
Sitting with tea, looking out of the back window of the kitchen, she sees the stretch of grass, of its rich green, and how it blurs into brown before blackening into the Lough. She feels as if she is looking at something out of time.
As moments from her dream crawl back to her, she reaches for the fumbling hands of something that hasn’t quite found its way into waking. The uncertainty of its trace fills her with guilt, as if there’s something buried in her memory of the night that she’s forgotten.
Chaidh mo lìonadh le fàileadh cheimigeach an t-seòmair. Bha e mar mheatailt, no peatral, no fuil. Bha e fhèin aig taobh thall an t-seòmair, meataigean glan, gorm air. Dhùin mi an dorast gu sgiobalta. Nan ruigeadh solas an seòmar, sgriosadh e a h-uile càil.
Bhon chiad latha a thòisich an clas Ealain aig Àrd-Ìre, bha Anndra air m’ aire a thàladh. Cha b’ urrainn dhomh ràdh dè bh' ann mu dhèidhinn. Bha e tarraingeach na choltas, bha sin fìor, le gruag bhàn sgiobalta air, agus gàire lasrach. Ach dh'fhaoidteadh gur e mar a bha e ga ghiùlain fhèin a thug orm smaointinn air. Bha àileadh mu chuairt, mar gun robh gach nì furasta. Is ged a bha e bliadhna nas àirde na bha mise san sgoil, bha mi a’ faireachdainn mar gun robh ionnanachd air choireigin ann eadarainn. Bha an dithist againn àiteigin eadar gillean agus fir. Agus cha robh gille eile air an leithid de dh'fhaireachdainn nochdadh annam roimhe.
‘Ciamar a tha dol dhut?’ dh'fhaighnich mi, ann an leth-chagair. Ged nach robh feum againn a bhith sàmhach san t-seòmar, bha rudeigin mu dheidhinn a thug ort bhith sòlaimaichte, mar eaglais.
‘Ò,’ thuirt Anndra, a’ tionndadh. Bha teanchair aige na làimh. ‘Thu fhèin a th’ ann. Rònan, nach e?’
Ghnog mi mo cheann, ach cha robh mi cinnteach am faca e. Mar sin, thuirt mi, ‘’S e. Anndra, nach e?’
‘Sin mi,’ thuirt e. Chunnaic mi oir a ghàire tron leth-dhorchadas. ‘Tha dol gu math, tha mi smaointinn. Uill, chì sinn ann an greis, saoilidh mi.’
Chaidh mi seachad air, dhan bhocsa eile anns an robh na ceimicean. Chuirinn mo dhealbhan ann, agus, mar dhraoidheachd, no Frankenstein, bhiodh beatha ùr annta.
Dh’fheuch mi gun aire idir a tharraing dhomh fhèin, ach dh’fhairich mi mar gun robh sùilean Anndrais orm. Sheall mi ris uair no dhà, a’ dearbhadh gun robh. Bha gàire air aghaidh a bha làn mì-mhodh. Carson a bha e gam sgrùdadh mar sin?
Nochd e rim thaobh, mar fhaileas. Bha m’ anail nam uchd. Chuir mi sìos na dealbhan dubha a bha agam nam làimh. ‘Faodaidh,’ thuirt mi. Rinn mi oidhirp air misneachd, ach bha mo ghuth fiù ’s na b’ ìsle a-nis.
‘Uill…’ thuirt Anndra. Chuir e làmh air a’ bhòrd, a’ sealltainn mun cuairt orm.
‘Tha mi rìamh air faireachdainn gun robh an leithid de dh’àite, uill…’ Sheall e gu dlùth orm, nam shùilean, is chunnaic mi na coin-fhaicaill aige na ghàire.
‘Suidheachadh car romansach a th’ ann, nach e?’
Bha mi air mo dhòigh nach nochdadh ruadh nam ghruaidhean san solas seo.
Ghabh mi anail agus sheall mi air ais air na dealbhan agam, air a’ bhogsa cheimigeach air mo bheulaibh. Cha robh anns na dealbhan ach sgàilean an-dràsta. Cò aig a bha fios dè bhiodh annta?
Ghabh mi anail eile. Bha còir agam smaointinn mun seo. Bha còir agam smaointinn mu na cridhe briste a bha Anndra air adhbhrachadh thar na bliadhna. Bha còir agam cumail orm le m’ obair, is deuchainnean ri teachd. Bha iomadh rud ann a bha còir agam dèanamh. Agus aon rud nach robh còir agam dèanamh, idir.
‘Tha, is mise,’ thuirt mi. Chuala mi Anndra a’ gàireachdainn gu socair. Dh’fhairich mi rudeigin mar bheothach ann an ribe. Chan e fiù ’s gun robh mi coma; bha mi deònach.
‘Agus am faod mi fhèin rudeigin a ràdh?’ thuirt mi. Bha mo chridhe a' sìor-bhualadh nam chom, rud a bha fiù ‘s nas àirde nam chluasan ann an sàmhchair an t-seòmair. Chunnaic mi san leth-dhorchadas Anndra a' gnogadh a chinn.
