A tribute to Cahir Country Markets

As many of you know I grew up in the desert, well to be fair I grew up along the lush banks of the Blue Nile River in Al-Gazeera in central Sudan. The desert was never far away though and agriculture was focused on cash crops mandated by the Structural Adjustment Plans of the 1980s (known to many now as the lost decade). Wad Medani, the small city where I grew up, was astoundingly beautiful in its own unique way (as every place is). I have never seen mud as black as the mud which squelched between my toes as I swam in the vibrantly grey-blue waters of the river. The neem trees which grew everywhere in Wad Medani were beautiful with their many tiny leaves creating the sense of a larger leaf. When a dust storm hit these thousands of tiny neem leaves would bring a shower of green among the stark brown of the Sahara sand. It was home, and when I close my eyes now I can still smell the richness of the water droplets settling the dust as every household sprayed their housh (yard) to cool the afternoon heat blowing in from just beyond the horizon of trees.

Going to Ireland in the hottest of the summer months, when a drop of water would evaporate within seconds, was an annual pilgrimage and one I embraced in all its contrasts to my Sudan home. The summer months were for the most part spent at my grandparents house in Cahir, County Tipperary; a place most tourists to Ireland know only if they past through it on their way to Cork or Kerry for the ‘real’ attractions Ireland has to offer. But for me Cahir was the most exciting place on earth as a young girl growing up in country which was not my ancestral home. Cahir was where my cousins were, where my mother had grown up and gone to school, where people looked like me, where my granny’s ‘ordinary’ (to me it was Michelin) Irish-cooking could never satisfy my appetite, and where every Friday I got to go to Cahir Country Markets with my granny May.

Now there is something all of you non-Irish readers need to know about Irish women – we are a force to be reckoned with, and I am only half-Irish! You may have heard of the ‘Irish mammy’, the mother who makes everything alright, takes care of all your needs and just has all the right answers when you need them. Here’s a great recent article from the Irish Times newspaper if you want to fact-check me. Even the country of Ireland, or Éire means the matron or the goddess of the land. There have many females figures in Ireland’s history, my personal favourite being the pirate queen Grace O’Malley who even had an audience with Queen Elizabeth I. But as those of us who inhibit female bodies are well aware, over time the patriarchal system (especially from the mid-1400s) has spatialized public and private life as gendered. Grace O’Malley may have met the Queen of England, but my granny along with all the other ‘Irish mammys’ was a force to be reckoned with only within the private space of the home.

The founding of the Irish Countrywoman’s Association in 1910 enabled this public-private divide to be blurred for Irish women. The activities and the events organized by the Association brought the talents and the ferociousness of Irish women roaring into the public eye. One of the activities encouraged by the Association was the setting up of local country markets where women could share their homemade goods. Over time the country markers expanded to include awards and became a real source of pride, sisterhood and income for many rural Irish women. For me the country market in Cahir on a Friday was one of the highlights of my time in Ireland, mainly because I had a whole morning of my granny and a whole bunch of incredible Cahir women. It was sometimes a rude awakening getting up early on a Friday to ensure we had the ritual of microwaved porridge (half a cup of oats, 2 minutes and 7 seconds and not a second more!) and a cup of good strong tea (tea-leaves only, as teabags were unacceptable). I can still see the sugar melting into the hot porridge before I poured the milk on top of it. The memory of the creaminess of the milk coupled with the sweetness of the sugar still makes my mouth water. We would then pack up the car with loaves of brown bread so fresh it had to be handled with great care; jars of marmalade for which I had stood guard only a few days before stirring the pot of simmering oranges; and there were current cakea, a slightly sweet bread filled with delicious raisins perfect with a cup of strong tea. I would feel the excitement grow as we pulled into the car-park of Cahir’s community hall, my nervous energy masked by the need to appear organized and ready for my granny. Despite the early hour there would inevitably be women already there setting up the tables according to produce, setting out the tablecloths and organizing the hall to create the one-way system around the tables. Each lady’s items were marked with their number, a very important identifier for receiving their payment at the end of the day, but also a means for customers to grab their favourite items. I would walk around before the doors opened to the general public, my eyes overwhelmed by the assortment of colours laid out on the tables. There were jams, breads, cupcakes, tarts (or 'pie' as known to some of you), fresh fruits and vegetables from the gardens, and bunches of wonderful flowers which filled the hall with their different scents. It was a festival of smell, at every table I found myself drooling one moment and floating the next in a rural Ireland version of the land of ompalumpas. I was allowed to choose one sweet baked item to have with tea after the market was over – it was the hardest choice I would have to make all week. As I got older I also realised that there was a ‘political’ element to the choice I made based on which lady’s baked good I choose. The anticipation would grow as the time neared to 10am and the opening of the doors. I would be told where to stand and watch the gallop of the hordes of Cahir residents anxious to choose their favourite fresh products. The doors would open and the swarm descended and I watched as all the wondrous colours and shapes disappeared off the tables in a frenzy of chatter and delight. Then in an instant the swarm was gone leaving only the wreckage of goods which had not enticed their desires. The cleanup began, and I was only too happy to help, as at the end of this was tea and my chosen baked good sitting up on the stage surrounded by the ladies and their stories. Someone would put the kettle on off stage right and we would set out a cup and a plate for everyone at the table towering over the now deserted hall. The conversations were enthralling to me, listening to the town gossip and the comparing of ingredients and which flowers were doing well this year. They would delight in my presence as I performed short Arabic poems for them or recounted stories of my ‘exotic’ life on the banks of the Nile. My granny, a lady for whom giving compliments did come easy, would look on with a glint in her eye, which as I grew older I recognized as pride. As I write this I shed tears for times passed but not forgotten, for memories and stories which will live on in me and all of us children who found such wonder and adventure around the tables of the country market.

