Searching for Senan: The Life

I’ve been to Clare, on a three day trip with Amanda, both of us in search of St Senan. Our destination was Scattery Island, in the mouth of the Shannon, a boat trip from Kilrush. My intention with this post was to describe this marvellous trip to Scattery – HIGHLY recommended! But alas, I made the mistake of turning to Whitley Stokes translation of The Life of Senan, from the Book of Lismore.

As regular readers know I have turned to the Book of Lismore on other occasions (see The White Hound of Brigown and this piece on St Brigid) and I am entranced by the language of Whitley Stokes’ (below) imaginative and magisterial translation, so this post will be devoted to the Life of Senan, illustrated by the many stained glass depictions of him we found in South Clare. My main source for photographs, however, is the large depiction of Senan in the Robertstown (Co Limerick) Church, and the photography is by John Glynn. John has very generously shared his magnificent photograph of the window with me, for which I am very grateful. John is also the mastermind behind Clare’s Stained Glass – a work of great interest, beauty and erudition. Check it out!

Scattery Island is the spiritual home of St Senan. With the ruins of six churches (and hints of a seventh), a holy well, and echoes of gruelling pilgrimages, it is a fascinating island – but more of that next time.

For now, let’s talk about Saint Senan, one of the ‘apostles’ of Ireland. His name may have been originally pronounced Shennon: yes, quite like the river at whose mouth the island sits. Stokes uses the form Senán throughout (pronounced Shenawn), but I have kept Senan (Pronounced Senn-an) since that is the common pronunciation. Before I begin, here is the complete Robertstown window. It is the work of Kevin Kelly of Abbey Studios, done in 2003. Thank you, John, for these outstanding images.

The story starts with St Patrick, foretelling the birth of Senan (image below the quote).

‘And the island there in the west, in front of the sea, that is Inis Cathaigh, is there any dwelling in it?’ saith Patrick. ‘There is none,’ say they, ‘for there is a terrible monster therein named Cathach, who doth not allow it to be inhabited. ‘Marvellous,’ saith Patrick, ‘is the diadem of dignity, and the precious stone, and the venerable servant specially lovable to God and to men, even the child that will be born with you. For it is for his sake that the soil of yon island is preserved in virginity, for it is there that his resurrection will be, and the resurrection of a great host of saints along with him.’ Then said Patrick, prophesying Senán’s birth:

A manchild will be born in the west,

In the island over the ocean.

The Corco-Baiscinn will be under his hand,

Men and children and women.

He will be splendid, noble, dignified,

With God, and with men.

Happy the folk and the church

That will be under that child’s protection.

‘Renowned and revered will that child be,’ saith Patrick; ‘for he will bring to them peace with abundance of every good thing, and banishment of every unlawful disease, if they do the will of that child, even Saint Senán, with tithes, and first-fruits and alms to God and to Senán. But woe to his monks who shall not do that child’s will, for God will then inflict heavy vengeances upon them, so that there shall be ruin on their men and on their cattle. And corn and milk and every produce shall then be taken away from them, so that they shall abide in famine and ruin, and every one will sell his son and his daughter in far-off territories that they may be fed, unless they are obedient to Senán. Wise and dignified will their children be in the present world if they are obedient to him.’ The stake of rowan that was in her hand when she was bringing forth her son took the earth, and burst at once into flower and leaf; and still that tree remains.

Senan performs lots of miracles as a child: like transporting his family’s whole farm through the air to a new location (I could have done with Senan when I moved house in January!); emerging unharmed in a barn conflagration; blessing spoiled food so “their proper flavour went to them;” reading while the corn grinds itself; bringing a dead boy to life. However, in a story that reminds us that old Irish saints were full-blooded creatures capable of behaving badly, he does not hesitate to use his powers in vengeful and destructive ways.

On another day Senan went with his father’s oxen out of Irrus in the west to bring them eastward to Magh Lacha ; and he saw the sea full in before him. Now night was then near, so he went to Dun Mechair (Mechar s fortress), which was at hand, to ask for a guest-house.  Now Mechar was not in his fort on that night, and in his absence his household refused Senan. So Senan went back to the sea to await the ebb, and there was no other house near him to which he might then go. As his oxen went before him, on the shore of the sea, he saw the sea-strand before him. Then he drives his oxen over the strand. Then as Senan lifted his feet up over high-water-mark on the land, he heard the wave behind him striking against his heels. His mind changes then, and this he said, Sufficient for me is the length of time that I have been at this layman’s work. Then he breaks the spear that was in his hand, and makes a cross thereof, and sets it into the ground, and thrice he prostrates himself by it to God. Then a troop came, and that night destroyed Mechar s fortress, and they slew his son, and his wife was carried off in the plunder. And the fortress has not been inhabited from that to this, and this will never be done.

Another version of this story has it that the staff in the shape of the crucifix parts the sea so the cattle can get through. (Hmmm, what does that remind you of?). By now he is a novice in the Monastery of the learned Notal, and as Senan’s fame spreads Notal’s monastery is overrun with supplicants so he tells Senan it is time to set up his own house. The first of these is at Enniscorthy, near Ferns, where Maedhoc of Ferns turns the Abbey over to him.

