"The sleeping seascapes and landscapes of Sligo"

Otherworldlymirage                                                                                                                                      

Many places in Ireland can lay claim to the title of an idyllic backwater, at which a joust can be played out between otherworldly mirages and realities but one such place or townland very close to the sea, and lying at the cusp of Yeats Country: the townland of Maugherow, is perhaps one of the leading heirs to this title. About five miles west of the village of Drumcliffe (the famous resting place of WB Yeats), and within touching distance of the Sligo Atlantic, it thus falls within the category of hidden Ireland and off the beaten track.

The Sligo coastline as seen from the townland of Maugherow

Idyllic tranquility

The trinity of stones: footsteps to the brisky Atlantic with Inismurray Island in the distance

The beach and coastline are encased in a sweet vessel of peace and tranquility, and the seascape and landscape adjoining it are a pristine and pleasant throw back to the time when Ireland was the jewel of the western world. 'Though not chronicled or earmarked as one of the specific places associated with the great poet WB Yeats or part of a Yeats trail or trek, one wonders did he ever frequent this spot unbeknownst to posterity? It certainly is tinged with his presence and indeed I was moved and impelled to compose a poem at this site, using as a model, the muse of the water, just like in his mythological poem The Stolen Child.

Where lies the three stones
like rocky hirelings in the shallows
the sea painted polytones
as a tide plays its bellows
'pon the sandbars, pyramid cones,
where wisdom chills and mellows,
there the sound of feet traipsing
the feet tap of a loud bodhran,
and bird, Heron and Lapwing,
chanted for me a new amhran!

Faery, spirit, sprite, mystic,
like sunbeams on the ether
in the white moths incarnate
fan out for the earth mother!

For this beach and the seascape here are perfect candidates for the hidden landscapes of Ireland and the untouched vistas, which water the inner third eye, and make insights, a machine with a crisp and powerful motion, as manifold as the seafood, glistening here for the culinary health and soul food doyen. Just before the beach, is a natural wetland, full of marsh and lichen; and also distinctly reminding me of the natural habitat, estuaries, sandbars and wetlands of Bull Island Nature reserve in Dollymount in Dublin.

Untouched and pristine wetlands

The landscape 300 or 400 metres from here, seems to be locked to the sea, as if bosom buddies or blood brothers of the earth; and that lovely cottage in which I stayed, with its stone wall, and flanked, engulfed and surrounded by stone walls like the way a piece of crystal radiates its light through a prism, is so similiar to the stone walls of Connemara or the Aran Islands! Inside the cottage at night, the moth seemed to be omnipresent and deigned to make an appearance on several occasions, as if providence had decreed it or as if had been bidden to come by some external or ethereal presence. I was instantly reminded of another one of WB Yeats' poems The Song of Wandering Aengus and the lines: "When white moths were on the wing/ and moth-like stars were flickering out". Perhaps there is something about Sligo and particularly the hinterland and vicinity of Yeats' Country and moths? Or in such an otherworldly mirage and reverie, me thinks, could it be the spirit of Yeats or the Faeries deigning to make their presence felt and wishing me a Cead Mile Failte!?

The stone walls that proliferate Connacht and the west of Ireland are a potent cocktail!

This landscape/seascape of county Sligo is perhaps little known in comparison to Rosses Point, Knocknarea, Mullaghmore, the main stops of Yeats country and so on. However, as it's not as trampled upon, as the other places and attractions in the county, it may just have a little more authenticity and pristine otherworldliness. For in this otherworldly mirage, in which I found myself, anything is possible and the happiness and contentment bar rises a gargantuan notch, that's for sure. And so dear reader that stumble upon these thoughts and sentiments, be cognisant of this axiom: it's not always the commercial or much heralded part that's the best part!

PS A few miles from here is the townland of the Grange - near which is the start of the socalled De Cuellar Trail - the trail of the legendary Spanish Armada survivor who trekked across country, eventually returning to the Iberian Peninsula.

