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Wednesday morning, I gave a call to Magee College and asked if they ever had a program that recorded spoken Irish tales. It took me three different people to find one who had an idea that Trinity College, in Dublin, was working on something like that, and they thought the university at Coleraine might have once assisted. Sort of a gathering of Irish heritage.
I got a name, there, and called, and they said they’d had a program but it had been made redundant, years ago. I found out they’d be in their office till four so called Rhuari. He couldn’t take me. Bridie was ill and being tended to by the midwife. Possibly a miscarriage, which made my heart sink. I remembered Ma having gone through those, and despite his stoicism I sensed he was barely keeping it together. So I wished her well.
It turned out Jimmy Haggerty was off classes, that day, and had his father’s estate car, so he agreed to give me a ride in exchange for a tank of petrol. To which I agreed, and we headed straight out with sandwiches whipped together by his mother and bottles of Fanta.
He was a clean, clear lad with careful clothing, a careful haircut, and even a careful smile. As we drove, he told me how he’d been shrugged off the University at Jordanstown and was studying at Magee. Had a girl he liked, there. Felt at home.
"Unlike at Queens," he said, "when I went to look, not once did I hear someone call me Taig or Papist. You know what a Taig is?"
I just nodded, thinking of when Billy Corrie had referred to me, Danny and Colm as such. Not a pleasant memory.
Of course, it took hours to get past the city’s checkpoints, and that’s even with me sharing my Marlboros. Everyone was too much on edge, so I think the real reason we had so little trouble was my American passport. Then came another two hours on the open road, and more checkpoints, here and there. But we finally got to the campus--one of those wide, open, modern sorts with make-do buildings and a surface level of calm--and managed to find the man’s office in one of the newer structures.
He was a bit nervous about Jimmy but made a show of being polite, for me, and I played the oblivious American to the hilt. His office was plain, functional and cluttered, as it should be, and he already had a reel-to-reel tape recorder set up on a nearby table, with a couple of extra reels sitting beside it.
“These are the only ones I could find,” he said. “I think most were sent to Trinity.”
I held up my cassette player and asked, “You mind if I record one or two?”
He blinked and almost trembled, which Jimmy noticed. I caught him hiding a smirk.
Then the man said, “Just don’t tell anyone it was me let you.”
I only grinned and nodded. Then he started it playing...and the sound of Da’s voice was a punch to my heart. Gentle and melodious, it was. Almost caring...no...no...almost playful. I had to keep that smile plastered on my face and my eyes focused on the slow-turning reels to keep from revealing how overwhelmed I suddenly was as he said...
There is a tale about how harpies came to live in the Cliffs of Moher. It comes from back in a time before the wondrous few went to the earth and the world still held magic.
There was a morning, close to the sun rising from the sea, when the Tuatha de Danaan appeared on the shores of the east. Those on the hills, who saw the soft low mist roll in over Cuan Dhún Dealgan, told of how they strolled up onto the land with a pride and power never seen before. Tall and fair, they were, like angels pure and fine, with the early sun and wind making their golden hair dance like fire. It was soon noted their abilities were so advanced, those who had been living here a thousand years before thought them gods.
He who led them was come to be known as the Dagda, and his figure was perfection among men. Shoulders broad and strength beyond compare. Face well-formed. Eyes the color of the sky as his chin offered a beard that put the sun to shame. It was said his parents were the wind and the sea, and none were they who could dispute it.
His mate was Morriggan, whose beauty was the greatest ever beheld. Hair flaming bright as the sky at sunset. Eyes as green as grass. Skin like fresh milk. Her mastery of the world’s mystical ways was without compare. It was said all she had to do was think of where she wanted to be and she would materialize there.
Tara was their home, built with beauty and grace, and three daughters did that union bring forth. Each as lovely as their mother, and each just as happy to follow in her mystical ways. To witness the five of them together was to know none better could exist.
Of those who first lived on the land, the clan Ui Bruiun was the best. For millennia, they had slept in their compounds and toiled in their fields, growing the finest barley. Their hunters were beyond compare, and never in winter were they without food to eat or mead to drink.
They were led by Larne Ui Bruiun in ways generous and honorable, and his son, Caoughin was being well-trained to follow. He was himself a fine young man. Dark, sturdy and strong. Well-thought of as a hunter. Which he well-knew.
So the two tribes lived in harmony and grace. Each well-mannered with the other. Thus it would have remained...
Until there was a day when the Dagda approached the Ui Bruiun compound to seek shelter from a storm. Propriety demanded his request be honored, so he was offered a room unto himself, with a fire blazing and more than enough food and drink.
