Atlantic Thread 2: North Mayo

 


I'm on the 458 bus between Ballina and Sligo, immersed in the next level Green all around me. The skies have been moody, and every so often, the view opens out onto the ocean and the cliffs. It's really complementing the Wu Tang coming through my headphones (NYC connection? New York, after all, is part of Ireland in a way, and vice versa). I find their music often complements crochet, and I have just started on the first scarf of this journey- cerulean alpaca which I got yesterday from the first shop of this visit, in Ballyvary. I'm starting to see patches of that very same colour appear in the sky.

It's nearly 8 years ago that I embarked on the first yarn pilgrimage, from the Connemara through west and south Ireland, Brittany, Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia, Portugal and Morocco...connecting 42 independent yarn sellers who all face the Atlantic winds- and the challenges of facing this neoliberal system (the Empire), which will never really understand the nature of a place people frequent not only to purchase tactile materials, but also to learn, to be advised, supported and connected. Not everything can be monetised or reduced to binary digits. Maybe nothing really can be...

This time, I'm heading in the opposite direction, and I'm much less planned. I booked my tickets at the beginning of the year, in a determined moment. I knew that if I took too long to think and consider how busy things are for me, I'd put it off. But when I've booked a flight- I'm going. I've started a map- guilty that I may have missed places between Clifden (where I started last time) and Ballyvary. But I've got 7 days, and doing my best with Irish buses. The experienced among you are chuckling. In a way it's refreshing that timetables represent intention over fact, just like our personal plans really are.

So yesterday I flew to Knock. Am intrigued about this place of really quite extreme pilgrimage, but that's for another time. I've got wool to buy. Bus from airport did arrive and tool me to Ballyvary/Bellavary (you see both), where I met the beautiful Helen at Stitch After Stitch. Appropriately enough, she was advising needle sizes and casting on for a customer. You could see it meant something to them. Her own work is  gorgeous- the farm in the shop window, her sweater and pile of skilfully repaired garments. The wrong Amazon is burning, innit.

My next bus didn't appear so it was a cab to Ballina Quay to stay the night, following the stunningly beautiful river Moy towards the ocean. Fish and chips and stitching evening. There's a knit and sew and repairs shop in Ballina itself, google says closed but rumoured to be occasionally open. This morning it was firmly closed, and it seems another has bitten the dust. Onwards to Sligo....


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