Just like Mary and her newborn baby Jesus in the manger, I breast-fed my first two babies to the light of the north star. It was before “the power” came to the island in the early 1980s and whilst my babas were not quite swaddled in straw-filled cradles, Bébhinn did sleep in a drawer for a time when we were extending our little home.
It was a traditional cottage built after Clare Island was purchased by the Congested Districts Board at the end of the 19th century. Of course, these cottages weren’t built to be light-filled with their small sash windows designed to deter heat-loss during the fire and brimstone of winter weather. So even on those still nights when Cassiopeia was hanging over Glen Hill – apologies to Patrick Kavanagh – the man in the moon needed to be smiling very brightly too before slivers of light sneaked through these little fissures in the strong stone walls.
Wouldn’t you think then that since I lived on the island for 16 years and have returned from my home in Westport in all sorts of weathers that I would be inured to the whims of the weather, its ability to stop us in our tracks, and force us to reflect on our vulnerabilities and, indeed, culpabilities?
Certainly not if you saw the state of me during Storm Darragh, the extratropical cyclone that battered our country on December 5th.
Frankly, I wasn’t sure if my house had withstood the sudden and deafening growl of thunder which shook its foundations hours before Darragh swept across the horizon.
As it happens I was in the middle of doing some cool down cat-cow poses after a demanding Tracy Steen core and abs workout on my sitting room floor. It was that ominous “calm before the storm” interregnum before all hell breaks loose, which we survivors of the weather in the wild west know only too well. But then the anarchy of nature can even surprise the most weather-beaten.
So, with my heart pounding in my chest, I lunged at the couch and covered myself in throws and cushions. Time stood still, as if Darragh was taking a giant yawn, before the blinding flash of lightning. Just as I imagined that my roof might be on fire, a deluge of rain pounded the windows, spluttered down the chimney, whipped up the wind.
Meanwhile, I tried to exhume my granny’s soothing words that thunder was simply God moving his furniture.
More like moving house, as the flittered population of this Co Mayo town and its environs confirmed in the aftermath. The hum of freezers full of turkeys, televisions blaring out Christmas ads, radios playing Santa Claus is Coming to Town, ovens baking cakes and puddings were suddenly silenced.
Eventually, when my courage returned, I collected my stash of candles and tealights from a drawer, placed them in their holders in strategic places throughout the room, stoked up the stove with some more logs and sat waiting for the dark to descend.
It crept across the room slowly, the skeletons of trees in my suburban wilderness – as I conveniently call it – swaying to its shadows. I’m hoping my pet robin is cosy in some crevice.
It is the third power cut of this winter, so I’m prepared for some enforced introspection.
Time to talk to myself.
“Nothing to do now but to indulge in some existential angst,” I suggest.
“I suppose so,” I reply.
“Is it Donald Trump’s fault that you have become so addicted to your phone, Áine?”
“He hasn’t helped, surely,” I say.
“But it does help to have an orange Oompa Loompa to blame for the woes of the world, particularly during the festive season.”
“Indeed,” I respond, nervously checking its battery.
I feel a sense of relief in the opportunity to fly back across Clew Bay to the island and that first time I landed there during a post-Christmas gale in 1980.
This was three years before the island got “the power”. It was when islanders read the sky and the light from the constellations provided the poetry of their conversations.
Candle and gaslight still prevailed with geriatric generators illuminating the pub, the presbytery and the hotel. Doors and half-doors were left open in all sorts of weather to let in the light.
On Christmas Eve and Little Christmas Eve the rosary of cottage windows from Ballytoughy Mór to Tormore, Strake to Capnagower flickered with candlelight as islanders made their way to the church.
Down below in McCabes pub at the Quay after Mass the lights waxed and waned as creamy pints of porter were pulled and half-ones of whiskey were thrown back to the music of melodeons.