Calf Island Middle, Part 1

Last week I had the immense privilege of sailing to the Middle Calf with its owners, Cormac and Áine Crowley. This island is an outstanding example of what can happen when committed owners take on the task of restoring a habitat to what it should be. That habitat will occupy Part 2, but for this post I want to concentrate on the island and its story.

Infomar is a joint initiative of Geological Survey Ireland and the Marine Institute, established to publish detailed mappings of the sea bed and make the results freely available to all. Their map of Roaringwater Bay is spectacular, and it reveals the underlying geology of this part of the coast. The Calf islands are all that is left, along with Heir Island, of what was once a peninsula sticking out into the sea, just as the Mizen and Sheeps Head still do.

Middle Calf has probably been occupied since prehistoric times, situated in what was, for most of the last few millennia, an extraordinarily rich fishing ground. No prehistoric remains have been found on the islands, but some of the field fences may indeed be very old. 

The only archaeological site identified in the Sites and Monuments Record is a small promontory fort – perhaps the cutest I have ever seen, above. For an explanation of promontory forts, see this post. Promontory forts are believed to be Iron Age (about 2000 years old) but some may be older, and some, we know, were occupied right into the medieval period. This one is so small it is hard to imagine how effective it would have been as a defence against attack, although of course it may have been larger originally.

The Elizabethan mapmakers did not do a good job of drawing the three Calf Islands in any kind of distinct way – they either attached them to amorphous blobs (see this post on the 1560 map), or included them in a random scattering of islands (like Joan Blaeu’s Atlas map of 1655). Or this Dutch Pirate map (above), which gets some things right, but is quite higgledy piggledy.

But the Down Survey, completed in the 1650s post-Cromwell era, with the aim of identifying land to be confiscated for new settlers, was a quantum leap ahead in mapping in Ireland. Petty’s map of Schull civil parish (above and below) shows the Calf Islands, not perhaps as accurately as they should be, but clearly in their general location.

Not only that, but the Down Survey terrier (a description of parcels of land, their owners, and values) shows that the Calf Islands belonged to the Bishops of Cork (West Calf) and Ross (Middle and East). 

The next account we have is Griffith’s Valuation, the massive survey undertaken by Sir Richard Griffith just before the Famine. This is a much more accurate map, probably using the same advanced measuring techniques that the Ordnance Survey would employ starting around the same time. 

Griffith’s terrier shows four families occupying the Middle Calf – two Crowleys and two Scullys. The landlord was Daniel Welply, although Daniel Scully paid rent to Mary Scully. So Mary owned some of the island independently or she sub-let her rented land to her brother (or brother-in-law). 

Daniel Welply was from Skibbereen and a Catholic. He was secretary to the organisation formed to bring Daniel O’Connell to Skibbereen for a Monster Meeting. So, somewhere down through the centuries the land had passed from Church of Ireland ownership to the hands of a private, Catholic, landowner. That was still not common in the first part of the 19th century – Daniel Welply must have been an exceptional individual.

When Cormac Crowley’s father was a boy, those same four families – the Crowleys and the Scullys – lived and farmed in the Middle Calf, as they had done almost 100 years earlier. Cormac’s father was John Joseph – and you can find him here on the 1926 census.

Still to come in the family, in 1929, was the late Dan Crowley – I had the honour of meeting Dan, then aged 97, last year, in his Youghal care home. He told us about his life, and Sharon Whooley, who was there too, captured it for the Museum of Birds and Beasts. He and his family were the last to leave the island, in 1937.

He had very specific memories – going for water, drawing sand up from the beach, thrashing with flails. His mother died and he was sent off to school on Cape Clear (he hated it) and then to Schull, where he was boarded out – I felt the sadness of that as he was telling us about it. His father, he said, in 1937, was glad to go at that stage, it was hard going. They were rough old days. I was eight years old then.

The ruins of the Crowley and Scully houses still stand on the Middle Calf – substantial houses grouped in a neighbourly way close together in the middle of the island – a hamlet, or chlachán. 

One of the houses consists mainly of a striking gable end, used as a landmark by sailors. Cormac explained to us that the rest of the building (it was a barn) had disappeared because it was made of wood. The wood came from a shipwreck, the Savonia. The other thing that came from the shipwreck was a cat, who made his way up to Cormac’s grandparent’s house and into their hearts.

