Scott De Buitléir's Blog, page 3

September 21, 2022

Poem: Tír na nÓg (The Land of Youth)

d’Imad

Bhí sé de nós againn uilig
Domhan eile ionann a shamhlú
Agus sinn níos óige,

Bhí muid, tráth, inár laochra dúinn féin;
Ar thóir an chúl báire, an airgid, nó an óir,
Samhlaíocht agus soineantas an pháiste,
Ba láidre iad ná lámh Dé é féin.

Is de ghnáth, áfach, is sinne ‘nois fásta
Go gcaillimid an chleasaíocht sin,
Ar nós gurb é praghas na haoise
Ná cead isteach sa ríocht súgartha.

Ach tríot, b’fhéidir i ngan fhios duit féin,
Thug tú eochair an tseandorais ar ais dom
Agus d’osclaíos an domhan lán solais ildaite
Le soineantas na n-óg orainn arís

Mar is bláth cumhra é gealghrá,
Bheith faoi gheasa agat, bailithe
Slán ó thalamh éagothrom na ndeor
Agus socair id’ shúile,
faoi shéan i dTír na n-Óg.

San Antonio, Texas
20 Meán Fómhair 2022

The Land of Youth

We were all once so used
To imagining another world within us
When we were merely children,

We were, once, the heroes of our stories,
In pursuit of the goal, the money, or the gold,
A child’s imagination, powered by innocence,
Would be stronger than God’s own hand.

And normally, as we slowly come of age,
We come to lose that magical power,
As if the price of adulthood
Was to be locked out of that playground of wonder.

But through you, maybe with you unaware,
You’ve found the key to open those gates
And let out the rainbow coloured light
Basking us in innocence and youthful delight

For ours is a blossoming true love;
To be under your spell, rescued safely
From the land of Sorrows
And safe in your eyes
In the Land of Youth.

San Antonio, Texas
20 September 2022

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Published on September 21, 2022 08:39

February 23, 2022

Writing to Return

At the end of January, I travelled to Belfast with my rugby team to play our first away game. I was so excited; my friends in Belfast were had already planned to come out with us to a few bars, as well as come along to watch the match. My friends from Cork and from my time living in Belfast had come together in the one place, and it felt like a birthday party.

Then, barely five minutes into the match, I fractured my leg and tore a few ligaments, thanks to an unexpected tackle. Upon my return to Cork, I was put into a cast, and having been already equipped with crutches from my friend Stephen in Belfast, I was told to rest at home for a month before I could get the cast removed. Even then, wearing a boot brace and physiotherapy were on the cards before I’d be able to play rugby or train in the gym again.

As I had already been warned, my mental health took just as much of a blow as my leg did. I felt weak for getting so injured, stupid for not being agile or quick enough to avoid the fateful tackle, awkward being on the crutches, and suddenly found everyday tasks like house cleaning or getting up or down a staircase to be tiresome and difficult. Mentally, I found myself exhausted by the time I had my morning shower.

A couple of weeks later, my partner mentioned a post he saw on the Instagram profile of a rugby player we both follow. He described advice for what to do when a player is injured; essentially, to enjoy the downtime and embrace the opportunity to slow down from one’s regular routine. Thankfully, it struck a chord with me, and I was prompted from a corner of my mind to bring my focus back onto my writing.

There’s one story I had been writing that I never managed to finish or even update for quite some time, while my main focuses were publishing Elysium // Párthas, but mostly, just enjoying other priorities in my life, like working out and being part of the rugby team. Thankfully, this bout of forced(?) rest gave me the opportunity to pick up the pen keyboard and continue writing Cranberry Close: Scandals in Suburbia. This work-in-progress drama focuses on the lives of three neighbours; Ellen, Devon, and Heather, each of whom have a secret they wouldn’t like shared amongst the neighbourhood. Of course, secrets often have a way of finding their way into the open…!

Scandals in Suburbia is now available exclusively on Wattpad.

As the story falls into a genre I’m experimenting with (Forgiving Jake was also a drama, but a more straightforward format) I’ve decided to publish it on Wattpad, which is a free-to-read storytelling platform. At the time of writing, Chapters 1 to 9 are currently available, with more to come. Once the story is complete, however, I’m likely to consider it for a more traditional publication, do please let me know what you think of the story while it’s still free and available – I’d love to hear your feedback. You can click on the cover above to read the story on Wattpad.

