The Gaeltacht and the Coast
26 September 2018
Starting the day in our little Irish cottage with a home-cooked breakfast made from the finest local ingredients is possibly the best way to start the day! There is so much we can find to do out along the Irish coast, yet at times it is so hard to peel ourselves away from An Nead. This little cottage is truly my slice of heaven.
But peel ourselves away we did, and we ventured down the country road back into the coastal town of Spiddal. We walked down to look out over the sea, checked out the location of a pub called Tigh Giblin’s which we’ve heard has great local music so we knew where to come back at night, and we stopped into the town’s little craft village to browse the shops of local artisans. Spiddal is a cute little town, and I believe it is technically the town we are “staying in”, even though the cottage is a few miles out in the bog.
Last night we went to the east from Spiddal into Barna and Salthill, but today we are heading west along the more rugged Connemara coast. This area is full of seaside nature, rugged rocky shorelines, equally rugged roads, and some of the most breathtaking scenery we’ve yet found in Ireland.
This is also the heart of the Connemara Gaeltacht, the Irish-language speaking region of Ireland. The road signs are in Irish, the papers are in Irish, and dropping into a shop or a pub would most likely have you hearing the locals speaking in Irish. It’s an interesting language, a bit throaty and guttural like German or Arabic, but with a certain flow about it that is really pleasing to hear despite some of the harsh tones. I’m really happy to hear the language spoken, especially by some of the younger people. Irish (as ‘Gaelic’ is typically used to refer to Scottish Gaelic) was almost a dead language, but has really been making a strong return recently. It’s a wonderful thing to see the culture actively being preserved. The language has a poetic sound to it, fitting as Ireland is seen as the land of poets and banter. Listening carefully, you can even hear from the language how the Irish accent speaking English came about.
While we’re on it, did you know that saying someone has an ‘Irish Brogue’ was actually a mockery of the Irish? Brogue means ‘shoe’ in Irish (and Scottish Gaelic too, where you may have heard it as ghillie brogues - the shoes worn with a kilt. I have a pair. Shut up.). The people oppressing the Irish mocked them by saying their English sounded like they were talking with their feet in their mouth, hence the ‘Irish Brogue’. So now you know a nice bit of Irish trivia! Go impress your friends. And though many have in a sense reclaimed the mocking phrase and say it proudly (kinda like Americans and their ‘Yankee Doodle’), I will continue to refer to it as the Irish accent, the brogues can stay on their feet.
We took the R336 road (or so the map said, good luck finding a road sign) west along the coastline, curving up into the heart of Connemara. We frequently passed this way our last time here, past the rugged landscape with ruins and the old thatched pub we kept saying we would stop into. As we came up this time though, it was a bit different. Many of the old buildings are replaced with newer ones, their color and shape still in the basic cottage style, but with a distinctly more modern look. That pub looks as if it has been closed for the whole time since we were last here, and there is a fence around it like it is going to be taken down. It’s good, in a way, to see these new buildings as signs that this is no longer a poor, struggling country. But in a way it is also kinda sad, seeing the charm of the old stone buildings being replaced by modern structures. But I guess that is the way of it – time moves on, the world advances, change is inevitable. Good for the people here that they can have the modern luxuries, good that they can enjoy a better life. But there is still a part of me that can’t help but be sad, like there’s a feeling that something is being lost that can’t be reclaimed.
