From the Great Blasket to America

by Michael Carney

  The Congested Districts Board, an agency of the British government charged with improving living conditions, bought the island from the Earl of Cork in 1907 – for just a few hundred pounds. At that point, the land was divided among the islanders with twenty-five families each receiving a house, a small field and rights to use the common land. The islanders became landowners!

  Sadly, the young people of the island were never taught about its history as we were growing up. We didn’t talk about specific dates and events involving the island in them days. Everything was just hearsay. The islanders used to say that the Great Famine that occurred in Ireland in the mid-1800s hit the island too, but not as bad as in the rest of Ireland. I suppose it was because of the physical separation from the mainland; maybe the blight that infected Ireland’s potato crop did not travel across the Sound to the island.

  View of the island village in 2012 from Blasket Sound. Note that the village is situated in a kind of a bowl that helped protect it from the wind – to some extent.

  In its heyday in the early 1900s, about 175 people lived on the island. When I left the island in 1937, the population was down to about 110. By 1947, the population was about fifty or so. When the island was evacuated in 1953, there were only twenty-two left. It was a long, gradual and very sad decline.

  There were only about thirty houses on the island. Most of the houses were built of whitewashed stone with black felt roofs coated with tar. In my days on the island, it was easy to see the bright, white houses of the village all the way from Dunquin. Today, the weather has worn away the old whitewash from the buildings and the bare grey stones of the old, abandoned and partially collapsed homes are only visible in part from the mainland.

  Map of The Great Blasket Island.

  A little farther up the hill, just beyond the stone houses, were five large white concrete houses that were built by the Congested Districts Board in 1909 to improve housing on the island. The islanders called them ‘the new houses’. Even today, you can still easily see these white buildings from over on the mainland. Up the hill from the village and to the north is the sloped land we used for farming. Each family had its own plot for growing potatoes and other vegetables. The land was laid out in a grid pattern that looked like a chequerboard from the higher elevations. Along the side of the hill is a large area of common land where sheep were grazed.

  There is a high ridge running along the length of the island from east to west starting behind the village and continuing all the way to the western tip of the island. At the top of this ridge are two peaks, called the Fort (An Dún) and the Crow (An Cró). The Fort is the ruins of the old abandoned fortification that may have been built by Vikings. There used to be an old tower up on the ridge, but it was struck by lightning and collapsed when I was about twelve years old. The Crow is the highest point on the island. Farther towards the back of the island, the land falls down sharply to the Atlantic Ocean on all sides.

  When I was young, I used to hike up to the Crow on a clear day, just for the spectacular view of the scenery across the whole bay. You could see the Irish coastline all the way from the Three Sisters, (Na Triúr Deirfiúr) the hills on the mainland to the north, to Slea Head (Ceann Sléibhe), the high bluff to the south. In the middle, you could see the top of Mount Eagle (Sliabh an Iolair), the highest point on the west end of the Dingle Peninsula and Dunmore Head (An Dún Mór).

  At the back of the island, to the west, is Black Head (Ceann Dubh), overlooking the neighbouring island of Inishvickillane. There was great rabbit hunting and fishing out there on that part of the island. On the coastline, there are huge rock cliffs, about 30 or 40 foot tall, that drop straight down into the ocean.

  There are lots of caves along the cliffs. The most famous is ‘Feiritéar’s Cave’ (Scairt Phiarais), the secret place where the famous Piaras Feiritéar, the politician, revolutionary and poet, once hid out when the English Army under Oliver Cromwell was chasing after him way back in the 1600s. Eventually, though, the British captured him on the mainland and hanged the poor man over in Killarney in 1653.

  One day when I was a boy I visited Feiritéar’s Cave with my best friend Maurice Guiheen. It was a daredevil kind of thing to do. If you slipped on the path, you’d fall right down the cliff. It was very dark and damp inside with water dripping from the ceiling. My brother Martin made the same tour and wrote his name on the wall of the cave. Dáithí de Mórdha of the Blasket Centre made the trek to the cave in 2012 and found Martin’s name still on the wall along with that of my father, Seán Tom Ó Ceárna.