"Quaint cemeteries of the Emerald Isle"

Saint John's Cemetery

Located in the quaint village of Edgeworthstown in Ireland's midlands - county Longford - is the quaint and untouched graveyard of Saint John's. Like a chasm of virtue residing in a lake of quiet splendour, untouched and forgotten by the wider public and largely ignored by the local people, it contains the grave of Isola Wilde - the sister of Oscar Wilde - and the Edgeworth's family vault including the tomb of Maria Edgeworth - the author of the famous novel Castle Rackrent and her brother Richard Lowell Edgeworth - a surveyor and engineer of the time.

Saint John's with the Edgeworth family vault to the left; it was around there I had the strongest feeling of Oscar Wilde's sister, Isola, resting!

The Spire was a legacy of Richard Lowell Edgeworth and the method of its erection was most curious; constructed on the ground on a kind of iron sheet and then covered by slate, it was then raised by a pulley to its place of abode, and hence an example of unusual workmanship. (A curious fact about the Edgeworth family is that Abbe Edgeworth was the Abbe who attended Louis the Sixteenth of France and presided at his execution  - then later escaping!)

In the rear, the many raised vertical headstones and slabs of this quaint cemetery, with an ornate example in the front.

As above

The Edgeworth Family Vault in which are the tombs of Maria Edgeworth - contemporary of Oliver Goldsmith - and Richard Lowell Edgeworth.

Sadly, the headstone of Isola Wilde is demolished and her grave is nigh impossible to find. Her death at just the tender age of ten is most moving and the way it affected a 13 year old Oscar is a symphonic overture in itself. It's said he wrote a poem called Requiescat and that he was so moved by her death, that he took a lock of her hair, which he kept most zealously all of his life, having it with him when death visited him in Paris at the dawn of the twentieth century! Strangely, there was a very uplifting feeling as I walked around the cemetery but particularly at the Edgeworth family vault. The following poem conjured itself up from the ether:

In Saint John's cemetery
in quaintest abode of Edgeworth
I tiptoed in a suit summery  
the quaint green rolled forth
as strong wings in an aviary;

Longford county untouched
in the town the midlands border
sweet honeycomb perfumed air 
nature smoky in balanced order
choirs rustic blow breath's fanfare

With ceremonial hat I bowed
before - a courtier in his precinct
at sentiments' loving arms I cowed
as an avatar of gut instinct
to stray on paths time disallowed

Oscar's sister unremembered
took my feather's tickling fancy:
Isola but ten years numbered;
to count hidden gems is a game chancy
so I blog another place discovered!

This secluded and shut off graveyard in the pleasant demesne of Ireland's midlands seems but to be destined to be undiscovered, rendered a hidden sight in a wee village, that people merely pass through going from east to west. I had to clamber over a seven foot wall from the bonnet of the car, to gain entrance, but to honour it with one's presence is a soulful thing and also an uplifting boon in the hectic rush of travelling. Saint John's is one of those wee places off the beaten track in Ireland that seem to resound with a heartbeat of their own; they are what hidden Ireland is all about. Stop in the genial Edgeworthstown and pay your respects to, as quaint a graveyard as one could ever hope to encounter in the Emerald Isle. 

In the lap of bonnie Edgeworthstown

"The mystery of the Chinese Seals"

What enigmatic mystery was covered by investigator Charles Fort in his 1919 Book of the Damned and by Arthur C Clarke in his Mysterious World TV Series in 1980 and is exclusive to Ireland? The answer: the Chinese Seals discovered here from 1780 to 1860. For, up to sixty Chinese Seals made of porcelain, embossed and sealed at the base with Chinese writing/inscriptions and capped with a carving of a monkey, were found in many of Ireland's counties including six in Cork, four in Waterford, three in Tipperary, three in Down. What were they and how did they get here?

NOTICES OF CHINESE SEALS FOUND IN IRELAND

A chronicle of the phenomena and the finds was first unveiled for the public in 1850 when Edmund Getty read a paper before the Belfast Literary Society.


