A writer, poet, painter, folklorist, local historian, farmer, fisherman and environmental thinker, Michael Kirby (1906–2005) spent all but three of his ninety-nine years in County Kerry, Ireland. (Those three years were spent working on the railroads in the United States during the Great Depression.) His first poetry collection was published when he was seventy-eight. He wrote eight books in his native Gaelic under the name Micheál Ua Ciarmhaic. A trilogy of memoirs, Skelligside (1990), Skelligs Calling (2003) and Skelligs Sunset, published posthumously, reveal his schooldays, local characters and the folk tales, customs, wit, magic and natural beauty of western Ireland.
Never was a day more to my liking than when soft zephyrs sang from the south, blowing gently across the bay of Skelligs whose waters reflected an azure sky adorned with the fluttering white of the gull’s wing. It was the threshold of a new summer, a time to be glad. I could feel the life-giving energy of the great ocean, which seemed to enter my very being, calling nostalgically – come away… come away…
Glittering rays of morning sun sparkled, spilled and splashed from wavelet to wavelet and onto the back of a slow heaving billow that arose lazily from the depths of a mighty bosom. Lesser gulls wearing white aprons and little black caps, were scattered like ‘sea daisies’ across the blue-green fields of the bay. Some birds seemed to hang suspended above the waters, their wings a special whiteness unlike the whiteness of snow – a colour which stood out to me and could be seen flashing against a background of blue. Even away in the distance their wings seemed like a glint of white lightning in the sky. Black guillemots and razorbills called in shrill voice, singing or composing poems, diving and reappearing from the spume white froth, their bills laden with silver sprat.
On a day such as this could be heard the music of the ocean, the deep throated husky laugh of that fickle monarch of the deep, the sea god Poseidon, who might fume and fluster into a raging tempest or wear the smile of an infant in the cradle of a May morning.
As the sail filled with a belly full of freshful fragrance, I could feel the tautening of the canvas when the little boat comes alive, leaning her shoulder against the sudden rush of water from her bow wave, leaving a furrow in her streaming wake like a ploughshare in the blue field of the bay.
Congregations of screaming Arctic terns with scissor-pointed wings swooped, plunged and dived for their share in the fruits of the kingdom, where myriads of silver sprat had surfaced, much to their excited delight.
Puffins with their multi-coloured beaks, like circus clowns breaking the water, and little auks and crossbills all feasted at nature’s free table, provided for their survival.
Little white clouds like puff balls of thistledown danced ballet across the blue ceiling of the sky. All things alive and life in all things. Praise the Lord for the resurgence of life I felt around me and in my very soul that morning when the soft south winds sang across the bay of Skelligs.
The molten mirror of the sun trundled its fiery wheel across the southern sky, climbing the ladder of infinity and marking the milestone of yet another day. The grey blue rock of the holy hermits, Skellig Michael, standing sentinel by the Kerry headlands came into view, as we swept by the wild head of Bolus out into open sea, where the south wind took on a more lively singing note, causing the boat to dance and increase in speed, tossing her bow over little hummocks of water which laughed and sparkled in her sea way, throwing white blossoms of spray aboard as if to bless her.
Out here all things lived. Ronan the seal played and revelled in the churning surf. An ugly, hook-beaked cormorant pointed its tail feathers heavenwards disappearing beneath the green waters. Manx shearwaters skimmed the surface. Together with the swallow-like flight of the grey fulmar, the great solan goose, mighty bird of the Atlantic, flew towards Little Skelligs, bearing a long streamer of bladder wrack in its great beak, the building material of a new nest, in expectation of this year’s offspring. Little dolphins puffed and played, racing alongside, looping, bending and curving their sleek forms, perhaps in wonderment of man and his little boat.
On a morning such as this what would I wish for? Swallow wings! Yes, swallow wings, wished for by a mere mortal who would feign divest himself of all earthly inhibitions.
I have looked upon the great water asleep like a smiling infant in a cradle, only to awaken to a rosy dawn to watch white horses charging across the bay. I have witnessed sunsets leaving a golden staircase painted on the wave, leading to a flaming crown of molten gold hanging momentarily on the horizon. I can only say – who is the artist? If it be you, oh God, then thank you!