I will leave it there for this week. Part 2 will look at how the Middle Calf Island is now, under the amazing stewardship of Cormac and Áine.

Kindness

I’ve had quite a week, and it left me in awe of how, when you live in Ireland, you experience kindness just when you need it. It never fails.

This isn’t the kind of post I normally write but today I am not inspired by castles or stained glass or saints (well, maybe. . . read on) or books or art or archaeology, but by people – the lovely ones who rescue and support you and send you on your way humbled and grateful. Let me explain. [OH – and all the flowers? I don’t know how else to illustrate this post except to construct a thank you bouquet of flowers from my garden and from the wild, all photographed today.]

On Sunday last I set out for Dublin. I was going up for a funeral and a book launch. I like to make this a two day event, staying with my oldest friend in the world, Anne, in Cork overnight. I made it almost to Bandon and all the lights on the dashboard of my 12 year old Skoda Yeti started to flash and the car went into emergency mode, in which it can only be driven a few km an hour.

I pulled over and called my insurance emergency service. It was Sunday evening and nobody was willing to be called out except for Tim, who came all the way from Killarney (an hour and a half away) to rescue me. He towed my car to the Skoda dealership in Bandon, Finbarr Galvin’s, and he took me to the hotel.

I had called the Munster Arms Hotel to be told, by Don, the owner/manager, that he had one room left. Why only one? Zach Bryan was performing in Cork and every room in a 50 mile radius was taken. Don said not to worry, he would keep the room for me no matter how late I got there. I ate at the hotel and fell into bed. In the morning, Don arrived specifically to drive me to Galvins.

Galvins was busy – I got there right when they opened, first thing Monday morning, and there was already a queue of cars coming for servicing or repairs. Grace, at the counter, said she would do her absolute best to get the car seen to today, and reassured me that whatever the problem was, they would find it. She ordered me a taxi so I could explore the delights of Bandon while I waited.

By sheer coincidence Anne, and her husband Jack, were coming to Bandon that afternoon, with their own ailing car. They picked me up and delivered me to the train station in Cork. I was at my sister’s house in Dublin by dinner time.

I made it to the funeral, on Tuesday morning and it gladdened my heart to be there for my friend Ken, who had lost his beautiful wife. Afterwards, Grace from Galvins called me and broke the bad news – it would cost more to fix the car than it was worth. I decided it was the universe telling me it was time for a new car. Back to my sister’s (Aoibhinn) and she took me under her wing and showed me how you buy a car nowadays, having gone through the process herself very recently. You go onto the big Car Store site, use the filters to select what you want to test drive, and make an appointment.

Next Morning, Wednesday, my brother (Fergus) drove me out to the Car Store where Daniel was all set – he had my desired cars lined up and we started by test-driving a Suzuki S Cross Hybrid, a few years old but very low mileage. It had me at Hello. We arrived at 10:30AM and at 1PM I drove away in my new car, thanks to Chloe at McCarthy Insurance who was right on the ball with switching my insurance to the Suzuki. Meanwhile, back at Galvin’s, Orla had taken over from Grace and had found a nearby car recovery service willing to buy the Skoda from me. She arranged for Ger O’Donovan to pick up the car.

On Thursday, I attended the book launch, which was a jolly affair. It was to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Sandford Road Church. David Caron and I had co-written the chapter on the stained glass in the church and George Walsh, who has a wonderful St Francis window in the church, was also there. Here is his St Francis.

On Friday I headed back to Cork, staying over night with Anne and Jack, and visiting, as is my wont, a couple of churches along the way, and marvelling once again at how a) beautiful Tipperary is and b) how long it takes to drive the length of it.

On Saturday I met with Ger O’Donovan in his Ballinascarthy garage (no link, just Google) where he had taken the car, and we retrieved my house keys and all the detritus that cars accumulate. He bought the car outright from me. The relief! I was back home that afternoon.

So – in the course of six days I was plunged into gloom and arrived on the other side in a celebratory mood and so so grateful for the kindness of friends, family, and strangers. Thank you Tim, Don, Anne and Jack, Grace and Orla, Aoibhinn, Fergus, Daniel, Chloe, and Ger. You are all saints stars!

Ditches and Stitches – the Cape Clear Book!

Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil is a well known historian, writer, TV presenter and story-teller. He is also a fellow graduate of Prof O’Kelly’s at UCC, in archaeology. I’ve known about his work for a long time although I only finally met him for the first time a few years ago. I subsequently followed his journey down the Blackwater River – there he was, in a canoe, guiding us down this storied river, all of it as Gaeilge. The photo above is courtesy of The Irish Examiner

He has just written what for me will become a definitive work on Cape Clear Island – Blúirí Oileánda (pronounced approx blue-ree ill-awn-de), or Island Pieces. And it’s in both languages! This is actually very rare. I am trying to improve my Irish all the time and for anyone trying to do that, a book like this is gold. I read a piece in English and then I go back and read it in Irish. I study the phraseology (so different from English!) and the vocabulary. 

But that’s only one small part of what makes this book such a treasure. Diarmuid’s roots go deep in Cape Clear. He has a house there and spends lots of time in it so he knows it to his bones. (The photo below is in case you are in any doubt that Ó Drisceoil is a common name on Cape Clear.)

But because he is also an historian and archaeologist he notices things. The spade used for digging potatoes. The way the bracken is encroaching on areas once grazed and clear. What the contents of the catch-all drawer (we all have them) tell us about the activities and needs of the household- simple repairs, basic carpentry, plumbing, painting and aimless collecting. That last one – guilty!


He also talks about the history and the archaeology of the island, including a piece about the Cape Clear Stone, and he acknowledges our blog post about this, The Stone that Moved, written way back in 2016 when Robert and I spent a few days on Cape Clear to celebrate my birthday. That’s the O’Kelly drawing of the Cape Clear stone, below.

I am going to highlight only two of his Blúirí and that’s what give my post its heading. The first is about the stone walls that crisscross the landscape on Cape Clear, known locally as as ditches. Some of them are likely to be very old, possibly prehistoric, like the one below. The photographs are my own, taken on Cape Clear – but Diarmuid’s are much better, clearly illustrating his points about the walls.

As Diarmuid puts it the style of the construction reflects the purpose of the ditch, the nature of the available stone, and the skill and artistry of the builders. Some are notional – you can step over them or knock them down, while others are thick and tall and would be difficult to breach for man or beast.

For Diarmuid the ditches represent millions of hours and days of work by nameless people, now forgotten, whose only memorial is those ditches, often unnoticed, and now not always maintained or repaired.

The second piece I want to highlight is about the Geansaí Chléire, the Cape Clear ‘Gansey’, which is the traditional name for a fisherman’s jersey. Most of us are familiar with the Aran sweater, traditionally worn by the fisherman of the Aran Islands, but few have heard of the Cape Clear gansey.

Incredibly, the one Diarmuid illustrates (above) is over 100 years old. It was knitted in Cape Clear around 1920. The man for whom it was knitted Timothy (Tade) O’Drisceoil, emigrated to the USA in 1924. In 1973 he returned it to his elderly mother, still living on the island. He had kept it in America all those years in perfect condition. Diarmuid also preserved it – Tade was his uncle. In the photo below, the knitter, Catherine Cadogan (right) is with her brother, Donnchadh, also wearing a Geansaí Chléire.

Knitters get very excited about this kind of thing and some experts have gone about ‘reverse engineering’ the gansey to figure out how it was knitted (in the round, as one single piece using very thin needles and very fine yarn). Here’s a whole video exploring that process, featuring Diarmuid himself and expert knitters. The technicalities of knitting something like this will leave you gasping.

That’s only two small samples from this delightful book. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in an informed and local eye on Cape Clear. Or indeed anyone who wants the experience of reading in both languages. You can buy it in all good Cork bookshops but also direct from Diarmuid at https://capeclearbook.ie/. 

Whittlin’ Away The Afternoon

Doesn’t that sound like the perfect way to spend a sunny afternoon – with congenial company, lovely bits of wood, and a sharp knife?

I took a workshop today – it was another one of the offerings from Kilcoe Studios. I have written about Sonia Caldwell and her Kilcoe Studios before – if it has heritage craft connections, in or around Ballydehob, you can be sure Sonia was involved.  

Our teacher was Tadhg Breathnach-Peelo, a man of many talents , including professional musician and accomplished whittler. There’s a real difference between whittling and wood carving, although they overlap, of course. Mainly, once the piece of wood you are going to work on is roughed out, you whittle with a knife – no chisels, planes or gouges.

