14 Uisce Éireann / Irish Water

Posted by on Oct 6, 2014 in Ireland | 0 comments On a rainy day last January I was with a group of students at Kylemore Abbey, an elegant Gothic Revival edifice set by itself on a lake in Connemara. The enterprising nuns of the Abbey have a large gift store and café going there, so Kylemore is quite a tourist destination for both its beauty and its amenities. While in the bathroom that day, I noticed a gushing faucet in one of the sinks. I couldn’t make it stop running, so I reported it to someone in the café who looked like she was in charge. “Oh thanks,” she said nonchalantly, “It’s not a problem, but I’ll let someone know.” Not a problem! Coming from Atlanta where a drought forces water restrictions on us every few years and where I try desperately to keep our own water bills under control, I was shocked. But looking at the big lake nearby, thinking about the surrounding boglands, Killary Harbour (a true fiord) just a couple of miles away, lakes and stream everywhere, and the rain pouring down at that moment, I could see why she wasn’t too worried about the gushing faucet. There is and there always has been, plenty of water in Ireland. As of last Wednesday, 1 October 2014, however, Irish people in the Republic may begin to adopt a different attitude towards gushing faucets. On that day, they started paying for their water for the first time in history. Of course, water systems across the country have always been paid for through government spending and taxes, and water was rationed during “the Emergency,” what the neutral Irish called World War II, but this is the first time citizens have had to pay directly for the water they use. The predictable jokes were making the rounds last week: “I guess we’ll be seeing more beards now!” “I’m coming over to your house to shower.” The newspapers have been madly calculating how much a shower or a toilet flush will cost. According to the latest estimates, the average yearly bill for two adults will be about $350—not much more than what I pay at home for one month in a hot Atlanta summer when I’m irrigating the garden. Bills will be calculated quarterly on the basis of meters or assessed charges, and those who use less will pay less. Children are “free” and there are allowances for people with illnesses...
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13 Folding Landscapes

Posted by on Oct 2, 2014 in Ireland | 6 comments Rummaging through boxes in my parents’ attic one day back in the seventies—hoping to find items to fill up my new apartment—I came upon a pink-flowered china coffee server, a pitcher of sorts, lidless and dusty, that had once belonged to my mother’s parents. It wasn’t valuable or useful, but it was kind of pretty, and I remembered seeing it on the mantle in my grandparents’ tiny house when I was five or six. I took it with me and kept it for years in a china cabinet with other bits and pieces from the attic and from flea markets I visited over the years. One day in the spring of 2000, some twenty-five years later, my brothers and I and our families were cleaning out my parents’ house prior to selling it. It was a tough day for us. I sequestered myself in the attic where I could cry secretly and where most of the packing up had already been done. As I drifted around the dark, musty room, something on the window sill caught my eye. There was the lid of the china coffee server—the unmistakable pattern and shape telling me instantly what it was. Why was it on the window sill? Why hadn’t it been packed or thrown away years ago? How had I missed it a quarter of a century earlier? What made me look at the window? Finding it somehow made me feel better, took the edge off that difficult day. Back in Atlanta a few days later, I reunited lid and pitcher, the lid settling perfectly into place with a soft clink. Sometimes the stars align, and a few pieces of life’s chaotic jigsaw puzzle come together unexpectedly; for a moment, you can almost imagine the picture you’re working to assemble. I had another of these moments a few weeks ago on a cloudy Friday afternoon in Roundstone, Co. Galway, a small village perched on a bay. Ron, our friends from California Mark and Maureen, and I were spending a long weekend exploring the western part of Connemara, and our B&B host from the night before in Spiddal had urged us to visit Roundstone on the drive to Clifden, saying it was a “lovely place.” And indeed it was, even on that gray day. Brightly painted houses and shops lined the one main street curving up a small hill above a tiny harbor,...
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