From there he goes to Rome (above right, meeting the Pope. On the left is the young Senan with his mentor, Cassidus), and onward to Tours, to learn from St Martin of Tours, who gives him a book, “today called Senan’s Gospel.” St David of Wales, on his way home, gives Senan his crozier. That’s what’s being depicted below, along with a lovely impression of the Scattery Island ruins.

Once he gets back to Ireland there are many more adventures and miracles. There’s a long poem about Inis Cara, and several more houses to establish, and monks and holy virgins to gather, and wells to spring forth, and miracles to perform. But still he has not found the place of his resurrection. I am giving the story of how he came to Scattery in full, as it so central to the legend of Senan. Inish Cathaigh (pronounce inish cohig) is derived from Island of the Battle, and Scattery is likely derived from a local pronunciation of that name.

Then came Raphael the Archangel to commune with Senan, and he said: ‘Come with me, and I will shew thee the place in which thy resurrection will take place; for unto God it seems time for thee to reach it.’ Then Senan and the angel went till they were on Mullach Feis. Then said the angel to him: ‘Behold the island there. Thy resurrection shall be therein, and the resurrection of a great host of saints along with thee. In the west of the world there is no more sacred island. No outrage to God hath ever been committed there. God sent an awful monster to keep it, so that neither sinners nor sons of cursing should dwell therein, but that it should remain in holiness awaiting thee. Yonder monster shall be put forth from the island before thee, so that dwelling along with it may not annoy thy community. For unto God it seemeth time for thee to go and build a church in that island. Noble and venerable will that church be. It will be a head of devotion and a well of wisdom of the west of the world. It will be a protection of prayer to foreigners and to Gael.’

Said Senan to the angel: ‘What seems timely to God seems timely to me; for this is what I seek continually, that which is the will of God.’ With that the angels lift him up along with the flagstone on which he was sitting, from Mullach Fessi, and set him down on a high hill in the middle of the island; and thence is Ard na n-Aingel ( the Angels Height ), and Lee na n-Aingel (the Angels Flagstone ) in Inis Cathaigh. They sing praise to God in that spot, even Senan and the angels, and then they went to seek the monster, to the place in which it abode.

When the monster heard them, it shook its head, and its hair stood up upon it, and its rough bristles; and it looked at them, hatingly and wrathfully. Not gentle, friendly, mild, was the look that it bestowed upon them, for it marvelled that any one else should come to visit it in its island. So it went to them strongly and swiftly, insomuch that the earth trembled under its feet. Hideous, uncouth, ruthless, awful, was the beast that arose there. Longer was its body than Inis na h-Urclaide. A horse’s mane had it; an eye gleaming flaming in its head, and it keen, savage, froward, angry, edged, crimson, bloody, cruel, bounding. Any one would think that its eye would go through him when it looked upon him. Two very hideous, very thick feet under it; behind it a mane. Nails of iron on it which used to strike showers of fire out of the rocks of stone wherever it went across them. A fiery breath it had which burnt like embers. A belly it had like the bellows of a furnace. A whale’s tail upon it behind. Iron, rending claws upon it, which used to lay bare the surface of the ground on the path they came behind the monster. Equally did it traverse sea and land when it so desired. Then the sea boiled from the greatness of its heat and from its virulence when it entered it. No boats could catch it: neither from that day to this has any one escaped from it who could tell tidings of it.

Above, an image of Senan and the Monster from Monmore Church in Clare, by the Murphy-Devitt Studios

Now, when the monster came savagely to the place where Senan was biding, it opened its maw so that, as it drew nigh the cleric, its entrails were clearly seen over the maw. Thereat Senan lifted up his hand and made the sign of Christ’s Cross in its face. Then the monster was silent, and this is what Senan spake to it: I say unto thee,’ saith he, ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, leave this island and hurt no one in the district over which thou wilt go, nor in the district unto which thou wilt come. The monster went at once at Senan’s word out of the island till it reached Dubloch of Sliab Collain. And it did no hurt to any one, till it came there, nor after arriving; for it durst not oppose Senan’s word.

Now after that Senan and the angels went righthandwise round the island till they came again to the Height of the Angels, after they had consecrated the island. Senan said to the angel: Savage is the sea that there is around the island: there seemeth a troubled people therein.’ ‘Though it be savage,’ saith the angel, ‘whatever monk with humbleness of heart shall go from thee, he will not be drowned until he shall come back to thee again. God hath granted to thee,’ saith the angel, ‘that he over whom the mould of this island shall go, shall not be after Judgment an inhabitant of hell.’

