THE WIND 
 

The wind begins gently: it knows how to be kind

A light sea breeze is seldom absent,

fresh in the summer with the west wind,

dryer if it comes from the east.

It is often just a simple caress with a slightly salty tang.

But when seasons change or heavy weather is announced,

the breeze becomes more insistent:

it begins playing gently on three notes,

vibrating the metal joints that help to make windows airtight.

Already it is advisable to batten down the hatches.

Time to pull boats and curraghs out of the water, up the shore, and moor them.

The murmur of the wind becomes a hum as it takes over from the breeze.

It accelerates its pressure, finds the least little cracks and crevices.

Begins to whistle.

Soon the whistling becomes louder and louder.

The humming becomes stronger: increasing until it becomes a tumult.

Outside on the sea it blows whitecaps onto the waves.

The wind explores any openings, rushes into cracks and passages, blows hard down chimneys.

It catches on the sharp edges of the gables and on the stones in the walls, annoyed at these obstacles.

It makes doors tremble and shake.

It attacks: bending and flattening vegetation.

Calls for reinforcements that come rushing from the ends of the horizon,

sometimes all of a sudden,

sometimes in blasts with the powerful muffled noise of a heavy convoy emerging from the bowels of the earth. 
 

It seeks to tear off roof tiles, which can be heard

straining and rattling on the bituminous felt covering the joists.

The whole roof trembles, making rafters creak.

It is the storm, the hurricane.

It slams doors shut so hard they cannot be opened again.

Its clamorous noise, its bangs and its howls whirl around with a sound like thunder and bombing that sometimes carries on for several days.

Crashing and tumult fill the sky where clouds race along.

The sea is covered in foam.

It shakes off spray like long white hair.

It takes on a melted leaden colour.

The storm blows away turf sods, empty crates and anything in its path that is not solidly tied down.

The outer walls of the pond are inaccessible.

They are covered in viscous seaweed, torn from rocks, with a thick coating of moving foam, knee deep.

If you go outside, the wind attempts to strip the clothes from you.

It knocks the breath out of you: until bending forward and catching hold of something to avoid being knocked down,

seeking any kind of shelter, you manage to get your breath back.

At times, heavy rain showers accompany the storm.

Then it is even worse:

the rain falls horizontally;

it stings and scratches your face;

it runs into your clothes.

Pushed by the hurricane it penetrates the nooks and crannies,

infiltrates the roof tiles,

seeps between the door and window frames.

It bubbles and rushes inside.

All the openings have to be stopped up,

lined with floor cloths, rags, canvas bags and old newspapers that are soon soaked.

All the gutters overflow, those that have not already been blown away…

There have been times when I have had to hang on with my men to ropes looped over the fibro-cement roof joists of our workshops to increase their resistance to the blasts of wind.

And when a storm coincides with a high tide, it is a catastrophe.

The end walls of the pond cannot be seen,

nor the rocks bordering the beach, with dull grey, green waves riding over them.

The tree trunks that we use to support our shade netting in the summer are swept away with the concrete blocks and the mooring ropes: they float in the middle of the foam.

Our floating tanks break from their anchorage,

sometimes shattering against the walls.

When the wind finally stops, exhausted, after a few hours or a few days, and we can go outside with no danger, there is nothing else for it but to take stock of the damages and repair them. This can take days, weeks or months sometimes.

Until it starts again… 
 
 
    

Click on the images to enlarge

1950 -’57  Photos from Yann Fouéré’s book, ‘ La Maison du Connemara ‘.

   1954 ’The Sorting’ : From left to right , John O’Neill, Joseph and John Delapp, Yann Fouéré and his daughter Benig.

     1957 Family group.

  1959  ‘ The Fleet ‘  in front of the workshops and garages, including the first insulated vehicle in Ireland, with Boffin and Shark Islands in the background. 

   1962  The same background as in above photo,  Marie Madeleine Fouéré holding their first grandchild, Yola, Benig and Olwen in front with Yann Fouéré and Jean-Francois Clenet on the right.    

 1968 Yann Fouéré with his third grandchild, Kareen.

1987 Johannesburg, South Africa. Conference on - Minorities, self determination and integration - organised by the European Research Group on Federalism in Southern Africa. Yann Fouéré’s address  on - Small nations and national minorities within the French State -

pages 1                 2                         3                        4

  Photo on front cover: 9th Dec.1983 Yann Fouéré at the European Parliament in Brussels, during a meeting of the European Free Alliance (ALE)

LIVRE EN SOUSCRIPTION  AU PRIX DE 15 EUROS (frais de port offerts pour le premier exemplaire)

Dans l’histoire du mouvement breton, Yann Fouéré est certainement la
personnalité dont l’action et la réflexion auront marqué le plus
fortement et le plus durablement les esprits. De l’entre-deux-guerres
au XXIe siècle, il a toujours été en première ligne dans le combat
pour une Bretagne majeure.
La pensée du « militant nationaliste breton et fédéraliste européen »
- comme il se définit lui même - a largement influencé le mouvement
breton de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle. Elle garde toute sa force
et sa pertinence. Opposé à tous les « -ismes du dictionnaire »,
réfractaire à tout enfermement idéologique, Yann Fouéré a su se
montrer pragmatique et ouvert à toutes les expressions visant à doter
la Bretagne de plus larges libertés.
Réunis ici pour la première fois, les éditoriaux rédigés dans le
journal « L’Avenir de la Bretagne », entre 1958 et 1975, permettent à
nouveau d’enrichir la réflexion sur les moyens pour la Bretagne de
maîtriser -enfin - son destin…A partir d’une sélection d’éditoriaux parmi les 250 numéros de
L’Avenir de la Bretagne, on re-découvre dans ce livre les idées fortes
de l’engagement de Yann Fouéré : unité d’action bretonne, conquête de
libertés pour la Bretagne, insertion dans l’Europe des Peuples…

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1965 Yann Fouéré being interviewed by a Times journalist, phoning from London to the West of Ireland where telephone lines were still very poor at times…The Cleggan post mistress then was Kathleen Lacey, who was driven to distraction by the calls that blocked one of her 2 lines to Clifden for hours on end…The recording was made possible by the ingenuity of Jean Francois Clenet, manager of the pond at the time, who had rigged an induction loop on the PT circuit in the office, (no answering machines in those days…).

Click the icon for the telephone interview (opens in a new window).

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In the history of the Breton movement, Yann Fouéré is one of the most prominent personalities of “Emsav” - the customary name for the Breton Movement as a whole- and has been in the front line of the Breton movement since before the Second World War through to the present day.