Carrying the Cairn

For those of you who go hiking or hill-walking, as my Irish friends call it (+Nicky McBride), you will be familiar with the concept of a cairn.  A trail marker can be just about anything from a painted “blaze” on a tree (Appalachian Trail), or stick shaped arrows on the ground.  But a cairn is more traditionally understood to be a pile of rocks.  But not just any pile of rocks.

Wikipedia tells us, “a cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones. It comes from the Scottish Gaelic: càrn (plural càirn). They vary in size from small stone markers to entire artificial hills, and in complexity from loose, conical rock piles to delicately balanced sculptures and elaborate feats of megalithic engineering. Today, cairns are built for many purposes. The most common use in North America and Northern Europe is to mark mountain bike and hiking trails and other cross-country trail blazing, especially in mountain regions at or above the tree line.”

While the most common usage of a cairn is a trail marker, stone piles have been used for millennia to mark boundaries, religious ceremonial places, and to commemorate events.    When a significant event had taken place, stones were piled up in a unique way as a memorial marker or a reminder of the event.  

Commemoration is great reason for making a cairn.

Almost 20 years ago, I first heard of a place called Isle Royale.  It is a remote island out in the middle of Lake Superior, the biggest of the 5 Great Lakes in the US.  It is a true archipelago formed by glacial movements long ago.  It is accessible by ferry, but can only be explored on foot.  What started as a thought slowly became a dream to hike thru the wilderness that is Isle Royale.

The dream remained just a dream for 13 years.  I had been cleaning out some files and found my Isle Royale folder.  I lovingly leaved through the collection of papers.  Each article, every magazine, all my handwritten notes were examined carefully.  I thought I would share my long lost treasure with our children when they came for Thanksgiving.

Surprisingly, my sons (which include son-in-laws) said, “Let’s do it, Dad!”  So the planning began for a week on Isle Royale the following August.  Video conferences, emails, the creation of a Facebook page, designing of tee-shirts and numerous phone calls kept us all connected for the following months as we prepared for our journey.

Men of the Dream

In the middle of all this planning, I realized what a big deal this was for me and for my boys.  My sons were making my dream a reality.  They were giving me a gift, an opportunity to experience my dream.  My dream had become their dream.  That was very special indeed.  I needed to do something.  They needed, I needed, a tangible reminder, a memorial marker for this dream.  We needed a cairn to remind of this dream, this trip.  Have you ever given someone a bag of rocks as a gift?  Unless they’re diamonds, or some other precious gem, don’t bother.  For some reason, people don’t see the value in a bag of plain old rocks.

So I searched and found the next best thing to a bag of rocks.  I found a “cairn” necklace, the outline of a pile of rocks stamped on a small piece of metal.  Just before we boarded the ferry for the island, I gave each of my boys their “cairn”.  We all put them on and to this day, some 3 years later, we all still wearing them.

For that first trip (and the 3 subsequent), we made a cairn somewhere on the Island and placed our “personal cairns” on it.  Here is the picture from our first trip.

Fiontar Tine 2010

By the way, this past year, 2012, my oldest grandson (14 years) and my father (81 years) came to the island with us.  Each one got their “portable” cairn as well. There were 4 generations of “cairn wearing” McGlynns on the island.  The island was very happy; so was I.

Do you have a cairn?  It can be of the portable or permanent type.  They are important for our lives.  More than memories, they are tangible evidence that something significant has happened.  When we take the time to build or make or find a physical object that represents the event, it adds weight to the memory.  It becomes a silent witness to the event.  There is also an added benefit.  It will cause people to ask, “What is that for?”  I have had literally hundreds of people ask me what my necklace means.  Imagine my joy, when I get to tell them about my dream, about my adventure and about my boys.

So every day, I carry the cairn.

100,000 Welcomes?!

Living in the Upper Midwest of the US for many years has been a wonderful experience.  However, one aspect of our stay here has been the decided lack of lingual variety.  I realized a while back, as I was watching Kenneth Branagh’s, “Much Ado About Nothing”, my ears had become dull.  It took me a full 30 minutes before I could fully engage with the language and the lilt of the Elizabethan tongue.  After tuning my ears to Shakespeare’s melodious words, I fully enjoyed all the “Ado”.