Once Senan was safely in charge of the Island there were, of course, many more miraculous happenings: men sent to haul him away left empty-handed and died soon afterwards; a wizard is drowned by what sounds like a tidal wave; horses are swallowed up by the land (in the place known ever after as Fan na n-Ech); an evil king is killed (by a hornless swarthy sheep) and his land then belongs to Senan; two small boys die but come back to let their parents know they are happy in heaven and will stay there; food is provided for a feast by a King who then converts; a drought is cured by means of a holly tree. (In the section below, monks travel safely on the left and sailors are saved from drowning on the right.)

The visit of St Canair (Pronounced Canner, and also often given as Canaire, pronounced Canner-ah), a holy woman who is also associated with Bantry on West Cork, is almost the last story in the Life of Senan. She comes to Scattery but Senan refuses to allow her to land and they have this exchange

‘Women enter not this island’, saith Senan.

‘How canst thou say that?’ saith Canair. ‘Christ is no worse than thou. Christ came to redeem women no less than to redeem men. No less did  He suffer for the sake of women than for the sake of men. Women have given service and tendance unto Christ and His Apostles. No less than men do women enter the heavenly kingdom. Why, then, shouldst thou not take women to thee in thine island?’

For thus had she been while they were in converse, standing up on the wave, with her staff under her bosom, as if she were on land. Then Canair came on shore, and the Sacrament was administered to her, and she straightway went to heaven.

God granted unto Canair that whoso visits her church before going on the sea shall not be drowned between going and returning.

I think that’s enough. Or rather, as Stokes translates it: Overmany, now, to reckon and set forth are the miracles and marvels which God wrought for Senan. 

But let us not neglect the wonderful summation of his life and worth that Stokes renders in this gorgeous language. I will just give you a taste of it.

He is the glassy well whereby all the folks which God entrusted to him are washed by the purity of his teaching.  He moreover is the heavenly cloud whereby the earth of the Church and the souls of the righteous are illumined by the rain of his teaching with the holding fast of virtues. 

He is the mayor and steward and spencer,  whom the Heavenly Overking sent to exact tribute of virtues and good deeds from Goedel’s many clans.

He is the precious stone whereof the heavenly palace is built for the hosts of the earth. He is the pure vessel by which the wine of God’s word is dealt out to the people. He is the great and happy hospitaller of goodly teaching, who used to satisfy the poor and naked. He is the branch of the true Vine which prepareth life and satisfaction for the world. 

He is the true leech that healeth the ailments and diseases of the soul of every faithful man in the Christian Church.

There is a final story about Senan’s death involving the relics of his tutor, Cassidan; holy virgins who ask for the body of one of his monks (for relics); Martin of Tours uplifted on a cloud for a final meeting with Senan; and various saints and clerics coming to bury him before ‘angels carried his soul to the eternal rest in the union of the holy Trinity and heaven’s household.’

A final note, just in case you though Senan was all work and no play . . .

Irish Artists and Stations of the Cross: Part 2

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Four years ago I wrote a post Irish Artists and Stations of the Cross. It was inspired by my realisation, as I visited churches, that some of them (OK, a tiny minority) had stations that were far removed from the mass-produced models we see on most church walls. During the period when parishes, congregations and architects were responding to the encouragement of Vatican II to glorify God with the best of sacred art and with up-to-date architecture, many Irish artists were glad indeed to get these commissions. I am starting today with two artists drawn to my attention by Michael Burke, the sculptor responsible for the remarkable stations from the last post in the Church of the Irish Martyrs at Ballycane. Thank you, Michael!

Fergus Lyons, First Fall, 3rd 1988, Oil on canvas, Collection of the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon

The first of these is an extraordinary set by Fergus Lyons, who now lives and works in Sligo. Read about him here and on his own website. His stations, originally designed for a church, are now in the collection of the Arts Council, and Fergus and the Arts Council have given me permission to use these three. The series is called Turas Chonnacht (Connacht Journey or Pilgrimage or Stations – the word Turas can mean all three things) and Christ is depicted as young man in jeans. 

Fergus Lyons, Condemned ,1st, 1988, Oil on canvas, Collection of the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon

Fergus told me,  I designed them that when hung side by side that they would form a continuous landscape (each painting blending or leading into the next) ascending Croagh Patrick and returning down again to where we all are, so to speak. He designed them for a church but the commission fell through, which is when the Arts Council bought the whole set and made it part of their travelling exhibitions. Currently it is on long term loan to St Oliver Plunkett Church in Finglas.

Fergus Lyons, Stripped, 10th, 1988, Oil on canvas, Collection of the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon

The second artist is Henry Flanagan O.P., and once again I have Michael Burke to thank for drawing him to my attention – he was Michael’s teacher at Newbridge College. Michael contacted me recently to say that the small enamel station I posted in my last piece was the work of Henry Flanagan – and this made sense because the enamel station was in a Dominican Retreat House, in Cork, and Fr Flanagan was a Dominican priest. Here is another of those stations.  Michael has memories of helping Fr Flanagan to pack enamel – a delicate operation so Michael must have been a star pupil.

But Fr Flanagan was talented in multiple media – here is one of his stations in wood for Newbridge College. He also worked in stone, metal, plaster and more – I have ordered the book on him so I will write more about him in the future. 

