12 Nicholas Cozzens, Co. Wexford, Ireland

Posted by on Sep 30, 2014 in Ireland | 6 comments Not my son, Nicholas Eliot Cozzens Calabrese born in 1981, but his great-great-grandfather, my father’s father, my great-grandfather, born in 1842 in Ireland and died in 1900 in California. He came to the US in 1854, we now know. Living in the twenty-first century, I find it strange that my great grandfather—only three generations ago—was born in the mid-nineteenth century, but men in the Cozzens family have tended to marry and have children later in life, my own father included. Warren Cozzens was 34 when I was born, and his father Cheever was forty-one when Warren was born—so the generations stretch out across the centuries. Interestingly, I picked the name “Nicholas” before I knew my Cozzens great-grandfather’s first name. While I had a vague notion since childhood that the Cozzens ancestor came from Ireland, it didn’t really play much of a part in my growing interest in Irish literature and history. But now, many years later, the prospect of having even a distant Irish ancestor is exciting. No long lost Irish relatives need fear—I’m not searching for a castle or family heirlooms that are supposedly mine to claim. But I would like to know more about where Nicholas and his family came from, how they got to Illinois (Galena, at first), what their lives were like in Ireland and in the US, and anything else I can discover. For the first time, we have confirmation of the family story that Nicholas Cozzens came from Ireland as a boy, along with a handful of interesting details about where he came from. Thanks to my brother Todd, who employed a genealogy firm to do some digging for us, we have both concrete and speculative information about Nicholas and his family—a good starting place for further research. According to Ellen, my father’s sister and our chief source for much of the family lore, the story went like this: Nicholas and his father “Robert”—whom we now know to have been named “Bartholomew”—came to the US from “Wexford and the [or “in the”] County Clare” during or shortly after the famine (1845-52). Knowing that the father was named “Bartholomew” rather than the more common “Robert” should make it easier to find out more about the Irish connection. Wexford and County Clare are on different sides of the island, of course, and have no common ground. I think that “and the County Clare” or “in the...
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11 The Art of Being a Tour Guide

Posted by on Sep 26, 2014 in Ireland | 5 comments When I taught at Harvard in the 1970s, as part of freshmen orientation I was invited to lead a group of new students on a day tour of Lexington and Concord. Thrilled but scared by the prospect, I spent weeks boning up on the facts behind the Battle of Lexington and Concord, Paul Revere’s ride, the circle of writers and thinkers surrounding Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau’s literary accomplishments, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, and the life, works, and family history of Louisa May Alcott. I drove out there to learn my way around all the important landmarks and picked my way through the cemetery so I could lead the students directly to the proper graves. My first tour went reasonably well: I was able to answer their questions and didn’t embarrass myself, but something seemed missing. I had wanted to inspire excitement, questions, and a passion for reading, but all I saw in the students’ eyes was the occasional flicker of interest. As I thought about the day, I realized I had created a tour of facts instead of stories. The passion and the life were missing. Preparing for the second trip the following summer, I combed biographies and letters for stories I could tell at various locations on the tour. The facts were an important reservoir to draw on, but the stories turned heads and got the looks on students’ faces I wanted to see. Thoreau’s bad boy antics grabbed their attention better than a list of the thinkers who influenced him, and both were probably about equally relevant to the development of his theory of civil disobedience. The stories didn’t reveal every move or accomplishment, but they brought the history to life and made the listeners want more. Since I started bringing student groups to Ireland—and now that I am living here with time on my hands to sample different kinds of tours—I’ve had the privilege of observing and learning from the best, the driver-guides for our groups Michael O’Brien and Dave Yeates in particular, but also guides at various sites around the country. These masters of their craft have set a very high standard for me as I travel here in Ireland and elsewhere. Knowledge of the subject you’re talking about is a given for an expert guide, and that’s what the certification and licensing exams can assess. But having a passion for your subject...
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10 “In our arts we find our bliss”

