Pause To Listen
by Peg Hernon
By lunch time this summer day, seven Aer Arann Islands flights had arrived and departed Inis Mor airport and the passenger lounge was in definite need of a cleaning before the afternoon flight session began. As I tidied up I listened to the radio that plays in the background all day - talk radio in the morning and music in the afternoon. Radio is our main link to the outside world at the airport. We have a television but it’s used for showing the safety video prior to Aer Arann departures. The telly is switched on only if we hear on radio of a major event that demands to be seen.
Lately the topics discussed on morning talk-radio programs comprise a disturbing list of current social problems - increased alcohol & drug abuse among the young, and increased incidents in general of violent crime, homicide and suicide, to name a few. I’ve heard experts on both The Tubridy Show and Today with Pat Kenny ascribe the situation, in part, to rapid changes in basic social institutions, such as the decline in church attendance, the rise of consumerism and resulting debt, and changes in the structure of the family. I don’t remember on which show I first heard of a developing trend - people are looking to the past for solutions to the disconnection, isolation and soul-loss that are prevalent in our time. I didn’t think it coincidence that religious retreats were discussed on Tubridy, and an evangelical Christian movement was examined on Pat Kenny, in the same week.
While Arain is not immune to social change or problems arising from change, they don’t occur here in anything near the proportion they occur in mainland communities. The separateness of the island from mainland, the smallness of the island community, and the steadfast character of Aran Islanders are positive factors in this regard. Arain is also a repository of Celtic culture, and Aran islanders live with one foot in the present and the other firmly in the past.
The passenger lounge pristine again, I turned off the radio and put on Celtic Passage, a CD that was composed by Deirdre Ni Chinneide on Inis Mor last year. It was released to excellent reviews and last month the title song won Best Song in the traditional category from the Celtic Radio Network in the U. S. A.
I first met Deirdre at the check-in desk at the airport a few years ago when she was the Department of Education coordinator for the schools of the three Aran Islands. She travelled regularly on Aer Arann to the smaller islands and we chatted whenever I issued her flight tickets. Over time we discovered we were both interested in Aran culture. I had discovered Celtic mythology through the poetry of Yeats in my student years in New York. Eventually my interest in it led me to Arain where I met the island man I married. Deirdre was rooted in the traditional from her childhood in Dublin, but especially in its music, as she has always been a singer. She said she felt Celtic song had pursued her, and when she settled on Arain in 2006, it simply caught her.
Celtic Passage is a musical journey through the seasons of the Celtic year and it explores themes of life and death, love, and the cyclic power of nature to comfort and heal. The music is both subtle and compelling, and the message so ancient it may well be new again.
Celtic Passage is available at Celtic Note, Nassau Street, Dublin or through the website www.deirdrenichinneide.com.
