ART & SOUL J o K adlecek
Art & Justice in an Irish Beer Garden There’s gold in the hills and coastal roads of Connemara, Ireland. Not the kind you’d wear on your finger but the kind that enriches your soul. Every glance across this place is inspiring, partly because from Galway to Leenane and each village in between, there’s not a hint of the consumer culture which litters US roads—no advertisement or billboard in sight. It is as if this land has always been God’s. Of course it has not. Its history— invisible to contemporary eyes—tells a less serene story, one of bloody tensions between Catholics and Protestants, wealthy and peasant, royalty and commoner.Today, however, all is calm amidst the fertile, bucolic beauty. Last July, in celebration of my 50th birthday, I flew my two teenage nieces and their mom over to Ireland to bicycle with me through Connemara. They had never before traveled outside the States and knew little of Ireland’s contemplative landscape or tragic history. Our trip together was to mark such discoveries.We were not disappointed. Along the coast northwest of Galway, we set out with our cycles and maps for a five-day tour of nonstop biking. Each day offered dozens of inspiring views; on day three, we were stunned by a majestic castle that presented itself along the edge of a glassy lake.We took photos and lingered as long as we could, but we needed to get to our B&B by nightfall, so we rode on to the village of Tully Cross (Cross on the Hill) and went looking for dinner, but instead were taken back to the castle by way of Paddy Coyne’s Pub and Beer Garden. It turns out that every summer
Wednesday, Paddy hosts a traditional Irish culture night for villagers as well as tourists. The night we were there, a two-person acting troupe was setting up the stage as we sought out the last available seats in the beer garden behind the pub. The “curtain” went up and the actors magically took on multiple characters, telling the story of the castle. It went like this: As the potato famine was ending in 1849, Mitchell Henry, a devout Protestant doctor, leased Kylemore Lodge around the lake we’d seen earlier that day. He wanted his wife, Margaret, to enjoy the serenity of the place, so he hired common folks —the poor who’d barely survived the famine—to construct a castle. Most wealthy men were leaving Ireland at the time, but Henry stayed. He built houses for his workers and brought unique stone and stained glass up from Galway on horseback. He built glass houses around the castle, precursors to green houses, to grow vegetables and flowers for them during the winter. But Henry did not just employ his neighbors, the actors told us; he ministered to them. He even represented them in Parliament, ensuring their dignity and citizenship with the government. His wife cooked for them and taught their children. Their partnership in ministry built a legacy that remains with locals today. To them, Mitchell and Margaret Henry are heroes, “good Christian people” who made the lives of the poor better by staying to serve when they could have left. The story then took a twist: 40 years after construction was completed, Henry lost the castle to corrupt landowners nearby. They threatened his workers, and he was forced to sell the castle to British merchants, who eventually foreclosed on the property. The castle sat empty for seven years. But in 1920 a community of Benedictine nuns, who had escaped persecution in Belgium when their abbey was destroyed in World War I, learned of Kylemore Castle. They recognized it— as Henry had—as a refuge of peace, purPRISM 2009
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chased it,and made it their home.Kylemore Castle became Kylemore Abbey, an order of prayer and work where flowers are still grown and children still taught. As the curtain fell in the beer garden, I sat, as stunned by what I’d seen on stage as I had by the Irish countryside. Here, in a town called Cross on the Hill, in a land of historic conflict, I watched art and justice once again intersect, telling the personal story of God’s grace. A kind Protestant doctor had rebuilt the local economy, cared for the poor, and built a castle as a result. That castle became a refuge for Catholic nuns in a country known more for its religious tensions than its unifying symbols. And their combined story was being told in live theatre in a beer garden of a village pub. We couldn’t have asked for a better gift. The actors, Ros and Sean Coynes (Paddy’s sister-in-law and brother), were delighted by my enthusiasm.Their vision, they told us, was to keep Connemara culture and history alive through local theater. Ros’s father, an Oxford professor, had conducted numerous oral histories of the local people (archived now in Trinity College). Her mother had been commissioned to write the Kylemore play by a former abbey student who loved the story. So Ros and Sean performed the Kylemore story—and many other plays of local lore—in all kinds of venues for children, tourists, seniors, and neighbors. Their generosity of art was equal to that of the Protestant/Catholic mission of Kylemore (Castle) Abbey, a reminder that art keeps alive the cultural gold of a local region. It brings to life and puts on display the work of a perpetually creative God. And to this day, I’m not sure which was more inspiring about that trip: the Kylemore story or the glorious scenery of Ireland. Both testify that this indeed is God’s land. ■ Jo Kadlecek is on the communication arts faculty of Gordon College in Wenham, Mass.