Anam Cara

The Mystery of Resemblance

In Conamara, when someone asks a child who he is, the child is not simply asked for his name. The question is, “Cé leis thú?” i.e., To whom do you belong? There is a recognition in the language that your identity is not merely your own personal marker. You are both an expression and extension of an already acknowledged family line. This tradition is further intensified in Conamara through the use of patronymics. If a person is called Sean O’Malley and his father was Tom and his grandfather was Páraich, Sean O’Malley could be known as Séan Tom Pháraich. His name becomes an articulation of the line of ancestry to which he belongs. The language is an echo of this belonging. Its constant use reinforces the reference and brings the presence of the ancestors to word. A long chain of belonging comes alive in the clink of a name.

The universe is full of differences. No two stones or flowers or faces are ever the same. There is such an intricate tapestry of differentiation in even the simplest places. On the seashore, no two seashells are ever quite the same. When you focus your attention, the texture and range of the differences in Nature becomes more visible. Against this perspective the discovery of resemblance is startling, especially in human beings. Each individual carries a totally separate world in his or her heart. When you reflect on how differently you feel and think about life, it is a wonder that we can talk to each other at all. Even between the closest people, there are long bridges. This makes us attractive and fascinating to each other. To see a resemblance between people in the one family is interesting, a child’s resemblance to an ancestor. For a moment in a gesture, a way of walking, looking, responding, or saying something, you glimpse the presence of an uncle or grandparent. Resemblance has a certain pathos. You behold the gesture, the looks of one person in another. However, each person is a different world. Although the resemblance indicates continuity, it also reveals the distance of the two lives from each other. Resemblance remains a startling index of the way in which two people can so obviously belong to the same clan. There can sometimes be a striking resemblance between people who do not belong to the same family. An old man I know who has been quite ill was making his first journey to Ireland recently. As his daughter picked him up at the airport, he pointed to a woman who seemed to be his recently deceased mother. When the woman turned around, the resemblance vanished. For a moment, the resemblance had startled both father and daughter.