Loreena McKennet & Ireland
Oct. 20th, 2016 12:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hypatia42I went to see her at the State Theater last night. It was the Honey's idea. He puts her Pandora station on at night when we are getting ready for bed. He was gonna go with me but found out months after we bought tickets that he was needed in Paris this week. I found a wonderful soul to accompany me but it was not the same.
There was one 15 minute long set where she combined her songs with spoken word, explaining the history behind the song or what made her need to write it. It was all about the Irish Famine and how it led to the Easter Rising of 1916, the families torn apart by death and immigration, and the horrible disease many of those who left succumbed to because they were mostly starving with they started the journey. There was a quarantine island off of Quebec City where all the Irish immigrants had to go before they could be sent to places they might find living space in the country. Many of the doctors, nurses, and clergy sent to the island to assist also died of the diseases found there.
Tears were pouring down my face through this whole set. This was my family. That is what they had to go through to try to make a better life in a land not ravished by blight and poverty. Families scraped enough money to send as many people as they could but lots were left behind. Families torn apart never to be reunited. This was my family. This is the reason I exist.
I cannot help but feel as though this is why when foreigners visit Ireland looking for the family lines they have been told about their whole lives they are welcomed and helped. Sure they are spending money too but I hear so many stories of people finding the traces of those old families and being welcomed as kin.
So I apparently need to go. I need to dig the Grandmother's stuff and find what she found. I'm aware that it has likely been over 150 years. Its okay. I just want to stand in that valley and see. Perhaps to honor the pain they had in leaving everything they had ever known gambling with their lives on the hope that utbwould be better because they couldn't imagine it would be worse.
There was one 15 minute long set where she combined her songs with spoken word, explaining the history behind the song or what made her need to write it. It was all about the Irish Famine and how it led to the Easter Rising of 1916, the families torn apart by death and immigration, and the horrible disease many of those who left succumbed to because they were mostly starving with they started the journey. There was a quarantine island off of Quebec City where all the Irish immigrants had to go before they could be sent to places they might find living space in the country. Many of the doctors, nurses, and clergy sent to the island to assist also died of the diseases found there.
Tears were pouring down my face through this whole set. This was my family. That is what they had to go through to try to make a better life in a land not ravished by blight and poverty. Families scraped enough money to send as many people as they could but lots were left behind. Families torn apart never to be reunited. This was my family. This is the reason I exist.
I cannot help but feel as though this is why when foreigners visit Ireland looking for the family lines they have been told about their whole lives they are welcomed and helped. Sure they are spending money too but I hear so many stories of people finding the traces of those old families and being welcomed as kin.
So I apparently need to go. I need to dig the Grandmother's stuff and find what she found. I'm aware that it has likely been over 150 years. Its okay. I just want to stand in that valley and see. Perhaps to honor the pain they had in leaving everything they had ever known gambling with their lives on the hope that utbwould be better because they couldn't imagine it would be worse.