Nellie's Flat

Last weekend was Open House weekend in Dublin.  For anyone who doesn't know, Open House happens in cities all over the world around this time of year and, for one weekend, buildings that are normally closed to the public open their doors.  This year, there was only one building I really wanted to see: the Iveagh Trust Museum Flat in Dublin's Liberties.

The flat is in a building complex owned by the Iveagh Trust, a philanthropic body set up by the Guinness family in the late 19th century to build social housing for the poor of London and Dublin.  I've always been a bit fascinated by these distinctive red brick apartment blocks in one of the oldest parts of the city (sandwiched between the two cathedrals, just up from the old Viking settlement) so when I heard one of the flats had been preserved as a museum, I waited for the opportunity to visit.  Thank you Open House!  

Henry and Anne Molloy moved into Flat 3B in 1915, having previously rented two other flats in the building.  Their daughter Nellie was born in one of those flats in 1907 and lived in 3B from 1915 to her death in 2002.  There's a film on the Iveagh Trust site all about Nellie - and a photograph of her is one of the first things you see when you enter the flat.

When Nellie died, her family agreed with the Trustees that the flat should be preserved as a museum - a reminder of how these flats looked and how people lived here in the past.  

The flat has three rooms: a general living room and two bedrooms.  The original design provided for four flats accessed from the same landing to share two toilets and a big sink.  Although other flats in the complex have been modernised over the years, Nellie resisted offers to add a bathroom or a proper kitchen.  When you look at these photos, please consider: at one time there were EIGHT people living here.  Six children sharing one bedroom, their parents the other, with the third room serving as living room, dining room, kitchen.  And this would have been considered a pretty good standard of living at the time.  

No space in the living room is unused.  In a space about 9m2 there is a range set into the fireplace, a kind of pantry/cupboard in the corner,

a long leather sofa, a table with four chairs, two easy chairs, another folding table, a sideboard and sundry photos, holy pictures, ornaments.

Oh, and a piano.  Did I mention the piano?

One of the bedrooms has space for two twin beds, some hooks and a chest of drawers.  The second now only has one brass bed, but this is where, once upon a time, the six children would have slept.  You can still see a curtain rail running across the ceiling - a curtain was used to divide the boys' side of the room from the girls' side.

Tucked behind the door was a small, slightly more modern, stove.

The washing facilities:

What struck me most about the flat was not the size (although it's hard to imagine how it worked when everyone was at home - squeezing past the piano, taking it in shifts to eat meals ...), nor the decor (though you have never seen such a range and variety of holy pictures and memorabilia) but the  quality of light which gilded everything like in a Dutch Golden Age painting.  While I'm sure the atmosphere in the flat wasn't always as serene and lovely as it was last Saturday afternoon, I think I can understand why Nellie might have wanted to keep it as it was - a kind of illuminated shrine to her family.

Visiting the flat can be arranged by appointment, by contacting the Iveagh Trust.

Arranmorning

The trip to Arranmore marked a first for me: the first time I stayed overnight on one of the islands.  Now, in consequence, I have a new hint.  Do you likewise.  There is nothing quite like falling asleep to the sound of the sea on an island and waking up to the views and the quiet.  On Sunday morning I walked along the beach to the pier and the abandoned lifeboat station - it was the absolute epitome of serenity.

Around Arranmore

If you're wondering what there is to do on an Irish island, the answer, most often, is walk around and look at the scenery.  One of the most striking things about the scenery on Arranmore is the contrast between the east and west sides of the island.  The sheltered east side is almost lush (or certainly lush in comparison) with trees, bright flowers - and bright paint.  The west side, exposed to the Atlantic and with nothing between it and America, is wilder, more rugged.  I can confirm this, because we walked all the way around the island, 14km in total.  We followed Slí Árainn Mhór or the Arranmore Loop from Aphort at the south-eastern end of the island, walking clockwise till we came back to where we started - with a brief detour to Phil Bán's Pub.