Cahir Country Market recently closed its doors for the final time after 45 years of serving the local community. Central figures like my granny May O’Brien and Hilary Carter (whom I mentioned in my last post) were no longer there to stoke the fire of keeping the market alive. I feel so privileged to be able to close my eyes still and transport myself back to my eight-year-old self excited by the energy and dedication that these formidable ladies brought to their local community. Ślan to the Cahir Country Markets, you will live on in my heart forever.

Here's a link to one of my first posts on this blog which I wrote in 2006 when my granny had won a number of prizes for her baking and jams.

Life is a trampoline

There are not too many children who do not love to try a trampoline. I remember having a small one somewhere in my childhood, but cannot place the exact location it was. I do remember vividly taking up ‘professional’ trampolining when I was 13 in school in Al Ain, UAE. It was an after-school club, with a structure and required jumps you had to learn in order to progress to the next level. I have a memory of putting on a show during one of the open days for parents. Needless to say, I loved it – what was not to love: I got to jump as high as I could so there was risk involved, there was the instability of the surface I landed one so every landing was an adventure, and there was the challenge of learning the new shape/position and maintaining poise and balance. In 2016 and again in 2017 I found myself in Dublin and in Portland once again on a trampoline with children a quarter of my age, and it was glorious.

The images of my trampolining career as a child, teenager and then more recently have come back very vividly in recent weeks. I have been trying to process why, and to fit it in with all my other personal current inward and outward journeys, and I have decided that trampolining is a euphemism for life! Well my life at least. Here’s how I relate each of the aspects of trampolining to me life, and then I add my own spin on the activity. Firstly, in trampolining there is the challenge of learning the different positions (plank and star jump were my favourite). In life generally I love the thrill of a challenge, of learning and trying something new. I do not always succeed in all the challenges I take on, but from every attempt I grow and gain something that contributes to my life. Secondly, the trampoline is an unsteady surface which can sometimes send you higher and sometimes have you fall flat on your face. I acknowledge that life too is an unpredictable path sometimes paved with sharp stones and sometimes there’s a bicycle to help you sail along. Sometimes when trampolining you might even fall off the trampoline because you went too high or because someone pushed you too hard; sometimes in life you feel like you have fallen off the path and that you will never be able to get back up. Both have happened to me, and the truth is you dust yourself off, you take all the time you need, you accept the hands which reach out to you, and you get back on that trampoline. Thirdly, when trampolining there will be teammates or friends who jump as high as you do, who laugh when they fall over on the trampoline; there will also be teammates or friends who try to keep up with you but cannot jump as high or would rather sit at the base of the trampoline and watch you jump. In life there are people who will inspire you to jump higher, who will be right there with you driving you as you engage in your adventures and challenges; there will be others in your life who will admire your sense of adventure but who will not have the same perspective on life. I have encountered both in my life, and in recent times have come to accept the difference in perspectives people bring to my life and how much I value this. I also acknowledge that I need to jump higher and higher.

I offer a fourth element to my proposal of life as a trampoline which is how I want to share with you my thoughts on recent discussions on structural violence, racism, gender discrimination and the destruction of liberal thought: we are not all born equal, we are all born with different weights attached to our feet. Someone will have a weight because they are a woman, another will have a weight because they are gay, another will have a weight because they are indigenous, another will have a weight because they are black living in the US or Canada or Europe, another will have a weight because they believe in god, another will have a weight because they don’t, another will have a weight because they are born into poverty, another will have a weight because they are born with a genetic disorder, another will have a weight because they are born with a physical disability, another will have a weight because they are born with a mental disability. I could go on… Imagine a picture of a group of children from all across the world some with one weight, some with two, others with several, a small minority with none approaching the trampoline I call life. How are they expected to embrace their sense of adventure, face their challenges, grow and learn when they cannot even begin to jump because of the weights shackled at their feet. Let’s advocate for structural change so that we can help those children remove their weights put there by unjust societal beliefs and norms which are embedded in our structures.

 

I want to dedicate this blog entry to a dear friend Hilary Carter of my Irish grandmother May O’Brien who passed away recently. Hilary and May were women born in Ireland at a time when being a woman was certainly not a blessing and did not offer many opportunities. They met working at Country Markets in Cahir Co. Tipperary baking bread and making jam, and where they inspired me over the years to never give up trying to do the best you can (weights and all) for yourself and your family. 

My latest adventure is learning to open water swim!