Tommy Tiernan

On feeling connected

I’ve a notion in me head that if I was fluent in Irish, I’d be deeper. More in tune with the natural rhythms of me soul; a better inheritor of the land that I live in. You know that being from Cavan or Monaghan, Tipperary or Cork isn’t enough in itself; in order to have the full experience of Irishness, you have to have the cupla focal .AndIdo have a few phrases. I’ve even written a short poem in Irish:

Ag ol I m’anaor I Leathanna Theas Na h’abair g’einne Ach ta se go deas

Not the greatest poem you’ve ever read, but there you go, the sentiments are good, and it’s based on a true story. I’ve even come up with a Gaelic name for a vegetarian cafe. Slan go feoil….

But those two eruptions might be all that’s in me. I love the language now, and have even been complemented on me blas, but I fear that I’m all accent and no vocabulary.

I go out to Inis Oirr whenever I can, and one of the things I love about it is that, when I’m there, I feel like I’m in an ait comhra. A place of conversation. And in the afternoons, I’m prone to leave the house and go walking. A slow, meandering stroll up the hill. Most of the people, most of the time, seem up for a chat. I lean over a wall and start yapping to a man digging a few drills. We talk together as gaeilge. He is an islander, and you’d swoon under the sound of him. He regards my broken Irish with patience. This would be our conversation translated into English: “How are you, Dara?” “Not the worst, working away here.” “Yes. It’s a nice day, isn’t it?” “Dry anyway, thank god, although it looks like it might rain later.”

“I didn’t really understand much of that, Dara. I’m not generous with this language yet.” “Oh, not to worry. You have a nice

blas, anyway.” “Yes, for sure. The Irish is important with me.”

Then there’s a silence that he seems quite comfortable in. I’m too self-conscious to relax, so I blurt on: “It is very dry, isn’t it?” “Oh, it is.” “I must be going this way now with the help of god. The shop is that place.” “Sure, sure.” “Yes, yes, my legs are strong.” “That’s good.” “But my head is not right.” “No.” “It is not a problem in any way. My shoes are brown and on my foot. I will go on this direction. The beach was very big today. Goodbye, Dara. It will be wet tonight.” And then it’s off to the shop. “God be with you. Is there any newspaper there? My wife is sitting in the house and I must take some bread.”

The girl behind the till smiles and repeats herself eight or nine times, and eventually has to write down what she means; €4.32, evidently.

I often wish that I was an islander. You see, I don’t really feel as if I’m from anywhere. I moved around a lot as a kid. Great connections I have in Navan, but I was only there 10 years. Holy Communion, football, girls, acne, pool, debating, hassle in the house and growing up.

But I’d have links to other places as well. Strong ones. Clonmel, half living with the Coxes and Parkers, and walking the streets at night with the comforting smell of coal smoke in the air. Athlone, and kicking ball against a wall for weeks on end. Ballinasloe, and skipping school, walking in the woods and meeting country girls for kissing.

Didn’t I also live for long stretches in Donegal and Africa? In Donegal, I remember chickens. Chickens in the yard and me in the buggy. In Africa, our bulldog Taurus and the awareness, only realised as an adult but felt first as a child, that the sky was your real mother.

But to be just from one place and all your people from that place too, well, that seems to me like a fine thing. I know a man from Navan, generations deep in the town, who stood in the Square one day, aged 19 or so, and said to himself, “This’ll do”. And there he stayed and reared his children. I remember one time being in Boyle in Co Roscommon, and a taxi driver said to me, “That family moved here in 1640, so they’re not really from the town”.

And now I’m 30 years in Galway, half the week at home and the other half on the road. I live a hopscotch life, I always have. A little bit in and a little bit out. I’m a resident tourist, an Irish immigrant in Ireland.

There comes a time when you accept your lot and the feeling of not quite belonging anywhere. Maybe it’s freedom. Whatever it is, there’s a loneliness in it. I’ve more in common with wind than I do with fields; I’m only passing through. If Ireland and Irish is a song, then I’ll have to be content just to know the air.