The weather so far this year is breaking records for coldness, wetness and evapotranspiration – while Earth as a whole continues to get warmer. In simple terms that means it’s not pleasant to wander too far from home. I decided to walk down to the shoreline of Rossbrin Cove – all of ten minutes – and see what the winter storms may have washed up: often an interesting diversion.
Above: looking down on Rossbrin Cove with some of the islands of Roaringwater Bay beyond. It is a natural harbour, and there is a thriving boatyard at the western end of it. The difference between low and high tides is around 2.5 metres on average, and much of the inlet dries out when it is at an extreme low. I timed my walk to arrive when the tide was fully down, as I wanted to explore the exposed mud-flats, with hopes of finding intriguing detritus.
Not an inspiring start! In fact, as I continued my review, I noted that there was very little other than the natural environment – weather-worn boulders, skeletal shells and masses of seaweed – to disturb the order of things in Rossbrin on this February day. If our harsh storms had been of some positive effect it was perhaps to flush out any washed-up debris that might have accumulated in the winter – being now past St Brigid’s Day I consider it appropriate to call the season spring.
No matter that the exploration was superficially disappointing, the magic of this little bit of West Cork soon took over, and my mind was filled with the enormity of its history. There was a university here in medieval times: manuscripts were written here in the castle that has become a crumbling pile. Ravens and seabirds now rule over the stronghold. I walked on.
The margins of the cove are lined with ancient banks. At every turn there is a composition which a maestro could frame: I make do with a camera. Rossbrin inspired our artist friend Peter Clarke . . . Thank you, Peter!
Evidence of more recent history: possibly a pot which was used in the process of tarring a clinker boat hull. No doubt vessels were built on these shores – and used to make basic livings. There is still fishing activity in and around the cove; mussel beds thrive in Roaringwater Bay; seaweed collection happens also. In summer months the deeper waters of Rossbrin are occupied by leisure orientated sailing craft. I enjoy the calm days of winter when there is hardly anything on the water. I watched a small flock of oystercatchers scurrying and foraging with their brilliant beaks, and then I turned for home.
The Rossbrin oystercatchers were uncooperative, and wouldn’t let me photograph them. Instead I have imported this wonderfully atmospheric painting by Cornish based artist Steve Sherris. Thank you, Steve
We have posted extensively about Rossbrin Cove, its history and its people. Have a look at these:
Adam and Eve in the Garden is an Aubusson tapestry, from the Atelier Tabard Frères et Soeurs (artist website) designed by Louis le Brocquy and dating from 1951-52. Le Brocquy was born in Dublin in 1916 and led a long life which included travelling extensively across continents, always completely engaged in art. He died in Dublin in 2012. On his death, President Michael D Higgins said: ”Today I lament the loss of a great artist and wonderful human being whose works are amongst this country’s most valuable cultural assets and are cherished by us all. Louis leaves to humanity a truly great legacy.” In 2002 the National Gallery of Ireland acquired le Brocquy’s painting ‘A Family’ – the first work by a living artist admitted to its permanent collection.
While out exploring the byways of rural County Wicklow, we chanced upon le Brocquy’s burial place. It’s in the little Church of Ireland graveyard at Calary. We had never heard of it before but – as we reconnoitred – the realisation dawned upon us that this is a very special site. Le Brocquy is probably the most eminent artist interred in these grounds, but he is only one of very many who have presumably chosen to spend eternity in this remote but extremely beautiful corner of rural Ireland. The views towards the not-too-far-away mountains are dramatic.
Le Brocquy’s wife, Anne Madden was born in London in 1932 to an Irish father and an Anglo-Chilean mother, and is still living. Madden spent her first years in Chile, where her Father owned a farm. Madden’s family moved to Corrofin, Ireland when she was ten years old. During the 1950s she met le Brocquy who was then working in London. They married in Chartres Cathedral in 1958 and set up house and studio in Carros in the south of France, where they remained until 2000. The empty plot at Calary beside Louis is presumably saved for her: she will add significantly to the artistic distinction of this community. The plot to the south of him is taken by Anne’s mother – Esther Madden Simpson – and brother – Jeremy Madden Simpson.
