Back on Inisglora

THE Belfast novelist, Brian Moore, once wrote, “islands abandoned by man hold for some of us an extraordinary fascination.” So it is with me. That is why I jumped at the opportunity of visiting Inisglora, a little island off the Mullet peninsula, last Monday.

It was my third time to go there. I have to confess that during my first visit, over a decade ago, I vowed that I would never return. Inisglora is a nesting ground for seabirds. A group of us made the mistake of going there during the nesting season.

The seabirds made clear their anger at our intrusion by squawking raucously and flying low over our heads. Given my phobia about the proximity of feathered creatures I was a nervous wreck. The sea was choppy on our return journey but I hardly noticed it.

Inisglora is steeped in the story of early Irish Christianity. Dr John Healy, later Archbishop of Tuam, visited the island late in the 19th century and wrote of it in his book, ‘Ireland’s Ancient Schools and Scholars’: “Inisglora is one of the least known but most interesting of the many holy islands around Ireland.”

St Patrick’s evangelisation of Ireland inspired a wave of monasticism. The Celts found the monastic way of living Christianity attractive. The Benedictine monk, Timothy Joyce, has offered an explanation:

“It appealed to a mystical people who had relied on the druids to interpret the signs of the cosmos. It appealed to a tribal people who lived closely in community. It appealed to a marginalised people who saw the monk as one who lived on the edge of things, on the very margins of life. It appealed to a people who saw in pilgrimage and the spiritual journey the sense of adventure and quest that their ancestors had enjoyed.”

So men and women sought the solitude of remote, yet austerely beautiful, places on the edges of Ireland. Here they discerned the presence of God in the awesome wonders of nature and did Him homage. Here they found themselves linked into what Seamus Heaney calls in his poem on St Kevin, ‘the network of eternal life’.

None more so than St Brendan the Navigator who died in 577. He founded monasteries with a frequency that would impress the directors of the Aldi and Lidl stores. Among his foundations are Clonfert, Annaghdown, Inishadroun, Ardfert and Inisglora.

Among the legends about him is that the Archangel Michael came and made such sweet music to him that afterwards he refused to listen to earthly music. He stuck wax plugs in his ears in the presence of musicians. There’s an idea for the next time that I am forced to listen to a spate of bad country and western music.

Though now well battered by centuries of Atlantic storm and rain, there are some distinctive remains of his settlement on Inisglora; St Brendan’s Chapel, St Brendan’s Well, Teampall na bhfear, Teampall na mban and St Brendan’s Cell. There are also several early cross-slabs and pillars and seven pilgrim stations.

Inisglora is also famed as the burial place of the Children of Lir. Their graves lie to the east of St Brendan’s Church. You may recall the story. Eva, the wife of the sea god Lir, jealous of her four step-chidren through druidical machinations, turns them into swans. Retaining the power of human speech they are condemned to stay in swan form for 900 years, not to be released until they hear a bell, the symbol of Christianity.

According to the legend they were drawn to Inisglora by the bell of St Brendan’s Church, where he baptised them. They regained human form bur died shortly afterwards.

Standing on their grave last Monday, reflecting on their poignant odyssey of epic torment, I recalled a stanza of Katharine Tynan’s poem:

“Hugh, the black and white swan with the beauteous feathers,

Fiachra, the black swan with the emerald breast,

Conn, the youngest, dearest, sheltered in all weathers,

Him his snow-white sister loves the tenderest.

These her mother gave her as she lay a-dying;

To her faithful keeping; faithful hath she been,

With her wings spread o’er them when the tempest’s crying,

And her songs so hopeful when the sky’s serene.”

Our visit to Inisglora was to mark the marriage of Sarah Gaughan and Christopher Burden. Sarah’s ancestors lived on the island. Twenty seven years ago she was brought to the island for her baptism, shepherded into the Christian world by Fr Declan Caulfield who performed the ceremony and Canon Rae who was her godfather.

On the Friday before our excursion she got married in the leafy suburbs of Surrey. However, she wanted to come to the treeless landscape of Inisglora for a blessing. Fr Michael Harrison, Fr Francis Judge and I celebrated the Eucharist. We joined with their families and friends in prayer that the obvious delight Sarah and Christopher have in each other will deepen each day they are together.

The ageless Henry Wills of The Western People was there to record the celebration. I would not be surprised if he has an original image of the Children of Lir amongst his voluminous photographic files. He was there to photograph Sarah’s baptism. It was serendipitous that he returned to record this new milestone in her life.

Thanks, Sarah and Christopher, for the privilege of being there.