  The island is one of a group of six called the Blasket Islands (Na Blascaodaí):

  The Great Blasket Island, my homeland, the largest of the group by far.

  Beginish (Beiginis), the small, low island located about a quarter of a mile east of The Great Blasket towards the mainland. It had a single house at one time and was used primarily for grazing sheep. But it has no fresh water.

  Inishnabro (Inis na Bró), a mountainous island located to the west of The Great Blasket. It was full of wild birds and rabbits. Its high rocks look like the spires of a cathedral.

  Inishvickillane (Inis Mhic Uibhleáin), the westernmost of the Blaskets, a flat island with a house that was once owned by the politician Charlie Haughey, a former Taoiseach (or Prime Minister to my American friends). This island is still owned by his family. Haughey bought it from the Daly family who formerly lived on The Great Blasket.

  Inishtooskert (Inis Tuaisceart), called ‘The Sleeping Giant’ because its shape in the ocean looks like a big person sleeping on his back. It is the northernmost of the Blaskets and is another great place for wild birds and rabbits. We used it for grazing sheep. I spent a couple of nights out there once while fetching sheep for shearing.

  Tearaght (An Tiaracht), a small island sticking straight up out of the water. It has a lighthouse that is now automated. There is a narrow archway on Tearaght that only the most skilled oarsman would paddle through in a naomhóg, the ocean-going currach used by the islanders.

  Of these six islands, only The Great Blasket Island was occupied for any length of time. The other islands are sometimes called the ‘Lesser Blaskets’. They are just too wild and remote for long-term living.

  There were no trees on The Great Blasket, but it was covered with other thick vegetation. It is a beautiful deep green in the summer and an off-green, just a little brownish, in the winter. But the island is never as green as the mainland because of the saltwater mist from the ocean. The rock cliffs on the island are as black as the ace of spades. There were about five small streams on the island, but no ponds. These streams and our two spring-fed wells were the sources of fresh water.

  Map showing the Blasket Islands with Dunquin to the right (east) on the mainland.

  The island is quite a spectacular place, with its broad view of the sky, the Atlantic Ocean, the mainland, the other islands, and its own beach. My late friend Tom Biuso, a professor from Colby Sawyer College in New Hampshire in America, one of the regular visitors to West Kerry and a great friend of the island, used to say that when you look at the island from Dunquin, it looks like a huge whale swimming in the ocean.

  Dunquin is the nearest village on the mainland, located at the very tip of the Dingle Peninsula. Dingle (An Daingean) is by far the biggest town on the peninsula. It is about 12 miles southeast of Dunquin, past Slea Head and Ventry (Ceann Trá), along the shore of Dingle Bay. The village of Ballyferriter (Baile an Fheirtéaraigh) is about 5 miles northeast of Dunquin in the opposite direction along the shore road.

  View of the island, looking northeastwards, with the Congested Districts Board houses to the left and the strand to the right.

  While the scenery was beautiful, island life involved quite a lot of hardship. It was a tough existence because of the bad weather, the rough ocean and the isolation. Weather was very important on the island because the people made their living fishing out on the ocean. When high winds and rain kicked up, you couldn’t go fishing, or go g
et the mail in Dunquin, or go to Mass on a Sunday at St Gobnet’s Church over on the mainland. Weather was a big problem. In fact, I think that the word ‘Blasket’ came from the word ‘blasted’, referring to the weather. The weather was a never-ending threat on the island. Since the weather was usually against the islanders, we were always complaining about it. But the people living on the island didn’t think life was so bad. The weather and the remote location were part of our way of living, and we were quite content with the situation for many, many years.

  The Ó Ceárna home (second building from the left) with its small addition on the right. The island school is just visible on the left.

  The island economy was based on fishing. Mackerel and herring were caught and sold in Dingle. In the summer, lobster and crawfish were the big catch. The fact that the men of the island were fishermen was written in their skin. Their weathered skin, especially on their faces, showed the result of their constant exposure to the wind and the salt water.

