On Tuesday morning, 15 or 20 minutes behind schedule (depending on whose side you're on) we crossed the Sheefry pass in a blizzard. It's a difficult drive from Durless to Drummin. Some of the crests are so steep that it feels like the car might fall off the road. I drove in third gear, in some hurry, in a slight huff. As the snow flurries turned to hail, Andrew called the airline to make sure that the flight hadn’t been cancelled. They sounded surprised to hear from him and it was only when we’d cleared the mountains that we could see why; it was a beautiful day in Connemara. “It’s on” he said, as I swung white-knuckled round another bend, worried that the weather would keep us from getting there at all. Then the airline called back. Andrew had called to confirm an imaginary 10.30 flight, they called back to confirm that we were we were booked on an actual one at 10. “I’m sorry love” he said. I didn’t say anything, I just drove, using both sides of the road and swerving round sheep-shaped chicanes. Mitsubishi Carismas are not built for rallying.
We made it. We checked and weighed in, and took a seat at one of the tables in the waiting room. As we looked out the window a man walked past, pulling our plane by the nose. It was so small, it didn’t look like there was anywhere to seat passengers. It looked like it should come with a remote control. When our names were called, we filed out with four others and sat into seats so small that my knees were pressed into the pilot’s back. His dapper uniform looked out of place in the dinky Cessna. He started the engines and cruised down the runway, the squish, bounce and rattle made it feel like the backseat of a Beetle. And then we took off. My stomach lurched. It seemed impossible that this thing could fly. I’ve never once thought about what keeps a 747 up in the air. It’s a bit like getting into a lift and arriving at another floor – all done behind closed doors, no need to worry about how it works. But sitting in the cockpit of a flying dinky with the sea spread out below, I found myself worryingly curious about the physics.
We made it. We landed without so much as a bump and were met by a minibus to bring us to our B&B. The other passengers were local. The driver dropped them to their doors, then pulled down the microphone on the dash. “This graveyard to our right holds the remains of 137 saints” he said, before going on to tell us about the island’s 400odd kinds of wildflower and 30 species of butterfly. “If a single girl sees 7 white horses in a day” he said “she’ll marry the next single man she meets”. I started counting.
The B&B was rag-rolled and cramped. We went for a walk, up to Dún Aonghusa by the low road. There were signs along the way for a seal colony. Andrew clapped and barked, but there were only three seals there, rolling fatly on the rocks. Later, in a café, I heard an earnest young couple poring over their picture map, trying to decide where to go next. “The seal colony!” she yelped. “There are only three of them in the picture” he said. “Wouldn’t they have put a better picture than that into the brochure?” They had rented a tandem, and I thought there but for the grace of god go I. I’m an atheist, but it’s a good phrase.
We nattered all the way, except when the hail came in. Then we huddled, taking shelter in a ruined church and kissing wetly, our hoods making a snorkel. “Which island was Peig from?” he asked. “An Blascaod Mór” I said, laughing at him “and that’s going in my post”. He asked if she was famous for her writing before she died, and I told him that she didn’t write, actually, that others wrote her stories down for her. I am an insufferable scoffing wanker when I want to be, gaeilgeoir go smoir, and I am amazed that Andrew puts up with me at all.
Muintir na háite made no such concessions to my show-off tendencies. I have no marketable skills bar a fluency in Irish. As a result I am inordinately proud of my proficiency in what is, to too many minds, a completely useless and vaguely offensive language. There though, on Inis Mór, they speak it. For once I would have a social advantage over my handsome and hugsome husband-to-be. People like him better, you see. He's engaging and good-looking when I am awkward and puce-faced. Not on Inis Mór though. There, I would confound locals with my grasp of their tongue, then tickle them with the two jokes I know as Gaeilge. I would be loved.
You'd think, anyway. I rolled my Rs and elongated my accented vowels, wankily overprounouncing signposts and shop signs to emphasise that I SPEAK IRISH. Everyone addressed us in English. I thanked them in Irish, ordered my tea in Irish, asked for a slice of cake in Irish. They just smiled indulgently. When we picked up our bag from the B&B on Wednesday afternoon, I waited for the Bean an Tí to finish her call so that I might settle our bill. Tá an-bhrón orm cur isteach ort, I said, ach ní raibh dóthain againn leis an mbille a íoc ar maidin mar níor thuigeamar nach nglacann sibh le cártaí creidmheasa. Seo chugat anois é, agus go raibh míle maith agat arís. She looked at the €70 proffered, took it, counted it (all two notes of it, a €20 and a €50) and said “I thot ye’d pade it dis moarnin’. I wiz on da foan”. Yes, well. I nodded and went back out to the waiting bus.
The driver was dark-skinned and freckled, like Morgan Freeman in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. “Are you from the island?” Andrew asked, but he wasn’t, he was from Connemara. Figuring he might know anyway, he asked him about the tiny whitewashed cottages we’d seen in the gardens of many of the houses, little dollhouse-sized things with red doors and windowframes and corrugated roofs. I’d told him they were fairy goblin houses, built so that the sí would stay outside and leave the family alone. “I’m often asked about them” said Morgan “but there’s no superstition to them. They’re just something that people on the island make, as a hobby”. Poor fuckers.
Back in the cottage in Mayo late that night, with its whitewashed walls, red door and windowframes, we heard a thud as we lay in bed. “What was that?” Andrew whispered. “Just something coming down the chimney” I yawned, thinking in soot and feathers. “Not fairy goblins, love”.
