Contracting in Connemara
Well now! I
was on a contract. It was in the Emerald Isle: that is the green grassy place
with all the straggly islands stuck out into the Atlantic; part way to America.
But enough of the blarney. Let me tell you of the money
and the expenses and the work.
There is no
work. The place is a desolate, bleak, rain sodden nowhere-ville. It rains, then it rains some more, I could go
on telling you all night how wet and miserable it is. But in between the
poverty, the total lack of anything resembling civilization, there are tiny
gems of sparkling beauty. The value of these gems are
enhanced by the comparison with the surrounding swirling sea mist.
No! not diamonds, or gold nor even an emerald or two. No! it is the tiny pockets of activity. People working, too
small to call it industry, but there are people working. I'm not talking about
the subsistence farming that only just supports a tumbledown cottage and a few
fields. No these are businesses capable
of making a living and often a profit aswell.
In late '89 I
was recruited by an American company to look at the viability of setting up
computer tele-work cottages all along the west coast of Ireland. The idea of
the tele-cottage is that it is a concentration of computer users brought in
from a small catchment area. So rather than each user having a machine at home,
that same user drops into the tele-cottage say once a week or once a month. The
idea was to use the tele-cottage in the same way as people use the library or
the post office. It would be a centre of activity. A place to
gossip, buy a stamp, pay a bill, find out an address and just generally a place
to be every once in a while.
The funding
for our project came from a whole raft of different sources. Most of it was EC money, designed to develop
the outermost edges of the community. A small lump came from the revenue-men. Presumably because of the logic that if the natives were making
money legitimately they would be less likely to turn to smuggling.
Another substantial wodge of the funding came from America. I think that it was
expatriate Irish Americans delivering a promise that one day they would return
to the home country and they would do it by creating some wealth producing
industry. So us contractors were raking in a handsome
fee at US rates.
So there we
were. Myself and two
Americans. With our international roots the International airport at
Shannon seemed like a natural centre. We set up an office in Limerick. (That is
pronounced lim-rick, the “er” is not sounded unless you are writing a five line
saucy ditty – a Limerick.)
Our office
was not much used by ourselves but served as a meeting place for when the
Americans or the EC people wanted to come and see how we were getting on. We would give a wonderful presentation and
then take them out to lunch or dinner: they all thought that we were doing a
marvelous job. The expenses were great too, enough to feed and clothe and
mobilize an army.
What we were
actually doing was to go out into the hinterland and set up gatherings. We
would invite local businessmen, Potential workers, and anybody who had the
least connection with computers or communications to come along to the
community centre or any gathering place that was available. Then we would give
them a show. A vision of how things might be.
With computers, communications, telephone, faxes, satellite links. It
was all very up-beat, designed to show a hi-tech future. Then we would get the drinks going and we
would circulate among the guests and try and find people who had caught the
bug. We were looking for people. People who could motivate and
, organise. It is a strange thing but some people have gravitated
towards being passive. They can do anything that is put in front of them, but
say you have to organize yourself and there is a shatttering silence.
Our database
of competent people blossomed. Gradually some of our sponsors found the
beginnings of activity. But I was at the end of my contract all too soon.
By way of an
end of contract jolly I went out to the Arran Isles. I went by boat to
Inishman. It is occupied by a soft spoken people, who literally always whisper.
A quiet, confidential, diffident enquiry. A softer voice in texture too. Soon the visitor speaks in a
complementary subdued voice. It suits the place: barren, bleak and poor.
Poverty
haunts the undulating hillsides. But strangely there is evidence of times of
prosperity. Great ornate gravestones
commemorate some long past personage.
There is no
language problem: A few speak the Gaelic but it is just the same as in Wales,
very quaint and rather fun when they think that you don't understand. Typically
it is in the small villages at the Post Office; there are always a few old
gossips hanging around the Post Office. ''Can I get a first 1st class stamp
please”. Then they playfully look blank
and answer with a stream of gabbled Gallic. You hold up the unstamped letter
and surely it is obvious what you want.
Even the
French shop- keepers are able to decipher a simple request without the need for
words. But still the little charade is played out. Till they guess that you are
about fed up and they sell you a stamp. No doubt it supports much amusement and
consternation: “The foreigner wanted to buy a stamp.”
Back to the
mainland I had my final few days work in Connemara. Beauty is not only in the eye of the
beholder. Its also in the whole situation that
surrounds one. I could bring you back a photograph of the hills around
Connemara and you would not know the view from a thousand others. It could be Wales
or Cornwall or Scotland. Geographical
views can be found of open vistas, giant craggy hilltops and great reaches of
heather covered hills.
No! part of the beauty is in the unseen knowledge that you are
really here. The best I can do for you reader
is to ask you to imagine that you have traveled away westward from your home. Across the sea to
So when you
see the beauty you also feel the isolation. The nearness of
the
And so,
eventually, you come to a bridge. The causeway leading to it is a jumble of
giant rocks. With a leaden heart you relinquish the comfort of your car and
walk back to the crest of the bridge.
There is no parking area. Your
car blocks the road both forwards and back.
But, no matter, no one will come along the road for hours. At the high
spot of the bridge you can feel your coat thinning and you feel the warmth of
your body leaking away into this vast bleakness.
Under the
bridge between the supports an aggressive incoming tide gnaws at the stonework
of the bridge. Soon it will devour this work. Maybe a thousand year will do the
job. Tirelessly it surges past and you know that in a few hours it will flow
back and grind away a tiny bit more off the old bridge.
Away to the
sea a bright sky suddenly glimmers. Now
you know why you stopped. It was to admire the beauty. A picture would not
suffice. It is the feeling of being there.
Really knowing that you are as alone as one can get in this world and
there is nothing between you and a thousand miles of cold cruel Atlantic.
Around to the
landward side the now bright hills glow a sullen
heather red. Now a picture cannot
capture this feeling. You have to go and feel it for yourself.
But this is
no land for the contractor. It is cold and bleak and beautiful. The contractor needs to stick to the warm,
fetid, comfy, easy-living urban squalor.
