a passage to aran

Aran island.
One of the last places in Ireland where the old Irish language is still spoken.
Why have I come here?
What am I searching for?
The Celtic soul perhaps.
I've been wandering through burnt out school buildings on a desolate corner of the island.
They are covered in graffiti.
I felt a brief thrill when I first saw the graffiti then a wave of disappointment when I realised it was all in English.
Shoulders down I left the school.
I made my way between stony fields, up a sunken lane and found myself on a promontory overlooking the wild Atlantic.
Sunshine and wildness.
A heady mix.
I sit.
It is late evening.
There's not much on Aran.
Not much to do.
The playwright JM Synge came here once and described the people as: "The last of Europe's stone age race."
He meant it as a compliment.
The great wet twit.
The only other famous person to have a long association with the island is my feminist cousin Pauline who lived here for two years.
The islanders have even put a monument up to her.
"Ni stadann si ag caint riamh," it says on the base of the plinth.
The wind ruffles my hair.
My eyes are the piercing blue of cornflowers.
I get to thinking.
In Summer time the island fills up with tourists.
There's not much for them to do except listen to the locals pretending to talk Irish.
Imagine if I staged my plays here in Summer.
Vampires of Dublin and The Play That Dare Not Speak Its Name.
(The Play That Dare Not Speak Its Name is called Lady Windermere's Fanny. - Ed note)
Take a shed and make it into a theatre.
A double bill.
Fifty thousand tourists on the island with nothing to do.
They'd have to come.
We could throw in a few words of Irish just to make the plays seem a bit cultural.
Crumbs.
This could work.
My quest for the Celtic soul has been all but abandoned.
Celtic soul, Celtic schmole, as we do say in the trade.
I mean, what have the Celts done for us lately?
Suddenly I hear singing.
And lo!
Down the strand I see a small figure.
There is a little boy walking towards me.
A little boy of Aran.
What is he singing?
I hardly dare to hope.
Some ancient keen to island life and island ways wrought from the old language that a few poets still dream in and others still call Irish?
His singing is loud and raucous and full of mystic fire.
I cannot make out a single word.
He draws nearer.
I am fascinated.
I crane my neck trying to decipher the Irish.
The little boy turns towards me on the road.
His words take crystalline form.
For the first time I can make them out.
He is singing:
"Glory, glory Man United."
Over and over.
Then he stops.
"Do you like Man United?" he asks me.
I hasten to assure him that I do.
"Oh yes, hurrah for Man United," quoth me.
The island boy wanders off along the twisty lane still bawling his paean.
I am alone with the rising night wind and the wild wild sea and the first of the stars.