"Twenty Years A-Growing" by Maurice O'Sullivan

I just finished reading a fine book by Maurice O'Sullivan caled "Twenty years A-Growing"--in Irish-Gaelic "Fiche bliain ag fás." O'Sullivan's name in Irish is Muiris Ó Súilleabháin. Heck, this fellow could be a relative, for I am as much a Sullivan as I am a Coughlin. I plan on reading this book in Irish this coming year, as soon as I can get hold of an Irish-language copy.

The book was published in both Irish and English in 1932, and it is a classic of modern Irish literature. The main focus of the book is O'Sullivan's growing up on the Great Blasket Island, two kilometers off the Dingle Peninsula, in Ireland's County Kerry. The island was inhabited until 1953, and was an outpost of the Irish language when the language was quickly declining throughout Ireland. There is still a small Gaeltacht, Irish-speaking area, on the Dingle Peninsula.

O'Sullivan was born on Great Blasket on February 19, 1904, but his mother died when he was 6 months old, and he was moved to the mainland, to Dingle town, and was raised there by relatives until he was about school-age. By that time, Muiris (Maurice) could only speak English. So around age 5 (Wikipedia says 7) he was brought back to the Great Blasket to live with his grandfather and other relatives. He picked up beautiful Irish very quickly, as little children do.

This is a very well-told story and O'Sullivan was a great storyteller (an old Irish tradition, to be sure!).Storytelling is one of the things you do if you don't have radio, television, the Internet, electricity, telephones, and the like; of course the Blasket Islanders had none of these when Maurice returns to the island around 1910. Amazingly (to us of the year 2012), life seems very lively on the island for the 200 or so inhabitants. There always seems to be music, dancing, visiting, storytelling, celebrating, and the like going on--not to mention the hard work of fishing, collecting peat for fires, working with the lambs and cows and chickens, and tending the gardens in the village. The community life hardly seems to lack for anything, from the perspective of young Maurice.

By the time Maurice is twenty (around 1934), the community does seem to be in decline. Some people have moved to America (particularly Springfield, Massachusetts); others have moved to the mainland--Dingle town (about a day's walk and a scary boat ride from the island); still others have gone to Dublin, which feels like a different world when Maurice describes his first visit. Dublin has trains, street lights, large buildings, and more people than Maurice O'Sullivan had seen in his entire life. He goes there to join the national police force, and after his training, gets a posting to the area called Connemara, in western County Galway, where a different dialect of Irish is spoken. In 1950, at age 46, O'Sullivan drowned off the Connemara coast while swimming. Thankfully, he left us with this wonderful book.

A view of Great Blasket Island (Wikipedia)

Ruins of Marice O'Sullivan's house on Great Blasket (Wikipedia)

I located a short Youtube video of the Great Blasket (keep in mind that the inhabitants in 1910 traveled to and from the mainland via small "currachs," not via power boat!