For me, writing is a way to clear my mind, escape from reality a little, and destress. Returning to writing, especially with Scandals in Suburbia, has been a welcome alternative to what I had been doing during my recovery; frankly, moping around and feeling sorry for myself.

Instead, I hope you enjoy the fruits of my distraction.

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Published on February 23, 2022 12:44

February 21, 2022

Write, Live, Revent, Repeat

One challenge I’ve regularly faced is how to ‘brand’ myself online, despite working in marketing & communications for my day job.

In work, I know there’s one product type to sell. One category. Maybe some variations and choice in between, but one main message to produce and put out there. For me personally, however, there are too many possible categories to fit into one neatly.

First, there’s the writer in me. In truth, I don’t give enough nurture or attention to this figure, because it’s not my day job, and I get easily distracted by other projects, or just by enjoying my life. Still, writing is often where I’m most at peace, most centred, most aligned with my own energy or spirit, most me. I’m proud in the various works I’ve written, and even though I should probably lend my marketing energies to promoting my work as a writer a little more, I am nevertheless content. That being said, I feel like I can’t ‘brand’ myself as just as writer; it feels too monodimensional to me.

Then, there’s the political persona. I’ve tried to develop this since getting into politics around 2017, using my past experience in broadcasting to adopt a public-facing front, but it’s not one that comes naturally to me. The political activists I know and admire are usually passionate about various policy issue, but in truth, I’m not. I can talk with confidence in front of a microphone or camera, but I can’t fake interest in a topic or issue that doesn’t inspire me. In all honesty, I had been inspired by episodes of Borgen and annoyed enough by Brexit to let myself think that I could be good in politics, but eloquence without substance is not a better solution for anyone. It’s best to leave that arena to those who are passionate about what they believe in, and inspire others in their message instead.

Finally, there’s the social media persona that isn’t a brand at all, but can often be in conflict with any attempt to develop a brand; one’s own social life. I’m never going to turn my Instagram feed into a series of literary quotes or interviews as a writer; instead, I’ll post photos of my dog, my various trips abroad or around Ireland, my rugby club and friends, my gym progress, or other random bits from my life. Still, maybe Twitter is a good place for the odd blog or interview.

I’ll try out this new approach to personal branding as I get back into writing; chapters 1-8 of Scandals in Suburbia are now available to read for free on Wattpad, and I’ll be adding more to the story over the coming weeks. Keep an eye out here for new literary updates, and get in touch if you’ve any feedback for me on any of my stories.

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Published on February 21, 2022 05:00

November 15, 2021

Press Release: Love, Loss, and Lockdown in New Irish Poetry Collection

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Scott De Buitléir releases second bilingual poetry collection, with foreword from Scottish Gaelic writer, Marcas Mac an Tuairneir

Love during lockdown, childhood memories, gay rights history, and spirituality are just some of the themes covered in Elysium // Párthas, the new poetry collection from Scott De Buitléir. 

With his second collection of poems written in both English and Irish, De Buitléir has added to the literary canons of both gay Irish poetry and Irish-language poetry, building upon the work featured in his début collection, Fás / Growth, in 2017. Since then, he has read his poetry at several literary events, including the Edinburgh Gaelic Festival. In that cross-Celtic sense, it is fitting that this new collection features a foreword from fellow gay Gaelic writer, Marcas Mac an Tuairneir, who hails the new release as “filled with confident articulation of emotion, relationships, politics, and appraisal of the world we live in”.

With references to key moments in LGBT history at home and abroad, from the horrors of the AIDS crisis to the introduction of marriage equality in Ireland, Elysium // Párthas blends the personal with the political, noting that much of the liberties the poet enjoys today at home and while travelling, are “a people’s past laid down on a patchwork path”, humbly acknowledging the battles fought hard for equality. There are many other more personal yet relatable themes, also, from school bullying to falling in love, and from family ties to mourning over those we’ve lost. 