  The island was a ‘bare-knuckle’ place. There was no police department, no courthouse, no post office, no general shop, no doctor, no electricity, no running water, no church and no pub. The islanders had to make do with what they had, which was not much. I maintain that the island people were saintly, but didn’t know it. We lived quietly among ourselves. We were hard-working. We got along well together. We were very understanding and accepting of our situation.

  But, eventually, some islanders began to realise that there might be a better way of living on the mainland or perhaps in America. They began to be enticed by visions of a better life for them and their families. I remember islanders saying, ‘you can’t eat the view’. It’s sad, but true.

  There were, of course, other island communities situated off the west coast of Ireland, like the Aran Islands off Galway, Tory off Donegal and Inishturk off Mayo. But The Great Blasket is quite different because of the enormous body of literature that came from the island.

  In my dreams, I remember the island as a happy place. Maybe we didn’t know any better. I still get nostalgic over it. After all these many, many years, I still miss it dearly.

  To me, the island today looks lonely all by itself in the ocean with nobody living there, especially in comparison to when I was growing up there. It was so lively then. It is my belief that the island doesn’t deserve to be lonely like that. I would like to see it go back to the way it was, a lively community of friendly people. Well, I suppose I can always dream.

  2. Mike Carney: Islandman

  My baptismal name is Micheál Ó Ceárna (Mike Carney). I was born on 22 September 1920, in our house on the The Great Blasket Island. I was the third of ten children. My father was Seán Tom Ó Ceárna (Sean Tom Carney), a native islander. My mother was Neilí Ní Dhálaigh who was born and raised in Coumeenole (Com Dhineoil) over on the mainland, just south of Dunquin near Slea Head.

  The practice on the island was for babies to be born at home with the help of a midwife. There was no doctor on the island unless there was a serious problem of some nature, and even then only if the weather was such that the doctor could get over to the island. I was delivered by Méiní Uí Dhuinnshléibhe who assisted at most of the island births in them days.

  I was baptised when I was four days old in St Vincent’s Church in Ballyferriter. I imagine my parents took me to the mainland by naomhóg and then to the church in Ballyferriter by horse and cart. My godfather was Seámus Ó Duinnshléibhe, a family friend, and my godmother was Eilín Ní Cheárna, my aunt. I have an official baptismal certificate. But I have never been able to get a birth certificate from the government. The Kerry County Council can’t seem to find a record of my birth. I suppose it is possible that a record was never filed with the government years ago. The islanders did not worry too much about government records. They had far bigger issues to deal with.

  As far as I know, four generations of my family lived on the island. My great-grandfather Pádraig Ó Ceárna may have been the first member of my family to live on the island. This was in the early 1800s. I don’t know whether he was born on the island or moved into the island. There is some uncertainty about this because islanders never wrote down things like that. But I do know that my grandfather and my father were born on the island.

  A certificate documenting Mike Carney’s baptism at St Vincent’s Church.

  My grandfather was Tomás ‘Pats’ Ó Ceárna because his first name was Tom and his father’s first name was Pats. He was born in 1851. My father was called Seán Tom Ó Ceárna. Seán was his first name and Tom was his father’s first name. He was born in 1882. The islanders picked up this naming habit so that you did not confuse people. To remember names, the islanders used your first name, and your father’s first name, and sometimes your grandfather’s first name. This was because quite a few families had the same surname and a lot of people had the same first names too. For example, there were two different Ó Cearna clans with three Ó Cearna families in each clan. People used your family lineage in your name to be clear. On the island, I was called ‘Mike Seán Tom Ó Ceárna’. We did not have given middle names on the island. I took the middle name of ‘Joseph’ after I came to America.

  Mike Carney at about twenty-four years of age wearing a ‘Fáinne Oir’, a gold circular lapel pin from the Gaelic League signifying that he spoke Irish.

