Author Archives: martinatyrrell

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About martinatyrrell

I am an editor and writer, an anthropologist and human geographer. I am a mother, a sister and a daughter. I'm from Ireland, but my research and longings have led to extended periods of my life lived in Japan, the Canadian Arctic, the UK and, right now, Spain. I am fascinated by our place in the environment and our relationships with other animals.

92. Sense memory

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What sound, smell, taste awakens in you memories of a far off time or place? Maybe it’s a memory that’s so visceral you can almost touch it. Or maybe it’s more ethereal, shrouded in a hazy fog. Sometimes, the senses elicit nostalgia that you can’t quite put your finger on – a sense of joy or sadness, longing or release, but to what it’s connected, you don’t quite know. Why don’t you think about that as you drift off to sleep tonight, or as you go about your quotidian day. And if you encounter that sense memory, stop, lean into it, see where it takes you.

I’ll tell you about mine tomorrow.

91. Too far away

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I remember the phone ringing down the hall. Mammy got up from the kitchen table to answer it. ‘It’s for you,’ she said, coming back to sit down. ‘Someone from Canada.’ I walked down the hall to the table by the hall window and put the receiver to my ear.

‘Hello?’ I said.

‘Huvi?’ came the reply. Frank. Dear Frank. My friend, my teacher, my hunting buddy. One of my primary research participants in Arviat, it was Frank who had taught me to skin and butcher caribou, and to get it right by doing it over and over; Frank who had taught me how to drive a boat amongst pods of beluga whales in the shallow waters close to shore, so he could harpoon them from the bow; Frank who put me on polar bear patrol while he collected the arctic char that had swum into his fishing net; Frank who I spent hours and days with, far inland on our quad bikes, out at sea at first light. He and Martha welcomed me into their home, made me tea, fed me biscuits and bannock, took me out on the land and to their cabin with their daughters. Frank made me laugh and made me think. How at ease I felt in his company.

And now, he was on the phone. He on the tundra, on the western shore of Hudson Bay; I in the Bog of Allen, in the middle of Ireland. And the distance between us seemed vast. Vaster than the Atlantic Ocean, and maritime Canada and the width of Hudson Bay that separated us. All that we talked about with such ease when we were together dissolved now across the expanse.

He asked about the weather and I told him. But what was Irish weather to him? What was the Irish autumn, with leaves changing colour and falling off the trees, the rain and the mud, when he lived in a place with no trees, where autumn meant the ground covered in snow and the sea gradually turning to ice, travel by boat giving way to skidoos. My autumn meant nothing to him and, from this distance, his autumn was starting to dim for me.

I asked what he’d been doing and he told me where he’d been seal hunting the previous day, who he’d gone with and the other hunters he’d met when he was out. I smiled as he spoke. In my mind’s eye, I could see where he’d been and who he’d been with. I had been there with him, and with his brother-in-law Arden, just a few weeks earlier.

He asked what I’d been up to. It was September and in Ireland there was only Gaelic football in the air. How could I tell him about the match I had been to on Sunday? About the crowds, the excitement, how important football was to my life here? Or that the turf was home and there were still a couple of loads to be thrown in the shed. My voice sounded strange in my ears as I tried to talk to him about my life here.

I’d lived in his world and loved it. He was interested in my world, but had no experience of it. The ease we felt in each other’s company was made jagged by the cultural distance that now lay between us.

We continued to speak on the phone occasionally and I got to spend another summer with him a few years later. It’s a few years now since he passed away. I wish I had been better able to bridge that distance when he called.

90. Before sunrise

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The biggest shock about coming back to Spain after a whole summer away at higher latitudes is the very late sunrise.

After giving myself a lie-in on our first morning back, I set my alarm for 7:00 the next day. I wasn’t going to push it. 7:00 would be perfectly manageable.

The alarm duly went off at 7:00 the next morning. But wait, there must have been some mistake. It was still the middle of the night.