Speaking on the release of his latest collection, Scott De Buitléir said: 

“It has been wonderful to collect and translate these poems from their original language into either English or Irish, depending on which language was used first. They are deeply personal poems, but hopefully quite relatable also, especially as some deal with common themes of family, love, and loss. As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, also, it’s important to acknowledge what we’ve all been through, which is why two poems focus on the lockdown and our collective sacrifices made, and those we’ve lost to the virus. Overall, I hope the reader enjoys this new collection in both languages.”

Elysium // Párthas, published by MKB Publishing, is available in paperback and eBook formats from November 29. Visit https://scottdebuitleir.com/ for more information. The collection is available on Amazon (https://amzn.to/3HowC0k) or Smashwords (https://bit.ly/3cg32Mi). 

ENDS —

Scott is available for interview by e-mailing hello@scottdebuitleir.com .

About Scott De Buitléir: Scott is an author and poet from Clontarf in Dublin, writing poetry, fiction, and non-fiction in both the Irish and English languages for over 15 years. His published works include Fás / Growth (2017), The Irish Outlander (2018), Yesterdates (2019), and Forgiving Jake (2020). He is founder of the LGBT publication, EILE Magazine (eile.ie) and the Nottingham Writers Collective. He now lives in Cork City with his partner.  __ATA.cmd.push(function() { __ATA.initDynamicSlot({ id: 'atatags-26942-61927a8a978c0', location: 120, formFactor: '001', label: { text: 'Advertisements', }, creative: { reportAd: { text: 'Report this Ad', }, privacySettings: { text: 'Privacy', } } }); });
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Published on November 15, 2021 06:11

September 14, 2021

Protected: Realigning Yin & Yang

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Published on September 14, 2021 04:33

Realigning Yin & Yang

I recently bought a new notebook and took myself to a coffeehouse in the city centre, wanting a little time to myself. In it, I wrote the following:


There are, at least, two very different sides to my self.


One is warm – Yang. He is kind, outgoing, intelligent, socially-conscious, empathetic, emotive, and generous. He wants others to be happy, to thrive, and to enjoy what he enjoys, or at least be free to enjoy what they like. He cares – for those within his social circles, and beyond.


The other is colder and much darker – Yin. He is entirely selfish, only interested in his own enjoyment and pleasure. He wouldn’t go out of his way to be cruel or vindictive, unless he has been crossed – then it’s fair game in a show of ruthless strength. The win is not to be the better man, but simply to win. He is often the only one that really matters to him, save for a few close loved ones, in which case, he yields reluctantly to Yang’s better judgement. He sees others as commodities; having some use or value, or none at all. If it’s the former, he’ll channel his charm to get what he wants. If the latter is the case, you won’t know, because he won’t bother with you.


I feel lately that it is the darker side of me that has taken hold, and I have no desire to reset the balance. The darker side drives me to be more hedonistic, more carnal, more focused on what I want…


I stopped writing at that point, because I got distracted, but there was something cathartic in putting that onto paper – something I don’t find surprising, because writing has always been theraputic to me, especially handwriting. It came as no real surprise to me, either, that I was able to describe that darker side in much more detail while I was under its influence, a persona that ranges from the uncaring to the nasty.

It’s a very weird, liberating, yet uneasy feeling to feel your ‘real’ self detach from reality, and let a darker version take over. But that is what has happened to me recently.

For years, I’ve felt that there are many sides to people; the public side and the private side; the clean and the kinky; the reserved and the vulgar; the yin and the yang. I’ve also had a quote, or a line from some unknown source, planted firmly in my mind for years: The brightest light will always cast the darkest shadow. It means, to me, that a person cannot be entirely full of light without darker parts of themselves, hidden or not. It taught me that in others, and in myself, there is forever a shifting balance between noble and ignoble impulses.

The pandemic has easily shown the best and worst in us all, albeit at very different levels. During the height of lockdowns (speaking from experience here in Ireland, at least), we cared more for our neighbours, our families, and our communities. We checked in on elderly or vulnerable people we knew, in case they needed shopping while they were isolating at home. We made the effort to give others extra space, both for their safety and our own, but also to be considerate and kind to each other. We taught our older relatives and friends how to use Zoom or Skype, so that they wouldn’t feel more detatched from us and the wider world. We baked bread. We slowed down. We cared again.

