Did Connemara people invent the ‘craic’? It might be a good topic of conversation while the populace at large is having the craic during the revelries of Christmas.
However, it could be best to first leave the educated view to an eminent sociologist from times past.
In a book entitled Migrations – The Irish at Home and Abroad edited by Richard Kearney and published by Wolfhound Press over 30 years ago, the matter of the craic is broached in academic terms.
One of the contributors to the book was the late Fr. Liam Ryan, then professor of sociology at Maynooth University and a noted scholar, a man from the heart of rural Ireland who played hurling for Limerick.
In referring to Irish people in London at one time, Liam Ryan wrote: “These were not dreamy young men and women lured by bright lights and distant cities, but rather lonely people who followed their own kind wherever they may be – it just happened they were in English cities.
“The process was especially operative in the Gaelic-speaking districts like Connemara, which developed an in-word to describe it which soon was of general use. It was the word ‘CRACK’, a word which sometimes in its early use caused embarrassed laughs.
“But for the Connemara man, the word ‘CRACK’ was a magical word which connoted all that was pleasurable in human society.”
Learning the word ‘craic’
Liam Ó’Dochartaigh, himself an academic and well known in Irish language circles learned about the craic on visits to Connemara.
He says the lads used to come back home from the famed Hanger Ballroom in Galway in times past and relate stories from the city.
And they would say “bhí an chraic thar cionn sa Hanger” (there was a great crack in the Hanger) and then compose verses about the craic in the hanger – for the craic!
Former Gaeltacht and Rural Affairs Minister, Éamon Ó’Cuív, T.D. said he never heard the word ‘craic’ until he started to go to the Conradh na Gaeilge club in Dublin where he first heard this strange terminology from the Connemara crowd.
Éamon, off course, came to Connemara later and settled down there. He has travelled through every part of the region on myriad occasions.
Could he give any insight on whether or not the craic was invented in that area far west from Galway town? “Well I could not give any definite opinion on Prof. Liam Ryan’s theory”, Deputy Ó’Cuív said, “but I think it could be plausible that the word itself – the craic – originated in the Gaeltacht”.
“It seems to me that the word has its origin deep in the annals of the Irish language,” he added.
Éamon Ó’Cuív said that it is not peculiar to Ireland that people who saw hard times would project a jolly and talkative ambiance even in difficult circumstances.
“We must remember that many Connemara people did not even have a means of showing light during the long winter nights of long ago,” he added.
“Their only means of seeing anything was from the light of the turf fire. People in such situations develop ways of relating to each other and entertaining themselves.”
Living near the sky
So are Connemara people good at the craic?
“They sure are”, remarked the former minister and he backed up that assertion. “When the Covid situation was bad, I held my clinics in the mart at Maam Cross in the middle of Connemara.
“People waiting to see me were often waiting to see me in the elements and I would apologise when they came in for the circumstances.
“It was the only way you could safely hold a clinic at the time. So they would often answer jauntily… ‘and what harm, we had the craic out there”.
According to Ó’Cuív who picks up thousands of votes in the area, Connemara people are “spéiriúil”, an Irish word that translates to “near the sky” – people with a zany sense of humour and a streak of devilment.
Typical of people who invented the craic!