I dozed a bit longer. 7:20, 7:30, 7:40. Still felt like the middle of the night. When I finally got up at 7:50, there was a little light outside, but not enough to light the rooms. Back in Ireland, I’d been throwing open the blinds in Mammy’s kitchen at that hour, the sun pouring in on me as I made my first cup of tea.

Not so here. I love getting up early in the morning. But I don’t like getting up in what feels like the middle of the night. (There’s also the different time zones to consider, even though Ireland and Spain are longitudinally close).

We’re only a week away from the autumn equinox and the time of sunrise in Ireland and Spain are rapidly inching closer. Soon, those higher latitudes will have later sunrise and shorter days than down here in Spain.

The big challenge for us begins tomorrow, when school begins in earnest. (Today was only a trial run with a late start). Lily will have to be up a little after 6am and out the door a little after 7, and Katie following on her heels 50 minutes later. Hard as it is for me to get up in the dark, dragging those two teenagers up will be no fun at all.

Time for lights out now.

89. Back to school

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The girls have been on summer holidays now for about one-fifth of the year. It’s been a glorious summer. Despite some loss – or perhaps because of it, making us realise how fleeting and precious life is – we have had an amazing summer, during which we got to do some incredible things. Twelve hours from now, the new school year starts.

They’re both a little nervous – a new school for Lily, a new class for Katie. They will both have new classmates and new teachers and, in the case of Lily, new subjects that she’s never studied before.

I’m a little nervous too, as I always am at the start of the school year, hoping they will have positive experiences and will enjoy themselves.

They’ve got their bags packed, their clothes ready, and we’re in bed early tonight. The house is going to be very quiet tomorrow!

88. The Pope’s chairs

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At the end of September 1979, Pope John Paul II visited Ireland. He was the first pontiff to visit Ireland (indeed, he was the first to visit most places in the world) and the country went wild. At the time, Ireland wasn’t only predominantly Catholic by religion; our culture was Catholic, the state was Catholic, the education, health care, and justice systems were Catholic. It felt as if the whole country was being blessed by God himself. The Pope said Mass at a number of venues around the country, attended in total by over 2.5 million people. The entire population of the country at the time was only 3.75 million! His first Mass, held in the Phoenix Park in Dublin on the day of his arrival, was attended by 1.25 million people – one third of the entire population of Ireland. I was one of them.

I have fleeting memories of that day. I was six years old. I went with Mammy, Daddy and Nana Quinlan, my maternal grandmother. I remember leaving home that morning, my one-year-old baby sister sitting on my aunt Lillie’s lap in our kitchen. I remember my sister crying as we left.

I remember Daddy parking the red Ford Escort in the field that was Weston air field. I knew Weston, because we always drove past it on our way to Dublin and I always looked for light aircraft flying low across the road towards the runway. I remember a sense of wonder that we were now parked in this very place where the planes should be.

I remember Daddy carrying me on his shoulders as we walked what felt like miles, in a sea of people filling up the road as far as I could see in front and behind us. From Weston, we were directed on to buses that took us directly to the Phoenix Park. I can’t fathom the logistics of getting one third of the population of our small poor country to a field on the edge of Dublin. But somehow it happened. I remember an awful lot of walking.

I remember the Pope’s chairs. Three chairs that my parents and Nana had bought in advance of the Mass. Simple metal frame folding beach chairs, with white plastic arm rests, and woven plastic seats and back. Our two were blue striped and Nana’s was brown striped. Forever after, they were known as the Pope’s chairs. They were put on the roof rack for every summer holiday and stuck out on the lawn for every summer heatwave. I think they’re still hanging in the shed at Mammy’s house.

So, Daddy carried me on his shoulders and he, Mammy and Nana carried the three chairs and food and drinks for the day. Ham sandwiches, I imagine, some biscuits, probably a flask of tea and a bottle of lemonade.

I don’t remember getting on or off buses, or arriving at the Phoenix Park. But I do remember being in our place on the grass. The three chairs set up. We were in the middle of the crowd, facing the huge white cross and altar that had been hastily erected for the Mass, which stands to this day in the middle of the Phoenix Park. We weren’t far from a roped off pathway, separating the area we were in from the next area over. I remember sitting around for a long time before Mass started.