Places where they were found included:

- Clonmel, County Tippperary;
- Glenarm Castle, County Antrim, found by Lady Louisa Myrtleville;
- Near a cave at the mouth of Cork Harbour found by T Crofton Croker in 1805;
- Borrisokane, County Tipperary, while a farmer was ploughing a field;
- Killeagh, County Down;
- The bed of the River Boyne, near Clonard, County Meath, in raising gravel;
- A bog near Mountrath, County Laois;
- Clonliffe Parade, Dublin, in 1816;
- Blair Castle, County Cork;
- Cahir Castle, County Tipperary, found by Lady Glengal.

According to a Chinese Grammar of Abel Remusat, it "Showed that the inscriptions on these seals, are those of a very ancient class of Chinese characters, in use since the time of Confucius". And consequently this revelation led to all sorts of theories........

The ancient and oriental connection


Many Irish nationalists of the nineteenth century wanted to portray the Irish people as 'different', 'exotic', not fitting into the European paradigm etc; so such enigmas as the Chinese Seals tickled their fancies no end. They posited that the Irish came from the east, and that the seals were brought here by nomadic Celts or our ancestors. The British Israelites started to grow from the second half of the nineteenth century and the Phoenician hypothesis - that the Phoenicians brought the seals here - fitted their niche adroitly; hence postulating a near eastern, lost tribes hypothesis. (Joseph Huband who did much work previous to Edmund Getty to publicise it, adhered to the Phoenician theory). However, the initial dating of these seals, was open to question. Porcelain didn't exist in the time of Confucius (sixth century BC) and wasn't invented until the seventh century AD. That put the time frame over a thousand years forward but still the writing/inscription was unmistakably and indisputably Chinese so the Oriental/Chinese provenance still held sway! (A translator by the name of Gutzlaff did two translations of the writing in the 1800's).

THE MYSTERY OF HOW THEY ENDED UP IN IRELAND

Recent studies in the 1980's by Jan Chapman of the Chester Beatty Library dated the seals to being produced in the 1600's in China but even if they only date from that time, how they got here, were deposited in such disparate places - definitively having originated in China, and not being found in any other country - still leads to an inextinguishable enigma, like an incandescent candle which refuses to go out - a mystery that has never been solved or deciphered to the present day.

A Few hypotheses were offered:

- That they were hidden in tea chests which were brought back from China. (This is unlikely but for supposition sake, if it were proven to be a plausible scenario, why weren't they found in any other country, particularly Britain?)

- They were brought back by Lord McCartney's Embassy; however, nothing was found in his possessions, to remotely resemble these enigmatic pieces.

The likelihood of anyone going around to these destinations, in many of Ireland's counties and burying them, is highly unlikely, and would be stretching the elastic of plausibility to breaking point. (Although Charles Fort argued in his Book of the Damned of 1919, that they could have fallen off a plane or a balloon at different stages, accounting for the disparate distribution of the finds). So the enigma has remained! Notwithstanding their dating, how did they get here in the first place?

SIMILARITIES AND CONNECTIONS BETWEEN IRELAND AND CHINA?

A curious thought has just occurred to me and the permutations are worth exploring a little:


1) It's a fascinating and intriquing thing, that some Chinese people have taken to Irish music as if it were their own. I once heard my father tell of the time he witnessed two Chinese visitors in a Music Club in Dublin taking the flute and playing the tune they had just heard, back to their bemused onlookers. They explained that they had instantly recognised a Chinese tune and seemed to discern some likeness. Additionally, there is the phenomenon that The Chieftains are like mini Gods in China and as big as Chinatown itself! Mere coincidence and triviality or something more.....? Could there be something at work akin to a subconscious memory of connections from antiquity - similiar to the phenomena of a race memory ? Cultural fusion therein from the ancient past like hands across the threshold of time? (Henry O'Brien in his unusual but intriquing book of 1834, The Round Towers of Ireland, contended that Ireland was a repository for Buddhism and was a Buddhist enclave!).