Tadhg had brought in some hunks of a sycamore tree that someone had cut recently. Although sycamore isn’t a native Irish species, it has naturalised here now for several centuries and is perfect for whittling because it’s easily available, has a lovely colour, is tight-grained and food-safe. I am not kidding when I say that we started with a hunk of wood. Tadhg showed us how he saws it into manageable pieces (with a hand saw!) and from there he splits the log into manageable chunks – often complete with unmanageable knots.

The next step was to cut that down again to produce a “billet,” the term for a piece of wood split (rather than sawn) from a log along the grain. Splitting along the grain rather than sawing across it keeps the fibres intact and continuous along the length of the piece, which makes for a stronger and easier-to-carve blank than a sawn one.

In no time he had worked that billet down into a “blank” – the very rough shape of what we would produce – in this case, a butter spreader. He had used his wood-working axe to this point.

Switching to a knife, he showed us how to hold it safely and what whittling techniques to use for thinning and shaping the blanks.

We got to work and every now and then Tadhg would stop us and describe how best to do the next step in the process. Very little blood was shed. Concentration was so complete that there were periods of complete silence in the room – I think that’s called a flow state. At any rate, even at this beginner level, I began to understand the total absorption that led Tadhg to become, as he told us, addicted to the skill and art of whittling. When I stopped for a break after an hour or so, I was surprised to find that I couldn’t uncurl my fingers without an effort.

Using the tip of the knife to peel off those tiny shavings of wood around the point of the spreader, and the larger curls that come from more vigorous slicing action, led to appreciation of how to work with and against the grain, how and when to press harder and to ease off. 

Above, left to right, Tadgh’s, mine, a blank and one he made before. Of course, none of us produced a masterpiece, but all of us got a butter spreader that we were proud of. I will be nonchalantly including mine in every dinner party I give – oh, that old thing, I made it myself…

Whittling is something I associated with Burl Ives types, sitting in the swing chair on the front porch. Now I know it as a craft and a skill that is probably as old as time, that is the work of artisans, that produces pieces that are honest rather than refined, full of character and made by the hand, the eye and the heart.

Look out for Tadhg at the Skibbereen market on Saturdays.

Templebryan – complex and compelling

One of the most fascinating archaeological sites in West Cork is Templebryan, close to Shannonvale, a complex that includes a multiple stone circle and an early ecclesiastical site with a large pillar stone that may be contemporary with either of those sites. The location was likely a focus of activity from the Bronze Age to the present day.

Before we explore the site itself, and because I haven’t written this kind of post for a while, you might like to (re)familiarise yourself with both stone circles and ecclesiastical sites.  For the stone circles, go to Stone Circles of West Cork: an Introduction. At the bottom of the post under ‘Related” you will find links to the other three posts (Multiple Stone Circles, Five-Stone Circles and the Discussion). There are very few of the Templebryan type of ecclesiastical sites in West Cork but one I have written about is at Croagh Cove – it will give you an excellent idea of this type of site. I am inserting here one of the illustrations from that post. 

Since it’s the older, let’s start with the stone circle. This is a multiple stone circle. Although only 5 stones remain (one fallen), there were originally 9 stones in the circle. What’s unusual about this circle is the presence of a near-centrally placed quartz boulder. There are several other stone circles with such internal monoliths and all seem to be deliberately off-centre.

The other feature that’s noticeable here is that most of the stones still standing have flat tops – that seems to be a deliberate choice and can be observed in some other stone circles too.

The probable alignment is, like Drombeg, to the winter solstice. However, Mike Wilson in his Mega-What site, also traces lunar alignments. 

Outliers – standing stones close to or at some distance from the circle, are an accepted feature of some stone circles, and some antiquarians have posited that the pillar stone in the ecclesiastical enclosure may have been one of them, later adapted and christianised for use by the monks. Since it has not been excavated we cannot know if this is so. The late great Jack Roberts thought it was possible – here is one of his marvellous illustrations of the various things to be found at Templebryan.

Templebryan was of great interest to antiquarians and Marian O’Leary, in a wonderful essay in the Clonakilty Journal, has looked at their often fantastical renderings of the stone circle. This is one of her illustrations, dating from 1742!