Gu slaodach, thog mi mo ghàirdean. Shìn mi mo làmh a-mach, gus an robh e a’ laighe air gualann Anndrais.
‘Tha cliù agad, Anndra,’ thuirt mi. Bha m’ anail nam uchd, is cha robh ach cagair bhuam.
‘Ò, tha, a bheil?’ thuirt e. Ìoc, a’ ghàire ud. Chuir e a’ chaoch orm, agus rudan eile cuideachd.
‘Tha,’ thuirt mi. Bha fuil na dheann timcheall mo bhodhaig, a’ bualadh nam chluasan.
‘Droch chliù, tha mi an dòchas,’ thuirt e. Bha e cho faisg orm a-nis is gun robh mi faireachdainn anail orm.
‘Fìor dhroch,’ thuirt mi.
‘’S dòcha gum bu chòir dhut stad, ma-thà,’ thuirt e.
‘’S dòcha,’ thuirt mi. Airson dearbhadh, chuir mi ris: ‘Am faod…?’
Leig e gàire às. Chuala mi fuaim na miataigean aige tighinn dheth. Phut e bhathais rim cheann. ‘Faodaidh’.
Chuir mi mo làmh ri cùl amhaich, ga tharraing thugam. Dh’fhairich mi làmh làidir air mo chruachann. Chuir e a bhilean teatha orm, agus bha gach nì dorcha, le meatailt, is peatral, agus fuil. Bha sinn cho sàmhach ri diùird. Nan ruigeadh solas an seòmar, sgriosadh e a h-uile càil.
When they find him, he will be sleeping in the sun. They could have found him easily, if only they had known where to look.
Not under his father’s bed, no. But in the garden, at the back of the house, avoiding the bees in the shadow shrouded over the grass by the trees.
It is a mid summer.
The Autumn hawkbits sparsely populate the blades that they always raise themselves above.
And most graceful of all, with translucent wings, that ugly insect walks the tightrope of the washing line
Hanged by his mother
Strung like a hammock between each eye, Stretching from the corner of the door til it disappears through leaves.
Shadow extends from the house over the grass and gravel, Grovelling
Away from him.
Come back here! Where are you getting off to! They must have known? Did you exceed yourself in that exhibition of enervation? Better than we silently expected? Or the same as… ?
Then through the flaked gates Finally Come Dance with me, Dad!
Barefoot, if you like, in the garden you just cut fine.
He cannot– he is too busy preparing the rims of the room for his friends so they might say it is tidy, just this once.
With eyes for shards of glass, green meshed with grass, ach ní raibh sé riamh ar meisce.
Dar liom, bheadh sé fíor-bhinn
ceol an smólaigh a chloisteáil ag bomaite mo bhás.
Dár ndóigh, bheadh me ar mo shuaimhneas in áit faoi ghruaim.
I lár sonas, in áit i lár an tinnis
Dá gcloisfinn athrá gleoite an cara beag donn Roimh go ndúnfainn mo chluasa go deo.
Niamh Hughes is an Irish visual artist and maker currently based in Edinburgh. Having a flair for the interdisciplinary, Hughes has worked with painting, costume, moving image and more. From her undergraduate degree at the National College of Art and Design, a residency programme at the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and an apprenticeship at the Edinburgh Open Workshop, Hughes has developed an expansive set of skills and artwork.
Annie Kissack recently retired from teaching at the Bunscoill Ghaelgagh, the Manx-medium primary school at St Johns on the Isle of Man. A former pupil of Mona Douglas, that renowned collector of traditional Manx song, dance and folklore, Annie writes and arranges Manx Gaelic songs for her own very successful choir, Caarjyn Cooidjagh. She is the President of Yn Chruinnaght Celtic festival. She began writing poetry about six years ago and in 2018 won the title of Fifth Manx Bard. Many of her folklore-related poems have been made available online, thanks to Culture Vannin, from whom she was also awarded a grant to publish a collection of her own Manx-themed poetry, Mona Sings, in 2022. The collection, which includes several poems in Manx Gaelic, is available from https://www.bridge-bookshop.com.
’S e sgrìobhaiche agus acadaimigeach a th’ ann an Robbie MacLeòid, a bhios a’ cruthachadh sa Ghàidhlig agus sa Bheurla. Tha e foillsichte an Gutter, New Writing Scotland, 404 Ink, agus STEALL, am measg àiteannan eile. Tha e an-dràsda ag obair air Deir i, ceòldrama mu Dheirdire agus Mhic Uisnich.
Fañch Bihan-Gallic is originally from An Arzh, in Lower-Brittany. He studied Gaelic medieval literature, and Scottish Gaelic ethnography and language, and now lives and works in the Outer Hebrides.
Killian Beashel is from Co. Wicklow and has recently completed a Master’s degree at the University of St Andrews. His work has been published in Aimsir and The Steady Drip.
