SIX-YEAR-OLD Gearóid Ó Catham has lost the right to his title as “the loneliest boy in the world.” His distinction as the only child among the half-dozen households that still survive on the Blasket Islands, off the extreme west coast of Kerry, ended just over a fortnight ago, when he transferred to a house on the mainland with his parents and grandfather.
Gearóid is now at school for the first time in his life (in foreground, with hand up) and for the first time in his life he has playmates of his own age.
His new home at Dunquin recently was vacated by a family which moved to a Land Commission holding in the Meath Gaeltacht. With the extraordinary adaptability of the normal child, Gearóid has settled into community life with the minimum of fuss. His father’s only worry is that his son may be run over by a motor-car before he has convinced him that the unfamiliar , mechanically-propelled monsters are dangerous. Gearóid tends to treat cars like “naomhogs” (the canvas-covered currachs which the islanders use as the sole mode of transport between the Blaskets and the mainland).
Thanks to his mother’s efforts Gearóid could recite his prayers, could count, and knew the alphabet, when he enrolled at the local national school a few days after reaching the village of Dunquin, about three miles across the Sound from his former home.
Like his parents, Gearóid is glad to be living on the mainland. His mother assured us contrary to the experience of most parents of small boys that her little son loves going to school.
“As for myself,” she added in Gaelic, which is the sole language of most of the islanders, “I am delighted to be finished with the lonely life of
the island.”
It is this loneliness, rather than economic stress, that has persuaded the islanders to come to live on the mainland. The remaining households, it is hoped, will be transferred within the next week or fortnight, weather permitting. They will continue to be dependent for their livelihood on the income from their flocks of sheep, which they will leave behind on the three main islands of the Blasket group.
The Blaskets could, in fact, support far more, than the twenty-odd who now live on the Blascaod Mor, the largest of the group. The islanders at
one time numbered over 150. All three islands were inhabited within living memory and some of the present occupants were born on Inis Tuaiscirt
and Inis Mhic Fhaoileain, which are now used solely for sheep-rearing.
If a suspension bridge could be thrown across the l.25-mile stretch of treacherous waters that separate Slea Head from An Blascaod Mor, or if an
all-weather craft could be stationed at Dunquin to keep communications between the islanders and the mainland open throughout the winter months, none of the families would have consented to leave the homesteads which their ancestors had occupied for centuries.
It was having to go without doctor, priest and teacher for weeks, and even for months, that made them agree to join their relatives and friends at Dunquin. But the menfolk , at least, propose to return to their islands during the summer, to tend their flocks and to fish.
The lack of spiritual aid was underlined with childlike simplicity by one of Gearóid’s classmates, a little girl , some days ago.
Having heard Gearóid tell what seemed to her to be a far-fetched tale, she turned to him and said: “Na bi ag innsint eitheach, a Ghearóid. Ta Dia ag éisteact leat annso; rud na raibh ar an oilean.” (Don’t tell lies, Gearóid. God is listening to you here, something which He did not do on the island.)
