Put Some Mayo On That: Leaves from My Journal of a Month In the West of Ireland

By Susan Dorsey Boland

Writing about the country she loves, Boland delivers a love letter to the ancestral homeland she triumphantly returned to. This gifted storyteller, scripting one of the world’s most beautiful coastlines, The Coast Road of Clew Bay, with her perceptive cultural insights and warm sense of humor, has delivered a landmark in travel writing. Leaves from her journal are subtly stitched together with threads of local history, time-honored traditions, and the charm of her Irish friends and acquaintances who inhabit this different world. Presented with truthfulness and wit, Put Some Mayo on That is the next best thing to your own month in Mayo. Leave behind the limitations of modern travel and encounter the joys of letting the place guide you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: May 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483409498

Book preview

Put Some Mayo On That

Leaves From My Journal of a Month In the West of Ireland

Susan Dorsey Boland

Copyright © 2014 Susan Dorsey Boland.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-0950-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-0949-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014904868

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Image Bull on the Coast Road courtesy of Beth Boland

Map of Mayo courtesy of Brendan Boland

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 5/7/2014

For Maura

We shall not cease from exploration.

And the end of all our exploring will be

to arrive where we started

and know the place for the first time.

T.S. Elliott

Images

The lane that leads from the house…..                  Frontispiece

Map of Mayo

Croagh Patrick marks County Mayo…

The lane that leads from the house…

Each cloud’s shadow runs…

The young man’s shoes are pushed off…

Ballintubber Abbey is a desirable place …

This morning one stands motionless…

I am as mesmerized by this visible flow…

I promise myself that tonight I will…

I had not dared set out to Inishturk this summer…

Beth produces the picture she took…

I am as tied to Ireland as…

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Map of Mayo

Contents

Croagh Patrick

The Wells of Mayo

Murrisk

Westport Quay

On Beartra

Immigrants

Glencolmcille

Kilkee

Put Irish on That!

The Publican

Kate

Carrowmore Strand

On the Mountain

Be still, and know that I am God.

Kylemore

On The Mountain 1965

Grandmothers

Mweelrea

Unsettled Weather

Ballintubber Abbey

The Tied Island

Immigration II

Castlebar

No Pilgrims on the Mountain

Boheh

Halfway

A Most Difficult Climb

Giving Thanks

Missing Maura

Knocknarea

Foxford

A Mountain’s Heart

Rain

Inishturk

Blow-Ins

In the Pub

Meditation

Lecanvey

Rabbit Holes

No Mayo in that Man

Bodhran

Killary

Turn the Fridge Off

In Good Company

The Bull on the Coast Road

An Invitation

Louisburgh

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Foreword

The author, Susan Boland, has had a personal relationship with Ireland and the Irish for most of her life. As a member of a large Irish-American family in northern New Jersey, her first trip to the land of her ancestors came at age eleven. Through the years she has returned to Ireland frequently and has developed a unique sense of the island and its people. She blends an American perspective with something else that I cannot describe, but whatever it is, it comes to her from an ancient place.

I like to say that although Susan was constructed in the United States, many of the parts originated in Ireland. Whether it is ancestral ties or just the enchanting nature of the place, she has chosen to sink deep roots into