Well now…what do we have here? Yes, it is actually me, dusting off the computer keys for something completely new. Yes, you read that correctly. The reason after a four year absence you ask? Well, the answer comes in that word-anniversaries…note the plural! Exactly 10 years ago on November 14, 2013, I nervously posted the very first edition of Soundtrack Of A Photograph. Way back then I did not know where or what it would lead to. I just knew that I had a sort of idea for a blog that I wanted to explore using my own photography as the focus and aided by music to form a type of mixed media fusion between the two. And for six years it was a very big part of my life. After setting it completely aside in this format since, it has been fun and sometimes a little cringey re-reading some of those old posts as I prepared what you are reading right now. But it is mine, and mine alone after all, and it seems entirely worthy of remembering and celebrating.
Earlier this year I was in Ireland for a cousin’s wedding, followed by some time exploring other parts of the country new to me. While there I realized that 2023 also marked another anniversary for me. For it was in April of 1983 that I first visited Ireland. Ok, well technically it was the second time, but the first was when I was one year old, so I don’t count it. Realizing that this year marked the milestones of both events, I knew I had to do something that melded the two events together, and it seemed like a good time for dusting off the keys once again. In life we typically use anniversaries to celebrate milestones such as marriage, historical events, or the passing of friends and family. For this 10th Anniversary of Soundtrack Of A Photograph, I thought it would be fun to recount my memories of that first trip 40 years ago. Aided by old photos from deep in the archives, along with a very appropriate song for the occasion, as performed by an artist I inexplicably never wrote about in the years the blog was active.
But before you dive in there is more! I am not sure where this new post will lead me in terms of it being a one-off, or a full on reboot. That is yet to be determined. But in order to fully celebrate the occasion, please be sure to look at the bottom of this post for some links and some additional photos as well as new content. Technical matters got in the way just before publishing this post but stay tuned for some new additional bits and pieces. And if you aren’t already following me on social media please give them a like. Anniversaries should be special, so I hope you all enjoy. But now, off we go!
Part One- The Journey, April 1983
‘I’ve just dropped in to see you all,
I’ll only stay awhile
I want to hear how you’re getting on.
I want to see you smile…
Wellington Boots…for some strange reason I cannot fully grasp, a lasting memory of that trip was wearing ‘Wellie’s’ for the first time. I was fifteen years old. A high school teenager with shaggy reddish-orange hair mucking about on a farm and walking through wet grassy fields wearing those boots in the wilds of Donegal. Eventually I came to understand why they were necessary, and why my uncle Seamus insisted on getting me a pair in the first place a day after arriving. In actuality, the trip was to be a series of firsts. It was my first time on a plane and my first time traveling anywhere outside of the U.S. It was the first time that mom and I ever traveled together without my Dad and two older sisters. It was the first time I had a cigarette and also my first dram of whiskey. The first achieved via subterfuge and partaken of in private, while the second was out in the open and came via an aged member of the family who thought I could handle it, even at age 15. I found both revolting, though happily I adore a nice whiskey these days. Or for that matter, whisky…but I digress.
To continue with the firsts, it certainly was not my first-time seeing sheep, but it seemed as if there were millions of the fecking things all over, and I soon discovered another useful thing about Wellington boots when walking in the fields where they resided. I’m sure you can guess what that was! It was my first time being in a right-hand drive car, which was a strange sensation. There were cookies and chips that looked similar to the ones I enjoyed at home, but they all had strange, bizarre names. Oh, and they were called biscuits and crisps instead. It was the first time I heard Irish Gaelic being spoken, which on top of the thick and impenetrable Donegal accent made for a real struggle to understand people at times. There was also solitude, of a kind I had never witnessed in person before. Standing on a windswept mountain staring out at a relentless, churning Atlantic Ocean will do that to you I suppose, and I remember the freedom of the moment like it was yesterday. Secretly I wished I could stay there forever.