The beautiful library in Athy was once St Dominic’s Church, built in the 1960s. The builders turned to Abbey Stained Glass to provide the glass and the stations, and Frank Ryan asked George Campbell to design them. George, a leading artist, was used to working in paint, so Frank teamed him with George Walsh to realise the finished product. There’s a good account of all this in Karen Reihill’s George Campbell and the Belfast Boys.

The stations formed a band across the top of the wall and were made of multiple slaps of different coloured travertine marbles, with the scenes etched into the marble. George Campbell also painted stations for at least two churches – now that I know where to look I will be itching for a road trip. The Athy library is a joy to visit – see Emma Gileece’s wonderful post about it here.

Our final set of stations for this post are somewhat controversial. They are from John the Evangelist Church in Ballinteer. A sign in the church declares them to be the work of Cecil King. However, this is very unlikely – Cecil King by the time the church was built on the 70s was known for strictly abstract paintings with fields of colour and geometric elements. He did not work in repoussé copper. A much more likely candidate was Richard Enda King (the son of Richard King), who had a modern style and worked in copper like this. 

Interestingly, each copper station is accompanied by a small pen and ink drawing of the same station, done by William Dowling in 1943 and acquired by the church in 2010. The juxtaposition of the two styles is a little jarring. 

I had far more images than I could use for this post, so let me finish with another couple of Anon’s stations. As you know, the mystery of the enamel station has been solved from Post 1, although not that of the painted stations in the Wexford Franciscan church. Here’s another one of those, to see if it tickles anyone’s memory.

And one final work by Anon – this is one of the stations from a beautiful little set in the church in the Black Valley in Kerry. I think they may be wood carvings, but I am not sure. Anyone?

Many thanks to Michael Burke, Fergus Lyons and to Ben Mulligan of the Arts Council

Hook, Line and Wingtips

A GUEST POST BY JEFF DUGGAN

Jeff Duggan now lives in the US, but his family all hailed from the Ballydehob area, and specifically from Foilnamuck, very near my old home in Cappaghglass. He seems to be related to half of Ballydehob, including the famous Nell and Julia of Levis’s Pub (below – from this post). He has followed the Journal for years. He sent me this charming story – a memory of fishing with his Grandpa (above, far right) on Roaringwater Bay, and his cousin, Joan (Nell and Julia’s niece) supplied the family photographs. So what follows is Jeff’s story, as he sent it to me – warm and specific and starring his beloved Grandfather. The colour photos (except the map) are mine, inserted as illustrations here and there.

Grampa and his 11—yes, 11—siblings were born in a place on the West Cork Coast called Foilnamuck. The family homestead was literally on Roaringwater Bay, a breathtakingly beautiful inlet from the Atlantic Ocean close to the Southern tip of the island.   The homestead was perched on a hill overlooking the water, with a spectacular view that seemed almost hand painted. The mouth of the bay was in full view from the house.

 Looking across a patchwork of fields with every shade of green imaginable to view the deep blue of Roaringwater Bay dotted with whitecaps, you can see Kilcoe Castle and Lisheen across the water.  Following the water out to the Atlantic, the many islands of the bay catch your eye, Horse Island, the Calves, the Skeams, Clear Island and Heir Island in closer.

 If you turn around, the majestic 407 meters high Mount Gabriel grabs your attention with its white geodesic radar stations on top. 

Many people who lived around the bay loved to fish its waters. There were several species that could be taken, but the two most abundant were mackerel and pollock. Some folks ate the mackerel, but their meat was dark and oily. We sometimes caught mackerel for bait just offshore by dropping a line with 5 or 6 feathered hooks on it.  The mackerel were so voracious (throw in a bit of stupidity) that we would often pull up the line with a fish on every hook.  We could watch them in the bottom of the boat, a rare sight of sudden fish death.  They stopped flopping around quickly, then rigor mortis was almost immediate. They grew so stiff that you could use them as Billy clubs, and all of this happened within a couple of minutes, amazing!  The really sought after species was the pollock, a cod relative that was plentiful in Roaring Water Bay.

They were a delicious fish with tender white meat. In some countries, including the US, its meat is used to substitute for crab meat. They like to feed in the shallower areas around the various islands of the bay, so that a fisherman with a small boat and the right gear could go out and haul in pollock by the dozen.

The boats, motors and gear were basic back in the 50s and 60s. While fiberglass boats were available, the ones I saw, built by locals, were wooden, 18-22 feet in length, with an inner framework of crossmembers that supported parallel overlapping planks forming the outside of the hull.  The motor I remember was a 5 hp Johnson Sea Horse, woefully weak for a heavy wooden boat; but the 3–4 knots that this motor gave us were OK to push the boat out to the islands, and it provided ideal trolling speeds.

