No drinking, no smoking, no television - how does the small Amish community in Dunmore East, Co Waterford, spend its days, asks Niamh Kavanagh
Amid the summer hedgerows and lush deciduous trees, backlit by an inky, rain-filled sky, an old, silver Austin trundles past. "That's one of our families," says Dan Yoder, tipping his hat to the driver. He is referring to one of the families that comprise the tiny Amish Mennonite community that has chosen the picture-perfect fishing village of Dunmore East in Co Waterford in which to build its church and make its home.
For a moment it could be a scene from another decade, another era. Dan, a diminutive, bearded man from Virginia in the US, is striking in the traditional Amish dress of dark clothes and hat, apparel which has changed little over the centuries. The minister is welcoming, earnest yet talkative, keen to share opinions and debate ideas. He is particularly concerned about the demise of the Catholic Church in Ireland and the increasing apathy towards religion among young people.
The popular perception of the Amish is of a people fixed in a particular time, refusing to use modern conveniences such as electricity or telephones, and shunning the outside world in favour of Bible readings by lamplight.
Yet while the Dunmore East community, in their somewhat austere traditional clothes of plain dresses and bonnets, appear as if from another time, they are very much part of the wider community - they even run a petrol station that doubles as the local shop. A large notice board carries signs and advertisements for local meetings and events.
Passers-by no doubt do a double-take when they see an Amish woman behind the counter, serving home-made carrot cake.
The Amish Mennonites believe in spreading the faith and they came to Co Waterford in 1992 when a young American couple settled here. William McGrath, an Amish Mennonite minister, was instrumental in starting the community. He had a natural affinity to Ireland, having visited several times to trace his roots - his grandfather was Irish. McGrath served in the US military but became disillusioned with military service through his studies of the Bible. The Amish Mennonites, with a strong belief in peace and non-resistance, offered a new way of life. He married a Waterford woman, Alice, and they live in the community with their daughter, Melanie.
There are now about 25 people in the congregation, including local people. The Amish Mennonites live in ordinary bungalows or houses maybe a mile or two apart, not in a compound as some may believe.
They do, however, have a different lifestyle to that of their neighbours. They lead a humble, simple life dictated by the teachings of the Bible. Cars are seen as a necessity, not a status symbol (although in some parts of north America, including New York state, Old Order Amish still use horse-drawn wagons). They do not have television or radio. They do not dance, drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. As small organic farmers, they are largely self-sustaining, even making most of their own clothes.
With no TV or radio, how do they know what's going on in the world? "Oh, we read newspapers, we do know what's going on," laughs Dan. "Some people would love our life, they see it as idyllic," says the father of six, walking through the field behind his house to show a vegetable plot where upturned egg cartons are used to lure slugs away from the plants. The slugs then make rich pickings for the hens scratching around in their pen.
The Yoder family grows almost all their own vegetables. They also keep hens and a cow, usually milked by one of Dan's four daughters. All the community has access to the milk. The community also keeps pigs, chickens and some cattle on a farm a few miles away, where it has a modern building containing a bright, sparse church with windows looking out on the fields and a school with several classrooms. Nearby is the workshop for making furniture.
Usually, Amish families hold their worship services in their homes but the Waterford community holds its services twice a week at the church. In the US, Old Order Amish services are conducted in a German dialect - the language all Amish speak - again a tradition retained down the years.
However, the Waterford community's services are all in English. Each individual church makes its own decisions and there is no hierarchy. Ministers are chosen from within each congregation and they have to provide their own living, which keeps them grounded and on the same level as everybody else, explains Dan.
As is the Amish way, most things, such as preparing food for the winter months, are done collectively.
"We take a cow to a slaughterhouse to have it slaughtered and hung up. Then we bring it out and get together in a community project to cut it up. We have our own grinder so we make our own mince. We like our children to learn where things come from. They don't just come out of a grocery store."
Farming is an integral part of their life. "It's not necessarily that the Bible teaches it and it's not that a person has to be a farmer to be a good Christian, but a farm is a good place to raise a family." And family is central to Amish life. Apart from farming, men usually follow traditional Amish work such as carpentry or furniture-making - small businesses that can be run from home.
"It's anything where fathers can work with their sons rather than being off in town all day. It's passing on skills to the next generation," says Dan.
His sons are busy making garden furniture from the distinctive yellow pine imported from the US. Furniture-making is the mainstay for the community, and men work all winter building up a supply for sale.
Men are the breadwinners, says Dan, while women work in the home minding children and doing everything that's connected with home-making - baking, cooking, sewing, embroidery and quilt-making (another Amish tradition handed down through the centuries).
Inside the bright, airy Yoder house, the smell of freshly-baked bread perfumes the air, while women emerge from all corners, wringing their hands of flour. They have cooked a huge batch of various breads and cakes to take to their stall at the farmers' market in Waterford city, known locally as the Jenkins Lane market. There is a flurry of activity around the arrival of the family's first grandchild and his mother, who have come for lunch.
The women seem content to assume their traditional roles. They are at ease with the modest dress code of no jewellery or make-up, and are quick to dispel any notions of them being stuck at home or of being locked into strict gender roles. The women are effectively running businesses from home: making food, quilts, cushions, hand-weaved baskets - all time-consuming activities.
They are crafts that are being lost to the wider community but they are highly valued in the Amish world because work done by hand is seen as a "wholesome way of life".
Dan's wife, Barbara, a bustling, witty woman, says she would despair at the idea of having to go out and have a career.
Eldest daughter Anita, who is lively and articulate, and who works in the shop every day, says "life is too short for what I want to do . . . There's not really a bondage or a limitation. Our world is big and there are lots of opportunities."
She is excited about an upcoming trip to Europe, where she will join a choir from the US and travel to several countries.
Women do have options, says her father. "They're not tied down. It's always a matter of choice, but if they agree with our teaching and approach of our community, they wouldn't really want to go and become a career woman."
While Amish children sometimes attend university, it is rare and then only when there is "a need". That need is defined usually as nursing or teaching - a caring profession. Although there are several Amish doctors in the US, they are the exception. There are male nurses, too, because this ties in to the community ethos and because there are several Amish-run nursing homes in the US. Dan met his wife, Barbara (from Indiana) while they were working voluntarily at an Amish-run residential centre for disabled children in Virginia.
Attending university is not usually an option - children usually finish school at 17 or 18. And school is not the local national school but a separate school run by the community, which draws on the strengths of people within that community - or from Amish Mennonite communities around the world - to teach.
Teachers do not have be qualified but do have to display a talent or a vocation for teaching. Yet while the Dunmore East community runs its own school for five pupils, it is open to non-Amish students. The children study all subjects, including French. Bible studies are based on a curriculum sent from the US.
This year sees a new departure for the school as one of its students, Hannah, the youngest of the Yoder children, sat the Junior Cert, taking the exams at a school in Co Waterford. She also hopes to go on to sit the Leaving Cert.
Life for Amish teenagers is quiet compared with that of their peers. They do not go to pubs or nightclubs or to the cinema. But the Yoders do not feel they are missing out by not going to the cinema - although Anita does think "it would be interesting to see some of the old classics".
"There would be the odd occasion where it would be nice to see one but we know if you do that, there is no easy stopping point," says Dan. "Films incorporate a certain amount of attraction appealing to our lower nature. It's a slippery slope. We're not talking about today, we're thinking about the future and about history and that is where over time, it does erode solid biblical thinking and living. We're better off without it. Why would we need it?"