At the same time, we also saw fear, selfishness, suspicion, and resentment. On a global level, the divide between rich and poorer countries became evident as the vaccines became a reality and went into production, and eventual distribution. We saw protests in various countries against the safety measures governments and authorities put in place, the vast majority of which were arguably done in good faith. Riots took place in some major cities, adding to an almost apocalyptic feeling we had during 2020, and a considerable part of 2021. Indeed, if the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that not all of us are good, and not all of us are bad, either – although that is certainly so broad a generalisation that it’s almost a given.

What struck me recently, though, is that the emotional energy it took to keep up one’s spirits and resolve during the pandemic and its various related lockdown was enormous. We all eventually stopped having the same enthusiasm for staying connected through Zoom parties or other calls, and the desire to reach out died away. Like a dying star, the outermost layers of our social and personal energy had been spent while trying to stay positive during the worst of the pandemic, and since then, we were becoming cooler, more selectful in how we used what was left of our fuel, knowing that it wasn’t replenishing as it should. I thought it might’ve been just me, feeling this increased selfishness in a state of dying energy, until my friend recently said it to me in passing: “I’ve become too tired to care anymore“.

I know that in my notebook excerpt, I used Yin and Yang incorrectly, yet they were the two names that came to mind to describe my two very different internal energies. Traditionally, Yin & Yang are both sides of the same spirit; they are not separate, nor are they opposing forces. Yin is energy that is perceived as cool, calming, feminine, tranquil, meditative, soothing, and soft. Yang is fierce, bright, active, warm, masculine, strong, surging, and loud. All are traits that exist in varying levels in each of us, yet how they naturally fall to create a balance that is recognisably, naturally, “you”, that is a constantly evolving experiment, which we regularly notice and check. Or, at least we should be able to notice and check.

After my friend said that empathetic line, and after we had a relaxing weekend during her visit to our home, I noticed the balance in myself return, with “Yang” taking charge again. But here’s the thing; I needed Yin to recover.

During the last while, I focused only on myself. I was purely hedonistic, because I needed any source of fun and enjoyment I wanted to feel alive after what had been such a draining and isolating 18 months. I did what I wanted with little regard for anything else, because my instincts told me to heal, often without me knowing it at the time. There were some moments where my coldness went too far, which led me to a bit of a social media detox, but it taught me to recognise when the “Yin” becomes too strong for my own wellbeing. It proved to me the truth in Warren Buffett’s quote: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

So, here’s to being selfish and caring, cool and kind, hedonistic and considerate. Yin and Yang, in better balance.

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Published on September 14, 2021 04:33

March 31, 2021

Ireland, United (Under Europe)?

One’s sense of national identity is naturally influenced by one’s physical, family, and community environments. History, education, and current affairs each play an obvious role also, and while every personal experience and definition of identity is different, common ground can still emerge from the ether.

For me, I was a child of the new post-Troubles era, the Celtic Tiger, and Ireland’s growing relationship with Brussels and the rest of the EU. At school, I travelled to Belfast for a Model United Nations competition, and later, to Copenhagen as part of the EU’s Comenius programme. I learned about the experiences, stories, and lives of my European peers, from Limavady to Lithuania, and it opened my eyes to the realisation that we were among the first Europeans to see ourselves not only as neighbours, but compatriots.

Later, when I took a job with BBC Northern Ireland in 2011 and moved to Belfast, it was a defining moment in my life for several reasons. It was my first time to move out of home, and the first time living outside of the Republic. I moved into a small apartment just off Belfast’s Dublin Road, where loyalist paramilitary flags sometimes flew from nearby lampposts. Over time, I made new friends in the city from a mixture of backgrounds; Unionist, Nationalist, gay, straight, Protestant, Catholic, and atheist. I came to really love Belfast, its people, its history, and its hidden ability to make me look at life and society from a perspective I hadn’t expected.

And yet, for me, crossing the border every other week to go home to Dublin didn’t have a connotation of going from the green part of the map to the orange or vice versa. Instead, I saw all of Ireland as blue, because both Ireland and the UK were (then) part of the European Union. As a European citizen, I was as entitled to live and work in Belfast as I would’ve been able to do the same in Berlin or Barcelona. No visa, no embassy check-ins, no immigration status, no worries – because it is every EU citizen’s entitlement and right.