Looking back with hindsight 40 years on, I now realize how much this trip guided my life in many ways. I did not understand this at the time, but as the years go by, you realize that you become defined by certain eras in your lifetime. Imperceptible elements much like snapshots which reveal traces of who you are, what you are, why you are. So, 40 years and a few months on from that time, with the help of some of the old photos from that trip taken on the old Kodak Ektralite camera, I thought I would share how what I experienced on that 1983 trip explains so much about the person I am in 2023.
For there’s no place else on earth just like
The homes of Donegal’
The plan from the start was for Mom to show me ‘back home’. Kilcar, Donegal where she was born and raised along with her three sisters and brother. Until then, Ireland was a place more of legend in my mind, seen in faded photographs from old photo albums. These days we take it for granted about how much you can research or ‘see’ virtually before traveling, but in those days, it really was a journey into the unknown. No computers, no travel documentaries, no social media influencers, no YouTube clips, not even blogs. At that point, Ireland was a place we occasionally saw on the TV, but I really had little to go on for understanding the landscape, the climate, the way of life other than what I heard as snippets at family gatherings. But now I was going to find out.
Mom and I flew into Dublin and shortly after made the trip to Donegal together with my aunt. As anyone who has traveled those roads knows, the best way to get to Donegal from Dublin then, as now, is to cut through Northern Ireland, where at that time the political situation was serious. The first vivid memory of the trip was crossing the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. At the Army checkpoint there were armored vehicles and guns sticking out of little ‘sheds’ at the edge of the roadside. What I will never forget was just a mile or two down the road from there, at the separate RUC checkpoint being told we had a flat tire. We got out of the car while the RUC men kindly changed the tire for us with rifles strapped to their backs. I was generally aware of the situation in Northern Ireland at the time which included various road side incidents with dire consequences, so to say this wasn’t a surreal experience was an understatement. Moving on both literally and figuratively down the road not long after, we were soon driving through scenery in County Fermanagh such as I had never seen before. I remember staring out the window in wonderment of the lush landscape, with peeks of Lough Erne occasionally coming into view. I wanted to stop and run through those gentle hills, but we needed to press on to Donegal.
Before long the road signs told us we were now in County Donegal, though we still had a way to go yet to get to Kilcar. If memory serves correct, we stopped into Donegal town for lunch and a quick look around. But soon it was back in the car and past towns with magical names to me and so different than American ones-Mountcharles, Drumnakilly, Dunkineely, Bruckless, before the booming fishing town of Killybegs came into sight, full of trawlers and men in flat caps, well-worn wool sweaters and Wellington boots (see what I mean?) lurking about. We were now only a few miles away from Kilcar, with our final destination being the very house where mom and her siblings grew up. We drove along the coast, with big, majestic views of Donegal Bay, but soon we turned off the coast road from Killybegs and through the glen (valley), to the area known locally as Cronroad.
It is hard to adequately describe those first moments in my young mind. The narrow and solitary road that seemed to go on forever to the closing end of the glen, with a matching ‘twin’ road on the other side. If I had been expecting pure desolation in my mind, I was soon proved wrong. Right smack in the middle of the glen was a modern factory, and the houses were a mix of contemporary along with more rustic cottages, coupled with any number of byers or sheds, all manner of tractors and farm equipment, and even some small unseaworthy looking small boats pulled up alongside properties. There was an abundance of green as I expected, but an unexpected thing in my mind was how few trees there were. On journeys to the new, you never know quite where you are, what the end result will be, which direction it will be. Soon enough though, we turned left off the lane to the house, which was a single story, set slightly down from the road itself. I’m guessing that the car must have been heard approaching some way down the lane because quickly we were being greeted at the door…
Part 2-The Arrival
‘I long to see your smiling children
Standing by the door
The kettle boiling on the hearth
As I walk up the floor’
My grandmother Nora still lived in the house along with my Uncle Seamus. My grandfather had passed a few years before unfortunately. I had met both my grandmother and Seamus previously however, when they had traveled to the US so I had familiarity with them, but on their home turf of Donegal the accent seemed even heavier than I remembered. Now that phrase ‘home turf’ reminds me of one of my first impressions upon walking in the door of the house after greetings had been made. The house was simple, but comfortable in its own way. Before even having dinner, or going to the room where I would sleep, we assembled in the front room. And there, for the first time was when I saw stacks of peat, alongside the peat burning stove, sort of a cross between a fireplace and an oven. Since it was April and still damp, the fire was going strong, and periodically either my grandmother or Seamus would swing the door open and feed it with a ‘brick’ or two of peat, which had a magical aroma to it. Is it any wonder all these years later that I enjoy the peaty whiskeys, or indeed, whiskies most…but I digress again.
