Cork

Keeping Time in Youghal

I had time to pass in East Cork on Saturday, so I went off to Youghal (pronounce it ‘yawl’), a substantial town with a great deal of history. I had a purpose in mind: to check out a recently opened museum, dedicated to the way that the time of day was chronicled here over a number of centuries.

The museum is housed in an iconic building that has spanned the main street of the town for 250 years: the Clock Gate Tower. That’s it bottom centre in the aerial view below, and underneath that is the more usual view of it, from the road. It’s the most visible building in Youghal town, and you can see one of its three clock faces (which all show exactly the same time) in this photograph.

In medieval times Youghal was a walled town, and the site of the Clock Gate Tower was one of the defended entrance points at the south end of the enclosed settlement; Finola has written about the walls here. Masonry walls were fine in the days of bows and arrows but became obsolete when heavy artillery took over: by the late 1700s the town had expanded beyond the walls and the southern gate was redundant: before the Clock Gate Tower was completed in 1777 a medieval gateway known as the Iron Gate stood on the site.

Upper – a map from the Pacata Hibernia showing Youghal – first published in 1633: we are looking at the town from the east. The Iron gate is highlighted: even then the town had expanded beyond the original walls. Lower – the Iron Gate in 1681: by that time the original defensive towers had been embellished with a clock and bell tower

It was perhaps whimsical – in the 18th century – to replace the earlier gate with a building which could be seen as a pastiche of what was there before, but it has certainly succeeded in creating a distinctive landmark which has lasted to the present day, and continues to fulfil the function of a clock and bell tower central to the town.

This early photograph of Youghal’s main street with the Clock Tower probably dates from around 1900

I took the Clock Gate Tower Tour and can assure you that a great time was had by all who were on it. Before you go, however, make sure you are able for climbing the six flights of steps from street level to the very top: there were no lifts in the 1770s, and no way that any mechanical assistance could now be fitted into the restricted spaces in the building. However, the staircases are safe and easy, and there is plenty of time to pause on each floor to see the fascinating displays that have been installed. I’m not going to reveal everything that the tour includes, or you might think you don’t need to take part! Just a few tasters will suffice.

I will disclose that you will get a feeling for what prison life was like two or three hundred years ago, as this was then one of the main functions of the tower, and one of the floors has been set out as a cell. Our enthusiastic ‘storyteller’ guide, Katy (above) pointed out that the restricted space could have held a large number of inmates, unsegregated and crowded together with no sanitation (other than a window). Prisoners had to pay for their own food, which was hauled up through the same window from friends outside. Even in 1841 the conditions that prevailed here were considered appalling – and Youghal was specifically mentioned in the Report of Inspectors General on the General State of the Prisons of Ireland of that year:

My favourite room was one dedicated to the workings of the clock (header picture and above). From the earliest days the Clock Keeper was also responsible for ringing the town bell:

. . . In 1622 Balltazar Portingale was appointed as clock-keeper and was given free quarters in return for ringing the clock at four in the morning from Easter to Michaelmas, and at five in the morning from Michaelmas to Easter, and at nine at night all the year. . .

In more modern times the bell was also employed to summon the fire brigade. Following complaints from some outlying residents of the town that it could not be heard, the original bell was replaced with a larger version, still in use today and connected to the clock mechanism for striking the hours.

From 1915 to 1955 three generations of the McGrath family lived as tenants in the tower: they had responsibility for winding its clock and announcing a death by ringing the town bell. John McGrath, now 80, was born in the Clock Gate and has great memories of his childhood there: he provided a lot of the information to help fit out the fourth floor of the museum as a 1950s interior, and he can be heard talking about his youthful experiences on one of the audio-visual screens:

As someone who also grew up in the 1950s (but not in a clock tower!) I can confirm the authenticity of some of the exhibits in the highest room of the museum

Probably the most exciting part of Youghal’s Clock Gate Tower Tour is the culmination: being allowed to ascend to the viewing platform at the very top. It’s a small area, but safely enclosed with unobtrusive glass balustrades. From it you get a panoramic vista in all directions over the whole town and the sea beyond. And, knowing how much history you are standing above, it’s well worth the modest tour fee. It will be time well spent!

This museum experience is proving justly popular: if you plan a visit check in advance with the Clock Gate website. In the summer tours are run seven days a week – I believe winter opening hours are being assessed; there is a phone number on the website. Have a great time . . .