While the topic of a United Ireland is almost always present in the minds of people in Ireland, in a possibly unusual way, I considered Ireland to have been united under the Maastrict Treaty in 1991, along with the rest of the European member states of the EU. The border between the six counties of Northern Ireland, and the 26 of the Republic, was still there for sure, but it made little to no difference in my eyes. Maybe I was naïve back then, but I nevertheless saw Ireland – all of it – as simply united under the 12 stars of Europe, along with the rest of the EU’s member states, including Britain. Whether from Derry, Dublin, Durham, or Düsseldorf, we were all European. Or so I thought.

I was living in Nottingham at the time when the result of that fateful British referendum not only stripped my English friends of their EU citizenship and freedom of movement therein – and arguably, of their sense of European national identity, too – but it re-established partition between Northern Ireland and the Republic in a way that my generation and those younger than I never experienced before. It created uncertainty about the future, worry that old Troubles would be reborn, and fear and mistrust amongst the peoples of these islands would grow. That repartition caused me to resent supporters of Brexit, failing to understand their suspicion of the EU when I had only seen its benefits and freedoms, and it spurred me on to leave the UK sooner than originally planned. It felt like a break-up; that is why Brexit upset me so much, and it seemed so difficult to articulate the worry we in Ireland – north and south – had about what would or could happen next.

As I returned to Ireland, the shock of Brexit made me realise that I wanted to play a part, no matter how small, in Irish and European politics; to add my voice for vulnerable groups and minorities, including minority language communities or LGBT people, while also advocating for the strong European ties and common goals that I had known growing up. Whether or not my actions would have me step forward as a statesman, or merely an active citizen, are still not clear, but since coming home, that sense of duty has remained strong.

Journalist Aoife Moore had a brilliant piece in the Irish Examiner recently, where, in light of recent discussions in the media about the prospect of a United Ireland, she made clear that we will have to be many, many “boring” conversations about how such unification would actually work on a practical and logistics level. Leaving aside hot topics like timelines, flags, relocating parliaments, or anthems, it’s worth realising that vast improvements must be made (if not at least attempted) in the Republic and throughout the rest of the EU before the prospect of joining a united Ireland is put forward as an attractive future.

Today, my best friend is a Latvian who has lived in Ireland for over 16 years, who considers herself as much Irish by now as she is Latvian – and I see her in the exact same way. I’ve another dear friend who lives in the Shankill, in the heart of Unionist Belfast, with their husband, and another few live in east Belfast, surrounded by loyalist murals, union flags, and the rest you could imagine. To me, and like me, they’re all European, just as much as my friends and family living in Berlin or Copenhagen would be.

Maybe that’s where Irish unification efforts need to begin; not from a Dublin or Belfast perspective, but from a broader European one.

Originally published as part of my Revue fortnightly newsletter, Butler’s Insight.

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Published on March 31, 2021 03:00

March 11, 2021

Poem: Nightwalk

In memory of Sarah Everard

Breath by breath 
she counts, in and out
and thinks of anything else
tonight was a good night, overall

Step by step
the path she knew so well
was darker then, but the same danger
for threats persist without shadow. 

Inch by inch
the goosebumps ran
over skin he touched, before:
Sorry, I’ve got a man” 

A lie which lay
between scorn and escape, 
his eyes seared into hers, piercing:
Right, whatever, see ya later” 

Pick up the pace,
keys firm in hand
should a cat call need a southpaw 
only six more streets left.

Steps echoed to a rhythm
not of her own, for echoes of
sound and mind keep apace 
don’t look back, just go

but pace and path
catch up at last
and a laneway became a gateway
– exit, stage left. 

Rose by rose,
the petals fall
with heads down as her coffin’s laid low 

And yet, they’ll explain
instead of how he got away, 
that it was her fault, somehow,
she was slain.

Cork, 11 March 2021

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Published on March 11, 2021 06:59

March 9, 2021

A Different Deanglicisation of Ireland

The following piece was originally published in “Léargas an Bhuitléirigh | Butler’s Review”, which I recently launched as a monthly newsletter on Revue. You can read the first edition and subscribe here.

