There are countless pubs all over Ireland, from the must-see Dublin pubs for tourists, to the locals' pubs in rural towns, to the music-filled pubs run by musicians themselves. In all shapes and sizes, it's all a hit with people of Celtic descent.
Irish pubs are mostly dimly lit, but the atmosphere is warm. People turn the corner and slam the door with a ping, as if an emotion had crept into the mind at the right moment, and they settle into wooden chairs with backrests or high stools with indented seats, embedding their hips impartially into the indentations of the seat.
Pubs across Ireland are mostly packed, and unlike elsewhere, it doesn't matter if you're a local or an outsider, if you walk into a pub, you're a drinker. There is a strange confidant atmosphere that rises up with the first glass of stout pushed in front of you on a paper coaster, and it easily removes any sense of strangeness. It is for this reason that it is always commented that the atmosphere in Irish pubs is one of friendliness, where people open their hearts. This openness is not so much a painful personal history, but a subtle, emotional openness, where you can say nothing, but you still feel like you're gradually blending in all around you, where you look at other people calling out to friends and don't feel pressurized because you're not a stranger either, you're just a little bit silent.
It's always smoky and crowded there. Bars that are old enough to have a sliver of a window usually have secret rooms. Those little cubicles, separated from the store by dark brown oak panels and adorned with stained-glass windows above them, are a feature of traditional Irish pubs, which they call snugs, and they're small and warm, and the light from the sky filtering through the stained glass makes those old privy chambers splotchy and fragile, as if the emotions that float by inside them when they feel cozy. It's as if the chambers were built specifically for wallowing in the heart, reminding one that the people who hang out here have sensitive hearts, a world hidden inside their chests that often needs to be soothed.
Some people smoked in the snug, some hiccupped, and some suddenly laughed loudly, a woman's loud voice, as if small stones had rolled crisply down a cliff, from behind the windowpanes.
In an Atlantic-side tavern, the evening was still clear. The store was gradually filling up, and the raw-dough odor of stout emanated from everywhere. A dozen or so Americans in identical black T-shirts, a traveling group from the Midwest, were crowded in front of me, laughing. In the center of the store, there was another tour group, from England, which featured a group of middle-aged women, unusually dressed, led by a thin, tall man who looked like a teacher from the Boy Scouts. They talked warmly to each other, most of them tediously sipping a glass of white wine.
......
Perhaps the old Irish tunes, which really do go back to those water-demons called Sirens in the middle of the Rhine, when those enchanting tunes could kill a passing sailor, still bewitch the casual observer, even in a tavern. I suddenly remembered an old friend of mine from the old days, who for many years suffered from agoraphobia, a big man who was afraid to take a step out of his house. Even he was mesmerized by Irish music, like a mosquito tightly woven into a spider's web.
One afternoon the sun was shining brightly in rainy, damp Westport, where at the old harbor stood a monument to the Irish who escaped from the sea here during the potato famine years. The monument is a bronze ghost ship, when people rushed into the sea, in fact, many simple wooden boats can not withstand the Atlantic wind and waves, those ships never reached the other side of the sea, and the people were buried at the bottom of the sea. People called such ships ghost ships.
The inner room of Matt Malone's bar in the middle of town was as warm and dark as the bar's private room, and the people, knowing that Matt would be coming to play the flute this afternoon, had gathered there to wait. Among them was an old flute player in his eighties and a little girl of ten months. The old flutist was still looking for the right old tune to fill in the words to a new ballad. The little girl, a heavy pink velvet bow knotted in her soft flaxen fetal hair, waited curiously. Her young parents looked like students working on their doctoral dissertations, looking with respect and fondness and smiles at Matt Malone, who sat with the band.
On the table, the layer of white foam on the surface of the stout lingered as if it were the flesh of fresh bread. At that moment, too, like a white bird dashing headlong into the depths of a somber sky, a high, soft voice broke through the buzz that filled the tavern, and there was simplicity, ebullience, jubilation, obedience, and nostalgic sentimentality in its clarity; it was the sound of Matt Malone's flute.
He inclined his head, as a great bird inclines its head, and listened intently to the distant sound. The flute grew long, as if it were a call from a distant place, and he raised his face and opened his shoulders as if to take up the notes that fell from the air. His beard was white, and there was a palpable loss and sadness in his eyes; it was the anniversary of his wife's death, and the memorial service had just ended.