An Excursion to Dunboy

We have often visited the Beara Peninsula: it’s not too far away and makes a good day’s outing for us. Have a look at some recent posts here and here to get the feel of the geography. Yesterday we had a mission – to discover more about Donal Cam O’Sullivan Beare (1561 – 1618) and his connections with Dunboy Castle, over by Castletown-Bearhaven – often known as Castletownbere or just Castletown – in the far west of County Cork.

Our first stop was at the bustling harbour of Castletownbere which sits at the foot of the Caha Mountains. …Where land and sea collide, untamed beauty abounds… – that’s the apt heading on the website of the town’s Development Association, and it most certainly seems a lively and flourishing community, a good base from which to explore the wealth of history and archaeology on the Beara. Daphne du Maurier’s novel, Hungry Hill, is set in the area and is a family saga loosely derived from the history of the Irish ancestors of du Maurier’s friend, Christopher Puxley.

We paused only for a much-needed coffee and a quick look in the Sarah Walker Gallery (precariously and picturesquely situated on the end of the town’s slipway – it’s the white building in the picture above) before setting out to find Dunboy. I had read a little of the history of the place, and knew that it had been a centre of rebellion following the Battle of Kinsale in 1601 – 1602, when allied Irish and Spanish forces were defeated at the culmination of the Nine Years War between England and the Gaelic lordships.

At the edge of the Dunboy Demense are traces of a castellated sea-wall and a gatehouse (above).  The territory was a stronghold of the O’Sullivan Beare clan leader, and was built to guard and defend the harbour of Berehaven. Its presence enabled O’Sullivan Beare to control the sea fisheries off the coast and collect taxes from Irish and continental European fishing vessels sheltering in the haven. It was also a centre for trade to and from the continent. In the aftermath of the Battle Of Kinsale Donal Cam O’Sullivan Beare’s followers retreated to Dunboy Castle, which was considered an impregnable stronghold.

The 25″ historic Ordnance Survey map (upper picture) shows the location of the O’Sullivan Beare fortress, circled in red. Don’t be confused by the ‘Dunboy Castle’ label: this is a later building added to an existing tower house that stood on the hill above the promontory. The estate came into the hands of the Puxley family who invested significantly in the Allihies copper mines in the 19th century. The development in the centre of the aerial view above is Puxley Manor, and is a 21st century incarnation of the huge neo-gothic family mansion created by the family, which was burnt out by the IRA in the 1920s.

These pictures show the mansion after its destruction and today. In the lower photograph you can see the original tower house in the foreground: the buildings were fully restored as part of a high-profile ‘Celtic Tiger’ project to create a 6-star hotel which could have brought employment and significant economic benefits to the area. Unfortunately the project collapsed before completion, and the future of this decaying leviathan is uncertain.

We could only look in awe at the very evident and lavish quality of the restoration and development, even in its present state, and speculate how its fortunes might have fared in more stable times. But all this was a bit of a diversion, as our goal was a much less audacious – but far more historically important – site: the original ‘Dunboy Castle’. We followed the trackway along the inlet, which looks as though it was artificially constructed to form a quay serving the demesne.

The ruin itself is unassuming: thick stone walls barely a few metres high. However, the ground plan is clear to see – a typical ‘tower house’ design with splayed openings and steps contained in the thickness of the outer walls. Also visible in the surroundings, however, are the clear ‘star’ shapes of an enclosure, complete with salient angles. These outer defences, reminiscent of ‘star-shaped forts’ evidently date from Cromwellian times, constructed after the castle was destroyed.

These ruins conceal an unhappy tale. At Kinsale the clan chiefs had been joined by a large force of troops sent by King Philip III of Spain, who considered that a federation with Ireland would assist his aspirations against Elizabethan England. After the surrender, a number of O’Sullivan followers retreated to Dunboy, where they found the small Spanish force stationed there  preparing to hand the castle over to the queen’s Lord Deputy, Mountjoy. O’Sullivan overpowered and disarmed the Spaniards and later released them to return to Spain, having kept kept all of their arms, ordnance and munitions. Inevitably, an English force under George Carew set out for Dunboy: it is said that this force numbered between 4,000 and 5,000 troops. O’Sullivan Beare established defences at the castle, but set off himself with most of his own army to consolidate in the north of the Beara Peninsula. Only 143 of his men were left behind at Dunboy, together with Friar Dominic Collins to look after their spiritual welfare. The siege of Dunboy began with an artillery bombardment by land and sea. Owen O’Sullivan of Carriganass, a cousin of Donal Cam, had allied himself with the English and informed them of a weak point in the castle walls. The guns were directed to that point, and the walls were eventually breached. After a ten day siege, Dunboy was reduced to the ruin we see today.

