On New Turf, a memoir by Michael Boyle is a book about family, Irish culture, Gaelic traditions and a life in which he found many of those things in Newfoundland.
Boyle (his Mammy called him by the Gaelic “Meehawl”) was born in County Derry, Northern Island, the son of a turf cutter, a Catholic raised in a predominantly Protestant society. Post-war depression, strong Irish culture, the strictures of a British overlord, and conflict between the Brits and the Irish Republican Army (IRA), popularly known as the “troubles”, feature into his early life.
While the conflict between the Brits and the IRA, is not a prominent feature of the book, the “troubles” ultimately inspired him to return permanently to Newfoundland, having briefly returned home. A first-hand account of the interplay of family and the events of that horrible time would surely have been interesting, too. But the book is really about the forces mitigating escape from the place he wanted to stay, notwithstanding the ironic admission of Irish author Black Morrison: “To belong in Ireland is to leave”. And leave he did, but not before having wrapped a piece of the turf to take with him that he called “a hallowed piece of home”. Of course, in so many ways, Michael never quite left home.
Irishness has been shared throughout the world for centuries. We have discovered that proliferation does not necessarily mean dilution. And for the gentle, shy, redheaded “Meehawl”, as much as for thousands of others, his was a culture still on boil.
Teaching was Michael Boyle’ profession; competitive sport was his passion. Careers have the capacity to take people to unlikely places. For Michael, the idea of arriving on Fogo Island only to end up in a Gander classroom might have seemed the work of a botach, a trickster of Gaelic folklore, except that things like that happen here, too. For him, however, the joys of playing rugby, running, and other competitive sports were important on their own terms. But, as in Ireland, he would find them as integral to the creation of kinship and community as a “time” in Renews on a Saturday night.
Newfoundland’s origins demand at least an intuition for whence we have come, as much as for who we now are. We don’t often hear an Irishman’s impressions of Newfoundland and Labrador, though most of us are products of the Irish, mainly from the South, and equally strong British ties. They are origins overlain by a multitude of cultural, political and historical contradictions, all having been seemingly, and seamlessly, accommodated. In this context Michael’s story is also a microscope on this place.
Rural Newfoundland towns, especially on the Southern Shore, are only tangentially different from Drummuck, County Derry; the brogue heard in Ferryland, Calvert or Capahayden is every bit as strong as the sense of family and of connection each person knows. Baltimore High School, where he also taught, was integral to this experience. There were other such places: “Spending Christmas in St. Brendan’s, I thought I was on Inisheer on the Aran Islands”, says Boyle.
As much as On New Turf is a story about Michael Boyle’s life, it is especially about those with whom he intersected. The sports fraternity will recognize Dr. Noel Browne; the arts community Gerry Squires (his depiction of Michael is on the book’s cover). Politicians also appear in Boyle’s narrative, one a personage no less than former Premier J.R Smallwood; others include Loyola Hearn and Loyola Sullivan. Among the cultural icons names like Aly O’Brien and Bill Broderick appear.
For me, personally, I learned how Michael met the musically talented and beautiful Newfoundlander whom he married. Annette started me on violin when, as a teacher, she looked barely out of high school. Not surprisingly their link-up is as enigmatic as many of the book’s other vignettes. I remember her as if it was only yesterday and just as fondly.
But this is Michael’s biography, and it is a fine story told simply and honestly absent a trace of either hyperbole or self-indulgence. On New Turf is an important contribution to Newfoundland and Labrador literature. Even more, it is a very good read.
On New Turf is available Chapters, Coles, Tickle Trunk and Elaines; in Tors Cove, on the Southern Shore, at Running the Goat, and on Amazon.com.