IRELAND

There is and old Gaelic proverb that says that World will come to an end but music and love will go on. I learnt that in Ireland, where the meadows are green, the clouds are threatening and the rain is always pouring down. In the old country people say that there are two histories of every land and people, the written history that what it’s considered politics to tell and the unwritten history that tells everything. But in Ireland, anyone interested to know more about the country, must listen to her music. Some of the compositions give the required password to enter into a magic world.


 The rising of the moon is one of those magic compositions; when people were waiting for the 1798 rising against the English, pikes and guns were hidden in bogs, and hearts were beating fast. Sixty years after the rising John Keegan Casey wrote this song while in prison as a Fenian. He died in prison at the tender age of 23 as a result of his sufferings. The rising of the moon has become almost proverbial in connections with an Irish uprising in arms.


 Another touching song is the Foggy Dew; this composition of the eastern rising of 1916 was an appeal for Irishmen to die fighting for his country rather that die in some foreign war in a British uniform. It’s another Irish salute to his comrades in arms. I heard that song for the very first time in Galway, song my very good friend Muriel. She was the woman who introduced me in the sufferings and magic of the old country. I was told then that twilight, dawn, may and November eve are all time of change when the mysterious entrance to the world of the fairies may become visible. A human who becomes enchanted on hearing fairy music and dances all night on the hill will never return to the world of the humans, and it’s referred to “as being away with the fairies”. Apparently Ireland is a perfect setting for contacts of all kinds with the supernatural.


 Muriel my special guide into the Irish world, a fine singer, was brought up bilingual, and her sexy psychic and passionate personality is rooted in the songs and folklore of Donegal. A place I considered to be home. She also introduced me with the Irish way of talking, a Celtic language preserved on one corner of the country, where the language of their ancestors remind us of the past. I am talking about the Gaeltacht, where Irish can be heard today. It has a flourishing little Irish language. In some parts of Ireland, Irish has been creeping back into a fashion in a sort of a way, but the language of the Celts is facing extinction. Galway today sees itself as the Gaelic capital of Ireland and has been filling up with intellectual enthusiasts similar to those who have been leading the language revival in Dublin. Many students take Irish as a main subject and eminent scholars teach Gaelic studies. Nevertheless, Irish will become extinct language in the present century but the Celtic music will go on even when everything is gone. I was thinking about it the other day, while I tasted a Guinness in a pub and Muriel sang Fairytale of New York. Then watching her performance, I felt that she was an irresistibly reminded of the gallery of vigorous, independent, fiery hearted women like Maeve, Grania, Findabair, Deirdre and the historic Boadicea, who figure in the myth and in the history of the British Islands. Women who know how to fight for the traditions and languages of the Celts, women like Muriel. There was a dim light over her face; I closed my eyes to be embraced by the music that will never die. Somehow when I opened my eyes again, the darkness of evil had fallen, but because of a thick, damp sea-mist that had come rolling over the city. It was a mist like a damp, fine and yet impenetrable. I felt confused. For a moment I thought that I had been taken away by the fairies, and then Muriel came to rescue me with another Irish song. Once again, she has saved me, like she always does with her music. My beer is in one hand and her gently voice  bewitching my soul. Ireland, always Ireland.


 Sergio Calle Llorens