Anne Madden and Louis le Brocquy, 1974 (public domain). From that year onwards the family spent long summers on the Beara Peninsula.
A relatively recent gravestone added to Calary is this one, dating from 2018. It remembers Nicole Fischer, a viola player with the RTE Concert Orchestra and the Amici String Trio. Sadly, her death occurred when she was in the prime of her life.
This impressive and beautiful gravestone is the work of Wicklow sculptor Séighean Ó Draoi. There are a number of unusual markers within this site: every one tells a story, of course.
Maurice Carey led a distinguished life in the Church of Ireland. He served as Dean of Cork from 1971 to 1993, when he retired, and in retirement returned to his native Dublin where he was in charge of St John’s Church, Sandymount. While in Cork, Dean Carey presided over a period of great change in St Fin Barre’s Cathedral and he was instrumental in setting up the St Fin Barre’s Study Centre. He also achieved much in the musical and liturgical life of the cathedral. “. . . His freshness of mind contributed greatly to this success and he was kind and helpful to younger clergy at the start of their ministry . . .” (obituary).
This stone belongs to Ronnie: Ronald James Wathen, who was born in 1934 and died before his time, in 1993. He was famed as a poet but also climbed mountains – and played the Uilleann pipes (https://www.discogs.com/artist/365089-Ronnie-Wathen):
The poet’s printed obituary sums up a notably eccentric life:
. . . I feel there may be a ‘most individual and bewildering ghost’ glaring with mock ferocity over my shoulder, a restless shade who would never forgive me if I tried to bury him with platitudes. Ronnie Wathen was quite spectacularly different: unpredictable, provocative, abrasive yet stimulating in argument, generous with himself, always able to see and articulate the quirky side of life. In Ireland Ronnie’s first poems appeared and many slim volumes were to follow. He had a most splendid, if unruly, facility with words. Usually he employed them seriously but he also loved frolicking with them, standing them on their heads just for fun. He wrote about anything and everything that caught his fancy, as a poet should . . . the last I saw of Ronnie was when he strode off up the road to do a kindness to an old friend. I must end with a grumble. Ronnie was an insomniac, never known to leave a party until very late. His parting prank was to quit the party of life far too early, at the age of 58, just to tease I like to think. It was a cruel jest . . . he held his final party at the little church of Calary, below Sugarloaf Mountain, in the verdant lap of his beloved Wicklow Hills. On that sunny autumn afternoon many, many friends crowded the church, farewells were spoken in prose and verse, laments welled up from three of the finest pipers in Ireland and a lone fiddler knelt by the open grave and hauntingly played the restless Ronnie to his rest . . .
Mike Banks
Conor Anthony Farrington was born in Dublin in June, 1928. His distinguished career included writing a number of plays for radio and theatre. Notable, certainly, were: Death of Don Juan (1951), The Tribunal (1959), The Good Shepherd (1961) and The Ghostly Garden (1964). ‘The Language of Drama’ in The Dubliner (July-August 1962) concludes the following: “…there are three reasons for a ‘radical alteration in the language of drama’ – viz, ‘the audience’s reason’, the ‘actor’s reason’, and ‘the dramatist’s reason’ – since ‘it is actually by means of particular words and phrases that he discovers his character’…” In later years appeared a collection of short stories (Cork: Fish Publishing 1996).
Another effectively simple slab remembers the sculptor Frank Morris, born in Arklow, Co Wicklow. He spent some years working with the Irish Forestry Department: while there he became a skilled wood-carver. The Dictionary of Irish Biography states that “. . . Carving for him was akin to peeling an onion to reveal the form within . . .” He also developed skills in sign-writing and letter-cutting. Have a look at his magnificent beaten copper door in the Holy Redeemer Church in Dundalk:
It’s interesting to find a Jewish grave in a rural Irish parish: Evelyn and Bruno Achilles (above and below).
