Storm Barra

Photo credit: Graham Bruton, @grahambruton

Storm Barra made landfall the other night, and its lashing gales crashed off my house yesterday morning at a rate of 90kph. Half the country had texted me about Storm Barra, and I received pictures of its path several times so yesterday, I said I’d nab a picture.

But there was nothing to capture with a camera. It was louder, wetter and wilder, but the island didn’t look hugely different from a standard windy day.

And that’s how I got thinking about how exposed we are out here on even an average day. It seems I’d forgotten I live on an island until Barra rolled in and reminded me of what I’d lately ceased to notice.

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Watching the weather forecast, I winced as I saw Storm Barra’s ferocious cyclones sweep up the west coast. On Met Éireann’s maps, the offshore islands looked defenceless and wide open. Like ducks before an armada. I could’ve hidden behind the couch as I watched Barra bulldoze across Sherkin off Cork.

The storm roared hard in the morning, then died down a little. In the evening, I listened to it thunder off my poor gable, for a few fields and stone walls were all that buffered it from the allied Atlantic-Barra forces. I’m on a height, with little by way of tree or bigger hill for shelter. In my more imaginative moments, I imagined it to shake my windows and rattle my walls (thanks Bob) but neither was actually true. It did however, rise and fall, from almighty billow to menacing grumble. Like a water diviner, it sensed a draught, seized it and hissed through it. It howled as it caught off all tied down outside and whistled low and quick when it caught in the vents. Rumbling always.

I didn’t love it, but it didn’t frighten me. I simply turned up the radio. That said, it was clear that a storm here is different from one experienced in lovely landlocked Roscommon, with Mayo and Galway to protect from the ocean, and trees to shield gable walls from gale winds. Roscommon is by no means immune to occasional storm rage, but if the two were to be compared; Roscommon is armour-clad, Inis Meáin naked.

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On normal days, y’know the days without 90kph winds, I struggle for a word to describe Inis Meáin’s position. ‘Isolated’ isn’t right, for rarely do I feel isolated, nor is ‘remote’ for we’re only a few miles out. Nor are we ‘disconnected’, ‘detached’ or ‘removed’. And yet, there is a body of water between us and mórthír – the mainland – and that body of water means this is a place distinct. A place where patience, waiting and making-do are simply reality.

A neighbour asked me once, what do I do if I run out of something. It was a simple answer; if it’s not in the island’s shop then I do without, cook something else. Put it on the list for the following week’s shopping. Simple as.

The island is served by a ferry twice a day, and three planes a day (though I rarely get the plane as my car is at the pier in Ros a’Mhíl, and the plane is dearer). A shopping order to Joyce’s in Indreabháin emailed in the morning will come on the evening ferry. Most families shop at SuperValu, and that shopping comes on the cargo boat on a Thursday morning. The cargo boat itself comes three times a week. There is no nipping to the store for timber or animal feed; such goods must be delivered to the docks in Galway, to come out on the cargo boat with the other heavy goods like cars, gates, fuel, SuperValu shopping, DPD/UPS deliveries and animals. It’s not seen as majorly inconvenient, though it can sometimes feel as if daily island life is governed by boats.

Day to day though, this way of doing things is rarely a concern until a storm like Barra comes in, when the boats can’t come out, and in a medical emergency the helicopter likely couldn’t land. On days and nights like that, our separateness or apartness is quite pronounced, quite definite, and words like ‘remote’ and ‘isolated’ and ‘apart’ are apt as hell.

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There are other ways that body of water impinges upon life, particularly for one as recently arrived as me, with one foot here and the other on the mórthír. There is a bubble-like quality to the life here. Events elsewhere are not irrelevant, but interest in them requires effort. I used to read two and three newspapers a day, and now I do well to skim through the morning email of one.

I am frequently amazed at how separate my lives here on Inis Meáin and there on the mórthír are. The Aran Islands and my home place are in the same dioceses (Tuam is huge) but beyond the novelty questions of what we do for shopping, how many children are in the school and whether we have a pub, my life here is seen there as mysterious and quite unknown. Yes, on the island and at home, we ask after each other’s families and the neighbours or friends frequently mentioned, but sometimes I think I could have come here under an assumed identity, and nobody would know (I didn’t; my job requires undergoing comprehensive vetting). The worlds always feel very separate; stories from here don’t resonate there, stories from there don’t ‘land’ here – unless, of course, I tell them particularly well.

As with many, many small places, little is truly secret here. To not plunge into gossip takes enormous willpower and discipline (admittedly, I sometimes come up short with both) because Inis Meáin is like a little microworld – population 183 in 2016 – and wittingly or unwittingly, we’re closely knit into each other’s lives. The other side of that coin though is that in this ‘isolated’ place, I’ve never felt isolated. Indeed, I’ve never been so well looked-out for. And I’d miss that, moving somewhere else. I’d miss the security of the small society.

Indeed I can nearly see now why people take to communes…

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In short, having gotten used of so many features of island living, I’d half forgotten I live on an island, that other people’s plans don’t revolve around boat times and weather conditions. But Storm Barra reminded me of the island’s exposure, its separation and distinctness, and showed me the extent to which island life is shaped by those very factors I so rarely consider.

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Thanks for reading, I do appreciate the encouragement. If you enjoyed this, other posts can be found here – they’re mostly about Inis Meáin these days, but there’s stuff there about politics, home, rural living and other notions I took on given days. I’m on Twitter too, if you really like what you read!!