Above is a wonderful graphic illustration of the Siege of Dunboy Castle from Pacata Hibernia or A History of the Wars in Ireland during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth first published in 1633. Only 72 of the Irish defenders survived the siege: they were all hanged, including Friar Dominic Collins. Most of the hangings took place in the bustling square of Castletown-Bearhaven, close to where we had enjoyed our coffee at the start of our excursion.

Here I am meeting Donal Cam himself in the ruins of his former stronghold. My account of the Siege of Dunboy is a very condensed version. Much more has been written about the details. As for O’Sullivan Beare, he eventually embarked on a long march to Leitrim with a thousand of his followers – but that’s a further unhappy story, best kept for another day!

Dunboy Castle and its immediate environs are publicly accessible and there is plenty of parking within easy reach. We finished our day on the Beara by following a rural loop walk from the castle ruin back to the gatehouse – about 5 kilometres in idyllic surroundings.

York or Cork?

If this seems an enigmatic title, it is reflective of the fact that Finola and I have just visited Yorkshire, where  – for Finola’s birthday – we treated ourselves to a superabundance of medieval architecture and some idyllic wanderings in the Dales (that’s Malham Cove, a spectacular limestone cliff and pavement, above). This set me to thinking about comparisons between the county of Yorkshire and our own County Cork: both are the largest counties in their respective countries, but Yorkshire – at 14,850 km2 – is almost double the area of Cork, 7,500 km2.

The gaunt ruins of Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire: this was the first great Cistercian abbey in Britain, established in 1132. It became one of the most powerful and housed a community of 650 brothers at its peak in the 1160s under its most famous abbot, Aelred

In Ireland we can’t compete with the sheer scale of the monastic settlements that we can see in Yorkshire. However, in spite of those impressive ruins which are so well cared for by the state and the National Trust, nothing can compare, for us, with the timeless serenity and isolated beauty of places such as Kilree, which Finola described in a recent post.

The medieval High Cross at Kilree, Co Kilkenny. This example of ecclesiastical art probably dates from the 8th century and stands remote and seldom visited, deep in rural Ireland – a reclusive gem

I feel that this post gives me an excuse to tell a little Cork / York story that I learned many years ago from Gerald Priestland, the BBC’s religious affairs correspondent from 1977 to 1982 – who lived not far away from me in West Penwith, Cornwall. Priestland was researching the history of the Parish of St Buryan in the far west of the peninsula: the Irish saint, Buriana, was said to be the sister of St Piran, Patron Saint of Cornwall – who, you will know from reading my posts – here, (and here), was born on Cape Clear, just over the water from us in West Cork, where he was known by the name of St Ciarán. Finola is republishing another post about Cape Clear today.

The coast of West Penwith, Cornwall: Gerald Priestland lived here – on the hill, and I lived not far away – over the hill

St Buryan was known as “The Wickedest Parish in Cornwall” in earlier times – I can’t vouch for its present day reputation! This was supposedly because the settlement (which Priestland describes as . . . a bleak and haunted landscape . . .) received a special privilege in the year 936 from the Saxon King Athelstan as he was passing through on his way to defeat the Danes on the Isles of Scilly. He founded an independent College of Priests at St Buryan and layed down that the lands (some 770 acres) . . . are to be exempt from all secular assessment; but not from the rendering of prayers which the clergy have promised me (that is, Athelstan): 100 Masses and 100 Psalters daily . . . The Domesday Book confirms that Buryan maintained its freedom from taxation but also confirms the charter that . . . the privilege and ordinance of sanctuary and aforementioned liberty may not perish through old age . . . That is to say that St Buryan was made a place of sanctuary then, and will remain so always. The consequence of this was that any wrong-doer or fugitive, instead of having to go into exile, could live freely within the parish boundaries without suffering any punishment – forever. So the place filled up with felons, brigands, rogues and villains!

Scenic Yorkshire: landscape of the Dales (just to remind you of the subject of today’s post)!

St Buryan became – and remained – a den of iniquity. So much so that in 1328 the Bishop of Exeter, Grandisson, was forced to excommunicate everyone in the settlement. Priestland writes:

Grandisson came as close to the boundaries of Buryan as he dared, and from the top of St Michael’s Mount – six miles across the water – he pronounced the fulminacio sentencio contra Barianes – the Greater Excommunication against the people of Buryan. The bell was tolled and the book and candles were cast down. There are not many parishes in England that can claim that very specific distinction . . .