It was probably my upbringing in New York, but I have always been drawn to the voices and dialects different from my own.  The Deep South, New England, and Boston are regions I enjoy listening to.  Now, when I am in the company of anyone from the British Isles, it is like attending a symphony by a choice philharmonic orchestra, giving me hours of listening pleasure.

As part of my preparation for cultural immersion into all things Irish, I have been “tuning” my ears by listening to RTE Radio online.  I have especially enjoyed Radio Na Gaeltachta of RTE.  One morning as I was at my desk listening to RTE, my wife walked by, stopped came back and asked, “What in the world are you listening to?” “That, my dear is Irish,” I replied.  “We are in deep trouble!” she said as she turned and walked away.  I laughed.  While we may not be able to relate linguistically, I believe there is a “spirit” which transcends language barriers.

How could one be in “trouble” in a country whose common greeting is “cead mile failte”.  Any place which greets you with “a hundred thousand welcomes” has to be a very special place for visitors.  How many countries, or what other country has ever set aside an entire year for visitors?  I've never heard of it!  Have you?  http://www.thegatheringireland.com/ +The Gathering Ireland 

Hospitality is a mindset, not a skill-set to be learned.  Granted, there are skills which facilitate being hospitable.  Hospitality begins in the heart.  The Irish seem to have just such a heart.  While an enlarged heart can cause serious health dilemmas, hospitality, on the other hand, cannot happen without a larger than normal heart.  People who possess this attribute, this gift, are saying, “I have room in my heart for you.  You are welcome.  Come in.”

My parents are such people. Growing up, we were just as likely to have complete strangers at our home as friends or family.  This happened at the house and on the road.  While camping across the US one summer, very few of our meals were just the four of us.  My mom or dad would meet someone, strike up a conversation and the next thing you know, they are sitting at our dinner table.  On one visit home, my soon to be bride remarked, “Do you parents do this kind of thing all the time?” She was referring to them bringing strangers home.  It wasn't until that very moment I realized everyone isn't like that.

I think my parents have passed on their “gift”.  Just prior to this writing, there were 27 people in our dining room (and hallway leading to the dining room).  Some were relatives from in town, others were relatives from out of state and yet others were “new/old” friends from far away.

In just a few days, we will be headed to the land of “100,000 welcomes”.  Who wouldn't feel at home in a place like that? Even if I can’t understand the language, I am sure I will understand the heart.

Finding the Heart at Home

What I know academically about Ireland, you could fit in a thimble and still have room for a good taste of Jameson.  Now my wife, on the other hand, can give you dates, events, names, battles, and even literary references from Ireland’s past and nearly present.

However, what I lack from academia, I make up for with firsthand knowledge of Irish people and the essence of their character. My Grandpa, Peter McGlynn (county Sligo) and my grandma, Monica Doyle McGlynn (county Carlow) showed me what it means to have an Irish heart.  My grandparents met and married in Canada after their families emigrated from Britain.  They were the only ones of the McGlynn clan to come to the states.  The Doyle siblings all came to the States, eventually.

So whether in the States or in Canada, when the Doyle’s and McGlynn’s got together; Ireland appeared before your very eyes.

The first thing I remember was laughter. Loud and strong, this laughter emanated from a place deep within, somewhere close to the soul. It’s the place where the love of life and family is born and raised.  No matter what home we gathered in, the walls of the house dripped with the happiness of the people in attendance.  It almost seemed like the building was animated by the presence of so much sheer joy.

Joy in our family is a noisy thing beyond mere laughter.  Laughing would subside, only momentary, so that, the music could begin.  Uncle Charlie broke out his sax, Great Grandpa Alphonsus worked the concertina, Aunt Nora tickled the ivories and Aunt Eileen played the drums.  Where music had begun, dancing was sure to follow by young and old alike.  You needn't be Jean Butler or Michael Flatley to join the dance, because no one really noticed any lack of talent or rhythm.  The music and the laughter carried you like a magic carpet floating above the rocks and twigs of the earth that have caused many a sojourner to trip or stumble.