In the 1930s The Schools Folklore Collection produced some memorable notes about the parish of Calary:
. . . Glasnamullen is our town land and there are nine families in it. Calary is the name of our parish. There are about twenty-six people in this townland. Sutton is the most common name in this district as their are four in Glasnamullen. All the houses in our town land is slated, but there are three or four thatched houses outside the townland. This place is called Glasnamullen as long as anyone can remember. Mr Arthur Sutton is seventy six, he lives in Glasnamullen, but Mr Fortune is one hundred and Mr Stokes is eighty six. They dont know any Irish, but they are great for telling stories in English. When my father was small he used to get Mr Stokes to tell him stories. Mr Fleming told me a story about Mr Byrne, The Paddock, Kilpedder. Once upon a time a man was cutting down a hawthorn tree in an old fort and as soon as he did a wind rose and took it away and over his head were thousands of birds. No one ever knew where the hawthorn went to, but everyone said that the fairies must have done it. They never plough the land owing to that. St Kevin is said to have blessed a little well beside a river in Ballinstowe. Every one goes and drinks it when they have colds. It is also said it has the power to cure sore eyes. There are pieces of cloth on the bushes around it left by people whose eyes were cured . . .
I have concluded that this fairly recent grave (2011) is in memory of a mariner. You can see that the inscription is within a porthole – and there is an illustration of a sailing boat. After much searching, I came across a funeral notice – here is a brief summary:
. . . HANNA Simon (late of Bray, Co Wicklow, formerly of New Zealand) – September 7, 2011, suddenly, son of Meg and the late Pat Hanna and brother of Tim, Mike, Pete, Kristin and Jane; sadly missed by his partner Sonja (McEnroe), her daughter Tali and her partner Danny, his sons Rowan, Aiden, Kieran and their mother Ann, his mother, brothers and sisters, extended family and many friends. Reposing in the factory workshop, Mill Lane, Bray from 4pm to 9pm tomorrow (Sunday). Removal on Monday to Calary Parish Church arriving for a Funeral Service at 2.00 o’clock followed by interment in the adjoining churchyard . . .
Funeral Notice
This is not an exhaustive account of the graves in Calary: it’s a selection only. Hopefully it’s sufficient to send you in this direction if you find yourself over in the east. It’s a beautifully atmospheric place. Let’s finish where we started – with a Louis le Brocquy tapestry. This is: Garlanded Goat 1949-50, Aubusson tapestry, Atelier Tabard Frères et Soeurs (artist website).
We have certainly travelled this route many times – it’s our favourite way of getting from Kenmare home to West Cork. Assuredly not a direct road, but spectacular – and you’ll hardly see a soul. Here’s a map – the road is in red:
And here (below) – a sculptural abstract – is the nature of the terrain which the satellites spy on – looking straight down!
We passed over this high road that skirts the valley on an idyllic January day early in the new year (2024). For the first time, we also traversed the full length of the lane that goes into the heart of the vale, only serving scattered houses and farms. This goes by a complex stone circle and Mass Rock in the townland of Derrynafinchin – or Doire na Fuinseann. The group – also featured on the header – has been fully described by Amanda’s post Derrynafinchin: a bullaun, Mass rock & stone circle from a couple of years ago. Well worth a read!
The little lane also passes into the townland of Derreencollig. We were intrigued by some kinetic sculptures we found beside the way: we did not come across the artist, nor anyone else on this part of the journey.
The views into this remote townland and its few habitations is seen from the minor road that follows the contour at high level, heading for Bantry.
If you find our minor roads tricky, then stick to the main ones. But, if you are not in a hurry, you couldn’t do better on a day of winter sunshine than to traverse the gentler, secret ways.
Description is hardly needed in this little topographical diversion. I’m not sure where else in the world you could find your senses as satiated as here in West Cork (and Kerry!). Travel on!
To my mind there’s no more satisfying way of journeying: keep to the crags and cornices of the high tracks.
This is the time of the year for drawing around a log fire, lighting up the candles and passing on well remembered tales. Here is such a one, which I wrote for a Roaringwater Journal post back in December 2012 . . . It’s worth telling again.