2) Some years ago, there were REDHAIRED Mummies discovered in western China. What were these Celtic prototypes doing there? Were they ancient wanderers and nomads who had travelled all around there etc? Ref. http://www.burlingtonnews.net/redhairedmummieschina.html
So is it possible that we could be looking at ancient connections between Asia and at least the west?

3) Additionally, there is the legend of Oscar and the Tocharians from the chronicles (see reference below).

THE EGYPTIAN AND NEAR EAST LINK

It's intriquing that the alternative sinologist, Andrew Mair, who studied the aforementioned Chinese Mummies believes that certain characters of the Dead Sea Scrolls conformed to Chinese writing. This could suggest a link between the Near East and China. In the context of Ireland and Egypt, Gaelic mythology alludes to the Milesians having been in Egypt and medieval Irish chronicles refer to a ninth century Irish Monk called Dicuil having travelled to Egypt and back, continuing some already established connection (of course some Egyptian Coptic Monks lived on the west coast of Ireland, particularly the Aran Islands). So could the Chinese Seals have come here some way via Egypt, for instance?

The route that brought these enigmatic seals to Ireland, and the date at which they originated and the time they arrived here, is open to debate and to be mulled over, but how they were deposited and found in such disparate locations in the country is bizarre and incomprehensible to say the least. The enigma of the 60 Chinese Seals found ONLY IN IRELAND from 1780 to 1860 is an unsolved mystery - a mystery pertaining to culture, written alphabets/inscriptions, standardised histories, hidden histories, but also to the serendipity of such oddities being found buried in places off the beaten track like bogs, caves, fields etc. Maybe some day we will find the answer; but Ireland is a mystical isle and it seems only fitting that such a mystical land contains this bizarre and strange enigma. 

PS Notices of Chinese Seals found in Ireland is archived in the Gilbert Library, Dublin.

Further PS Some of the seals were exhibited in a vitrine on the upper floor of the National Museum of Ireland in 1980.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/science/16archeo.html

Chinese Turkestan and Tokharians by HF McClintock

"The Dalkey dynamic "

The Literati Glitterati

I have walked around Dalkey and up to Killiney several times and it always proves most gratifying - as satisfying as a pearly horizon which never fades into oblivion. Located on Dublin's south coast - known as the Green Coast - it's a place steeped in history, claims to fame and Gaelic essence - its name being derived from Deilg (a composite of the Gaelic word for thorn and the Viking ay or 'eye').  But it's its literary connections - especially George Bernard Shaw and James Joyce, I'd like to particularly explore - and which has become a kind of a trail for me. Just after the village on the Dun Laoghaire side, if one takes a left turn, ascending a hill, about halfway up on the right hand side is a house called Summerfield House, owned by a member of a famous Irish band of the 70's called Horselips, famous for their fusion of Celtic ambience and rock music. Back at the start of the twentieth century, it was The Clifton Lodge School where James Joyce himself worked for about three months (having lived in both Bray and then subsequently Blackrock, Joyce would have been very familiar with walking along the south coast). He of course typically immortalised it in Ulyssees setting the second chapter here - in which Vico Road is mentioned - featuring Stephen Dedalus and using its headmaster as the basis for Deasy - an omnipresent technique or device of his, to weave real events, timelines, places and characters into the fabric of his writing. The house is situated on lovely grounds and it is my first stop on this trail! (The poet Denis Florence McCarthy lived here for a while).

Summerfield House - formerly Clifton Lodge School, at which James Joyce had his first and only job in Ireland from March to June 1904. Echoes of his famous character Stephen Dedalus resonate around here.

If one heads back down and towards the centre of Dalkey, on the west side, close to one of the three castles - Bullock Castle - one will see Colliemore Harbour, which from the late 1500's to the late 1600's, was amazingly used as Dublin's Port! Before the Port and Docks were moved to the city, it was here - which seems only fitting, considering that an old fishing village, with a rich pedigree, was located here. This is what I earmark as the second stop. (Just as well Dublin saw little drama or historical turbulence in the seventeenth century - the Cromwellian invasion and subsequent Confederate wars did touch Dublin but not initially, as Cromwell landed elsewhere!). Considering that Dalkey Quarry was a thriving Quarry (the stone used in the construction of Dun Laoghaire Harbour was extracted and sourced there), it's not that hard to visualise lots of boats, merchant sea vessels and trading going in, in the vicinity.

