“The islanders were saintly, and they didn’t know it.” “In the wintertime, it was ferocious,” Carney said. All of those had to be found on the mainland, which was three miles off by boat but may as well have been on another planet during bad weather. They had no store, no priest and no doctor. They grew much of their own food and shared whatever they had. The facility helps interpret life on the island as Carney remembers it.ĭespite its remoteness, it was a lively place, he said, where residents made their own musical instruments and canoes. He was president of the John Boyle O’Reilly Club – the city’s Irish-American social epicenter – for 16 years and served on its board of directors for eight more.Ĭarney helped lead an effort to create the Blasket Island Center, which opened in the 1980s. He wrote a Gaelic language column for The Irish Times while he lived in Dublin, and taught adult language courses in Gaelic in this city.įor 20 years here, he worked as a store manager at local A&P markets before applying for a job as a security officer at the Hampden County Hall of Justice. “I tried to talk to them to learn English while they came to learn Gaelic,” he said. He knew little English when he traveled to the mainland at 16 to take a job as a “bar man,” he said, and the little he did know he gleaned from tourists when he was a boy. Their books were translated into dozens of languages, Hayes said, and Sayers’ memoir, “Peig,” is mandatory reading for students in Ireland.Ĭarney said the simplicity of life there spawned a great tradition of story-telling. They include Peig Sayers, Tomás Ó Criomhthain and Maurice O’Sullivan, who wrote in Gaelic about life on the island. Hayes said, adding that though Carney was never a writer by profession, he serves as a proxy for the island’s rich literary legacy.įor a three-mile wide island with 150 inhabitants before it was evacuated by the government in 1953, Blasket produced a surprising number of writers. “As you can imagine, we are all very proud,” son-in-law Gerald W. Carney was joined by his four children, two sons-in-law and two grandchildren. University officials called Carney a “true living link to our heritage and tradition” during a conferral ceremony at the Blasket Center in Kerry on Sept. a former president and a poor fisherman’s son from the island honored at the same famous college,” he said. Kennedy and Nelson Mandela, among others. in 1948.įor his part, Carney says he was surprised when the invitation came from the university in September.Ĭarney follows other recipients including President John F. His family says the honor caps a lifelong devotion to preserving the language and promoting the culture – since growing up on the tiny island off the west coast of Ireland, tending bar in Dublin and emigrating to the U.S. The 89-year-old retired court officer traveled back to his homeland recently to receive an honorary doctoral degree in Celtic literature from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. SPRINGFIELD – Seven decades and an ocean away from the primitive shores of the Great Blasket Island, Michael Carney was called home for an unexpected honor.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |