Death and Life: Inseparably Connected to the Soil

 I'm not going to Ireland for the food but my ancestors surely left Ireland because of it.   I'll be eating simple fare for survival, mostly alone, on the go as I view my food primarily as fuel to explore.  The place I'm staying may provide breakfast. Regardless, it will be fine.  I will survive... unless I don't.  Think of all those would-be travelers flying over Lockerbie Scotland and then BOOM.  Think about 9/11 and people going about their business and then BOOM-dead.  I think about these things as I take to the skies.  I'm not paralyzed by fear, but the thought of death crosses my mind. Though I've been learning about the lives of my ancestors, I've also been studying death-enough to want to spend some of my tourist time walking through graveyards.  We all headed for the ground, becoming one with the dirt.  Since yesterday was Earth Day,  I'd like to explore this connection between the earth and our food choices. 

One such food choice for the Irish was the allure of the promising potato. The potato was the top ramen of its day. It could do so much with so little.  It was cheap.  It was easy.  It could be grown on a small plot of land instead of the substantial area required for grazing animals.  It could feed an army of children and ensure posterity.  I probably would have been among my poor dirt farming, illiterate ancestors gathering seaweed from Clew Bay and mixing it into the rocky soil to grow potatoes to feed my 16 children.  The potato was introduced into an equally inhospitable Irish landscape- one of political oppression and economic exploitation resulting in enforced poverty and deprivation. No longer a choice, growing the crop became a necessity for survival, forming an unhealthy reliance on one single food.  The same craggy soil bringing life. would bring death as well.   

The potato destroyed Ireland's ancient food culture relying on dairy products and oats.  In times past, military strategists stated the simplest way to starve out the Irish enemy was to kill all their cows. For the traditional Irish diet consisted of milk, especially thick, sour milk, butter, curds, cabbages, parsnips, onions, berries, wild herbs, and greens, with little meat.  The only fruit they deliberately planted was apples. They might fry some oatcakes on the griddle.  So my attraction to buttermilk pancakes

must satisfy my inner Irish self  My relatives would have eaten fish and edible seaweed since they were all-powerful at sea. Killing a wild boar would not only have defeated a fierce enemy as a warrior but also brought home the bacon- literally.  The times of the high kings were high times indeed, a far cry from the powerless circumstances their posterity would find themselves in during the great famine.  Limited choices for all.  

I'll be visiting the area of Ireland heavily impacted by the famine, it is ground zero.  The annual famine walk from Louisburgh to Delphi will take place on my birthday this year, May 20th. AFRI coordinator, Mary O'Malley joins the walk whose forebears suffered during the Great Hunger. According to the account, in 1849, about 600 people from Louisburgh set out on a 15-mile walk along the shores of the Killary and Doolaugh lakes to approach their landlord in Delphi for food.  "When they got to the lodge, they were told that the guardians could not be disturbed while they were taking their lunch.  When they finally did see them, the people were sent away empty-handed and most of them died on their journey back."  It is a but one story of death and despair during these famine years. There are many. 

The National Famine Monument is located right at the base of Crough Patrick with the largest bronze sculpture in Ireland depicting a "coffin ship "with skeletons and bones in the rigging.  These ships contained emigrants trying to escape the horrors of starvation only to find a different kind of horror from overcrowding, rampant disease and little access to food or water.  Mortality rates on these coffin ships were sometimes as much as 50% with souls being buried at sea.   Between 1845-1851, 1 million died of starvation or hunger-related disease.  Another 1 million people emigrated from Ireland.

Peter O'Malley, my ancestor, was born in Louisburgh in 1852 according to his death certificate.  Though the date and place might be in question, one thing is certain.  James and Winifred, his parents, SURVIVED the famine.   I'm sure Peter was probably from a large family as was normal for the times.  They were lucky, so very lucky, they were not buried in the mass graves so prevalent during the time of the famine. The victims coffinless bodies were planted in the dirt like the cursed crop they decided to grow. Death and Life-inseparably connected to the soil- the earth.  

These last few months I've focused on my Irish dead.  In my heart, I know it's unrealistic to think I'll find a large, legible gravestone with the names of James and Winifred's artistically inscribed on an iconic Celtic cross.  But I'm going to check anyway.  

We're all gonna die.  But not today!  Today, I get to make decisions, hopefully wise decisions based on my highest values.  Even when I'm dead, I believe I'll still get to make decisions.  The spirits of my ancestors get to make choices.  Probably not on the food they eat, but they get to make choices.   They decide, I decide.  And I've decided to go to Ireland...this coming Friday! 

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