The Arranmore Ferry

Last week I was catching up on a backlog of summer trips.  Now for a slightly more recent excursion.

At the beginning of August, I visited island #5 in my island hopping project to visit all of Ireland's inhabited offshore islands. Arranmore Island off the south coast of Donegal is among the largest of the islands and has one of the biggest island populations.  (Arranmore - in Irish, Oileán Árainn Mhór - not to be confused with Inis Mór Árainn, the biggest of the Aran Islands off the Galway coast, though their names are very like.)  Like many of the islands, Arranmore is a Gaeltacht and Irish is still the main language of many of the islanders.  

Unlike Tory, which I visited last summer, Arranmore is a mere stone's throw from the mainland: ten minutes in a fast ferry from the village of Burtonport.  And when we left on a Friday evening, the sun came out to gild the voyage.  We could have been sailing to a Greek island - almost.  

The ferry isn't big, but it can take cars and, since we were staying for the weekend, we elected to bring the car with us.  I'm just glad that it wasn't my responsibility to reverse the car up the little ramp and on to the deck…  Still, that done, we made our way up on deck for the short crossing.  I think that ferry boats like this are a big part of my fascination with island life.  

The wind turbine of Burtonport

Burtonport

 The ferry passes through a sheltered channel cutting through a group of islands: Rutland Island, Edernish, Inis Coo.  You can see the route of the ferry on the map:


There are some beautiful holiday homes on the islands - which are only accessible by private boat.

Two ferry companies make the trip back and forth: the red Arranmore Ferry company and the blue Arranmore Fast Ferry Service .

Very soon after leaving Burtonport, you arrive at Leabgarrow, the village of the island.

One final note on the ferry.  Though Arranmore has many, many things in its favour, there are limited options for evening meals.  So on the Saturday night, we took advantage of the fast, friendly, scenic ferry to hop back to Burtonport for dinner, before returning to the island for bed!

Derek Hill, His House

Imagine a brick red Georgian house, ringed by dripping greenery, set in a sodden valley under a rainwashed Donegal sky.  Imagine walking into the front hall, walls the blue of billiard cue chalk (walls covered, in fact, with billiard cue chalk) and paintings as far as the eye can see: Augustus John, Jack Yeats, Louis LeBrocquy, Oskar Kokoschka.  Welcome to the home of Derek Hill, English portrait painter, Irish landscape painter, founder of the 'Tory School' (yes, that Tory), resident of Churchill, Co. Donegal.

Derek Hill in a series of vignettes:

Hill's friend Henry McIlhenny (of the Tabasco McIlhennies), connoisseur, philanthropist, who bought nearby Glenveagh Castle and later left it to the Irish State, didn't care for Hill's style of decorating.  When asked his opinion of a Tiffany lamp in the dining room, McIlhenny sniffed, 'it's vulgar. But it goes with the rest of the house.'

Hill painted the great and good and many of them came to Donegal for their sittings.  One visitor was Greta Garbo, who graced the tapestry chair by the fire in the sitting room with her presence.  She had a perfect profile, but for some reason Hill never painted her.

He did paint Yehudi Menuhin and it's said that Menuhin treated the people of Gartan to a performance.  The legend goes that Hill's housekeeper Gracie was asked by one of the locals who the grand fiddler was.  She wasn't exactly sure of the name, but Hiúdí McMenamin sounded about right.

The pipes in the kitchen are painted in different primary colours. On a shelf of the red dresser is a ceramic platter designed by Picasso.  There's also a portrait of Gracie, by Hill, hanging above Gracie's chair.

His bathroom - still with his toothbrush in its holder - is papered in rose-spattered wallpaper and has a pile of Country Life magazines within handy reach of the bath.

He liked bright silk ties and embroidered slippers.

The walls, and more interestingly the ceiling of his study, are papered in original William Morris 'Blackthorn' wallpaper to create an illusion of lying under a woodland canopy.