Bullock Castle - one of three in Dalkey, illustrating its importance in the middle ages.

Coliemore Harbour - Dublin's first verifiable harbour and port!

Coliemore Harbour - remnants of a once thriving Fishing Village with Dalkey Island in the background (a Hermitage used by a fifth century Celtic holy woman, Saint Begnet).

If one walks past the Dart Station, and takes the next right, crossing the bridge, one comes to Torca Road, and this really is starting to follow in the footsteps of George Bernard Shaw (Ireland's second Nobel Laureate and arguably one of the greatest Playwrights/Dramatists of the twentieth century). For after about a ten minute walk, ascending the incline of Torca Road, one reaches Torca Cottage, the summer holiday home of Shaw! It was owned by the music composer, George Vandeleur Lee (his mother's consort and his surrogate father), whose town residence at Hatch Street, was effectively Shaw's last home in Dublin (both places Shaw described as 'National Colleges of Life' along with the National Gallery of Ireland!). What influences and inspirations, must Shaw have garnered here? Everyday in the summer months from 1866 to 1874, looking out, with a spectacular view of Dublin Bay a mere stone's throw away?! Just across, virtually opposite, is the enigmatic Cat's Ladders - a series or flight of steps leading down to Vico Road which wouldn't be out of place like the Spanish Steps in Rome or some other exotic place (this would be the fourth stop on this trail!). The plaque at the entrance of the cottage is inscribed with a famous quote by him: "An Irishman is mortal and temporal but his hills are eternal". Spending one's summers as a teenager around here, must surely have planted this philosophising in his mind!

The aforementioned Plaque with Shaw's famous quote

Full View of the Plaque's Inscription

THE LONGTERM VIEW OF SHAW AND THE PARADIGM OF SUCCESS FOR THOSE WHO WAIT!

Standing outside the cottage on the few occasions I've been there, I've often mused in one of my soul contemplations of a young Shaw, at the cusp of his teens, roaming around here. Was he plotting a grand scheme, to prove all and sundry wrong - the orthodox academia - glorying in his 'mitching' from school? Did he grasp the taut and strong-willed essence of resilence, resolution, self-will and destiny whilst here? (By the age of 40, Shaw had only earned £50 from writing but kept persevering, persisting and retaining patience; in five years he was world-famous!). Was it here that he formulated the stratagem of being an autodiktat, in which he planted the seeds in his mind, that would ultimately bear fruit, thirty to thirty five years later?

Facade and Steps of Torca Cottage. Did a young Shaw dream up the nucleus of Pygmalion or Saint Joan whilst here?

THE LITERATI GLITTERATI

What is it exactly about Dalkey? It has such connections with George Bernard Shaw, lesser connections with James Joyce, was chosen as the setting for The Dalkey Archive and The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien, and at least one other contemporary Irish writer has hailed from here - Hugh Leonard being to name but one. Is it the spectacular views of Dublin Bay that can be seen? (A curious fact is the number of Italian names of roads: the aforesaid Torca Road, the aforesaid Vico Road, Sorrento Road, to name but a few; this is accounted for, by the fact that in the early 1800's many of its citizens, had done the 'claim to fame' of citizens of the past - the Grand Tour - taking in Naples, and its Bay; it reminded them of Dalkey Bay, so when they returned, they coined many Italian place names for the area!). Or is it what I've often speculated generally for the abundance of writers, Ireland has produced - as abundant as the rich seeds in some field of plenty - that it's something in the soil, in the earth, which results in such a flowering of creativity and literary prowess? Perhaps that axiom or supposition could be applied to the nearby Killiney Hill (where megalithic tombs were located at one time), that Torca Road leads onto? Whatever the reason or explanation, Dalkey certainly can lay claim to being a launching pad for two of Ireland's and the world's literary greats! Literati Glitterati showers its confetti here! The Emerald Isle has many strings to its bow; this is but one of them!

