6 minute read

We came to West Kerry the Christmas before lockdown, and at the time I can remember packing up our lives in Meath and heading for Brandon whilst listening to murmurings of something happening in China on the radio. Fred landed in from a gig as I was finishing up scrubbing the toilet like our deposit depended on it (which it did) and I can recall telling him about lockdown in the city where my cousin taught English, how people were trapped in their houses and schools were closed, how sorry we felt for them, how lucky we were.

Driving to Kerry on that December day filled me with joy, not just the joy at finally getting Fred to move from the Heritage county to the Kingdom, but I was also so excited at all the work opportunities that were coming my way. I had nearly sold out my little tour (50 seater rooms, so not the London Palladium or anything, but still, they were sold). It meant a lot to me, to have those tickets shifted, and I had had to work embarrassingly hard to do so. But to have people come to the gigs and for them to go well, for people to have a nice time, was such a boost for me, especially as it was the first year I had decided to focus on comedy full-time - to really make the commitment and give up the day job.

Of course, landing into West Kerry on the night of Nollag na mBan we had no idea what was to come. March 5th was our D day for returning to Dublin, we were going to use these three months to write and recalibrate and plan our next move. Edinburgh was only around the corner, and we needed to get ready. We could face into a January on the side of Brandon mountain only because we knew there was an endpoint, that this was a social experiment, an undertaking in solitude and quiet, one that would not last forever.

The house we came to belongs to my auntie. Standing, facing out onto Brandon Bay, the views are fantastical, and access is only through an exceptionally steep mountain road which has recently become popular with hikers and hill-walkers. It is a stunning place to live, but it is a place I have never really known, despite my dad hailing from this side of the Conor Pass. My knowledge of West Kerry has generally always been confined to Dingle and that side of the mountain, so to be landed in a new community in the depths of winter was strange but not an unwelcome experience. If I’m honest, we never viewed this as a permanent move. Three months, we said, and three months could be done.

My auntie built the bungalow over twenty years ago, and it had never been lived in. She had intermittently rented it out for a couple of weeks every year, but really it had been sitting vacant, and as such though it is comfortable, when we arrive into it it does not feel like a home. Not just yet. We look for graters, and mixing bowls, and wrap-up ornaments that clutter up worktops and are seen as superfluous to requirements (surely all ornaments, really, are superfluous to requirements?). The Sacred Heart glows in the corner, providing welcome light in a room which faces North, and the Holy Water at the front door points to an optimism that praying can make it better. We have come here without many clothes, given that we are hunkering down for only three months. Three months, we said, and three months could be done.

And then lockdown comes, and nearly two years later we are still here, with our West Kerry baby, still planning our next move. I have joined a swim group, and we have made more friends. The people in the local shop say ‘Hi Ted’ when we bring our bouncing boy balanced on our hip to see them. Fred complains about tourists driving slowly on the roads, we can tell what weather is coming by the tides, and we know the neighbours by the cars they drive.

Where we live, we live not by the sea but with the sea, and that is such a comfort to me: the constant presence of it, the reassurance that comes with it, the frame it has always put on my life.

My absolute favourite thing about Brandon though is that it is but twenty minutes from Dingle, a place that is home for me. A place I can never leave behind. To be able to drive and stand in Dingle, the familiar supermarkets, the coffee shops, the pier, to be able to do that without driving from coast to coast is such a luxury. I never have to miss it anymore, because it is right there if I need it.

West Kerry, at this time of year, is magnificent. The light on the mountains moves and changes all the time, and walking past a window without stopping to pay attention is an impossibility. The other day we passed the local school here in Cloghane, and Fred commented how hard it would be to concentrate as a pupil in a school with a view like that.

Daydreaming, even, is hampered, because to look at that sea, and the mountains, and the sky, to look at all that you could not but be present, your thoughts could not but be consumed by all that beauty. It is a spectacular, humbling thing.

Brandon is quiet. It is the furthest point on the peninsula, and as such feels like we are living on an island. People ask if you need anything from town because to get to the supermarket is a trek and a half. Everything is further here, that is part of its charm, but can also be lonely too. Driving home it feels like you are closing the door on the world, taking off your shoes in the porch, and parking the demands of real-life, if just momentarily. It feels nice, leaving it all behind - most of the time, at least.

Living in West Kerry is something that becomes part of your personality. You find yourself saying things like Limerick is only two hours away; Cork city is only down the road, have you gotten a flight yet? The flights are great, only twenty euro to London, plenty of people commute. The pace of life here does not just suit me; but suits so many, even the friend who came during the summer and landed in Brandon horrified at what she saw as the arduous journey I voluntarily undertook to Dublin on the regular: ‘It took me five hours!’ She exclaimed. ‘I am positively jet-lagged!’

By the end of the week, she was on daft.ie, looking to relocate, convinced that spending two days in Dublin getting work stuff done was absolutely doable and that she would live the rest of the week down here. The mountains had consumed her. The long commute had become half the charm, and even when justifying her desire to move here she had assumed the local narrative when it came to journey-times: Sure Limerick is only two hours away; Cork city is only down the road, have you gotten a flight yet? The flights are great, only twenty euro to London, plenty of people commute.

In recent times there has been a surge of people buying homes here, so much so that locals have been priced out, and there are big questions over the necessity in prioritising those that wish to raise their children in an Irish-speaking area in a bid to preserve the Gaeltacht status of the place. The reason I never bought a house when I had a public sector job was that I never saw myself building a home anywhere but Dingle. I don’t know will that happen now, with prices astronomical, but I am hopeful, and I am staying optimistic that I might make it work.

There are many personal hurdles currently - the distance for grandparents, the need to care for family members who are unwell, the challenges in working within the arts and entertainment industry when you are living in one of the most remote parts of the country. I don’t know are these surmountable for us. I hope they are.

The beauty is exceptional, but there is no question living in the West has caused many arguments, led to stress, that it demands greater organization and communication and these are definitely areas both myself and Fred fall down at times. I don’t know can we make West Kerry work, but when I think about leaving, it makes my heart cry. Here on my own when Fred is away gigging I sometimes want to have a rant, give out, complain, but I stop myself because I want this to work so bad. Never in my wildest dreams did I believe I would get to give birth to a Kerry boy, and live somewhere on the peninsula I love so much (admittedly not quite where I see myself forever, but let’s not demand too much of the universe just yet).

Something extraordinary happens here. The air is full of alchemy. There is a reason why people come and don’t leave, ‘a tarrac siar’, something magnetic pulling you back, something you just can’t shake.

We are far, it is hard to get here, but sometimes the difficulty in coming is part of the reason you do.

So often in my life, I have felt the presence of Kerry, the need for it. The yearning for it. The words of Sigerson Clifford in his poem ‘I Am Kerry’ has come to me in moments of urbanity often, and not necessarily at times when I am feeling melancholic, but often at times of happiness when grief and loss tap you on the shoulder and remind you they too have been invited.

To be of Kerry is to be of a Kingdom, yes, but it is not a place of kings or queens and hierarchies. It is a place of people, and it is the people, not the mountains, nor the sea, nor the light - it is the people who make it so hard to leave it behind. But you never leave it behind, really. To be of Kerry is to be of magic, and artistry, and mountain. And to be at the mountain, you must come to it.

‘I am Kerry’ - Sigerson Clifford

I am Kerry like my mother before me,
And my mother's mother and her man.
Now I sit on an office stool remembering,
And the memory of them like a fan
soothes the embers into flame.
I am Kerry and proud of my name.

Julie Jay, October 2021