The first time I was out fishing in the Atlantic was with Neely Minihan from Lisheen, across the bay from Foilnamuck.  His craft was much like what was just described. The actual fishing gear was very crude, probably unchanged over the last 75 years. There were no rods, no reels, no fancy gear at all.  The “bait” consisted of a 6–8 inch piece of amber or red rubber tubing, attached to a stout hook with the distal end tube sliced at an angle. This crude lure was attached to the line with a swivel, and when trolled through the water it twisted in a spiral fashion; this convinced the pollock (only slightly smarter than the mackerel) that it was a small eel, hence the name “rubber eel”. How was the rubber eel fished, you might ask?  Each rig had a rectangular H-frame wrapped with about 100 yards of heavy cord.  There was no real braided line then, but the cord used for fishing was very strong stuff. At the end of the cord there was a heavy weight, a thick piece of steel pipe about a foot long, followed by a six-foot leader of 30 lb. gut to which the rubber eel was tied. You could literally make this rig up from junk lying around in your garage. Out in the bay, the driver would cruise around the selected island at trolling speed, and the handlines were thrown out so that the weights bounced off the rocky bottom. When a fish hit, the speed of the boat set the hook immediately, and the fish was pulled into the boat hand over hand.  A five-pounder gave some powerful yanks that gave this 9-year-old all he could handle, but it was all very exciting for me as a young kid. [That’s Jeff on the left, below. The boy holding two fish in the lead photograph is his younger brother, Bob.]

After that fishing experience, my grandfather, Peter, commissioned and built his own 20-foot wooden boat that was kept below Foilnamuck in Audley Cove. Aside from paying for boat construction, Grampa was the “financier” of my 3 “younger” summerlong trips to Ireland. I remember every one of these trips like it was yesterday, and they were all thanks to Grampa. His “new” boat was of the same construction just described with a similar sluggish 1-cylinder Sea Horse motor.  We were sticking to tradition!

Our pilot on this day was “young Peter”, Grampa Pete’s nephew. He was a very nice and friendly guy. On this trip, Grampa Pete came with us. When he was in Ireland, he always wore a suit with tie and a straw hat. Much to our surprise, the dress code was no different on this fishing trip. When he boarded the vessel, Gramps was wearing a brown wool suit, a white dress shirt with gold cuff links, a brown silk tie with yellow stripes, brown wingtip shoes, and a white straw hat completed the ensemble. He was a fishing dandy, indeed! [Picture him below, with the addition of a white straw hat.]

We were out fishing around Middle Calf Island and having some very good luck. Everyone was yanking in fish; even young Peter caught a few while manning the tiller. Then Grampa hooked a nice one and was pulling him in easily. I should mention that Gramps was a barrel-chested guy of great strength, much stronger than my 6-foot father when it came to lifting and moving. The fish he pulled over the side was at least a six-pounder. It flopped and flipped wildly on the boat floor, and all of us wondered if and how Gramps would try to disgorge the hook. Would he be able to keep the fish slime off his nice wool suit, his cuffs, his shoes?

Grampa handled this task in an unexpected way. Did he ask one of us to dehook the fish? Did he have a special hook-removing tool? No, none of these things. What he did was shocking but effective … he put his right foot firmly on top of the fish’s head, immobilizing it; then he grabbed the line, wrapped it around his hand and ripped the hook right out of the fish’s mouth. A clean hook extraction and not a single drop of slime or fish blood on any of his clothes! Not only did Grampa know how to fish. He fished with style and class!

West Cork Rocks 2

Every now and then I republish one of Robert’s classic pieces. This one is from five years ago. We were both fascinated by the West Cork landscape and, being Robert, he wanted to get under the skin of it all. So what follows is his exploration of what makes West Cork, well, West Cork.

West Cork Rocks, by Robert, from 2021

It certainly does! But this post is – literally – about rock: the hard, knobbly kind that is underneath us, surrounds us, and which has historically built our environment. In the picture above, taken on a clear February day during the most severe Covid lockdown, Finola is walking through beautiful West Cork. Beyond her is the great, gaunt outcrop of Mount Gabriel. Beside her is a traditional stone wall: its design unchanged over centuries. In the landscape all around her are rocks – large and small – scattered in the rough pasture.

In the distance, of course, is the coast: there are very few places in West Cork where you cannot, at least, catch a glimpse of the sea – and so many where you can immerse yourself in it, or stand on its shore and admire the infinite textures which those same rocks display. It’s mostly Old Red Sandstone: that’s the correct geological term. It was laid down in the Devonian period – a while ago now: between 400 and 300 million years, in fact. This followed an era during which our mountains were built, known as the Silurian times. Continents were shifting and separating, and what was to become Ireland was a great arid desert – deserted: there was no-one around to see it!

Old Red Sandstone: in fact it varies in colour depending on its local history. Broadly, some of the mountain rocks are purple-grey, while those closer to the sea could be greeny-red, but that is probably far too wide a generalisation. The sheer beauty is in the infinite shapes and colours. What artist needs any finer palette?