In the footsteps of GB Shaw - ascending Torca Road, with Dublin Bay - part of the Green Coast - in the background.

"Pubs, Entertainment, and blasts from the past in County Galway"

Pub lore and nostalgia

There are two pubs - one in Galway City still standing and the other outside the city, which survived not the voracious grappling of the 'Celtic Tiger' - that I'd like to eulogise here. Both are examples of the vintage Irish pub - vintage like an old vintage car or the best of wines - and what makes County Galway so special!

The first one - Naughton's - Tigh Neachtain - I first encountered in 2002, and in 2004 I returned to show it to a Hungarian visitor. The pub is famous for Live Irish music - is an Irish music pub extraordinaire - which is saying something in the oasis, that is Galway City - has a very unique decor, photos, pub architecture, but most of all, has the typical feature of an Irish Pub - a Snug - on both sides. The Snug being the place where the shy type, the private taciturn individual, can 'hide in' and wear the garland of anonymity to one's heart's content. These Snugs are authentic to boot, and conjure up images of a novelist, a struggling poet, a murder mystery writer, snuggling up into them during the day and writing their tomes and canons. I wonder did Liam O' Flaherty ever haunt or hang out here?

But this particular visit was special for a specific reason: as I sat down in a Snug with the Hungarian visitor, I spotted in the Snug behind, a man who I recognised as the Chieftain Browne from the Browne Clan of Galway, about whom I had just read in a magazine (touch of serendipity here, I think!) with a very aristocratic foreign gentleman. I headed off to the toilet, and on the way back, I approached them (breaking the code and etiquette of privacy in the process) and said "Your name is Browne? "Yes, how did you know that?" he replied, so I explained I'd read an article about him recently. He duly invited us to join them!! We were introduced to his friend, who it just happened was Hugo O'Neill, the descendent of 'Red' Hugh O'Neill who claimed the title of the Chieftain of the O'Neills, and a rightful heir to the titles of the Earl himself. I recited him a poem and then he asked me would I do some Yeats? I did "The Lake Isle of Innisfree", then "The Stolen Child" and hand on my heart, a tear descended down his cheek, as if some army rapidly advancing across the field of peace. He thanked me; we talked some more and then parted (little did I think we'd meet again but again serendipity, as I call it, works in strange ways; three years later, I met him in Rathmullan, County Donegal, at the seminar for the '400th anniversary of "The Flight of the Earls"').

At night, the pub is brimming with Irish music and has the craic, the magic of the west and Galway, to such an extent, that one would think it had an infinite patent on such things........ and as an aside, has been known to unfurl French flags for Bastille Day!               www.tighneachtain.com

The Connemara Coast Hotel This hotel has great Irish music sessions on a Thursday night, in which local musicians come to perform, doing their thing, in a laid back relaxing way! But it's the establishment's previous incarnation, when it was the music venue Teach Furbo that bids me to reminisce and go down memory lane. Going back to the 80's, the memories flood - like an inundation whose water is as pure and moist as ever - of gigs I attended there whilst on holiday in Galway. And this is riven with the presence of my father RIP (who'd such connections with the west, and especially Galway). For it was there, we went to see the legendary Wolfe Tones perform! We also saw Stockton's Wing there, if my memory serves me right! And these gigs still stand the test of time from the decade when the Irish ballad scene seemed to be at its zenith and reached its halcyon heights. Teach Furbo had a special kind of atmosphere, and the fact that it straddled the Atlantic, and was nestled at the cusp of Connemara, seemed to be part of its cocktail of magic and chemistry; it was in a great setting.