Food and drink were as bounteous as the laughter and music.  Each new arrival, at the appointed meeting placed, labored to get into the door, arms filled with pots, pans and dishes of all foods imaginable.  Thick aromas blanketed the entire house like a County Cork fog.  The kitchen was filled with more cooks than the Food Channel, with every one better than the last.  Not one of those culinary experts ever got “chopped” from the kitchen. 

There was never a time that fun did not reign as king over our family gatherings. Competitive cards, darts, and word games caused the family to meet in small clusters throughout the house.  When we gathered at Grandma and Grandpa McGlynn’s, their small two bedroom bungalow seemed like mansion with all that was going on inside.  Like the Grinch’s heart transformation, of Dr. Seuss fame, the house seemed to grow “3 times its size”.

Over the years strangers would be welcomed and eventually became family as more and more of the son and daughters, nephews and nieces, brought their prospective spouses into our family parties.  Each and every one was examined thoroughly as they were baptized into the madness and mayhem of music mixed with laughter and beer.  If they could survive the gathering, they had passed the test.

I didn't know it at the time. But my family was teaching me what it means to have an Irish heart.  The lesson was caught and has grown.

Life, Irish life, it seems, is meant to be lived with; a laughter that permeates the rafters, music and dancing that carries you thru, food and drink that sustains you, fun in abundance and family above all.

The Journey Begins

I am about to embark on the trip of a life time.  I am going to Ireland.  My parents and paternal grandparents have made this journey before me.  Now, it is my turn to visit our ancestral home.

This blog will be dedicated to this sojourn to the place of my beginnings.  You will get to see what I see and hear what I think along the way.  In a way, you will get to travel with me.

The name of this blog is “Ar Siul le Shillelagh” or in English; “Walking with a Shillelagh”

Walking; because that is what I do.  I walk, or hike whenever possible.  Walking is what you do in Ireland. To see, to hear, to smell, to taste, to experience Ireland, one must walk.

Some of you are thinking, “Yea, walking, I get it.  But what in the world is a “shillelagh”?  I doubt there isn’t a man or woman of Irish descent that hasn’t heard the word.  Wikipedia tells us:

“A shillelagh (pron.: shi-lay-lee; Irish: sail éille [ˈsalʲ ˈeːl̠ʲə], a cudgel with a strap) is a wooden walking stick and club or cudgel, typically made from a stout knotty stick with a large knob at the top, that is associated with Ireland and Irish folklore.”

So I will be exploring Ireland with my trusty walking stick (which will be purchased upon arrival).   

This trip has been 10 years in the making.  Originally, my wife and I were going on the occasion of our 25^th wedding anniversary.  Circumstances did not allow for such a trip.  So, we set our sights for 2013, the advent of our 35^th wedding anniversary.  Come to find out, 2013 is the year of the Gathering.  Imagine an entire country setting aside a whole year for my visit.  I am flattered.

Some real quick thanks are in order.

First of all, the Google+ community +Ireland  , they have become like a second home for all things Ireland.  If you want to know or go to Ireland, go to this community first.  It’s just like being there.

+Eileen O'Duffy  for her invaluable help, willingness to get us prepared and encouragement to come

+Neil Jackman  and +Abarta Audioguides for their epic and historic contributions to our trip (literally)

+The Gathering Ireland  for making the information available on all the activities in the country

+Phil Kingsley  for giving us some excellent tips on sites and places

Judy Malloy and Nicholas Downs for info on places to see and books to read.  (Doolin, here we come.)

Mandi & Matt Kurtz  for taking care of Noah for 3 weeks, no easy feat to be sure

Last, but certainly not least, my wife Dodi.  That’s right Dodi McGlynn; kind of sounds like a great name for a leprechaun.  Her attention to detail, her administration skills makes it possible for us to even leave our home, let along go to a foreign country.  But more than that, her willingness to go on an adventure with me makes this trip complete before we have even left.  The hours of planning at Panera Bread, dreaming around the dining room table and reading endless books were a joy all to themselves because we did it together.   After 35 years, she needs a medal or sainthood for enduring the endless adventure of our lives together.  Maybe, she will just have to settle for a jewel as a token of my love and gratitude. 

My dear, I give to you an emerald, the Emerald Isle.