Erin Craine (she/they) is a queer Liverpudlian-Manx writer currently studying Creative Writing in the North West, where she specialises in television and theatre scripts. The poetry included in this edition of Aimsir comes from a collection in which they attempt to examine how place and landscape can relate to memory and identity, and her status as an outsider: Manx in Liverpool, and Liverpudlian in the Isle of Man. Currently writing a comedy-drama exploring masculinity, stereotype, and cultural pride set in her native Liverpool, her other credits include the one-act play Faith, various short films, and a children’s picturebook reflecting her experiences growing up with undiagnosed ADHD. When she’s not hunched over writing on her laptop, Erin spends her free time sewing, eating crisps and making copious amounts of soup for their non-profit free food initiative, formed to aid students during the cost-of-living crisis.
Sarah Kelly is an Irish artist born in Kilkenny and currently living in Cork. Her work often centres on play, joy, magic and the natural world. She believes in the power and necessity of art to build community and create action. She is excited for the stretch in the evenings. You can see more of her work on Instagram, @sarah.kellyart.
Cian Dunne recently graduated from a degree in English and Russian at Trinity College Dublin. In his final year, he edited the Trinity Journal of Literary Translation. Faoi láthair, tá sé ag múineadh Gaeilge do dhaltaí meánscoile, ag scríobh, agus ag smaoineamh ar an samhradh.
Ivan de Monbrison is a squirrel born in a tree, which has been lobotomised before birth, inside the womb of an apricot. He plays the guitar, though awfully, writes some texts when he’s depressed, and dabbles in painting using only weird colours. He’s currently busy breeding a colony of wild mice in his studio in Paris, and feeding a crow as well, mice and crow both being fed exclusively with peanuts. The mice seem to have lost all sense of pride and dignity in this dreadful process.
Jane Paul is an Aotearoa New Zealand poet, actress and teacher of Irish descent currently living in Brussels. Her first collection of poetry, Ebbs&Floods, was released in October 2022; inspired by the callous and curing west coast of Ireland. Her work has been published internationally, but mostly she finds solace in the untamed or extended eye contact with people on public transport.
(i) This line is taken from the piece ‘Night in Arran’, published in the 1896 ‘Book of the Summer’, the only summer edition released by Patrick Geddes and William Sharp throughout the lifespan of The Evergreen: A Northern Seasonal. Published more than a year after the Spring issue, the ‘Book of the Summer’ is similarly punctuated by a number of delicate illustrations, and contains writing of a seasonal focus, but it contains an intensity that is not seen in the Spring issue. This intensity is balanced between critical analyses of the natural world, and of humanity’s place within it, and those calls for a return to ‘Celtic’ ways of living, something which the turn of the century exacerbated.
(ii)
‘Tairngreacht’ was born out of an interest in the ceremony of poetic lamentation within the Irish cultural tradition, but here, the body being mourned is substituted for an image of the earth. There are four linguistic versions of it, the original being the Irish. It was then translated into Gàidhlig by our wonderful Gàidhlig editor Robbie MacLeòid, and into Breton by Fañch Bihan-Gallic. Finally, the rough English version was originally laid out by Aisling and revised by Ursula O’Sullivan-Dale, taking the form that you read in these pages today.
The layout of these pieces plays an important role in their consumption. The Irish and Gàidhlig versions sit side by side, so that the similarities and differences between these two Goidelic languages can be studied with a relatively uninterrupted flow. Our intention with this is to encourage more projects in which English is de-centred within representations of translated work. The spread in the following two pages contains the English and Breton versions, two languages that differ immensely in their linguistic structure. Their interaction highlights the value of translation and its ability to create entirely distinct pieces of work.
I first met this strange character in a traditional Gaelic song local to the hilly country to the north east of the Isle of Man. She is certainly a creature of the mountains as the chorus indicates:
‘Hemmayd roin gys y clieau dy hroggal y voain as dy yeeaghyn vel Berree Dhone sthie er yn oie.’
(Let’s go to the mountain to raise the turf to see if Berree Dhone is at home this night.) Elsewhere in the song, the peaks she haunts are listed.
Most of the song makes little narrative sense as a whole but it’s full of weird imagery, perhaps from several sources. So what is known of this woman? She’s a shape shifter, looming up behind a door or lying buried beneath a rocky slab; sometimes, a giant strider of the high peaks, sometimes a yellow-clad figure riding a goat! To her has been attributed leadership of a coven of witches and a pool in a glen. She is a cattle stealer, but there are also hints that she herself can transform into a cow! She’s adept at avoiding capture whatever. Inevitably she remains a subject of some academic discussion. And a good subject for a poem.
As a singer and writer, I feel very much in the position of that hardy chorus of onlookers, trying and failing to make sense of what I’m witnessing. Rather like Manx Gaelic itself, so much traditional lore has been lost over the years that I’m very aware of the fragmentary nature of what remains. But as a poet, that can appeal. As does Berree Dhone herself; her refusal to let an easy meaning be ascribed to her. Whether she’s based on a historical figure or an amalgam of much older traditions, I’ve chosen to portray her as an independent spirit of the mountains in winter. And now it’s May, she’s off and good luck to her!