Looking around the room I can recall a radio, which looked more modern than the small TV set with rabbit ears looming in the corner. I think I knew then and there that this would be a trip without amenities such as TV. And though I cannot remember every moment of the trip, or for that matter what order things happened in, I do remember those first moments clearly. The warm welcome. The hospitality. The tea. The banter, for which I probably did a lot of head nodding and pretending I understood what was being said, all while acting like the sulky teenager I was. But deep down, I loved it.
‘I’d like to stay along with you
and while away the night
With fairy lore and tales of yore
Beside the turf fire bright’
The house was larger than it seemed from the road, and at the back was a byer, and there were a few chickens running around, and I think a few cows. I was a little dismayed to learn that when Seamus took over the farm, he sold off the sheep because at that point he had been taking care of them for years, which involved feeding them, moving them around, and shearing them for the wool which was the chief industry in that part of Donegal. So my hopes of being a shepherd for a week were sadly dashed. Regardless, in my young mind I was still on a farm, and I enjoyed searching around the rest of the property. Inside the house, and away from the fire the house was cold, most of all the bathroom! At night time I learned how the use of a hot water bottle was the best (and only) way to warm the bed without a heating system. In remembering this years later I think if these amenities had been perfect, I would not have the stories to tell or the fond memories. Which to me is more important in comparison to that 5 star Airbnb rated stay.
The thing about the Irish I came to realize during that trip and on subsequent ones is how social we are. Many cultures and countries are too of course, but there does seem to be something unique about how the Irish manage it, and it really struck me back then. In the course of a normal day, it was perfectly normal to stop in to visit people in their homes. Maybe even to a few homes. Typically it was family, but I remember being pulled into people’s houses on that trip with absolutely no pretext needed. It is what you did, and it was not like anything I had experienced in quite that way before. And even now it still exists in its own way, and the stories flow like the ever present tea or dram. The handful of photos I have from inside the house on that trip reflect this. My grandmother being the hostess and chatting away accompanied by the click-click-click of her knitting needles and the ever-present balls of beautifully dyed Donegal wool for use on the latest creation.
Part 3-The Experience
‘For your hearts
Are like your mountains
In the homes of Donegal’
Though I don’t recall exactly how many days I was there in total, or the itinerary, I do recall many moments. I’m quite sure that the next day I made the long walk into the village of Kilcar itself. On subsequent trips I learned more about the history of the village, both ancient and modern, and it was fascinating, but back then, I just wanted to explore, and do the things brooding teenagers do. I bought some of those funny sounding crisps and biscuits, with a soda to wash them down with, all with the funny currency I had no understanding of. Obviously the pubs were off limits, so I just remember soaking the place in and finding things new to me. Which frankly was everything-trucks, food, buildings, road signs-all had a different feel to them.
Walking up the hill in front of the house (with the Wellington’s on of course) there were small streams, tall grass and old stone walls sometimes topped with barbed wire. At one point I found evidence of a sheep a fox had hunted, and I remember horrifying my grandmother by bringing back a sheep’s skull that I found far up on the hill. Another day, we dropped Seamus off in the peat bog with a thermos of tea, a box of sandwiches, and the sleán, a special spade used to slice the peat into those bricks used in the house. There was the day we went to the stunning Slieve League-towering sea cliffs that drop straight off into the Atlantic Ocean. It is a place that on every subsequent visit I make to Donegal I must visit. The scenery is of course unreal, but the feeling and emotions of being in such an ancient landscape is somehow harder to describe. Though I had seen some beautiful places in America such as the Grand Canyon it was only there that I realized that though modern life changes rapidly, on this earth, there are places that do not change. Slieve League is one such place. Over the years I can compare the photos taken, and though the weather, season and conditions are different every time, that mountain is not.