For a long time, I’ve wanted to see – or at least contribute to – the goal of a re-Gaelicised Ireland; not as some fantastical throwback to crossroad céilí dancing or adoring statues of Gaelic legends, but to reimagine Ireland as if it hadn’t been so drastically colonised and Anglicised. I was inspired by Douglas Hyde’s paper, The Necessity of De-Anglicising the Irish Nation, from a young age, but I’d prefer to see (or develop) a renewed look at this concept from a 21st Century perspective.

In my mind, I see such an Ireland being more like the Netherlands or the Scandinavian countries in spirit; very in-tune with contemporary Western European culture, almost completely competent in the English language, but with a language, culture, custom, and heritage that is entirely and unmistakably their own. Ireland certainly has that in many ways today: the revival of Gaelic sports proved central to an overall cultural revival leading up to independence, but there are other ways in which Irish culture and society never fully had the confidence to diverse from British trends, or re-establish their own viewpoints. That is understandable – a good few centuries of influence and colonial planning can do that do a nation – but it is only now, I feel, that we are gaining the confidence to chart our own course.

Such a ‘New Gaelic’ view may sound potentially isolationist at first, but it is in fact pro-European and internationalist at its core. There is plenty of proof of trade, migration, and cross-collaboration with Iceland, the Faroes, Scandinavia, much of Western Europe, and even as far as ‘Talamh an Éisc’ (translated as ‘Land of Fish’ – now Newfoundland, Canada), all taking place before the Anglo-Norman Conquest. Our Celtic neighbours in Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Cornwall, and Brittany share our common heritage the closest, and they also share most of our common challenges and issues today; housing, education, healthcare, sustainability, developing native industry and agriculture, and equality. The continuation of our languages, music, sport, and heritage is a goal often discussed when thinking of Celtic nations, but while that should absolutely be at the heart of our identity and common culture, there is so much more we can achieve together, with Ireland being a strong leader in the process.


Gael is ea Gael, is cuma dubh, bán, nó riabhach. [A Gael is a Gael, no matter if black, white, or mixed.]

– Anonymous

Social democracy, to me, is central to that path; not only because it has proven successful to the Nordic countries, but I also believe it to be quite innate to the Irish people. We want things to be equally available, and for people to be able to prosper and live how they want. The Marriage Equality referendum proved that strongly to me, and I know that vote to Repeal the 8th Amendment meant just as much to many others since then. We’ve come together through this pandemic in a way that is heartwarming, and although there are many inequalities and injustices in our country, I cannot let go of that hope to find solutions, and the political will to have them implemented for the benefit of the people.

And, while I don’t wish to focus on negativity, I’ll state briefly that my distain for recent far-right demonstrations and groups in Ireland is firmly rooted in my belief in a ‘New Gaelic’ Ireland that is pluralist, secular, and tolerant. I firmly subscribe to the Gaelic tenet: Gael is ea Gael, is cuma dubh, bán, nó riabhach – a Gael is a Gael, no matter if black, white, or mixed – and that kind of inclusive, matter-of-fact statement also shows a distinct social democratic essence, in my eyes.

Still, there is much to be done before we can claim a new era for Ireland or the other Celtic nations. I can only hope, almost a hundred years since independence, that the foundations for such work are secure enough to begin.

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Published on March 09, 2021 09:16

March 7, 2021

Gearrscéal: An Dordveidhil

Ba é an chéad dordveidhil a fuair Ciara ná an ceann céanna is a bhí ag a seanmháthair; í ina dordveidhleadóir le ceolfhoireann i bPáras, tráth. Tugadh L’Étoile d’Irlande – réalt na hÉireann – uirthi i measc lucht an cheoil sa Fhrainc agus i gcuid mhaith eile na hEorpa. Bhí clú uirthi mar dhordveidhleadóir den chéad scoth, ó Rann na Feirste go dtí an Róimh agus ó Chonamara go Cív. Nuair a d’éirigh sí as a bheith ina ceoltóir proifisiúnta, thug sí a ‘leanbh’ – dordveidhil a rinneadh i bPáras – do Chiara mar bhronntanas dá hochtú breithlá déag. Faoin am sin, bhí Ciara ag seinnt leis an gceolfhoireann náisiúnta agus bhí sí ag cleachtadh le haghaidh éisteachta do cheolfhoireann i Londain. Bhí sí cinnte dearfa go raibh sí chun céimeanna a seanmháthar a leanúint, agus dul níos faide ná mar a chuaigh sí féin.

