Acknowledgements

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.

Notes from the editors.

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 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’.

Aim-sir: [noun, fem]

weather, season, world, time, tense

Breochloch

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 MacLeòid

D’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.

Meek

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

Blink

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)

Spirit of the Quarry

Splinters attacked my woolly tights

My sister hoisted my little body over the rotten fence

Sarah Kelly

I 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.

Failt Erriu dys Mannin

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 places we’ve never been.

Erin Craine

with activities we’ve never done, places we’ve never been. Instead, 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.

Aimsir

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.

Fringe

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.

Erin Craine

Aimsir

The M57 howls behind my house. It screeches in roars in the morning, carried on the December chill to my front door. It 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.

Cormac Begley’s lungs

Killian Beashel

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 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.. 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

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.

Jane Paul

Like

a child at a bathroom tap and the sky will keep opening before us on and on and I will watch you while you catch light in your eyes

sun catching in our hair; breath catching in our throats

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.

Tairngreacht

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

Fàidheardaireachd (Gàidhlig translation of ‘Tairngreacht’)

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

Prophecy

(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

Glaineacht

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.

Winter’s Witch

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 behind the door, under the stone through the gap, across the glen, far beyond the mountain flank deep, deep down a sodden bank 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

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?

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?

*Berree Dhone is a mysterious ‘cailliagh’ figure of Manx folksong and story. See section (iii) of notes for more information.

Pasted papers

Ivan de Monbrison

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.