BOOK REVIEW BY SANDI JOHNSON
Looking for Cornelius, a novella, is driven by the blood-borne need to know family.
Diana Hayes, Salt Spring Island poet and publisher of Raven Chapbooks, takes us on the journey, a cartography of genes. In her poem Fiddles and Fire, Hayes articulates the passion for family that drives the narrative of this story.
Deidre hAodha, a teacher of traditional Irish music, and her young pupil Éamon, a prodigy, journey from Montreal to the Cork County Council summer festival where Éamon will compete for a music scholarship. Both tragically orphaned, they’re searching for answers about family and belonging. Deidre’s quest is to unearth the story of her great-grandfather Cornelius hAodha, who disappeared in 1847 during the crisis of An Gorta Mór, the Great Famine.
“Nothing would keep her from learning the truth about her family of origin,” the author writes about Deidre.
Éamon searches for the means to follow his heart’s desire. He asks the lord of the fiddle to help him win a scholarship. Music moves through the body like a dancer moves weightless through air; music will make all things possible.
The novella, a discovery of worlds beyond the everyday, is accompanied by the beauty and power of music and poetry. Deidre felt the presence of Cornelius; she knew the scent of his Irish Flake tobacco; heard the music of his tin whistle. She heard his voice saying, listen for messages in song.
Impeccably researched, scenes are filled with details from various disciplines that locate the reader in the history and mythology of the place. We’re given maps, explicit direction. On the way to Cork take M8 to Dunkettle Interchange, twenty minutes further, over Belvelly Bridge is the way to Cork College.
It’s a story of mystery unfolding, dreams where everything begins. Deidre and Éamon dreamed of ancient places, dreamed of saints. She recalls Jacob’s dream of the ladder, the divine connection between heaven and earth.
There were unsettling stories and much mournful music.
Prayers offered, blessings to the goddess Áine for a long warm summer, they were accompanied by St. Brigid, St. Kevin, Little Nellie whose expression of love through her faith allowed her to withstand the unrelenting pain of her infirmities.
In their search for ancestors, Deidre and Éamon visited ancient sites on their way to Cork — Scully’s Cross, the Dromberg Circle, Druid’s Altar. They wanted to prepare their hearts, to connect with the ancients. As the sun set at the Druid’s Altar, they listened for messages from the Druids.
A glossary of Irish Gaelic words and phrases is provided. The way to Dromberg Circle —take N71 west to Ross Carberry, turn left onto R597. The sign is also written Cloch-Cheacall Agus Cairn, Irish Gaelic, the mother tongue for two orphans returning home.
The novella evokes natural and spiritual worlds. The waterfall is the best place to look for the invisible, to visit the Otherworld. The sacred hawthorn, Sceach Gheal, is considered a gateway between this world and the next. St. Kevin, the Irish St. Francis, heard the trees sing sweet songs to him. When Éamon victoriously played The Song of the Faeries, voices of spirits and whales that circled off Dingle peninsula were heard.
Not far along the N71 from Clonakilty they came to Skibbereen. In Skibbereen, near Abbeystrowry, Deidre met with her ancestry group and witnessed a dramatization of The Famine Story. Skibbereen, magnet of misery, the horrors of An Gorta Mór.
In Part Three, This is My Story-The Wake of Cornelius, the mystery unfolds. The writing is deft, poetic. The voice authentic, Cornelius is totally present.
On the cover we see an old man walking down a rocky path toward the horizon. Empty spaces fill with green. In Looking for Cornelius, photographer Diana Hayes, compelled to discover the cartography of genes, has searched for her great-grandfather.
It’s a story for readers interested in ancestry: poetry and music lovers, the Irish; people who like to lift a Guinness and jig.
Books are available at Salt Spring Books.