In those deserted times, an ‘Old Red Sandstone Continent’ extended over what is now northwest Europe, but it is worth noting that in ‘our’ part of it – the Munster Basin, covering today’s Kerry and Cork – we have one of the densest masses of this rock in the world: at least 6 kilometres thick. And we have to appreciate what it has given to us – high mountain spines sweeping steeply down to an indented shoreline of coves, creeks and inlets, with the myriad mottled islands that we oversee. An unparalleled, unfolded world.

After the ‘desert’ period, but much later – only about a million and a half years ago – came the Pleistocene Epoch. the word is from the Greek pleistos and kainos – meaning ‘most recent’ – and that brings us almost up to date. That was a time of great climate events: deserts were inundated and then covered in ice sheets 3 kilometres thick, while moving glaciers tore up the rock surfaces, advancing and retreating several times. Eventually, what had been desert became arctic tundra. It is supposed that the ancestors of our present day life forms happened along during this epoch, and managed to survive. But we don’t find any traces of them until after the last ice sheet retreated in our part of the world – only about 12,000 years ago. The landscape that was left behind was inundated by rising sea levels, and the very last land bridge (between Cornwall and the eastern tip of Wexford) was washed away after that, but not before the Giant Elk and its mammal relations had got a foothold on the western side. The snakes, however, didn’t make it. And what of the humans?

Well, the humans embraced the rocky landscape. They made their marks on the outcrops; then they moved the rocks about, and made architecture from them. We can still see their efforts, some 5,000 years later.

These Neolithic carved motifs could be the earliest human interventions on the natural Irish landscape: they might date from 3,000 BC. These examples are from West Cork, and were only discovered a few years ago. Finola wrote the definitive thesis on Rock Art when she studied at UCC in the 1970s, and we have staged exhibitions and given talks on the topic.

A couple of thousand years later, Irish people started to build things with the stones they found around them. This wedge tomb under the backdrop textures of Mount Gabriel at Ratooragh has rested here since the Bronze Age. Finola’s post today uncovers the fascinating folklore stories that generations have told about such artefacts. But restlessly working the fabric of the landscape – Old Red Sandstone – into walls, shelters, tower houses, temples and towns has never ceased.

Ellen Hutchins: The Short and Remarkable Life of Ireland’s First Female Botanist

Working with the Ellen Hutchins Festival over the last few years, I have come to think of Ellen as a ghost-friend. Having just finished this year’s involvement (above, Karen Minihane reads one of Ellen’s letters on Esk Mountain) I was looking over my posts about the Festival over the years and realised it had been over ten years since I wrote and posted about her life. So I am reposting this account from 2015, unchanged, to show you our excitement at what we were discovering. It’s also a good introduction to Ellen.

Ballylickey House, Home of Ellen Hutchins. Although the burned down, it was rebuilt exactly as the original.
Ballylickey House, Home of Ellen Hutchins. Although the house burned down, it was rebuilt exactly as the original

Re-posted from 2015

In West Cork, we have been celebrating the short but extraordinary life of Ellen Hutchins who died 200 years ago this year. Acknowledged in her lifetime as one of the most knowledgeable and accomplished botanists in the British Isles, she contributed specimens and drawings to the great collections in Glasnevin and Kew and kept up a lively and learned correspondence with some of the leading botanical scientists of the day. When she died, aged only 29, her name had already been memorialised: several plant specimens bore the title hutchinsia.

Looks and character

It’s been a fantastic week of lectures, guided walks, exhibitions and demonstrations. Jointly organised by the Bantry Historical Society, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Hutchins family, the week has been a marvellous success, with all the events well attended and everyone eager to learn more about Ellen. For a program of what was available, take a look at the excellent Ellen Hutchins website and the Facebook page.

Dublin Botanic Gardens

While many of Ellen’s specimens ended up in Kew Gardens, some went to what has become the Dublin Botanical Gardens

The website contains biographical data about Ellen, her accomplishments, her family and her place in the scientific community, and a links and resources section leading to much more information. Ellen Hutchins was born in Ballylickey, near Bantry, in 1785 and spent most of her life there. During schooldays in Dublin she lived with family friend Dr Whitley Stokes who introduced her to the discipline of botanizing. She became an avid and scholarly collector of plants and seaweed, annotating, sorting and cataloguing as she went, and an expert illustrator of marine and terrestrial specimens.

Quiet cove, Bantry Bay
Ellen identified new species of seaweeds on the shores around Bantry Bay

She roamed freely around the shores of Bantry Bay and took her family’s boat out to Whiddy Island. She also climbed (we’re not sure how) to the top of Knockboy, the highest mountain in Cork at 700m, identifying new species of plants right at the top. We followed her footsteps last weekend, led by Wildlife Officer Clare Heardman of Glengarriff Nature Reserve, botanist Rory Hodd, writer Kevin Corcoran, and Madeline Hutchins, great great grandniece of Ellen, who has been uncovering all kinds of new material on her ancestor.

group botany

What a day we had! It was warm and dry until we got to the top, where we were subjected to a hailstorm for form’s sake before the sun re-emerged. It was an insight into what gets botanists excited – tiny plants, apparently, with subtle variations from other tiny plants.

