An Irishwoman's Diary

‘I DIDN’T raise my head. I only moved my Leica 1 with a 90mm objective. And there appeared the hard, terrible, accusing face of Che . . . His expression was so ‘impressive’ that my reaction was to back up, but in the same second, I clicked on the button . . .”

Imagine if Leitz of Germany had made that Leica two decades earlier, and if the late Alberto Korda, author of "that photo", had been alive and working in Dublin during the events of Easter 1916. And imagine if Pearse and Connolly had smoked home-grown cigars, and had displayed a penchant for berets and beards, and had been immortalised on the cover of Timemagazine.

It wasn’t a deliberate eavesdrop – though some might say “tis a fine line” between that and the more nefarious techniques of the Murdoch school of journalism. We were shoulder to shoulder in Che Guevara’s mausoleum in Santa Clara, Cuba, and it was impossible not to pick up the thrust of the whispered exchange in front of the caption.

The Derry couple musing about “what if” were admiring the larger-than-life image of Fidel Castro sharing a joke with Guevera, as Raul Castro, smallest in stature of the trio and now the country’s leader, gazed on. Korda had helped to make the island’s revolution, the pair agreed . . . as had Swiss photographer René Burri, Frenchman Roger Pic and Korda’s many press colleagues half a century ago.

The iconography continued with Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick, who is now seeking copyright for his universal 1968 pop-art impression of Korda’s profile. And wasn’t Guevara’s great-granny from Galway? And right there before us in a museum cabinet wasn’t there a photo of the young Argentinian with his dad, Ernesto Guevara Lynch?

And so it continued, and so I offered my own halfpence of knowledge about other Irish links. There was Alejandro O’Reilly, big in the Spanish military, who took Havana back from besieging British forces during the Seven Years War. We had been staying in old Havana’s Calle O’Reilly, named after him, and with a plaque to mark same in both Spanish and the Erse.

Ethnocentrism isn’t a peculiarly Irish trait, but as a small group of compatriots some 7,000km from home, we seemed to have been infected with a fair dose of it that afternoon. In theory, I had no intention of mentioning Guevara’s Irish lineage to every Cuban I encountered. And so I did, religiously, and enjoyed the same polite but slightly blank response.

"You have heard of Moros y Cristianos[Moors and Christians]?" our host in one casa particular asked. The hint was taken. The creole dish of black beans and white rice reflects the population's multicultural roots.

Still, coming from an island on the edge of a continent engulfed in economic panic to an island on the edge of another continent which has endured a relentless trade and travel embargo, it seemed like a natural time to ask a lot of questions. The casa particularsystem of family-run guesthouses, dating from 1993 when the government had no choice but to permit Cubans to earn and spend dollars, facilitates this – though guide books had reminded us of the state's political prisoners, of the committees for the defence of the revolution, and of the need not to embarrass one's hosts.

Yet writer Dervla Murphy's curiosity about the contradictions had infected us, as had the advice of good friends, and her epic The Island That Dared(Eland, 2008) was easily the most useful piece of luggage we had brought. Lingering over breakfasts of mango and papaya and guava and banana, we'd hear about the daily challenges – power cuts, rationed water, the appointment at a polyclinic, the hunt for a part for the neighbour's beautifully maintained Chevrolet.

During one trip to a beach used mainly by locals in the Pinar del Rio province, our bus driver explained why the policeman at a checkpoint was only counting Cuban heads on board.

“He’ll count the same heads when we come back,” he explained. “He needs to know that no one has planned to swim to Florida today.”

Described as “Eden” on Google Earth, the Vinales valley in Pinar del Rio resembles paradise in photographs – and so it was. On one afternoon, during a thunderstorm, we travelled by horseback through tobacco and rice fields, and drank sugar cane juice as a farmer, Ernesto, taught us some salsa steps and rolled us a pure cigar. The price of fuel had forced him to rely on oxen, and he couldn’t afford pesticides or chemicals, even if he was permitted to use them, his son told us. The mineral rich area has been designated a national park, he said, but “we became organic anyway, because we had no choice”.

The following day, our Vinales casahost, Luis, took us on a hike up the mogotes, the limestone outcrops, blanketed in rich vegetation, which were formed millions of years ago. Back in 1943, a visionary declared that the water there had healing powers, and offered to treat the local residents at their community of Los Aquaticos. The campesinosmay have had little access to conventional medicines, but they did know their sage from their sorrel, and that knowledge is still retained today.

As we walked, Luis and his young daughter effortlessly listed off the various healing qualities of the plants around them. Feasting on a mango which he had knocked with a piece of wood from a tree, he spoke of his passion for football and free-rock climbing, his homesickness when he left to work in Havana. Life during the “special period”, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, had been harsh then, he recalled, but it was also a time when people could test their commitment to this “idea in Fidel Castro’s head”.

Venezuela might be supplying oil now, new state buses could be purchased from China, and tourists with foreign currency were flocking in their thousands to witness “life before” the death of the bearded one, “El Barbudo”, but “there won’t be any dramatic change”, Luis forecast.

“We have no interest in selling ourselves off to anyone, not even the highest bidder.”