22_connemara

The west of Ireland has always provided a mixture of impressions for the outsider. One view is the deeply romantic one of mysticism rooted in Celtic and Christian mythology, the stuff of Yeats and Synge. The other image is of poverty, desolation, mass emigration, a dying culture, and as George Russell wrote, `a country where the bones of the earth stick through its starved skin.' (Brody, 1973). A Connemara Family, much inspired by the work of anthropologist Hugh Brody, is an effective, if sometimes uneasy, blend of these images and their contradictions.

The story is created through the words and actions of Kate Nee, two of her sons and a daughter-in-law. At nearly eighty and a lifelong resident of Connemara, Kate is the pivotal core of the family. Her memories and current view of her life are content; she has suffered hardship, but she is blessed with good health, a home, and, with the security of her Catholic faith, she has survived. As an elderly woman, she is aware how soon she and death must meet, but she is unafraid and her vision of Connemara is an optimistic one. Her children are less sure. Of Kate's nine surviving children, eight emigrated, but now two sons, Pat and John, have returned. They were motivated by recessions in England and America, by fond memories of their childhood, and for Pat, by the inheritance of his uncle's farm. Pat's wife and children have come with him. Both Pat and his wife, Chris, are clearly delighted with their new property and are making improvements as best they can. Yet, as many another traveller has learned, Ireland now is not the Ireland of Pat's memories and childhood; more `it is like a sea on ebb, and only ponds here and there left among the rocks' (Flower, cited Brody, 1973). The area is depopulated, Chris and Pat are lonely. Chris admits that she felt more at home in England; the people in England were more her kind of people than those of Connemara.

John, the other son, seems to live with his memories around him. Like some of the people Brody describes in his book, Inishkillane, he emanates an aura of desolation. John left his family in Chicago and one wonders about his motivation for leaving. He says he misses them, but there is no mention of them joining him or of him returning to America. He says he loves the Irish countryside, but he cannot find a job. He talks about the deep structure of the community but feels a personal rejection which he blames on the community branding him a `Yank'. Every week John goes into town, collects his unemployment cheque, and spends the day in the pub. As viewers, we are guided through the local shop into the pub and treated to some beautifully sung traditional music, but we are not entirely comfortable. This is where the film is at its best, when it mixes unease and local complexity, biting through romanticism, letting Connemara reveal its own poetry and imperfections. Catalogue number (16mm): 5RA133 £15.

H. Brody, 1973. Inishkillane: Change and Decline in the West of Ireland. Allen Lane, London.

E.E. Evans, 1981. The Personality of Ireland: Habitat, Heritage, and History. Blackstaff Press, Belfast

D.F. Hannan, 1979. Displacement and Development: Class, Kinship and Social Change in Irish Rural Communities. Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin.

R.N. Lynch, 1986. Review of the film. American Anthropologist, Vol. 88, pp. 518-19.

G. McFarlane, 1983. Review of the film. RAIN, No. 54, pp. 4-5.

J. Mokyr, 1983. Why Ireland Starved: A Quantitative and Analytical History of the Irish Economy 1800-1850. Allen and Unwin, London.