Deans continued to be appointed to the parish – and were duly paid a stipend – but none of them ever went there. The last of the absentee Deans was Fitzroy Henry Stanhope, an army officer of ill reputation who had lost a leg at Waterloo (he was known thereafter as ‘Peter Shambles’). He was offered the position at Buryan in 1817 by his Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of York, in lieu of an army pension: it was worth a thousand pounds a year. There was one problem: Stanhope had to be ordained, but no-one could be found to do it. One day the Duke was told that his friend the Bishop of Cork was on Holiday in London. At once Stanhope was sent round in a carriage with the message:

“Dear Cork – Please ordain Stanhope – Yours York”

By sundown, he was back, with the reply:

“Dear York – Stanhope’s ordained – Yours Cork”

This incident has gone down in history as the shortest piece of official correspondence on record. And doubly justifies the title of my post today!

Malham Cove again: this geological formation would have been a huge waterfall as the glaciers began to melt after the last Ice Age. In the lower picture you can see the true scale of the place – look at those figures on the lower ledge! It is a popular spot for climbers

So – Cork, or York? We are very fortunate to be able to travel so easily to see the beautiful places of the world. But – always – the best part of travelling for me is coming home to West Cork: there’s no doubt where my heart is . . .

County Cork landscapes: Mount Gabriel (upper) and our very own view (lower) from Nead an Iolair, taken on the day I returned from Yorkshire. Below – looking across to the Mizen, from the Sheep’s Head.

Ballydehob on Bahnhofstrasse!

What are all these people looking at? Is this Ireland? And when? Firstly, what they are looking at is a street performance – and the performers are Irish – not just Irish, but all from West Cork! And, the spectators are in Switzerland! We know exactly when this happened: 34 years ago. Here’s the story, and here is what they were watching:

Brian Lalor – Curator of our Ballydehob Arts Museum – was one of a group of artists who travelled from West Cork to Zurich in May 1985 to put on a large exhibition of their work in the city. He is telling the story through one of the two new exhibitions which has just opened in Bank House, Main Street, Ballydehob – and which will be running through to September this year. Plenty of time to come and have a look, but don’t miss it! The exhibitions can be seen when the Mizen Gateway Tourism Centre is open in the former bank building, right in the centre of town. Generally, Bank House is open Mondays to Wednesdays, 12 noon to 6pm, and Thursdays to Saturdays, 11am to 5pm. Because the centre is partly run by volunteers, please check by phone prior to coming: 028 25922.

The original 1985 exhibition poster was produced as a limited edition artwork by Coilin Murray, one of the participants

Having set up the exhibition in the Reithalle, Zurich – a fine, capacious premises, the artists realised that relatively few people were coming to see it, as it was a fair way out of the main thoroughfares, and little publicity had been organised in advance. So they put their creative heads together and came up with the idea of making a piece of art in the city centre – something which no-one could ignore.

The artists took as their starting point one of the most important sculptors of the 20th Century, Alberto Giacometti, from Switzerland. He was famous for his ‘matchstick figures’: have a look at the book cover above. Ballydehob’s version of ‘Giacometti’ was built on a trailer – mainly by artists Ian Wright and Pat Connor – and he was playing an Alpenhorn. Brian Lalor made several sketches of the event (you can see him in the picture above, and one of his sketches above that): these sketches have lain dormant for 34 years and have not been shown anywhere until the Ballydehob exhibition, where they are being unveiled for the first time. Although a serious business, it was all a bit tongue-in-cheek. I think you can tell that by the name the artists gave their statue – Jack O’Metti! However, it was a tremendous success, and the crowds came flocking.

A further dimension was added to the street performance when John Verling had his legs encased in a plaster cast by Ian Wright, all the while singing the sean-nos song ‘The Rocks of Bawn’. The significance of this particular event escapes me . . .

At the opening of our exhibition last Thursday, there were present several of the artists from the early days, some of whom had contributed to the events of Zurich ’85: it was an historic occasion!

A line-up of West Cork artists from the heady Bohemian days: Birgitta Saflund, Brian Lalor, Leda May, Pat Connor, Jim Turner and Carol James. All pictured together at this week’s opening of the Ballydehob Arts Museum

There’s more! The Ballydehob on Bahnhofstrasse story is only one of the new exhibitions in Bank House; the other is The Irish Tea Ceremony. If that intrigues you, I’m not going to give the game away. Come and see for yourself what goes on in this little corner of Ireland – and be amazed!