Had he been satisfied with that, all would have been well. But the Dagda being a man, his eye roamed over the lovely lass who was attending him. Her name was Caera. Hair as black as a raven’s wing. Skin soft and pure. Lips like red berries on the vine. And a manner quite joyous. She was betrothed to Caoughin and propriety also dictated she remain unsullied.
But the Dagda worked his charm on her and brought her to his bed. Some say willingly; some say not. Whichever way it was, Caera wound up with child.
This was a major breech of etiquette. A poor repayment for the Ui Bruiun’s kindness towards him. So the Dagda was banned from their compound, which soon extended to all Tuatha de Danaan. And Caoughin, severely embarrassed, cruelly spurned poor Caera, bringing naught but distress to their clan.
But this was not the end. For when Morriggan learned of the liaison, she was furious. To have the Dagda mingle with a common girl of the earth was an insult to her. Then to learn she would bring a child of his into the world was unacceptable. Using her mystical ways and with the help of her daughters, she found and killed the lass. Her intent was to also kill the child within her, but a boy had already been birthed and was beyond her reach.
Infuriated, the Ui Bruiuns demanded retribution so as to avoid war. The Dagda, now ashamed of his part in the travesty, ended his companionship with Morriggan and strode by foot across the width of Eire to wash his sins away in the waters beneath the Cliffs of Moher. His promise? To add greatness to the boy he had sired with Caera.
This mollified the anger of the Ui Bruiuns, but Morriggan was not to be put aside so easily. Through dark black magic, she and her daughters formed the Dagda’s sins into seven harpies and sent them out to kill the child.
The beasts ravaged the land, feasting on any male youth they found. Soon great battles occurred between the clan and those monsters, and many widows were made. Year after year the fighting raged, with Caoughan at the fore, throughout, and slowly, slowly, one harpy after another was destroyed until but three were left.
Morriggan finally realized the horror she had unleashed and relented from her anger. Despite her powers, she could not force the harpies to cease their dances of death. The only path she could see that might convince them to pull back from their slaughters, was to promise they would survive. For they were as wearied and beaten down as the Ui Bruiuns.
They agreed to shelter in the caves of the Cliffs of Moher and come out only during storms to feed on fish in the sea. In exchange, once each hundred years, when a small, black globe crosses the sun, a lad of the Dagda’s bloodline would be offered for them to feast upon. To seal the bond, the first to be sacrificed would be Caoughan Ui Bruiun. At Darian’s Point on Inish Ciuin.
Willingly he went, almost desperately, for he was destroyed by guilt for how he had treated Caera. And thus, the pact was sealed.
So do not go to the Cliffs in the midst of a storm. Or well into the night. For you might catch glimpses of harpies dancing in the rain and mist. But if you must, take a care they do not see you, for they will not tolerate such impudence, and any who witnesses their dance will be cast into the surging waters, below.
And so it has been for three-thousand years. And so it continues even till this day.
It was mesmerizing. His voice musical, almost elegant to the point of soothing. The story complete. I could only remember bits of it from when he was drunk and lost in the telling.
Jimmy found it fascinating to hear. “This was Maeve’s Da?” he asked.
I managed to keep my voice calm and cool as I said, “Yes. They said he told some lovely stories.”
“And all I’d every heard about him was he was a drunken brute.”
“Yeah. He was.” I turned to the professor. “I understand the person who recorded this was killed by the IRA.”
He nodded. “It’s really sad. No excuse, but he was Protestant so no excuse needed by them.” Then he tensed and cast a quick glance at Jimmy.
I noticed Jimmy starting to puff up so quickly asked, “Did he do more of these recordings? Of this man?”
“Oh, there were some, but this was the only good one. The others, the drunker he became, the wilder and more incoherent the stories were. Like claiming he’d helped free Ireland from the English. But the date listed as his birth made him far too young, for that. Still, the recordings brought some interest, for a bit. Then it died out and Troubles began and all was shipped to Trinity.
“I think the lad did two recordings of this tale. Of all these, and only the better ones were transferred down. There were a few more boxes with reels in them, but none with this man’s name on them. Would you want to listen to them all, to see?”
I shook my head, still affected. “This was all I needed. I just wanted to have something to show he was good at telling stories.”
“And this is quite a tale, isn’t it? Our History department did a search for it and could find no reference to one such as this, ever told before. Almost like he made it up.”
“Maybe he did. He used to make a living, telling stories at fetes and parties.”
“Did he? And I thought it was merely to cadge drinks.”
I made myself chuckle. “That, too.”
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