You must never name them… It’s alright to call them The Other Crowd, or The Old Ones, or The Good Folk – people will know well enough who you mean. I suppose it’s a way of keeping them at arm’s length: if you name them, then they might just be there.
Some say that they are the earliest dwellers of these islands – the Fir Bolg – or that they are from Tír na nÓg, the land where you’ll never grow old. They might have been from the Bronze Age – or earlier: the Neolithic people were small. They certainly predated the Iron Age. Iron is something they can’t be near.
They have many of the same needs as us, it seems. They enjoy their food and drink; they dance; they play games. They have some form of religion. We know that because of the people they take: priests often – doctors – musicians (if there’s a dance going) – hurley players (if they are short of a team). It’s when you are ‘taken’ you have to be on your guard. You musn’t eat or drink while you are there or they’ll keep you – forever. And they will try and press you to it. If you do come back you’ll have been there only a second – or a lifetime… Remember the Children of Lir – turned by enchantment into four white swans: for nine hundred years they sang the beautiful songs that are now the tradition of Ireland. Then the enchantment fell from them. For a moment there stood these ancient, aged figures and, after, they crumbled to dust.
Where do they live? The country people believe it’s in the forts or raths – there are over a thousand of them in West Cork, untouched for centuries for fear of awakening those old spirits: some say that a lone whitethorn tree marks the entrance to their realms beneath the earth. There are tales, of course, of foolish men who disturbed the forts: farmers who were greedy for land and forgot – or ignored – the code passed down through the generations. Always they suffered for it. It might have been them, their wives and children, or their livestock: they came to no good end, and the neighbours shook their heads at the funeral, or the farm sale.
Just a few years ago there was a case which confirms the old beliefs. A new ring road was making its way around Ennis – the whole juggernaut of engineers, contractors, European funding, huge earth movers, gangs of modern navvies: and the whole shebang came to a sudden halt – because of a lone whitethorn tree – or Sceach – standing in the way. First it was just one or two of the gang – wouldn’t touch it: it would bring disaster. Then the whole gang agreed, and no amount of cajoling or threatening would change their minds. The media descended – it was a great story: first the local papers, then the national ones and, finally, the world came to see the fairy tree that stopped a nation’s progress. There could only be one result – the road moved to one side, and the Sceach remains to this day.
The story that follows was told to me a long time ago by a very old man: he’d been a priest. And before that a curate – back in the days when all the travelling was on horseback, or by pony and trap. His living was in the far west – one of the townlands: a close community with traditional rural ways. At that time he was companion to an elderly priest – one who was schooled in the old beliefs. This priest did his job well, and was much liked and respected by his scattered flock.
Shortly before Samhain an elderly parishioner fell sick and seemed close to dying. The priest was conscientious and visited often. The man lingered on, until one night – Samhain Eve it was – the priest had the call: the man was getting near his last breath. It was a long journey, and close to midnight, but the priest and his curate set out in the trap. Both men were sleepy and could hardly keep from nodding off, but the horse seemed to know the way – he had travelled it so many times – and the both of them woke with a start to find they were near their destination. But there was something strange: on the road in front of them, and walking the same way, there was a figure. It was dressed in black, and a hood covered its head. It walked slowly and – as they came nearer – they realised that it was playing a fiddle as it walked. They could hear a strange music coming from the figure: a plaintiff, unearthly air. They had the protection of the Book and Bell with them, but they both experienced an uncomfortable feeling in their stomachs, as though they were in the presence of something dark and powerful. They could only follow – the black figure set a slow pace and walked straight up the centre of the road: there was no way they could get past.
Eventually they came to the farm lane. Before they could turn up the trackway the figure stopped, and faced them. He put his fiddle down on the paving with the bow over the fingerboard. Then he addressed the priest directly in a voice that echoed from the darkness:
“I know where you’re heading, Father. There’s a man dying in there. I want you to do something for me…” The priest knew that the threshold of death, like all boundaries – places balanced in neither one world or the other – was a fertile and dangerous ground. He answered nervously:
“If it’s something that’s within my powers, then I will do it, willingly…” As they watched, the figure lifted his head and they could see within the hood a face yellow and ravaged with age.
