THE WAY THINGS ARE
By Colette Ni Reamonn Ioannidou
A Dublin pal and I meet occasionally for coffee and a chat. We’re sci-fi fans and share a fondness for the first Star Wars movie and Harrison Ford. She was staring at me amusedly as I tucked into my cappuccino.
‘If you were ever to get a part as an extra in a Star Wars film, you could be a Vulcan – and you wouldn’t need prosthetic ears.’
My ears are not generally on parade, usually covered by hair but, in need of a trim, I had tucked the shaggies behind my ears. While not as big as Mr Spock’s my hearing devices do tend to taper off in a kind of elf’s peak. Hers are sculptured and small and sit snugly against her neatly coiffed head and if they could have blown a raspberry at mine they would have. An old Cypriot lady once pointed to her extra long lobes and smiled as she told me,
‘My father said I had donkey ears and that meant I had a character designed for patience and tolerance towards hard work.’ He had been right on both counts. I told Dub this little titbit and we started pairing off ear shapes of people we know with the characters they have. She wasn’t sure what having Vulcan ears said of me. I had my answer.
‘Vulcans came from a writer’s imagination,’ I paused for effect, ‘whereas these ears came from the Tuaha De Danaan.’
She looked hard at me unsure whether I was half joking or whole in earnest. Then she laughed.
‘Get away! You said Vulcans came from someone’s imagination? The De Danaan didn’t exist outside mythology.’
Her phone rang and the topic changed to the gossip she’d confidentially received via the phone call. Perhaps snug ears display an inability to keep a secret.
I thought no more of it till another friend from Sligo called to tell me that Dub was worried about me.
‘Why?’
‘She said you were away with the fairies.’ Translation from Irish – The thread anchoring me to sanity is unravelling. ‘You’re not, are you?’ (Nervous giggle).
Apparently, my suggestion that I had De Danaan genes in the soup that sired and mothered me was taken seriously. Everyone who knows anything about the Irish knows story telling is in the nature of the little green-hearted folk of Erin we love nothing more than to embellish historical fact or legend with a ruffle of manufactured frills and at times mixing fact and fiction with the same aplomb as we would sugar and eggs for a cake. One of my aunts used to look at the teenage me and say, ‘God, Colette, you have such a strong look of Garbo about you.’ I couldn’t see it.
That probably arose because – and it is recorded – that in AD821 Vikings raided Howth and ‘a great booty of women was carried away.’ If they used Howth as a pick-up-a-pile-of-slaves depot, they surely mixed and married once they settled in Dublin. So, possibly, in my DNA a piece of Garbo-ish Scandinavia lurks. The Viking word Hoved/head, is supposed to have given forth Howth. Its name sources are many. From further back the Irish name is Beann Eadair or Ben-na-Dair, hill of the oaks. The wife of a Firbolg chieftain Etar, died on Ben Etar, then named after her. The Firbolgs were sent packing by the Tuatha De Danaan (TDD) whom they regarded as sorcerers and magicians. One of the TDD chieftains was also called Edar. These highly cultured, civilised folk were considered by the incoming Milesians (around the time of Solomon) who conquered them, as immortal beings with supernatural powers. The TDD was sent underground by their conquerors and not too happy with that. Some regard them as fairies who found ways to take revenge. Fairy folk have…pointy ears!
That’s not the end of the name tags. Greek cartographer Ptolemy was given information by Phoenician sailors with regard to the area. (PW Joyce thinks names may have been given to the Phoenicians by local inhabitants.) On a second century map of Ireland (Eblana) there appears a small island, ‘Edri Deserta’, in Greek ‘Edrou Heremos’ The Desert of Edros, denuded of oak trees perhaps. Howth was once an island and Edar may be a contraction of Edros. Post The Flood, Partholon arrived from Greece settling on The Plains of the flocks of Edar. Later we had the Normans, ear shapes unknown, source of my paternal surname. I would have explained this to my Dub pal who thinks I’m off with the fairies. Talk about melting pots – Howthonians are a total meze!
