`Home' again

Ancestral ties beckon

Author: By Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff

Date: SUNDAY, December 27, 1998

Page: M1

Section: Travel

Not in a physical sense. I was born in Boston, a half-century after my grandparents gave up the harsh life of Connemara in the west of Ireland for a chance in America. But when I am in Connemara, it does not feel foreign. It feels like home, in a strange, ineffable, almost disturbing way.

When, in 1979, as a 20-year-old, I first went to the rocky, wild region known as Connemara, it was intimidating. I hitchhiked out from Dublin, where I was a student. The Irish midlands are flat, like the middle of America, providing little to look at and less to admire. But that all changes once you get to the west.

Connaught is the western province of Ireland. When Oliver Cromwell banished rebellious Irish peasants in the 17th century the cry was, ``To hell or Connaught!'' Some could hardly tell the difference. The ground was too rocky to grow anything. The wind whipped across the bogs unhindered. I felt that chill, walking through the bogs, staring at the shells of drafty, stone houses, the kind my grandparents left behind.

I walked down a lonely road, heading vaguely toward a crossroads called Maam Cross. The sun was going down and there wasn't a person or a car in sight. Suddenly I became aware of the ground hissing, noises rising from the peat bogs and then . . . poof! The ground was popping, and flames danced briefly on the surface. There was a rational explanation, of course. It was simply gas being released from the peat. But, at dusk, in a place devoid of any sign of life, it was disarming, almost chilling.

This may sound like the smugness of a spoiled American, but when I first saw where my grandparents left, my strongest emotion was gratitude that they had. What opportunities did people growing up in such disadvantage have? Older relatives told me that both of my mother's parents came from large families and that not one but several of their siblings had died in childhood.

And yet there is an endearing defiance to Connemara. Its land is not arable, and yet the people survived. The British did everything they could to stamp out the Irish language, viewing it the slang of seditionists, and yet it survived, no place more strongly than in Connemara, the heart of the Gaeltacht, where Irish is the first language, as it was my grandparents'.

Walking through Connemara, it was hard not to be overcome by the terrible beauty, something as simple as watching a Galway family turning and stacking peat in the summer, when it stays light until almost 11 p.m., something as dramatic as the rocky coast at Roundstone, where you can watch the surf pound from O'Dowd's pub and chat up the locals.

Two decades ago, in a pub in the little crossroads that amounts to the center of Carraroe, I was introduced to two old men who knew my grandfather. One of them was in his 90s, the other his late 80s. They were crestfallen when, after they greeted me in Irish, I said I didn't have any of the language. We had a pint together, but it wasn't the same once they realized I was, by blood, from this place but not of it.

I was slightly ashamed, leaving the pub, that I never learned anything but a few words in Irish. When I was a child, my big, stern grandmother sometimes looked after me on the second-floor of a triple-decker in South Boston that was my family's American homestead. I remember her speaking to me in Irish, sometimes fondly, sometimes harshly, to correct me when she caught me jumping on her high poster bed. I remember she sang lullabies to me in Irish.

My mother, who as a first-generation immigrant was so determined to assimilate that she had no interest in Irish, says her parents constantly clashed over the language. My grandmother would regularly speak Irish, but my grandfather, who came from an Irish-speaking village called Camus, couldn't be bothered.

It remains unclear whether my grandmother spoke Irish out of some fierce determination to keep the language alive or merely to have a means of communication with her husband that their children wouldn't understand. Either way, my grandfather would have none of it.

``Delia,'' he would say, using the Irish pet form of Brigid, as he sat in his arm chair reading the newspaper, ``you're in America now. Speak American.''

My grandfather died 19 years before I was born. My grandmother died when I was 4, and I have only vague recollections of her. But, in ways I could never explain, I felt them both when I first went to Connemara, and I still feel them whenever I return.

Last year, I brought my mother to Carraroe for the first time. She is old and feeble now, but she seemed to have a burst of energy when she set foot in the village where her mother grew up. We went into the pub where I met the old men who knew her father, but they had long since died.

My mother's short-term memory is failing, and she sometimes forgets where she is. We were sitting there, my sister, my mother, and I, for some time when the surrounding conversations in Irish triggered something. My mother beckoned me closer by flexing her index finger up and down.

``Listen,'' she whispered conspiratorily. ``Everyone in here's Irish.''

Ireland has changed dramatically in the last 20 years, especially the last 10. The west of Ireland has changed the least, but even it is so different. The unspoiled countryside has too many houses for my taste, especially when you consider that most of them are vacation homes and are hardly ever used.

Some of my friends suggest that, when I can afford it, I should buy a house in Connemara. I don't know. It's not as simple as that. They say you can't go home, but these days, if you have enough money, you can.

Just because you can go home, however, does not mean you should. Connemara doesn't need any more wistful Americans, and it certainly doesn't need any more houses.

Still, I have taken my sons there, and when they're old enough to understand, I'll explain to them where their great-grandparents came from, why they left, why we go back, and why it's important to know where you come from, but not so important that you have to stay.

Connemara is best reached by flying into Shannon Airport and driving north into Galway. Aer Lingus flies daily to Shannon from Logan Airport. Call 800-223-7660 for information and reservations.