“You must ask that man a question before he passes away…”
“A question…?”
“Ask him – what will happen to the Old Ones on the day of judgement?” There was a silence. The priest tried to sound calm.
“I will if I’m able…”
The figure paused a moment: “I will be here when you return… don’t forget…” He stepped back so that they could pass.
Neither man spoke. The trap came up to the farm, where there was a crowd inside to give support to the woman of the house – as was the custom in those times. The dying man was alone in the bedroom and the priest went straight to him with his cloth and candles. There didn’t seem much life left in the farmer, but he got his absolution. The priest looked around at the door, then bent down to whisper in the man’s ear. Suddenly, into the room came the farmer’s wife, carrying a glass which she gave to the priest. It was whisky: the woman herself was not a drinker and didn’t know about the water: she had filled the glass to the brim with the liquor. The priest also was not a drinker, but he needed something on that particular night, so he downed the glass. Then all the crowd of the neighbours came into the bedroom – and more whisky.
The priest was on his third glass when my friend the curate felt he had to intervene. The visitors were polite and saw the two clerics to their trap. It was only when they were halfway down the lane that the priest remembered the strange figure – and his promise.
“Wait here…” he said, but the curate was having none of that – in the dark and with an unquiet spirit on the road. So they both turned back. The host was again in the kitchen, and the priest made his excuses that he had forgotten something, and hurriedly shut the door of the bedroom fast behind him. He went straight up to the man – who looked for all the world as if he had passed on already – and whispered urgently:
“I have to ask you this – what will happen to the Old Ones on the day of judgement?” The effect was electrifying. The ‘corpse’ sat up straight, with eyes wide open. For a moment there was a silence, then he said with a great conviction:
“If there’s one drop of human blood in their bodies on the day of judgement… Then they will be saved…” He dropped back on the bed – a dead man.
The two clerics came to the end of the farm track. The figure was there, standing on the road with the fiddle beside him, as though he had never moved.
“Well, Father,” he said, “Do you have the answer?”
“I do so.” They thought they could see a glinting in those old, old eyes. “Tell me…”
The priest drew himself up and faced the spectre:
“He said this – and then he passed on. If there’s one drop of human blood in their bodies on the day of judgement… Then the Old Ones will be saved…”
The figure stared straight at them. His eyes seemed to glow red. Then they realised that he was furious. He took his hand from his coat and there was a dagger in it. They both thought that it was all up for them. But the figure pointed the dagger at his own breast… and plunged it in hard, a dozen times. The men winced, and held their breath. But there was nothing: there was no blood – not one drop…
The black figure turned and brought his foot down heavily on the fiddle. He seemed to snarl:
“There’ll be no more of our music in your world…” they heard. Then, in a moment, he was gone. And the road was empty before them…
The man who told me this story is long dead – but it’s not true that their music is gone. I’ve heard it: in the old raths; coming over the lake in the mountain; coming out of a wild storm at sea. The music is far too powerful – they can’t resist it. Perhaps that, in the end, will provide them with the salvation they so desperately seek.
There’s a lone thorn tree on the old moorland above Cappaghglass. I visit it often. I play my concertina up there at times. That’s where I’ll go when I’ve had my fill of this world. Don’t disturb me: I shall be down there with the Other Crowd, enjoying the feasting and the dancing.
Yeats country – Benbulben and Classiebawn Castle (above). Finola took this fine view seven years ago, when we set out to visit the haunts of William Butler Yeats. We have to turn to Yeats now, as it’s exactly one hundred years since he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature – in December, 1923. I have carried a place in my heart for Yeats, ever since I was at Primary School on the Hampshire/Surrey borders, not far from Thomas Hardy’s Wessex. Yeats and Hardy were rivals for the coveted award – the final vote in 1923 was between the two of them: in the end, only two Nobel committee members voted for Hardy, and Yeats achieved the prize. The Guardian newspaper said that “…Mr Yeats is to be congratulated, almost without reserve, on lifting this substantial stake. He is a poet of real greatness; prose, too, he can write like an angel…”, however then arguing that Thomas Hardy would have been a worthier recipient of the award!
