"My language is everything"

I have only myself to blame but I now have another interview to write up after a swift visit to the University of Hawaii campus at Hilo to "talk story" with the head of the Hawaiian Studies Department Kalena Silva.

Castar na daoine ar a chéile, says the Irish, the world is a handkerchief say the Spanish, but walking in the door with our group (which included our great friend on Big Island, Joan Gannon), my antennae go up when I see a nameplate for Keola Donaghy. An assistant goes into alert him to the fact that an Irish group was outside looking for Kalena and out comes Keola, a bull of a man with a generous disposition to match. Turns out, Keola (his "given name", he was baptized Joseph) hails from Philadelphia but moved to the Big Island of Hawaii when he was ten and between that and the age of 25 never left Hawaii. He was turned on the language via its music and became a fluent speaker through helping out at the Hawaiian immersion schools. He now lectures in Hawaiian.

Donaghy is a big Carrickmore and Pomeroy name but Keola's people go way back. He's part American Indian, part a descendant of one of the pilgrims who came on the first boat after the Mayflower but in attitude and looks, he's Irish. But that's not his only connection to Ireland. He attended the wonderful Oideas Gael course in Gleann Colm Cille, Co Donegal, in 2002, and was able to greet us with, "Dia daoibh, is mise Keola."

And that's not his only 'seven degrees of separation' story. In 2007, he arrived at Dublin to study for a masters at Cork University to pursue a Ph.d. in Ethnomusicology but was turned back by the geniuses at customs and deported. His case was championed by Ray O'Hanlon at the Irish Echo but the Irish in those pre-bust, pre-we-value-the-Diaspora days failed to back down and he eventually went to study for his doctorate in New Zealand. Ireland's loss etc.

Of course, I was really at the University of Hawaii during Freshers' Week (yes, I envied every one of those teenagers) to interview Kalena who told me that in 1973, studies showed there were just 35 people under 18 in all of Hawaii who could speak their native tongue. "Is that 35,000," I asked. "No, just 35, total," he responded. Asked what his language means to him, Kalena says: "Everything."

But it's after 10pm here, your day has come in Ireland. It's bed-time in Hawaii, so more of Kalena tomorrow except to say that of the 10,000 speakers of Hawaiian (Haváis in Irish) out of a native American population of 250,000 on the islands, the majority are under 30.

Pictured are Keola and Kalena, guess which one is the Gaeilgeoir. (And if you think Kalena is a  little Irish-looking too, that's because one of his ancestors was Scots-Irish, a McCandless who owned a large ranch on Big Island/Hawaii Island).

Oíche mhaith. Aloha po.