Posted by on Sep 14, 2014 in Ireland | 7 comments Sometime before the end of the ninth century, an Irish monk wrote a poem comparing the art of writing to the art of a cat—Pangur Bán—catching a mouse: I and Pangur Bán, my cat, ‘Tis a like task we are at; Hunting mice is his delight, Hunting words I sit all night. The poem celebrates artistry, not just for the results it produces, but also for the satisfaction and meaning, even transcendence, creation affords the artist. After noting the many parallels between catching a mouse and “Turning darkness into light” through writing, the poet concludes So in peace our tasks we ply, Pangur Bán, my cat, and I; In our arts we find our bliss, I have mine and he has his. When I study the stone carvings at Jerpoint Abbey in Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny—a place I am drawn to visit again and again—I am reminded of this layered definition of craftsmanship with its humane insight and its tone of wry humor. The artists who created the knights and ladies, saints and bishops, and other creatures at Jerpoint surely found their “bliss” in this work. Jerpoint is a Cistercian monastery founded in the twelfth century with continued building over the next several centuries until the 1540s, when wealthy monastic settlements in Britain and Ireland were attacked by Henry VIII’s forces in his efforts to consolidate power in his new church. In the care of the government since 1880, the abbey has been extensively restored and is one of the best examples of its kind in Ireland. Still surrounded by countryside as it has always been, the abbey is a reminder that with their religious communities, churches, artisans, lay dependents, and educational centers, monasteries were the towns of medieval Ireland. Carvings of religious and secular figures, real and mythical animals, and patterned borders decorate the tombs, walls, arches, and the colonnade in the reconstructed cloister. The sheer number and exuberance of the carvings at Jerpoint and their placement throughout the buildings tell us something about the nature of religious belief in this multigenerational community and also about the artistry of the carvers. Even today, six or seven hundred years later, their skill, vision, humanity, and love of their work are evident in every line. Take this row of saints carved on a tomb, for example: St. Catherine with her wheel, Michael the Archangel carrying a soul to heaven, and St....
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9 Water, Water, Everywhere

Posted by on Sep 12, 2014 in Ireland | 6 comments Having grown up on Lake Michigan and spent part of every summer on a lake in the Northwoods, I love living near water and have often said that the only thing wrong with Atlanta is its lack of a waterfront. Here in Dublin, there’s water everywhere, and we live right where it all converges: the rivers (Liffey and Dodder), the canals (Grand and Royal), and of course Dublin Bay and the Irish Sea, which are close enough to see from the roof of our building. Pretty much in any direction you walk—and in any weather—there’s a sparkle, a glimmer, a flash of the “greeny…stilly” from some body of water or other. On past visits I’ve stayed near the city centre, landlocked by historic buildings, swirling traffic, and masses of pedestrians, with the occasional hurried crossing of the Liffey on my way somewhere. Until now, I never thought much about Dublin as a port. At this end of the city—my end for the year ahead—evidence of the past and present importance of water to transportation and commerce is all around, from the ships and boats that come and go daily, to the brightly colored container facilities flanking the Liffey, the cranes and lifts across the skyline, and the industries that serve the port, all the way out to the lighthouses that mark the passage to open sea. Along with a tremendous amount of freight and fuel, the port handles daily ferry services to the UK (Holyhead, Liverpool and the Isle of Man) and France (Cherbourg) and is developing a brisk cruise ship industry, so Dublin Bay is busy. From our bedroom window we can see the top third or half of small- to medium-sized cruise ships and the occasional tall ship that moor along the Liffey (the bigger ones dock further out in the bay). Cruise ships usually arrive early in the morning for a day’s stay, so when we get up we check to see if any have come in. I get ridiculously excited to see these giant ships gliding in and out of port or even docked for the day, gleaming white, towering over everything around them. I read the Dublin Port Blog regularly to keep up with all the comings and goings and walk down to the docks whenever there’s a ship I particularly want to see. To really see a port, I’m convinced, you have to...
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8 The Work Shoe Garden

Posted by on Sep 3, 2014 in Ireland | 3 comments I saw this wall in the village of Inistioge, County Kilkenny a few weeks ago, and I can’t get it out of my mind. What a wonderful way to make use of old shoes, especially old leather work shoes that have such personality and history to them. How many years of labor, how many jobs, how many people, how much blood, sweat, and tears contributed to this work of art? There’s also some horticultural genius going on here: leather breathes, and the roots of plants like air. That’s why plants tend to do better in pots that aren’t glazed. I’ve killed enough orchids with root rot to have finally learned that. But what I loved best was that the wall of shoe planters was the back wall, the alley-facing wall of someone’s garden. I passed by it on my way to something else—it was a surprise to see such care taken with an old, dirty gray wall in an alleyway. The gardeners themselves would rarely come this way, as their entrance to their property lay around the corner. This garden was created for others to see. This garden was created because the wall and the shoes and the idea converged in someone’s mind, because it had to be, and because it would be beautiful. Here’s an uncropped view of the work shoe garden in all its glory.    ...
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