The Irish press congratulates Yeats on his achievement (above – Irish Independent 29.11.1923). My schoolboy encounter with the poet must have been when I was around ten years old and we were tasked to learn The Lake Isle of Inisfree. I can still recite it, word for word, to this day, sixty seven years later. But it was far more than mere words for me, then. Our teacher – Mr Sharpe – was careful to explain that this man was cooped up in the city of London – on its “pavements grey” and was yearning for the countryside he loved:
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
Inisfree serves the poet’s romantic dreams of a remote idyllic landscape far away from the noisy metropolis. It does exist as a place – on Lough Gill in Co Sligo: Yeats spent childhood summers nearby. Interestingly, I searched the internet for pics of the island, and the above came up. It’s from a Roaringwater Journal Post which I wrote in 2016. And it’s not Inisfree, but another ‘lake island’ – just outside Skibbereen, in West Cork – Cloghan Castle Island on Lough Hyne: there’s a holy well nearby, and an 8th century church dedicated to St Brigid – but all that is another story. The diversion just serves to warn against trusting what you find online!
Thoor Ballylee Tower, Co Galway (above) – this 14th century tower house was described by Seamus Heaney, another Irish Nobel Literature prize winner, as The most important building in Ireland, because of its associations with Yeats, who spent many summers there with his family.
Here is the finely crafted cover of The Tower: a book of poems by W B Yeats, published in 1928 (courtesy Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society). The Tower was Yeats’s first major collection as Nobel Laureate after receiving the Nobel Prize in 1923. It is considered to be one of the poet’s most influential volumes and was well received by the public. (Below) a 1917 drawing by Robert Gregory – son of Isabella Augusta (Lady) Gregory and Sir William Gregory of Coole Park, Co Galway – of The Tower (courtesy Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society).
Going back to my early school years: I was an incurable romantic, and a daydreamer. I paid enough attention to lessons to get by, but my heart lay outside the school gates. Just minutes away were hop-fields and, beyond those, pastures, woodlands, streams – idyllic places where I loved to wander. I could completely relate to Yeat’s desire to be far away from the city, and that’s why his poem appealed to me. I knew very little about Ireland, and had no idea that was where I would one day make my home. I am here now, sitting at my desk, with the hills and oceans of Yeats’ own country beyond.
W B Yeats and his wife George Hyde-Lees heard the news that the Nobel Prize had been awarded to him on 14 November, 1923. The photograph above (courtesy Irish Independent) is said to be taken on that day. It’s also said that they celebrated by cooking sausages! The Irish Independent records: “Irish poet and senator, William Butler Yeats created history when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Irish citizen to achieve such an accolade. The prize was awarded to Yeats ‘for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation’.”
Somewhat surprised by the award, Yeats would later write in his (unpublished) autobiography: “Early in November (1923) a journalist called to show me a printed paragraph saying that the Nobel Prize would probably be conferred upon Herr Mann, the distinguished novelist, or upon myself, I did not know that the Swedish Academy had ever heard my name.” The news of the award was widely praised in Ireland with members of Dáil Éireann proudly announcing that it had placed Ireland on the international stage. It was a sentiment reiterated by the laureate himself, who at the awards ceremony claimed that the Nobel Prize was less for himself than for his country and called it Europe’s welcome to the Free State. In his presentation speech, Per Hallstrom, then chairman of the academy’s Nobel Committee, praised the poet’s ability to ‘follow the spirit that early appointed him the interpreter of his country, a country that had long waited for someone to bestow on it a voice’.
