LET ME START off by saying that before you all judge me, I was young, I was dumb and I was on the Aran Island where almost anything goes. Except speaking English of course.
When I was in secondary school, I went to the Gaeltacht in Inis Oírr for three summers in a row. I met some of my best friends there and I came out with a pretty decent level of Irish. I also came out with some rather embarrassing stories as I tried in vain not to embarrass myself in pursuit of the evasive shift.
The real Love Island is Achaill, were i got my first shift at the gaeltacht, all other islands pail in comparison.
— Mark Conroy (@smark993) June 20, 2018
And boy was it evasive.
It was like every time I came close to getting it, the universe decided I was too awkward to handle it. Like one time I was shifting a guy in school and a door slammed behind me, frightening me and causing me to bite down on the guy’s tongue. I even had a nickname, ‘The Loafer’ due to my overenthusiasm. Oh, the shame and embarrassment of it all.
Nevertheless, I persevered and over my summers there I managed to shift my way through a total of two or three lads. However, the tale I am about to tell you comes from my second summer on the island.
Allow me to set the scene.
It’s 2010 meaning my hair was long, it was dyed red and I owned something close to the greasiest fringe known to man. I’d had a crush on this guy who I’d met the summer before and become good friends with. We hung out in a massive group of friends in the local playground and spoke English as much as we possibly could so we could actually understand each other.
I was 15 years old meaning I was in the throes of unrequited love in my eyes. Think Taylor Swift in ‘You Belong With Me’ levels of tragedy going on here. A real classic Romeo and Juliet.
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Anyway one day we were swimming in the sea and the boy of my dreams asked me did I want to shift him later on. Naturally, I was delighted that anyone would take even a passing interest in me so I agreed without hesitation.
He then asked me did I want to shift him there in the sea. Given his swimming ability was dicey at best, I declined, fearing that my overenthusiasm/desperation might cause him to drown and we’d all get sent home.
So after the sea swimming adventure, we decided to meet up at the school to shift. We tried shifting in an empty classroom but ended up having a rather awkward teacher who walked in on us awkwardly shifting on a ping-pong table.
Having been chased out of there (quite literally), we decided to take a wander to find somewhere a little more appropriate.
Now you must bear in mind that Inis Oírr is the smallest of the Aran Islands. Because it’s so small you can literally see anything and everything going on around it meaning finding a secret shifting spot was a tad more difficult than first anticipated.
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Having wandered around for a bit, we finally found the place.
Lo and behold, it was right in front of the church and it was basically a gateway to a field proving that romance isn’t dead. It was slightly hidden from the road but you could still see people coming from far enough away to pull away quickly and pretend to be praying or whatever.
And so the summer of shifting got underway and boy was it awkward. Given my school nickname, you can imagine that I hadn’t mastered the craft of the perfect shift. The phrase ‘like a washing machine’ may or may not have been thrown around a bit.
So we started making daily trips to the field.
You’d spent a half hour there before heading back to the Bean An Tí for dinner and to relay the gossip to your friends who were wondering why on earth you were shifting in a field every evening.
Imagine that for a second, two 15-year-olds just lying down in the gateway of a field shifting away and then pretending to be doing NOTHING SUSPICIOUS whenever someone approached. As if people ever hang out in the gateways of fields for any other reason other than shifting or riding.
Eventually, our time at the Gaeltacht came to an end and so we had to leave the field behind much to the relief of all the locals.
Did we leave our shifting extravaganza there? Oh god no. No, we were much embarrassing and decided to get some last-minute shifting in on the bus home. Yep. Our friends were delighted with that decision let me tell you.
The boy in question is now one of my very good friends and every so often we laugh a lot about the whole escapade. The whole thing is gas if you think about it really. And horrifically embarrassing.
You might be wondering did I ever get better at shifting?
Yes, yes I did but it took a long time and even more embarrassing experiences and even now I still make mistakes. Last week my boyfriend of two years tried to kiss me and we accidentally clashed teeth like some sort of terrible romantic comedy.
But nothing will ever compare to the magic and sheer embarrassment that was that field.
God bless Gaeltacht romances.