The house is preserved more or less as it was left in 1981 when Hill donated it, its contents and his art collection to the Irish people.  Every surface is adorned, every wall covered; every room a story, a work of art in its own right.

*
Glebe House and Gallery, Churchill, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal.

Fáilte go Toraigh*

The day we went to Tory Island, there was much singing of Báidín Fheidhlimi.  This is a song that every Irish child learns, about a fisherman (Feidhlimi) who takes his boat to Tory with sad consequences.  (For lyrics and translation see here.)  It's actually quite a jolly song, in spite of the whole shipwreck thing.  Anyway, I'm glad to report that we made our way safely to Tory.  Of all Ireland's offshore islands I read somewhere that it is the farthest offshore and the ferry trip takes about 45 minutes.  Like many Irish islands, Tory is a Gaeltacht, and Irish is the first language of the islanders.

One of the things that makes Tory special is the fact that the island has its own king, Rí Thoraigh, who is elected by the islanders. The current king, Patsy Dan Mac Ruadhri, meets every ferry at the quay, driving up alongside in his royal Mercedes.  Please note the personalised numberplate.

The hub of island life is an Baile Thiar, the west village, where the hotel/pub, cafe and a couple of shops are located, as well as the ferry dock.  Despite the island's relative remoteness, the inhabitants are still proud Donegal supporters, which is why so many of the buildings are painted green and gold, the colours of the county football team.

Happily, the green and gold buildings blend well with the island's natural colour scheme.

In Celtic mythology, Tory is famous as the island where Balor of the Evil Eye cast his daughter Eithne into prison because it was foretold that her son would kill him.  As these things usually worked out, Eithne still managed to bear a son who did, in fact, kill his grandfather.  Since I feel a certain solidarity with all Eithnes, I'm glad she had the last word.

We walked to the far end of the island, to Balor's fort (the cliffs on the east end of the island which have the remains of a prehistoric settlement) passing several currachs on the way.  I liked this one and the abandoned machinery - some kind of winch for pulling in boats? - beside it.

The island is decidedly dramatic: with little vegetation, you get spectacular views from end to end.

From the cliffs, we walked back to village and had excellent chowder at the Harbour View Hotel.  I'd tell you to make sure and visit it if you're ever on Tory - except that as it's the only pub on the island you almost certainly would anyway.

Tory is bleaker than other Irish islands I've been to. It's remote and windswept and, apart from a few sheep, there's very little in the way of farming.  You get the distinct impression that life here has always been hard.  But it is has that stripped down, bare beauty that I've seen on Greek islands, where the colours are pure and intense against the sea and sky.

Come to think of it, Balor of the Evil Eye does sound a bit Greek ... Perhaps the island shop needs to stock up on some Ματόχαντρα.  

*Welcome to Tory

The Lutyens Youth Hostel

Everything is connected.  Inspired by my visit to Lambay, I did some more reading about Lutyens' work in Ireland and discovered that a hunting lodge he designed in Donegal was now a youth hostel. A youth hostel just a stone's throw from the place I spent every summer as a child - and, as chance would have it, had planned to visit the week after Lambay.  Strangely, though I'd passed it a hundred times, I'd never been inside the youth hostel.  Obviously, this was the moment to make good on that.

This is not the youth hostel.  This is the rather striking sculptural arrangement of abandoned lorries sitting in front of it.  

This is the youth hostel - and once I saw it, I could see the connection between this and other Lutyens buildings.  Those sweeping, slightly curved, cross between pagoda- and chalet-inspired roofs.

Though I suspect that the accommodation is somewhat basic, you do have stunning views over the Atlantic Ocean - and a rather lovely porch wrapping around the house from which to appreciate them.

Overseen: Matchy Matchy II

Overseen on Tory Island, Donegal, Ireland, July 2013.  Just recently I wrote about those chic Frenchies, matching their vans to their window treatments.  But look!  The good people of Tory have matched a van to an electricity sub-station.

Now that's style.