Find out much more by visiting our brand new website – launched along with the exhibition:

www.ballydehobartsmuseum.com

Mizen Magic 15: Long Island

The summer sun is falling soft on Carbery’s hundred isles— 
The summer sun is gleaming still through Gabriel’s rough defiles—

(from Thomas Osborne Davis The Sack of Baltimore 1844)

Up here in Nead an Iolair (Eagle’s Nest) we look out over the Carbery Islands. There are supposed to be a hundred of them, although some are just little rocky outcrops: the tips of underwater mountains at the margins – and the mercy – of the Atlantic.

Horse Island, Castle Island and Long Island lie along the length of the coast below us. Peter Somerville-Large (The Coast of West Cork 1972) quotes a tradition that they all used to be one island:

In the latter end of March, AD 830, Hugh Domdighe being monarch of Ireland, there happened terrible shocks of thunder and lightning . . . At the same time the sea broke through the banks in a most violent manner, The Island, then called Innisfadda, on the west coast of this country was forced asunder and divided into three parts.

Long Island is still known as Inis Fada in the Irish language: the Anglicised name is a direct translation; header – the long road that winds from East to West on Long Island; second picture – the Wester village seen above the Atlantic breakers on the wild and battered far shore

We had a day’s adventure on the island, walking almost the full length of it; Finola was madly busy identifying all the wildflowers. It’s part of the magic of Long Island that we covered a distance of over 10 kilometres in the day, although the length of the island tip to tip is just over 4k. There is a regular ferry to the island from Colla Pier (not every day of the week), but we chose to travel from Schull pier with Helen of Schull Sea Safari (a whale watching trip with Helen will be a future outing for us). Our mode of transport was Helen’s very fine large RIB, the Kealtra – superbly equipped. With a hard south-easterly wind the waters were very choppy and we had to be fully kitted out for the crossing!

Upper – intrepid travellers kitted out for a choppy crossing on the Kealtra! Lower – skipper Donie taking the RIB out of Schull Harbour

After the heady excitement of a blustery crossing, stepping on to the tranquil world of Long Island is a magical experience. You are immediately aware that the place holds memories – and ghosts – but is still a community in the modern world thriving against the odds.

Everywhere there are signs of the past: abandonment, fading history, but also livings still being forged from the environment. The sadness is the obvious population decline. Looking through the available census records, a melancholic picture emerges: 1841 – population 305; 1911 – population 143; 1951 – population 74; 1991 – population 11; today – population 7 (and that’s an increase of 1 from 2 years ago). There was once a school: the decaying building is now a lonely waymark at the centre of the island’s single boreen.

The Island School – long deserted and gently decomposing

Peter Somerville-Large in conversation with the local residents during his visit half a  century ago:

I talked to Mr McCarthy, who had lived here all his life and could remember when the place had been full of fishermen all speaking a mixture of Irish and English. One by one he had watched them leave. A dozen families still remained, comprising perhaps forty people altogether. The school had shrunk year by year, to four pupils, then two – it closed after that. There was neither electricity, nor any shop – nothing to keep the young from making the short crossing over to the mainland. It would take them fifteen minutes, according to wind and weather. There they disappeared for ever. When the old ones like himself died out the place would become empty.

Contrasts at the west end of Long Island

Although there are many houses that are intact and well looked-after (a number are holiday homes), you would think that the odds were ultimately stacked against the survival of this island. Yet those who do live here full-time have tenacity – and there is fresh energy. Helen and Maurice have built their own new house and run businesses which allow them to be island based, while Castaway East is a ‘Place of New Beginnings’, a venture offering B & B or full board and – if you want – retreat packages to recharge your batteries. Peter and Tracy are also experts in garden landscaping as can be seen from the works they have carried out for themselves.

The East end of the Island: you can walk past Peter and Tracy’s ‘Island Retreat’ to the old copper mine and navigation beacon

We were pleased to find that the island’s well has been maintained and presented in excellent order – mainly by Joe, one of the Islanders. It’s a little haven, not to be missed. The day’s adventure gave us so much photogenic material – I will be returning to this magical place in a future post.

Cooleenlemane – A Walk into History

Finola has written about the destination of our adventures yesterday – the inscribed ‘caves’ at Cooleenlemane. Above is a photo of the view from the ‘cave’ entrance, looking back at the glen which we journeyed across. My post today is about that journey on foot through decades of human history and thousands of years of topographical transformation.