So Teach Furbo at Maam Cross - now reincarnated as the Connemara Coast Hotel - had the true 'craic' and substance of Irish pubs, music venues, ballads etc and was once again an example of everything that makes Galway special and the diadem in the crown of the west. This reminiscence is a real blast from the past for me but perhaps on Thursday nights, something of this halcyon time survives in the Coast Hotel!

There's no better place in Ireland for pubs, 'craic', musical odysseys, than both Galway city and county. To quote the great WB Yeats, they carry the spirit of  "The indomitable Irishry!"

"Natural relics of the Emerald Isle"

Holy Wells

I've been to some lovely holy wells in Ireland: Saint Patrick's Well at Tara, the Well of the Saints on Inis Mor (about which I've blogged here under JM Synge), Saint Brigid's Holy Well at Faughart Graveyard, County Louth etc, but perhaps one of the most enchanting and salubrious to be found, is Trinity Well, at a place called Carbury in County Kildare near Edenderry in County Offaly (where my paternal grandmother was born). It is in such a remote, tranquil, untouched place; so much so, that it's as if one has entered an unknown chamber or chasm of Mother Eireann. Not knowing how to get to it specifically, I was brought there by someone who had been to it many times; the time we chose was most apt like picking an apple from an apple tree when the apples have just ripened - last year's Imbolc - the start of springtime and the festival of Saint Brigid (early February). Moreover, it is actually the source of the famous River Boyne - one of the thirteen major rivers of Ireland!

Trinity Holy Well - right by the source of the River Boyne

The water from the well is so pure, pristine, it seems to be imbued with the chrystalline bounty of the first waters that buoyantly bubbled and swarmed to the surface of the Emerald Isle. It remains as fresh and as invigorating, two or three weeks later; one wouldn't get any flouridation and so on, from here or indeed holy wells generally, if one used them, I dare say!! And to merely behold it and then partake of its rich fruitful essence is comparable to drinking the ambrosia of life in all its parts!

The threat and demise of Irish Holy Wells

It's sad and regrettable to say that as a part, or a microcosm of the destruction and disappearance of Ireland's heritage, the holy well like another piece of natural heritage, the bog, along with the megalithic, archaeological, architectural, cultural, is being lost to the vicissitudes of time. It is becoming harder and harder to stumble upon holy wells, on a ramble or a walk around the fields and countryside of Eireann; for many of them are covered, filled in etc, by shallow, obtuse people. So to behold one that is in a totally untouched and pristine place like Carbury is very endearing and heart warming, as endearing and heart warming, as hearing the lowing of cattle in a meadow below or the bleating of sheep or a wee lamb in the midst of the Golden Vale of Ireland!

The untouched 'Hidden' canopy of Carbury

In many ways Carbury is, cut off from the material world; it's like a natural recess or alcove. Approximately 200 metres from the Trinity Well, at the top of Carbury Hill is the ruined and abandoned Carbury Castle, standing there still, for any wanderer or rambler to stumble upon! It was owned by the Colley family, who were the patrilineal ancestors of the Duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley); his uncle Richard Colley, for instance, had associations with Trim, County Meath, as well. Interestingly, the hill is also called Faery Hill, and this seems in keeping with the place generally, with its significance of being the source of the River Boyne and its tranquility, much like floating under an untouched 'hidden' canopy.

Carbury Castle at the top of the Faery Hill - Ireland of the shadows!

     
To behold such natural relics as Irish Holy Wells, is like revisiting the cauldron of the mystical, sacred wisdom, of the majestic Emerald Isle from its golden sun of the past. They uplift, renew, reenergise, reinvigorate and replenish with their chrystalline waters and none more so than the untouched, largely unseen and tranquil Carbury - the muse is alive and well here! 'Though it's lamentable that such a natural and health inducing emblem of Ireland is being lost; at least at Carbury, I hope, it will always remain there and not fall into that category. For visiting it at Springtime, is an auspicious and apt introduction to the new season.

PS To the person who got me there by car, and saved me walking around and around, I extend my gratitude.