  My grandfather Tom Pats died at the age of seventy-one in 1922. I was only about two years old, so I really didn’t know him. My father was eighty-five when he died in 1968. I think my family lived on the island for at least 150 years or maybe more.

  I remember my grandmother on my father’s side very well. Her name was Máirín Uí Cheárna. She was sometimes called Máirín ‘Mhuiris’ because her father was Muiris Ó Catháin. We used to call her ‘Nan’ when we were growing up. She died quite a bit after my grandfather, sometime in the 1940s.

  My grandparents had six sons. Three sons lived on the island, Pádraig Tomás, called Pats Tom, Máirtin and my father, Seán Tom. Máirtin never married and lived with my grandparents. They also had three sons who grew up on the island and then emigrated and lived in America, Michael, my namesake, Maurice and Tom.

  My mother was from Coumeenole where her family had a small farm. Most of the time, you could see the island in the distance from Coumeenole. It is across the Sound off to the west beyond Dunmore Head. There is gorgeous scenery in Coumeenole; unbelievable.

  My mother was one of ten sisters and two brothers. Five of her sisters emigrated to America and five sisters, including herself, stayed in Ireland. She was the only one who got married into the island.

  I am a native-born Irish speaker and I love the Irish language. Everybody on the island grew up speaking a pure form of Irish. We also learned a little bit of English in school and even more from the visitors that came to the island. Storytelling was very important on the island. It built a very close-knit community. It was the basis for all the fine literature that came from the island. All my life I have told stories about the island. It is my own way of spreading the word, perpetuating the memory of my beloved island. The island was a place that got into your soul.

  Máirín Uí Cheárna – known as Máirín ‘Mhuiris’ – was Mike Carney’s maternal grandmother.

  My friend Maurice Guiheen was one of the last people to move from the island to the mainland. He was involved in the final evacuation of the island in 1953. He was a fisherman all his life. Even way up into his eighties, more than fifty years after he moved off the island, Maurice would get up first thing every morning and go to the gable end of his new house in Dunquin and look out across Blasket Sound towards the island for a good half hour before he started the day. Maurice never lost his love of the place. He died in 2008, a true islander to the end.

  The island seen from Coumeenole showing Dunmore Head jutting into Blasket Sound. Mike Carney’s mother, Neilí Ní Dhálaigh, was born and raised in the house on the right.

  I think that living on the island built strong character. The
islanders valued their family and their friends. They relied on themselves and their neighbours. They had tremendous courage and they persevered in the face of great adversity. They used their imagination and made the most out of what they had. They took advantage of opportunities that came up. And they celebrated their language and culture. In my opinion, they were a unique breed of people.

  Some people cannot get the island out of their system. I am one of those people. I just can’t get the island out of me. I think about it every day and still dream about it at night. I have a love for the island that will never go away. I am an islandman at heart and will be until the day I die.

  3. Island Life

  I have fond memories of my years growing up on the island during the 1920s and 1930s. They were some of the best years of my life. Even though I left the island at the age of sixteen and a half, I still clearly remember my youth as an islander.

  People

  The ten main families living on the island were Keane (Ó Catháin), Guiheen (Ó Guithín), Crohan (Ó Criomhthain), Sullivan (Ó Súilleabháin), Daly (Ó Dálaigh), Dunleavy (Ó Duinnshléibhe), O’Shea (Ó Sé), O’Connor (Ó Conchúir), and two separate clans of Carneys (Ó Cearna).

  In my time, the Ó Catháins were the most prominent family on the island. Pádraig ‘Mickey’ Ó Catháin was the King or the ‘Rí’ of the island. He was not a king in the traditional sense of royalty, but he was the unofficial leader of the island people. He was more like an unelected mayor. The King had the job of going over to the post office in Dunquin by naomhóg to get the mail three days a week, if the weather allowed. Ó Catháin was named King because he was a good talker and he had good judgment about things. He was very easy to get along with. My father got on very well with the King. Of course, it always helped to have a good relationship with the King.