Among the bog cotton
Rory talks roots
Bog asphodel
Not heather after all – wild thyme!

We were in awe of the knowledge on display, and the boundless enthusiasm of all the plant experts in the group. The highlights for them were finding some of the species that bore Ellen’s name, although Rory and Clare were particularly pleased to find a dwarf willow at the summit that had originally been identified by Ellen over 200 years ago. Along the way, we also learned a lot about the characteristics of that kind of high mountain environment, with its burden of boggy moss and highly acidic environment.

Kevin Corcoran demonstrated the properties of sphagnum moss, and showed us how soft the bog underneath us was, by probing with his staff
Knockboy descent

We felt on top of the world on Knockboy. We drove up to Priest’s Leap and only climbed the final 300m.  But how did Ellen get up there, with her long skirts and her intermittent poor health?

In Bantry House we viewed Ellen’s drawings, beautifully framed and presented and on loan from their permanent homes in Kew Gardens, Trinity College, Dublin and elsewhere. Her drawings were used by other botanists to illustrate books and were considered to be superior in their exactitude.

The Bantry Library hosted an exhibition about her life. This was curated by Madeline Hutchins and here we came closer to appreciating the woman herself, of whom no portrait exists. We learned, through her letters, of the struggles of a home life dominated by an ailing mother, a disabled younger brother and two bitterly feuding older brothers. She suffered from intermittent ill health, which often prevented her from collecting, but when she was strong her delight in her outdoors pursuits was palpable. One of her greatest pleasures was her correspondence with fellow botanists, among whom she earned true respect, especially Dawson Turner.

Dawson Turner

Dawson Turner: Although they never met, he thought of Ellen as a beloved sister and was devastated when she died

Although we were not able to join the group tour of the Ardnagashel Arboretum, we ventured down there on our own and were shown around the east section by the gracious Arethusa Greacen, herself a Hutchins on her mother’s side. The arboretum was started by Ellen’s brother and was maintained and added to by succeeding generations of Hutchins – the botany gene was obviously strongly embedded in the family!

Myrtle Woods Path

Ardnagashel colour
Myrtle groves and colour at Ardnagashel

The enormous contribution made by Ellen Hutchins to science has languished in obscurity for two centuries, known only to a few experts in the field (a bit like that other West Cork woman of science, Agnes Clerke of Skibbereen). All that changed last week. West Cork, and Bantry/Ballylickey in particular, has celebrated and honoured Ellen Hutchins in style. There is talk of future events, perhaps even a summer school.

Ellen Plaque

A new plaque has been erected on the wall of the old ruined church in Garryvurcha graveyard, final resting place of Ellen Hutchins

Well done to the hardworking organisers of this exceptional festival! Thank you to them for illuminating the life of this remarkable woman and to helping us appreciate, in the most hands-on and interesting way, her enormous contributions to science.

Madeline Clare Angela

The team behind the Ellen Hutchins Two Hundred Year Celebration: Madeline Hutchins, great great grandniece and biographer of Ellen; Clare Heardman of the National Parks and Wildlife Service; Angela O’Donovan of the Bantry Historical Society. This photo was taken from the Ellen Hutchins 200 Years Facebook Page, with appreciation

Don’t forget to check out the website Ellen Hutchins: Ireland’s First Female Botanist for so much more detail than I could give you in a blog post.

A Holy Place of the Druids: A Stone Circle Mystery

A painting by Edith Somerville* is the subject of this week’s detective story – we know it is a West Cork stone circle – but which one? [See the end of the post for the proper citation for the painting.] In a recent piece in the Irish Arts Review, Michael Waldron, Curator of Collections & Special Projects at the Crawford, wrote about Edith Somerville as a painter. We are so used to thinking of her as a writer, especially in her collaboration with her cousin, Violet Martin, (they wrote as Somerville and Ross), that we forgot that she was also an accomplished artist (and a Master of the Foxhounds, as in this portrait).

She had trained in Dusseldorf and Paris. The DIB entry says 

In the second half of the 1880s she was active as a professional illustrator for the Lady’s Pictorial and the Graphic, later illustrating some of her own prose and that written in collaboration. She had exhibitions at the Goupil Gallery in London (1920), Walker’s Gallery, London (1923, 1927), and the Ackermann Galleries, New York (1929).

Edith’s favourite brother was Boyle, about whom I have written here and here. Boyle had gone to sea at the early age of 13, eventually rising up to become a Vice-Admiral. He had, in retirement, come back to live in Castletownshend in 1924.

He was an experienced surveyor and had become fascinated by archaeology, and particularly the investigations of the astronomer, Norman Lockyer, who had established the solar orientation of several ancient monuments around the world and had shown that the stone circles of Scotland were oriented towards celestial events such as solstices or towards bright stars. These stone circles were very similar to West Cork stone circles, in that they had recumbents and portals, establishing the alignment of the circle. Boyle had done the first accurate survey of the Callanish Stone Circle (below)*, before he turned his attention to West Cork.