A portrait of Yeats painted by Augustus John OM RA in 1930 (courtesy Sothebys – private collection). Before Yeats passed away he requested that his final resting place be in Sligo. He died in Menton, France in 1939 aged 73 and was buried there. His wish was fulfilled in 1948 when his body was exhumed and buried in St Columba’s Church, Drumcliff. His headstone reads:
‘Drowned Landscapes’ – that’s an adequate enough description for us to look again at a subject which RWJ covered five years ago in this post: Tralong Bay, Co Cork – give it a read. I was reminded of the subject when we took part in an Archaeology Festival based in West Kerry just a week ago: Amanda’s current holy well blog describes the expeditions. One of the sites visited was Bunaneer Drowned Forest, where we saw stumps of trees on the beach there which were alive thousands of years ago. At low tide many tree remains become visible at Bunaneer, near Castlecove village on the south coast of Kerry’s Iveragh Peninsula. Our guides for this expedition were plant biologist Calum Sweeney and archaeologist Aoibheann Lambe.
This large jumble of roots (above) is known as Goliath. All the remains here can be seen at regular low tides: at other similar sites elsewhere in Ireland, remains of ancient tree boles and roots are only revealed when tides are exceptionally low. I find it remarkable to be able to see and readily touch these archaic pieces of timber: we are communing with distant history!
Carbon dating has shown that these remains were alive between three and a half and five millennia ago. This is evidence that sea levels were significantly lower then, and that the shore line was further out – perhaps 50 metres from where we see it today. We are constantly – and quite rightly – being warned about rising sea levels resulting from our changing climate in the long term: here we see clear verification that it’s a continuing – and now apparently accelerating – process.
Our friends Robin and Sue Lewando were also on this expedition. Robin has a particular interest in sea-level changes in the Late Quaternary and subsequent eras, and he pointed me to a 2015 paper which explores the subject specifically in the Bantry Bay area of West Cork. That’s a good place to be looking at ancient history: remember the story of Cessair – Noah’s daughter-in-law – who came ashore at Donemark? You first read about it here! So this is a scientific diagram which sets out how sea-levels have been changing over time in our locality:
It’s an interesting comparison to take our horizons wider in our study of changing sea levels across the islands of Ireland. Over on the east coast – north of Bray, Co Wicklow – there is another substantial area where tree remains have been revealed at certain tidal conditions.
Above are the areas of beach between Bray and Killiney where ‘drowned forest’ remains have been observed. While at Youghal, Co Cork, further finds have occured:
This example catches our interest because the name of the settlement – Youghal – is derived from the Irish word ‘Eochaill’ meaning ‘Yew Woods’: they were evidently once common in the area, leading us to wonder whether the tree remains in this instance are of yew. In 2014 the following account of another ‘ancient drowned forest’ discovery appeared in the Irish Times (photograph courtesy of Joe O’Shaughnessy):
. . . Walking out on to the shoreline at low tide, geologist Prof Mike Williams points to the oak, pine and birch stumps and extensive root systems which were once part of woodlands populated by people, wolves and bears. These woodlands extended out into lagoons and marshlands that pre-dated the formation of Galway bay, Prof Williams says.
An extensive layer of peat also exposed at low tide in the same location in Spiddal was formed by organic debris which once carpeted the forest floor. The stumps at Spiddal are surrounded by root systems which are largely undisturbed. The carpet of peat is covered in strands of a reed called phragmites, which can tolerate semi- saline or brackish conditions.
“These trees are in their original growth position and hadn’t keeled over, which would suggest that they died quite quickly, perhaps in a quite rapid sea level rise,” Prof Williams adds. Up until 5,000 years ago Ireland experienced a series of rapid sea level rises, he says. During the mid-Holocene period, oak and pine forests were flooded along the western seaboard and recycled into peat deposits of up to two metres thick, which were then covered by sand.
Prof Williams estimates that sea level would have been at least five metres lower than present when the forests thrived, and traces of marine shell 50cm below the peat surface suggest the forest floor was affected by very occasional extreme wave events such as storm surges or tsunamis. He says most west coast sand-dune systems date to a “levelling” off period in sea level change about 5,000 years ago. Dunes in Doolin, Co Clare, are older still, having first formed around 6,500 years ago.
Prof Williams has located tree stumps in south Mayo and Clare, along with Galway, which have been carbon dated to between 5,200 and 7,400 years ago at the chrono centre at Queen’s University, Belfast. Some of the trees were nearly 100 years old when they perished . . .
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