The ecclesiastical site is located a field over to the northwest. We don’t have  a secure date, but it fits the pattern of such foundations from the early medieval period with a likely date between the 600s to the 900s. 

The aerial photos and the maps confirm that the central church was a rectangular building and it sat within a circular enclosure which now forms the field boundary.

These early sites often had an outer circular boundary as well, and traces of this can be found still – I had a close look at the aerial photo and my arrows (above) point to where the line of the outer circle might be. But that’s mostly speculation, or perhaps wishful thinking on my part – what do you think?

The Nendrum site shown in the Croagh Cove post is a good example of this outer and inner enclosure pattern for early Irish monastic foundations. Above is an illustration of what that might have looked like, taken from the information board at Nendrum, which we visited in 2022.

The ogham stone and a bullaun stone lie inside the enclosure. Bullaun stones are commonly found at ecclesiastical sites – abbeys, monasteries, old churches. Although they may be far older and have been used in some kind of food processing (such as grinding acorns) it seems that their obvious affinity to fonts has caused them to be brought to religious sites over the centuries. Read Robert’s post The Enigmatic Bullaun for the variety of beliefs (from blessings to cursings) that have accrued to bullaun stones.

The ogham stone is a tall pointed pillar and it has both an inscribed cross and ogham writing on it. However, it is impossible to make them out. The only mark I saw that looked like a cross was this one. Not very convincing. 

And the ogham is just as hard to see. According to the National Monuments listing it was read by Macalister in 1945 as ANM TENAS MACI V. While Macalister was a giant in the field of ogham research, he has been criticised for erroneous readings. If he was correct this would read (pray for?) The soul of Tenas, son of V. 

There are two souterrains in the enclosure, neither of which are accessible now. One of them was investigated in 1974 and consisted of three earth-cut chambers joined by creepways. 

Finally, we have a holy well. And of course I have visited it in the company of Ms Holy Wells herself, Amanda Clarke.

See her account of the well and our visit here. In it she refers to frisky horses and she wasn’t kidding. 

The same horse later showed us how useful he found the ogham stone for those much-needed scratches. Heaven!

Templebryan is a great site if you get a chance to visit. Just please be aware that the ecclesiastical part it is on private land and it is always proper to knock in the farmhouse door and ask for permission. The stone circle is accessible from the road.

All the Saints

We have over 40 posts about Irish Saints (despite being very unsaintly ourselves). That’s because Irish saints are so much part of the Irish culture. Two of our national holidays are for Irish saints (Patrick on March 17 and Brigid on Feb 1 or closest Monday), many of our place names come from Saints (anything starting in Kill or Cill, for example), and many of us are named for Irish saints (you know who you are). Above is a window labelled the Vision of St Ita, and our header image is Dympna.

So I have put together a new Page. Our Pages (find them by clicking on the little three-bar icon in the header) act as sub-menus so that you can more easily navigate content, since we have almost 1200 posts.

Take a look at the new page, and while you’re at it, have a browse. You might want to read, if you haven’t already, my two favourites: The Patron Saint of Atheists? and St Brandanus: A 14th-Century Graphic Novel (it’s a three-parter). Or perhaps you share a name with one of our saints and want to see what they’ve been up to.

The Irish saints we write about (except for one) predate the Vatican’s formal canonisation process — they became saints by local acclamation and long tradition rather than papal decree. Of the four Irish saints officially canonised by Rome – Malachy, Lawrence O’Toole, Oliver Plunkett (above), and Charles of Mount Argus* (no, I had never heard of him either) – only Oliver Plunkett features among our posts. The 19th-century revival of interest in early Irish texts brought many of these saints back into wider knowledge. See The White Hound of Brigown (that’s him below) for example, for the wonderful translations and language of Whitley Stokes, one of the great scholars of early Irish literature.

Finally, if you have a more than passing interest in Irish saints I highly recommend the blog Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae AKA All the Saints of Ireland, or its sister site https://triasthaumaturga.blogspot.com/ AKA The Three Wonderworking Patrons of Ireland. They are both by my friend Marcella. What she doesn’t know about Irish saints isn’t worth knowing.

Kudos to anyone who can name the two saints in the image above and tell us what the younger one is holding.

*A correspondent has informed me that St Charles of Mount Argus is the patron saint of the Gardaí – the Irish police force.