The final grand adventure was when my aunt, mom and I went back in the car for a very long drive to Malin Head. This is the most northerly point in Ireland and to date, it is the only time I have been there. When you look at a map and see the distance between Kilcar and Malin you can understand why. County Donegal is effectively sliced in half at an angle by the sea inlet of Lough Swilly. It was a very long drive, and though I’m not certain of the exact route, I definitely remember seeing Errigal, standing as a lone sentinel before stopping in Letterkenny. From there was the push on to the Inishowen Peninsula and Malin Head. The landscape became even starker, and the houses seemed even more isolated. Each mile down the road seemed to bring a drop in temperature, along with a further step back in time. As you might surmise from this photo of mom and I standing at Malin Head the weather had clearly closen in. There is me, looking every bit the geeky, scrawny, long haired American kid with binoculars on his neck standing next to his elegant mom replete with jaunty hat and that long jacket I remember so well. Both of us smiling for the camera yet clearly braced against strong winds with whitecaps crashing on the sea below I do not remember the ride back unfortunately so this seems a great time to interrupt this part of the story to officially introduce the song I have been quoting from.
Part 4-Musical Interlude
‘And then to see a welcome free
For travelers one and all’
The Homes Of Donegal was written around 1955 by Sean McBride (or in Irish, Seán Mac Giolla Bhríde) of Cruit Island, Kincasslagh Donegal, and has been covered often over the years. For me personally (and many others), the standout version is by the fabulous Paul Brady. Though Paul grew up in Strabane, County Tyrone which lies along the border, he spent many summers in Donegal when growing up. In the late 1960’s-early 1970’s Paul was a member of The Johnstons, before a chance invitation to join a revamped version of Planxty in 1974 saw him become more immersed in the traditional music scene. Not long after along with fellow Planxty member Andy Irvine the duo recorded the legendary ‘Purple Album’, which is with no exaggeration one of the most important albums any fan of Irish music should have in their collection. Paul’s approach to both the vocal and guitar on the ballad Arthur McBride is a seminal moment of Irish music-do watch it on YouTube.
Lurking inside though was a desire to get his own songs out, and starting with 1981’s excellent ‘Hard Station’ Paul shifted focus, and began another phase to his career-talented songwriter. In preparation for writing this post, I have been listening to much of his music from throughout his long career. I could go on for many paragraphs describing his songs, but instead let me say this about his craft. Just the other day I found myself humming a melody. I knew it was one of Paul’s songs, but I assumed incorrectly that it was from an older album that was stuck in my head. It was then I realized that it was actually from his 2022 album Maybe So, which I only heard for the first time a few days before. So yes…he writes memorable songs with terrific melodic hooks that enter the psyche quickly. Which is not surprising considering that Bob Dylan is a huge fan, and that Tina Turner and Bonnie Raitt are among many of the artists that have covered his songs over the years. It is no wonder why at the start of this post I made that admission of how inexplicable it is that I never wrote about him before.
On his 1985 album Back To The Centre Paul recorded his own version of The Homes Of Donegal. Unlike the pleasant, yet straightforward versions by other singers such as Bridie Gallagher, in Paul’s version he really stretches out both the lyrics and the melody. Starting with his own plaintive whistle the music starts at a slow, gentle pace before gradually building up the arrangement. It feels like a journey, a meandering. And one that you want to be a part of no matter where in the world you are coming from, be it Strabane, New York City, New Zealand, Germany, Nigeria, Japan, Colombia. It does not matter. The further the song goes on, you are hooked, wrapped inside that melody and you are now on your own journey through those same wilds of Donegal like I was in 1983.