Edith accompanied Boyle on many of their expeditions, as she had when they were children. While he was busy with his chains and theodolites, she set up her easel and sketched or painted. One of the paintings she produced was titled A Holy Place of the Druids or Grave of a Chieftain. This painting, which Michael used in his article for the Irish Arts Review, is in the possession of the Crawford Art Gallery, and I have been given permission to reproduce it for this blog post. It is my lead image, and below is a detail showing her signature.

In chatting with Michael about his article, I discovered that the monument she had painted had not been identified. Some were convinced it was Drombeg Stone Circle, while others thought it might be the one in Reenascreena. I was pretty sure I knew which one it was, but told him I wanted to visit the site to be sure to be sure, before I committed myself.  

The site I had in mind was Bohonagh (above), one of the stone circles Boyle surveyed for his paper Five Stone Circles, in the 1930 edition of the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society. The thing is, it doesn’t look now the way it did when Edith painted it, so unless you knew why this was, you were unlikely to see it as the subject of her painting. Here is Boyle’s plan of the monument as he surveyed it.

And here is the photograph that accompanies that article taken from behind the recumbent, looking towards the portals. Both the plan and the photograph show 6 erect stones.

Bohonagh Stone Circle was excavated by Edward Fahy in 1959. The report of his excavation was published as A Stone Circle Hut and Dolmen at Bohonagh, Co. Cork, in 1961, in the same journal in which Boyle had described the monument 30 years before. In that report, Fahy describes how he re-erected three orthostats for which the evidence was clear, in the form of the stones themselves, now fallen forwards, and their sockets (the cross-hatched stones in the plan below). So now, instead of six orthostats, as depicted in Boyle’s photograph, there are 9 tall stones. 

He also, as he had at Drombeg, placed shorter ‘marker stones’ to indicated the positions of missing orthostats. Although he did not document it in the text of his report, we can see the marker stones clearly in his photograph below. The Bohonagh Stone Circle, therefore, now has the full complement of all 13 of its stones, with no signage at the site to help the visitor identify the differences between all those standing stones. 

A few weeks ago I went out there with my friend Adrienne to see if we could clarify the situation. Using both Boyle and Fahy’s site surveys, Fahy’s report, and our own observations regarding the marker stones, we made a short video.

Note the height of the bracken – it made photographing the circle impossible and I wished I had brought a machete.

Next we stumbled around the site outside the circle, beating our way through the bracken, until we located the exact spot where Edith had sat to paint the scene. Remind yourself of the painting and then watch this short video.

Note particularly how accurately she captured not just the stone circle but also the surrounding landscape. 

So we have identified Edith’s Holy Place of the Druids. And perhaps, despite this being a cringe-y title, it’s not all that far off the truth. There is some evidence at Drombeg and at Bohonagh that the site was used for ritual purposes and that implies a priestly class. Edith used the word Druid, not unusual for her time, although that idea that Druids built stone circles is really an 18th century invention. 

We know the word originally from classical writers: Caesar for example used it to describe learned men encountered through the Roman conquests who functioned as priests and judges. ‘Druid’ was revived in the 18th century by antiquarians: William Stukeley popularised it when he proposed that Stonehenge and Avebury were the religious products of an early ‘Celtic’ Druid culture. They were druidic temples, he said, and even though he was wrong (being out by a couple of thousand years), so persuasive was he that the romantic idea of druids has persisted ever since in the popular imagination. Our old friend Vallancey was also fond of druids.

Spectators gather at Stonehenge to watch a group of Druids carry out the Dawn Ceremony on the summer solstice, or longest day of the year, © 1956 Getty

So there was Boyle with his instruments, his rigorous measurements and his archaeological knowledge, using evidence-based methodology to come to conclusions about solar alignments. And there was Edith with her paints and her canvas, painting what she saw, but labelling it as the work of a putative priestly class. What is amazing, actually, is that none of that interfered with her ability to produce on canvas a hyper-accurate treatment of the Bohonagh Stone circle as it was before her eyes. And perhaps her second title, Grave of a Chieftain, is a more prescient one, since Fahy did find cremated bone in a pit within the stone circle.

Both Boyle and Fahy identified Bohonagh as an equinoctial circle – that is, on the spring and autumn equinoxes, if you stand between the portals you will see the sun set over the recumbent – just like at Drombeg except that Drombeg is a winter solstice alignment. Several years ago, we met with Ken Williams of Shadows and Stone at Bohonagh to photograph that phenomenon. Here is his photograph, from our original post and used with permission. 

Many thanks to Michael Waldron, Angela Fahy, Billy O’Brien, Adrienne Harrington, Ken Williams, and to Nigel and Claire Vickery, on whose land Bohonagh stands.
*Edith Œ. Somerville, A Holy Place of the Druids or Grave of a Chieftain, undated. Collection Crawford Art Gallery, Cork
**The copyright on the image of Callanish is owned by Tom Richardson and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.