More than two decades have passed since Polefni met him in his own class when he was 10 years old and heard him play the flute for small children.
Matt Malone had turned his back on playing the Irish flute for most of his life.
The men in his family, starting with his grandfather, loved to play the flute. Then came his dad, who was already playing in the pubs of his hometown. The house was often filled with the sound of the flute. The sound of the flute had been a natural part of his entire life before he had ever thought of doing anything else with his life. He grew up playing the flute, too. Generation after generation, the easiest thing to find in the Malone family was the flute. The Malone family's lifestyle hasn't changed much from generation to generation, so Matt's son, too, is a flute player today.
Matt has learned many traditional Irish tunes as a result. He never expected to fall in love with other tunes, and the old Irish ballads surrounded him in this one life like an ocean surrounds an island.
A simple opportunity took him to Dublin, where he was part of the band that started the Chieftains. This band was an important one in the 1960s in adapting traditional Irish music and promoting Irish folk music to the world. They took the old Irish ballads from the clear chants of the relics at the end of the world to the fairy music that has captured countless hearts around the world.
This love affair with the Irish ballad has been going on since the days of Beethoven, and when Marta from "Marta" sang "The Last Rose of Summer," a song transformed by the old ballad, the world resounded with the sad and sweet sounds of Ireland. Matt says their band was just a step in that protracted love affair.
In Ireland, people have always adapted those old tunes. Those lilting tunes in which human emotion and heart seemed to transcend time again and again, like the thin thread that runs through a pearl. This is where I was exposed to a completely different, understanding of time and tradition. The change of time does not make human feeling obsolete; it only makes it increasingly apparent in its relative passing timelessness.
In Ireland, it seems, people cherish their traditions as a matter of course, they are in touch with all that is ancient and fascinating, and never feel oppressed, constrained, or confined by tradition; what they see there is, well, eternity. It is a bond with tradition that I envy.
The flute Matt has played all his life is his grandfather's flute and his father's flute. When he held the flute in his hand, it was as if it was part of his flesh, so familiar. The flute tunes he had played throughout his life were the tunes that had been played by generations of Irishmen.
"Never felt your life was too simple? It doesn't seem like you've tried anything completely different and new in this life." I asked Matt.
"No." He shifted his shoulders a bit, as if to make sure he was sitting comfortably. Then he said, "I'm comfortable."
Matt thought about it for a moment, and then added that everything was fine in his life, except that he traveled too much. Performing all over the world, he's always traveling. Sometimes he wanted to be quiet and just stay at home for a while. Or sail a boat, his greatest passion besides the flute was sailing. That's the hobby of an authentic Irishman.
Matt is a very, very lucky man compared to the Chinese. In Ireland, even the saintly Patriot preached, adding a Celtic circle to the Catholic cross. Though things have changed dramatically, the Irish have always lived around charming old ladies, played their ancestral flutes, settled into the role of Irish men, and accepted their destiny, whereas we, on the other hand, have only the remnants of our seventy-five years of struggle with restless hesitancy.
Matt plays an old Irish ballad with three young men. Over harp and fiddle, the flute floated clear, like a brown lake around the center of a diaphanous green forest, white swans gliding over a mirror-like abyss. Matt inclined his head, and this time, it was as if a man in love was leaning over to listen to his lover's heartbeat.
The little ten-month-old baby girl, supported by her father's arms, stood on the floor across from Matt. She danced her feet to the beat as she laughed silently, opening her little pink mouth wide and drooling a little bar of shiny drool. Her unreserved laughter reminded me of Polefni when he was ten years old. He probably laughed with such surprise when he saw Matt in his elementary school classroom in Inis.
Lucky Irish music, that's how it's been passed down from generation to generation.
I learned the word "heritage" from Matt's pub in Westport, where traditional Irish music was performed, that the word "heritage" is about genuine affection, not dispassionate exploitation. Ireland has a nickname for charming old ladies. It dawned on me, over the sound of Matt's flute, that people call this country that. Probably it means not only that it is old and beautiful and has survived the ages, but that it is still favored and pitied and still fascinating. If someone dotes on an old lady, she can probably be more fascinating than other women because she is mellow.
Clearness and mellowness together are a rare virtue.