Revisiting The Tain
I'm teaching two courses at St. Joseph's College in Maine this coming semester. I'm re-reading The Tain for my Irish Literature course. I had forgotten what a complex rich story this was. The Tain, for those who have not read it, is an grand Epic on a par with Beowolf. It's the story of Cuchullain, the Hound of Ulster, part super-hero, all legend. I am looking forward to introducing him to my students.
I went to school in Ireland one summer, a long while back. I have Irish blood, and so I thought I knew Ireland. I couldn't wait to see the castles, and cottages, the charm of the place. I had been in love with it all years. But I was in love with something I knew nothing about and so I was disconcerted to find out that, although Ireland is indeed beautiful, it was not what I had expected to find. At this point in its history, the Republic of Ireland was going through hard economic times, and I was riding up the road in the middle of it.
As I rode the bus in from Shannon Airport, a bus that would take me to university in Galway City, I noted the ragged haircut of the man in front of me, the old coat and faded kerchief on a woman across from me. No one was singing and dancing. No one was smiling. Everyone was deep into their own journeys. As I peered out the window, I saw cottages which may have been charming once, deserted and decaying by the side of the road. The grayness of the foggy day pierced my heart. The fields were as green as advertised, but they were overshadowed by my own blues.
Where was the Ireland of Lucky Charms? Where was the Ireland of When Irish Eyes Are Smiling? The castles and fairies and leprechauns in my head dissipated as I rode that bus up the coast. For a grumpy moment, I resented the place entirely and thought to myself, "It's going to be a long summer".
But as we jounced along, it occurred to me that this ancient place had existed far, far back from the rise swell of the Irish American. It had its own language and its own triumphs and tragedies. It had its own moral code and values. I had always been proud of the Irish part of me, but until I went to Ireland, I did not understand that Ireland's culture and history has little to do with green beer on St. Patrick's Day, (although they do like their pints, and so did I). And I had an epiphany. I resolved to fall in love with it as it was, for its reality, not my fantasy. And I did. That summer remains one of the most enlightening and wonderful times of my life.
That's what reading The Tain is bringing back to me—the knowledge that although we contain the DNA of our ancestors, as Americans, most of us are immigrants with trace memories of forty shades of green. Where we came from is entirely different, and to have been able to travel back to honor the truths, both good and terrible, of that ancestral landscape was a privilege. I would never understood the depth of their history and their literature. The Tain is no mere misty fairy tale, and neither is Ireland.