I don’t remember the details of the Mass, but I can still hear the sound of his voice over the loudspeakers. It’s there in my head. And I remember the palpable excitement and awe – whether I picked it up from the crowd in general or from my family, I don’t know.

When the Mass ended, the Pope prepared to travel through the crowd, blessing them from the Popemobile. And here’s where my memory gets fuzzy. Mammy and Nana were going to move close to the rope barrier to get closer to him, but Daddy was going to stay looking after our stuff. At first I said I didn’t want to go with Mammy and Nana. I was a scared for some reason. But as soon as they left, I changed my mind and wanted to go with them. And I don’t know if I did or not. One version of my memory has Daddy calling after them, me running to Mammy, and Mammy holding me in her arms close to the rope barrier as the Pope went past. But in the other version of my memory, by the time I decide I want to go with them, it’s too late, they’re lost in the crowd, and I stay with Daddy, crying and regretting not getting to see the Pope up close and getting blessed with everyone else.

There are things I don’t remember. I don’t remember Daddy’s grief, or the grief of my auntie Lillie and my Nana Tyrrell as we set out from home that morning. Daddy and Lillie had, only recently, lost their beloved older sister, Cissie, to cancer at age 57. What comfort did being in the presence of the Pope offer to my grieving devoutly Catholic father? Or what hope for comfort and grace was there in the others left at home, who would watch the Mass on the television? I don’t remember and it’s not something that would even cross my mind for over four decades.

As a six year old, I was oblivious to all of that. But what stays with me most vividly, 46 years later, is being carried high on Daddy’s shoulders in an ocean of humanity along a road in west Co. Dublin. And the Pope’s chairs.

87. Time flies

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It’s 10:55pm. This night, fifteen years ago, I was huge and uncomfortable and eight days overdue, thinking to myself ‘Is this baby ever going to arrive?’ It was certainly taking its time. My friend Sinead, whose baby was due the same day as mine, had already given birth seventeen days ago, and here I was, plodding around, looking like a planet with limbs.

Fifteen years later, and here I am, waiting…this time for the coffee cake that she’s requested for her fifteenth birthday tomorrow to come out of the oven. The same cake she’s wanted for her birthday for years.

Little did I know, this time fifteen years ago, that I’d fall so madly in love with the it that turned out to be a she that making her birthday cake long after my bedtime would feel like a blessing rather than a chore.

86. The most exclusive club

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During the hazy lazy days of summer, Sanlúcar’s municipal swimming pool feels like some exclusive country club you’d see in a Hollywood movie, minus the shrimp cocktail and the dramatic intrigue. And it’s not just Sanlúcar. Village swimming pools all over Spain are like this, but I suspect there are few in as beautiful a location as this one, overlooking the Rio Guadiana and the hills of the northeast Algarve in Portugal on its western bank.

Why does it remind me of a country club? Well, our village is tiny, so the numbers of people attending the pool are pretty small. And everyone knows everyone. This really is Sanlúcar’s pool and, apart from the occasional visitor, the sun worshippers and bathers at this pool are the young and old of the village. Neighbours, friends, family members chat in the cool of the pool, look out for the toddlers tottering at the pool’s edge, gather in groups to share afternoon snacks. Children wander from one group of adults to another, because they know everyone, and you’d certainly never worry about leaving your belongings unattended. The life guards and other attendants are all local kids too.

But, unlike a country club, there’s no real exclusivity here. €2 for a day entry, €68 for a family for the entire season. Everyone is welcome here. But those who use the pool as visitors to the village might find the familiarity of all the other pool users with each other a bit strange. For Sanluceños, it’s just a wonderful break from the summer heat right on our doorsteps.

85. The real New Year

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The start of September has always felt more like the real New Year. What is the 1st of January other than a dark miserable arbitrary day in the wake of the bacchanal of Christmas, everyone over-fed, over-watered, over-socialised, with not a penny to their names after splurging on presents and outfits and goodness knows what else, and nothing to look forward to but two or more months of cold and dark. New Year’s resolutions at that time of year are born more out of guilt than optimism.

