Today we started out our lovely morning with a mini guided tour by our professor Judy. She showed us various restaurants and shops of interest, as well as informed us of little history points of the town as we went. We then ventured off to explore about for an hour or so. Then we met up Phoenix Cinema in the town where we would be watching several episodes from a documentary by Brenda ni Shuilleabhain. Brenda is a successful writer and speaker in addition to a film maker with her multi-part documentary tv series, the Bibeanna as well as the Men of Ventry, as Brenda liked to put it "the ordinary lives of extraordinary people". She introduced us to several of the Bibeanna that lived in the Dingle area. We then shown a few little clips from the documentaries.
The Bibeanna is the colloquial name given to the women of the Dingle Peninsula gaeltacht region who were married to local farmers. In the documentary, a total of twenty of the Bibeanna were each interviewed and gave their unique perspective on how Ireland has changed over the years, ranging from topics of technology,superstitions, marital traditions, and simple lifestyle changes. The main topic of question in the Bibeanna was their arranged marriages, as nowadays such a thing is not as common. Their comments mostly were about how absolutely happy they were with their lives having been in arranged marriages. Life was described as ambiguous, that they didn't know much about the guys that they were meeting other than they met up with them on select nights where teenagers would mingle. Once the people found others that they liked, the parents would see if they could strike a deal with each other, exchanging land and such to get their kids hitched. From then on, the two were married and lived on the land that was set aside for them by their parents and would spend the rest of their days working. Even though their lifestyle was difficult and the marriage could have been rocky at times, they all recounted rather fondly about their lives.
A few of the other documentary clips were from the men's point of view. They were less focused on the marriage and love topics, just more over their everyday lives. Brenda was trying to capture the sensitive of the men in the region, as during the women's rights movement men in general received a bad rap. This was not how Brenda, or any of the Bibeanna for that matter, viewed their fathers. However instead of directing the documentary at their sensitive side, she attempted to capture their everyday lives knowing that this side of them would shine through regardless. They mainly discussed their farming practices including the introduction of silage and automatic milking machines that allowed them to produce more of their products. Though they did enjoy the relative speed at which they could finish their work, at certain times they said that it made them feel a disconnect from their land and livestock.
This is rather odd, considering a strong connection to nature is not a common thing that is discussed. Even in the farming, rural side of the town that I grew up in animals were definitely treated with high regard, but not to the degree that the men in the video stated. It would seem that American life is viewed almost strictly as an industrialized system of inputs and outputs with little thought placed towards the relationships built in the process. Granted I am probably over simplifying things, but I can never fully grasp the idea of holding a strong relationship with nature itself, something I envy these men for.
After viewing the documentaries we went with the women to Brenda's house to have afternoon tea and chat. The topics we discussed included what the women most liked about the changes that had come over time, what we should learn to carry with us, and raunchy jokes. It was fun to see the differences in cultural perspectives from our two groups. In response to the question as to what we should learn more about, one of the answers was to learn more about our history and where we come from. However the consensus from the group seemed that a strong connection with nature and the land. It really gave good insight into the culture of these people, what they valued and thought was worth passing on to the next generation. The day was an incredible experience that helped me and my classmates wrap our heads around what it was to be a rural irish man or woman and to watch the world change around you.
This experience is one that I will never forget, and one that I hope to share with the others back home. Tomorrow we make our way to the Blasket Islands and the Centre their to get a first hand look at what life might have been like there. More experiences that cannot be captured by my monotonous blog. Stay tuned.
The Bibeanna is the colloquial name given to the women of the Dingle Peninsula gaeltacht region who were married to local farmers. In the documentary, a total of twenty of the Bibeanna were each interviewed and gave their unique perspective on how Ireland has changed over the years, ranging from topics of technology,superstitions, marital traditions, and simple lifestyle changes. The main topic of question in the Bibeanna was their arranged marriages, as nowadays such a thing is not as common. Their comments mostly were about how absolutely happy they were with their lives having been in arranged marriages. Life was described as ambiguous, that they didn't know much about the guys that they were meeting other than they met up with them on select nights where teenagers would mingle. Once the people found others that they liked, the parents would see if they could strike a deal with each other, exchanging land and such to get their kids hitched. From then on, the two were married and lived on the land that was set aside for them by their parents and would spend the rest of their days working. Even though their lifestyle was difficult and the marriage could have been rocky at times, they all recounted rather fondly about their lives.
A few of the other documentary clips were from the men's point of view. They were less focused on the marriage and love topics, just more over their everyday lives. Brenda was trying to capture the sensitive of the men in the region, as during the women's rights movement men in general received a bad rap. This was not how Brenda, or any of the Bibeanna for that matter, viewed their fathers. However instead of directing the documentary at their sensitive side, she attempted to capture their everyday lives knowing that this side of them would shine through regardless. They mainly discussed their farming practices including the introduction of silage and automatic milking machines that allowed them to produce more of their products. Though they did enjoy the relative speed at which they could finish their work, at certain times they said that it made them feel a disconnect from their land and livestock.
This is rather odd, considering a strong connection to nature is not a common thing that is discussed. Even in the farming, rural side of the town that I grew up in animals were definitely treated with high regard, but not to the degree that the men in the video stated. It would seem that American life is viewed almost strictly as an industrialized system of inputs and outputs with little thought placed towards the relationships built in the process. Granted I am probably over simplifying things, but I can never fully grasp the idea of holding a strong relationship with nature itself, something I envy these men for.
After viewing the documentaries we went with the women to Brenda's house to have afternoon tea and chat. The topics we discussed included what the women most liked about the changes that had come over time, what we should learn to carry with us, and raunchy jokes. It was fun to see the differences in cultural perspectives from our two groups. In response to the question as to what we should learn more about, one of the answers was to learn more about our history and where we come from. However the consensus from the group seemed that a strong connection with nature and the land. It really gave good insight into the culture of these people, what they valued and thought was worth passing on to the next generation. The day was an incredible experience that helped me and my classmates wrap our heads around what it was to be a rural irish man or woman and to watch the world change around you.
This experience is one that I will never forget, and one that I hope to share with the others back home. Tomorrow we make our way to the Blasket Islands and the Centre their to get a first hand look at what life might have been like there. More experiences that cannot be captured by my monotonous blog. Stay tuned.