"Levawn Mor"

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 29, 18 February 1937, Page 13

"Levawn Mor"

• Irishmen Hunt Sunfish In Little Boats

T70BERT FLAHERTY'S flne pictliie, which gained the prire for 1936 awarded by the ^Academy of Motion Picture Arts mnd Sciencea, will be recalled by the news in recent cable messages for a shipwreck on the Aran Islands, off the west coast of Ireland, where the fllm .was made (writes Christlna McAskell in the Melbourne Argue). On these islands, with their atea of less than 10 square miles, 3000 inhabltants somehow flnd the means of existence, and unrecorded thousands of emigrants have left them from time to time, chiefly for American ahores. The islands themselves are almost treeless and barren, "mere shelves of limestone lying in the Atlantic." Ancient "duns," or forts, of prehlstbrical origin look westward from their headlands over the Atlantic "waste of seas." Few of the islanders speak English, but they have preserved the old Irish Gaelic in so pure a form that modern students from the Free State, engaged in the task of revlving Gaelic as a national language, flnd in these remote Islanders their best instructors in the ancient tongue. A HUNDRED years ago the Aran Islanders were famous hunters of the great basking-shark, or whale-shark, Numbers of these enormous creatures passed along their coasts at certain seasons of the year; and Zane Grey might do descriptive justice to the feat of their capture by harpoon and line from boats that were mere fishing-skiffs, manned by two or three men each — flimsy life-pre-servers in a shark hunt, while the Atlantic tides swirled fiercely round the rocky shelves Of Aran. For the tslesmen of those days, however, a small fortune was at stake in every encounter; a captured whale-shark yielding 30 to 35 guineas' worth of fine liver-oil, which was used, appropriately enough, for lighthouse supplies. Then, for some unexplained reason, the great flsh disappeared, and the lookout men of Aran looked long in vain for the dorsal fin off-shore above a gliding shadow.- After many years the flsh reappeared, and they have travelled their old sea-road regularly since 1925, but there has been no revival of the once profitable industry* * * « Robert Flaherty made his island picture in 1932, a generation had arisen to whom the sunfish-hunting > days were but legends vaguely connected with rusty harpoons long stowed away in the rafters of old cabins. Vainly his Gaelic-speaking "contactman" sought information about the forgotten craft of the sunflsh-hunters, until he found Martin Qulnn, a bedridden old man in the village of Claddagh. Martin was '"up-and-down to a hun-

dred years of age," And setOing down for his last sleep, but he roused himself 16 give, in a mixture of Gaelic and EngTtRb, the proper instructions for harpoonlng the "Levawn Mor." Every detail of his advice was followed, and a party of men, working for the Mm, captured several specimens, After exclting experienoes duijr recorded by the camera. Fat Mullen, the "contact-man," in his interestiijg book written round the making of the picture, graphicfeUy describes the old islesman, the stupor of old Age upon him, and the sudden brlef flash of animation and dear recollection with which he responded the old Gaelic name of the mighty flsh he had long ago hunted, the "Levawn MOr." "His faded eyes shone brightly and took on a faraway look." He described the sharkharpooning Ip. a few short, vivid sentences, and as the flame of life again flickered low, and he turned away to sleep, he murmured "the Levawn Mor," and smiled to himself. "Ihe old man died in the following week. God gJve his squI rest." concludes the story-teller, and adds — "that is, if rest is good for it!"— reflectively recalling, I imagine, the high adventures and daring deeds of the old islesman's best days, and speculating on a life-to-come that, bringing rest and peace to some, may yet provide a sphere of glorious energy and action for such as Martin Quinn. rpHE Aran Islanders' struggle for a livellhood ls typical of the lives of crofters and fisher-folk throughout all that chain of western British isles, which in the middle of -the last century poured out thousands of emigrants on to Australian shores. Watching this vivid presentation of island life last year in a Melbourne picture theatre, I wondered how many of the audience were of Irish, Orcadian, or Hebridean stock; for I saw several known by sight as pffiars of Scottish societies' and Presbyterian churches, and business men with Norsesounding Orkney names, and many "faithful Irish" grandmothers; some smartly costumed and jewelled, and some threadbare and shabby, but all sighing commiseration for poor Maggie of Aran, mowed under her great basket burden of seaweed, or gazing through sympathetic tears as the island woman struggled shoulder to shoulder with her menfolk to beach the precious boat and defeat the sea, old enemy of the race, that threatened to overwhelm them all. In many unknown faces In that audience I saw traces of Gaelic and Norse types, whose ancestors from time immemorial were islesmen and boatmen on that bleak Atlantic seaboard of West Britain.