How different is September. The start of autumn, the season of plenty, of apples and wheat, of (in Ireland) bringing home the turf to heat the house in winter. It’s back to school time too. Whether you have children or not, the return to school at this time of year is so ingrained in our culture. All but a few know exactly what it’s like to go back to school. It’s all about newness – a new class, new books, new teachers, maybe a new uniform. It’s a time for moving up and moving on, from one year or level to the next. This is the time of year when many teenagers move away from home for the first time.

This year, like all others, early September feels like the start of a new year. Lily and Katie have (of their own volition) spent the past two days declutterring and deep cleaning their bedroom. Lily has decided to try her hand at selling some clothes she no longer wears on Vinted. She’s sold three items today alone!

With school about to start in a few days, the girls and I have been talking about eating more healthily for ourselves and the planet and so I’m planning some very different meals over the coming weeks.

At this time of year, the weather is still warm enough and the days long enough to put New Year’s resolutions and promises made to ourselves into action. There’s a welcome return to routine after the more free-form and chaotic summer holidays – especially for people with school-age kids.

So, if you’re thinking of making positive changes in your life, don’t hold off until dreary January. Embrace the possibilities for change at this, the real, New Year.

84. Surprising emotions

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Arriving into Sanlúcar de Guadiana last night, I was surprised at just how happy I felt to be home. Just a simple feeling of contentment at being back in my own home.

Our seventy-five days in the UK and Ireland were delightful from start to end. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much or for so long on previous holidays. England was a joy and I experienced very strong positive emotions when I was in Ireland, whereas in the past my feelings have often been mixed. Not because Ireland isn’t great and not because my family and friends aren’t great. It was just me and where I was in my life on previous visits home that made me enjoy being in Ireland on holiday but also eager to return to where I had come from. I didn’t feel that way this time. I enjoyed my time there, and had very mixed feelings about leaving, feeling more torn between the two places I call home than I’ve ever felt before.

So, what a surprise to feel the way I did about turning the key in the lock and walking through my front door last night. Like an exhalation…I’m home. My house is looking a bit the worse for wear after lying empty for seventy-five days and it’ll take us a few days to sweep away the cobwebs, get unpacked and feel properly settled in, but that simple uncomplicated sense of being home was there from the moment I opened the door.

Our lovely friends had been in and left some food in the fridge and our neighbour had hung a fresh homemade loaf of bread on the front door. Still, I needed to buy a few odds and ends this morning, so, after breakfast I threw on something not very presentable that I pulled out of my suitcase and went to the two shops in the village. Ten minutes of shopping took me about three quarters of an hour, from all the people I met, the welcome back hugs and kisses I received, the conversations I had comparing Spanish and Irish weather. I felt welcomed home by my adopted village.

And then, the icing on the cake – collecting Lady from her summer villa (with a swimming pool, no less) and taking her home. Now that our scruffy, dusty, hair in her eyes Lady is back, my little home is complete.

Who cares that our two kayaks are still taking up most of the living room and the suitcases are on our bedroom floors? Time enough moving them tomorrow.

83. Dublin Airport…again

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Organised mayhem

Here we are, back at Dublin airport again, but this time we are the ones departing. After eleven weeks away, we are going home to Sanlúcar. I am returning with mixed feelings – sad to leave this home, excited to return to that home.

This trip to the airport has been preceded by methodical packing over the course of 24 hours. We’re returning with a lot more than we left with – books mostly, and they’re heavy. Irish people, please don’t judge me for the Tetley tea. It’s a compromise and easier to buy in bulk than Irish brands.

Unlike the quiet evening at the airport 12 days ago to pick up my sister, the airport today is crowded, full of hustle and bustle. It seems as if every childless adult in Ireland has decided to go on holidays today, now that the school holidays are over and families are no longer travelling. The crowdedness has made it all a little overwhelming – sensory overload on top of the usual departure sensations regarding baggage weight, and security and so on.

But here we are, and in a few hours we will be home and returning to our own term-time routine.