Upper – looking back and leaving the world behind: a rough track climbs up from the entrance to the Cooleenlemane valley and very soon we were absorbed into the wild emptiness of the mountainsides (lower)

When I looked into the furthest reaches of the glen as we made our way over the rocky track I saw first, in my mind’s eye, the movement of the glacier which shaped it – the splintering, shuddering path it took and the debris it left in its wake: strangely distorted outcrops and huge erratic boulders feigning dice unrestrainedly scattered by a random hand.

Scribings on the rocks in the glen of Cooleenlemane: these are made by nature (and the movement of glaciers) long before humans appeared in Ireland. I often wonder whether observation of these marks could have inspired our earliest artists?

Then I couldn’t help the vision that came into my mind of herds of the huge Irish Elk – Megaloceros giganteus – that ruled places such as this in Ireland after the ice receded 10,000 years ago. It was around that time that human habitation came back to these revitalised lands: some say that it was human hunters who wiped out the elk – and the bear – in Ireland using spears, bows and rocks. When you are immersed in these wild places, with no signs of the 21st century around you, it is easy to imagine such scenes from the distant past.

But – lonely and remote as this valley seems today – there is significant evidence of enduring human occupation here. As we journeyed up to the ‘caves’ we were tracing ancient tracks and paths and saw the remains of several settlements: stone walls, enclosures including a cashel, and many haphazard piles of rock that presumably came from rudimentary field clearances. We had the good fortune to meet and talk to Pat Joe O’Leary, who resides in the last house before you enter the glen, and he told us that sixteen families had lived out here.

Some of the many traces that remain of the dwellings which were once occupied by  families eking out their lives in the remoteness of Cooleenlemane and (lower image) piles of stones cleared from the lands to provide pastures and potato beds

It’s right to describe the stories that Pat Joe told us as living memories, because he carries them. His own family has lived in the valley for generations so – like the bards of old – he is the keeper of the traditions and lore of the area. One of his tales was about a man from the glen who was the last to be hanged in Cork gaol. His name was Timothy Cadogan, and he was accused of the murder of William Bird, a land agent, at Bantry in 1900. Tim Cadogan was from one of the families who lived in Cooleenlemane – who had been evicted by Bird – and Pat Joe assured us that the name T Cadogan is inscribed on a stone beside one of the old buildings in the valley. Unfortunately, we did not hear this until we were returning from our expedition, so missed seeing the stone. Interestingly there is a record in the Schools Folklore Collection – in Irish – describing the same event, more or less in the same words that Pat Joe used. The event occurred in 1900, became recorded as folklore in 1936, and was told to us as oral tradition in 2019!

Contemporary newspaper account of the hanging of Timothy Cadogan – formerly from Cooleenamane – on 11 January 1901. Cadogan was tried twice before being sentenced to hang. The ‘Bungled Execution’ is reported as a failure on the part of the executioner, causing the condemned man to suffer a long, slow death by strangulation

Ignorant of such thoughts of the harsh realities of the world – even this far-away corner of it – we reached our destination: the ‘caves’. This is an unusual rock formation where a large outcrop has been split into enormous slabs, probably through glacial action. The rocks lean against each other and form crude shelters, within which are the inscribed surfaces. Finola’s post describes these in detail.

The rocks which form the ‘caves’ have a brooding presence on the landscape. It’s not surprising that they harbour enigmatic symbols with some possible other-worldly connotations

In addition to the sites of old farms and cottages that we passed by and explored on our trail, we clearly saw the imprint of ‘lazy-beds’ – ridge and furrow arable cultivation methods traditionally used in Ireland for planting the potato. These took our minds back to famine times and the harsh reality of having to forge an existence out of minimal resources. Also, we could only wonder at how clearly life – and history – have been etched into these aged and incredibly beautiful landscapes.

The very clear impressions of the potato beds which tell of the subsistence farming practiced for generations in Cooleenlemane accompanied our hike

Looking back on our day in the wildness of West Cork, my abiding memories are beauty and poignancy. I have used this term before – achingly beautiful – and I often have to return to it in order to try to sum up my own emotional reaction to such unique places in Ireland. You won’t find these places in tourist guides – getting here is hard work! Nor will you find very much recorded in the archaeological records about Cooleenlemane. But everything you see here is Ireland’s real history – deep, deep history; we are fortunate in every step we take into it.