Thursday, June 11, 2015

Dear Folks,

The weather continues to be beautiful in Ireland and I will probably remain in Galway through the weekend.

I began this blog mainly as a way of keeping in touch with friends and family back home.  I made it public because that makes it easier for them to check it without having to register or get a Google account.  Nothing I put up will be all that scandalous so I don't mind it being out there for anyone to read.  I posted the link on Facebook after visiting Carrowkennedy and Croagh Patrick because I thought some of my Facebook friends might find it interesting and they did.  I was very happy to see the comments on my Facebook page and know that my friends were enjoying the beautiful scenery in Ireland.

But my plan is to stay here as long as I can.  I have citizenship here and I have a short term work contract.  As soon as I get some paperwork from the school I will be applying for a PPS number (which is like an SS number in the U.S.).  So since that's the case I want to do what I can to fit in, to be a part of the culture and not merely a tourist.  And I want to share how that goes with Lizzy and Michael and their kids and who's ever interested as well.

So while I plan on continuing to post pretty pictures of the Irish towns and countryside.  I'm also going to share whatever it is I learn about contemporary Ireland.  It might be a strange way to start, but I thought I'd begin by visiting the Museum of Country Life in Turlough, Co. Mayo.

Located near Castlebar, the county town of Mayo, the Museum of Country Life was opened in 2001. It houses the Folklife collection of the National Museum of Ireland.  And in it's artifacts it tells the story of the rural people of Ireland and how they lived between 1850 and 1950.  Like most modern countries the percentage of people who live in rural areas in Ireland is decreasing as younger people move to cities to find work.  But in 2013 it was about 37% compared to about 19% in the US.  Back in 1967 it was over 50% compared to less than 28% in the US.

Ireland has always had a small population.  It reached its height prior to the famine in the 1841 census at 6 1/2 million people.  The effects of the famine and generation after generation of emigration has kept the population small, in 1926 it was less than 3 million and as of 2011 it was about 4 1/2 million.

Although the century between 1850 and 1950 was one of tremendous political upheaval in Ireland, in terms of the day to day life of most of the ordinary people who lived here very little changed.

Life for most people in Ireland was always tough.  Until the early 1980's it was a very poor country.

Before the Land Wars of the 1870's most people lived as tenant farmers, unable to own the land they worked on and subject to eviction at a moment's notice.  Even later, technological innovation was slow and most tasks, from farming to housekeeping were labor intensive.

Here's a photo of men cutting peat bog.  The main source of heating fuel in Ireland for most of the country's history.  Sods are cut from the bog and dried to make turf which is burned in stoves.  Even today turf is a commonly used form of heating fuel in Ireland.

Since it was brought back from the New World by Columbus, the potato was and largely still is, the main staple food in Ireland.  The potato plant was suitable to the Irish soil and climate and could be stored and eaten in winter months.

The potato has a high nutritional value and enough to sustain a family could be cultivated on a small parcel of land.

Other staples of the Irish diet were fish and shellfish,

and pork.

It's a little tricky keeping kosher in Ireland, there's not a lot of demand for turkey sausage.

As late as the 1970's if you walked into a house in rural Ireland, my grandparents, or my mom's aunt Joan's for instance, the kitchen would have looked a lot like this.

And the counter at the local shop would have looked a lot like this.

And you would have found these on the shelves.  Actually, if you had looked in my mom's kitchen cabinets in 2011 you would have found these on the shelves, but they might have been past their sell-by date.

So if I'm interested in talking about contemporary Ireland, why this focus on the distant past.  Well for one thing, it's not that distant.  For 100 years life for the ordinary people of Ireland did not change, then with the Celtic Tiger years in the 1980's it did change, a lot and very quickly.  Ireland went through a tech boom, a financial boom and a housing boom.  For the first time in seven generations the majority of young people could find jobs in Ireland and families didn't see at least one of their sons or daughters emigrate.  The Irish experienced an influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.  The towns and countryside of Ireland themselves changed enormously as speculation in real estate caused a rampant build up.  As the years went on the good times rolled, the peace process was begun in the North, Ireland became part of the European Union, the Catholic Church became less influential in Irish politics and society, and people's attitudes about religion, morality and personal choice changed radically.

I am a new arrival here, a recent immigrant, and I'm only learning a little about what it is like to live here.  The boom years ended in 2008, as they did in the US and Europe.  Now the Irish have gone through seven lean years of austerity, the return of high unemployment, cutting social programs and increasing taxes.  To me modern day Ireland seems to be filled with contradictions.  While the Irish continue to see new Immigrants coming in from different cultures and are trying to assimilate them, a sub-culture of the Irish people that has been here all along, the Travellers, remains unassimilated.  Prostitution is legal in Ireland, it is not a crime either to sell sex or buy sex here, and right now, due to changes in the laws up North, prostitutes are coming across the border to ply their trade.  At the same time abortion is illegal except when the life of the mother is threatened, and each year thousands of women travel to the UK to seek abortions.  Irish schools still devote much of their resources to compulsory education in the Irish language, but each year the number of households where Irish is actually spoken as a first language grows fewer and fewer.

The Irish are fiercely proud of their country and culture, but because tourism is one of the main industries of Ireland, the country and culture are marketed to visitors overseas in a way that blurs the true picture of life here.  I love it here, I love the music and the history and the people.  The Irish are some of the friendliest people that you will ever meet and they go out of their way to make visitors feel welcome.  But I'd like to be more than just a visitor, so I would like to pay a little more attention and be a little more aware of what it is really like to live in this country.  I'm sure that the family I have and the friends I've made will help me with that.

Anyway, sorry about all the blather.  I'm going to try to resist the temptation to seem profound or clever as I post these blogs, but sometimes I just like to hear myself talk.  Take care,

Luke