Part 5- The Time Has Come
‘The time has come for me to go
and bid you all adieu’
Once the adventures and exploration were over, the remainder of the trip seemed to fall into a pattern. It was Easter time after all, and being Catholics I remember attending at least some of the Holy Week services in Kilcar along with visits to all the family that lived in the area. But before long it was time to head back to Dublin and then home to New Jersey. I know that if you had asked the shy, introverted Rob in 1983 what he thought of everything he would have simply said it was cool, it was alright, the mountains were awesome, the house was cold, I missed MTV, I was bored, I met 7,835 people in Kilcar that were related to me, I couldn’t understand the accent…and all I brought back with me for a souvenir was a pair of black Wellington boots. In hindsight 40 years on none of that was actually true. For I now know it truly captivated me To quote William Butler Yeats, it now resided in my ‘deep heart’s core.’
In subsequent years I began to realize what a special place I came from. Ireland in general, but Donegal in particular. It is a captivating place with a unique aura. Earlier on in this post I said that the trip defined me, guided me in so many ways. I think the primary reason is that it feeds both sides of my desires. There have been many terrific, fun-filled nights of celebration over the years with family, yet on the other side Donegal brings out the solitary in me. The waking up at first light in summer at 5 AM and going for a long walk down the roads and onto the beaches before anyone else in the house wakes up. The kind that can stare out for hours at the ocean waves, white caps brimming, interspersed with only the squawk of the seabirds, wind and the occasional bleating sheep. In all honesty, part of the reason I wanted to explore my photography skills further is because I wanted to photograph Donegal. And really, who could blame me.
Beyond the visual, I became enamored of the stories and the language. Though I am not an Irish speaker (Something I am working on changing currently), the language is important to me. Any small thing I can do to preserve it, be it the pronunciation in Gaelic of a name or reading a poem or a song lyric is a vital link to my background. It just feels right to me. Recently I wrote out my full name, Robert Patrick Doyle in Irish for the first time. Seeing the way Robeard Padraig O’ Dubhghaill looked on paper felt significant to me. It made me proud to come from a place where despite the native language being largely denied and abandoned, it still survives today. Within just the three parts of my name I feel a deep, lasting connection. And none of these things would have happened had I not traveled there.
‘But when I’m traveling far away
your friendship, I’ll recall
And please God I’ll soon retun unto
The Homes Of Donegal’
Yet I think most of all that what that 1983 trip stirs up for me lies in the song-The Homes Of Donegal. For it is in those homes where laughter lies. Tall tales and exaggerations. Gossip and unexpected words of wisdom when least expected. A peat fire burning in the house that brings comfort on a cold wet day. Long walks down country lanes with flowers blooming along the roadside. Ocean waves, and the waves from passing cars. Family and new friends young and old. Ingenuity and time honored traditions. Wool and Wellies. Rain and Sun. Music and language. Politics and Pints. Sports and adventure. Mountains and streams. Sheep and more sheep. Big skies and bigger hearts. Friendly greetings and friendly people.
If you look at clips of Paul Brady performing The Homes Of Donegal on Youtube you will see that toward the end of the song, he rattles off a long list of Donegal town names. It is a cross between stream of consciousness from his own travels over the years and audience shout outs. So to close this anniversary post I want to do my own list. Closing my eyes and imagining journeys past and towns passed through I imagine- Pettigo, Ballyshannon, Donegal Town, Bundoran, Dunkineely, Killybegs, Kilcar, Teelin, Carrick, Glencolmcille, An Port, Ardara, Glenties, Lettermacaward, Dungloe, Bunbeg, Ballybofey Letterkenny, Buncrana, Malin…and so many more. As you play the link to Paul singing the song, just close your eyes and imagine the journey. In the truest sense of the word the homes of Donegal are my home, and will be forever.
‘Donegal…pride of all’
The Homes Of Donegal-Written By Sean McBride
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***See below for a few bonus photos of Ireland over the years.
***Keep your eyes on the social media liinks above for some special additional content.
Soundtrack Of A Photograph 