Cúpla bliain níos déanaí, bhí Ciara de Faoite cúrtha fuithi i Londain, í ina cónaí lena buachaill agus ag éirí go han-rathúil i ndomhan an cheoil Chlasaicí – i measc na mBriotanach ach go háirithe. Ar an mhaidin fhuar gheimhriúil úd i Rann na Feirste, áfach, bhí sí le cúpla port a sheinnt do phobail an bhaile, ach ní bheadh sé ina cheolchoirm.

Os chomhair an phobail in eaglais an bhaile, thosaigh sí ag smaoineamh faoin lá a fuair sí an nuacht. B’fhíor-dheacair dá máthair an drochscéal a insint di, ach ba dheacra fós é a chloisteáil, go háirithe agus í chomh fada sin uaithi nach raibh sí in ann compórd ar bith – barróg, fiú – a thabhairt dá chéile. Ina ionad sin, ní raibh ina chompórd ach glórtha a chéile agus iad beirt ag gol.

Thosaigh sí ag smaoineamh faoin uair dheireanach a chonaic sí í, agus í beo. Bhí sí ag cleachtadh píosa brónaí ar dhordveidhil nua a fuair sí féin mar bhronntanas ó hAmbasáid na hÉireann i bParás nuair a d’éirigh sí as. Sarabande le Bach a bhí á sheinnt aici agus Ciara ag siúl isteach sa teach i Rann na Feirste. Bhog sí ó thaobh go taobh leis an ndordveidhil agus í ag seinnt, soir is siar ar nós go raibh sí ag caoineadh in ómós do dhuine. A fear chéile, b’fhéidir, a d’imigh uainn deich mbliana roimhe. Nó a mac – uncail Ciara – a fuair bás i dtimpiste gluaisteáin agus Ciara ina cailín an-óg. Bhí go leor le caoineadh faoi ag a seanmháthair, ach ní raibh sé le feiceáil ach amháin nuair a sheinn sí an dordveidhil.

Shuí sí síos i gcathaoir adhmad os comhair mhuintir an bhaile, agus chuir sí dordveidhil a seanmháthar os a comhair. Phioc sí an bogha suas as an mbosca ina lámh dheis, agus thosaigh sí ag seinnt Sarabande. Bhí céad duine – pobal an bhaile ar fad agus corrdhuine a raibh aithne acu uirthi ó dhomhan an cheoil – i láthair san eaglais chun slán a fhágáil don Étoile, ach ní fhaca Ciara éinne ach í féin, ina luí go suanmhar sa chónra dharach oscailte. Bhog Ciara go mall ó thaobh go taobh ina cathaoir leis an ndordveidhil, mar a bhog a seanmháthair tráth i bPáras, gléasta go hálainn do cheolchoirmeacha mhóra árdnósacha.

Mhothaigh Ciara gach nóta ar nós go raibh sí ag insint scéal a Mamó, bíodh áthasach nó brónach é. Chrith a méara ach lean an ceol ar aghaidh gan fhadhb gan stopadh, ar nós go raibh Mamó á treorú go dtí an deireann. Lean na deora fad is a lean an ceol ón uirlis mhór, ach níor stop sí riamh. Bhí Mamó ann, agus bhí sí sásta agus bródúil as a gariníon. Bhí a fhios aici faoin méid sin – bhí sí cinnte de. Mhothaigh sí lámh clé a Mamó ar a gualainn dheis, á moladh, cé go raibh a corp fós sínte amach sa chónra. Ba chuma le Ciara faoin gcónra, bhí sí ar bís – in ainneoin na ndeor – go raibh Mamó ag éisteacht.

Agus d’éist Ciara féin, mar a d’éist sí léi agus í á sheinnt. Bhí Mamó ann. Fós ina ceoltóir den chéad scoth.

25 Deireadh Fómhair 2010

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Published on March 07, 2021 07:32