"Gaelic Gala of Tyrone"

Creggan: An Creagan

Directly halfway between Omagh and Cookstown in the north of County Tyrone, at the foothills of the Sperrins, is an area which is like a gaelic, cultural and archaeological gala; the place is called Creggan (an Creagan in Gaelic meaning rocky or barren place) - it is one of three places in Ulster called Creggan. In many ways, it's yet another part of hidden Ireland; hidden Ireland being the target of my quest for ten years and the purpose of this blog!

Until circa 1940, there was a Gaeltacht in this area, and it died when the last speaker Peadar Joe Haughey passed away (coincidentally and intriquingly, another Gaeltacht in south Armagh at another one of Ulster's Creggans (which has been blogged here earlier under unique enclave for Gaelic poets) died at the same time!) Both Gaeltachts were badly treated and in many ways, shafted by the Board and Department of Education in the north of Ireland in the 20's and 30's; arguably it was part of a coherent and strategic anti-Gaelic policy, to render them dead and gone! Now, there is but one Gaeltacht in the six counties in the north - in west Belfast (sprouted up in the last few decades). The cottage of Peadar Joe Haughey can be visited and is restored and displayed, as it was when he lived in it!

VESTIGES FROM THE ANCIENT PAST

The landscape around here is dotted with megaliths consisting of: Cairns, Wedge Tombs, Stone Circles, Raths, Court Tombs, Portal Tombs (Dolmens) etc. For instance, to the west of the enchanting Visitors Centre is Aghascrebagh Standing Stone, the only standing stone in County Tyrone which has an ogham inscription; Dunnamore Wedge Tomb, is also known as the Giant's Grave (such an interplay of names happens in many   different places in Ireland); and approximately six miles from here is the famous Beaghmore - three pairs of Stone Circles, a circular setting of upright stones, along with five small cairns! It is the largest in Ireland! It was one fair september day, some years ago, that I went a-looking for them, as part of my megalith hunting pursuits. They are so hidden and hard to find, it's like they are covered by some invisible covering; perhaps a great pair of binoculars would have helped or just some eyes with xray vision. I walked around as one doing a series of ceremonies encirling the epicentre or a baby crawling around the navel of its father's belly - as if circumnavigating the central cog of a machine but to no avail. I was encircling the fields as if wrapping them in my breast; I was ekeing out every nuance of the countryside - so much so, that even 'though, it is a very remote and untouched area, I attracted the attention of an elderly couple - the man actually watching me with binoculars from his doorstep (I should have asked him for a loan of them when I went over to have a wee chat!).

The area also has a bogland landscape, which is a unique bogland in Ireland. The most typical type of bog in Ireland, is the one that's found in Connacht; this one is different. And the aforementioned Visitors Centre is located at the heart of it; there are some great walking treks and routes going from the Visitors Centre     around the bog, like spokes from a wheel. It's such a pleasant and enjoyable ramble to inhale the smoky, pungent bog aromas around here, much like inhaling the aromas of Ireland at the dawn of its being (especially as so many of Ireland's bogs have been destroyed - up to 80%!); indeed, one can rent cottages here, called An Clachan Self Catering Cottages, which contain a traditional feature of a cul-tighe (cultyee) in the kitchen - basically, a dual purposed contraption, which fronts as a seat during the day and a bed by night!

Finally, An Creagan Visitor Centre/Bar is an excellent venue, with a beautiful, sanguine fire, which would warm the coldest of hearts and render them sentient beings of indomitable warmth! It offers an inside track, an inner sanctum, an unseen door into the traditional gaelic culture of the area; evenings of traditional music, storytelling and song are regular eye and ear catchers throughout the year and live music features each weekend.

The area called the Creggan is like a Gaelic Gala in the Sperrin foothills of Tyrone, which in many ways is not only a part of hidden Ireland but is hidden County Tyrone as well! It is an authentic and vibrant place, much like, places  one finds on the Ring of Kerry - as if time locked; and a flagbearer of the Ireland that is being rapidly lost in the modern, materialistic society of today. 

www.an-creagan.com