I’ve been stricken with Covid, so the post I was planning to write – about my visit to the amazing Derry Duff Farm will have to wait a week. And no – I haven’t forgotten I need to get back to the Skeams and St Brandanus! Instead I bring you one of Robert’s posts from a few years ago in which he leads us along some of the smallest roads you can encounter in West Cork. I’ve swapped in a few photos.
Small Roads
Road repairs in rural Ireland peak in the summer months. Favourable weather is responsible. Always be ready for holdups and diversions. ‘Boreens’ – narrow roads in country areas – are often unable to take the machines required to cut edges, fill potholes and restore surfaces while letting traffic through at the same time. In the worst cases, alternative routes can add many kilometres to a journey. So, when setting out, always leave yourselves plenty of time.
Here’s our Yeti straddling the border between Cork and Kerry on the Priest’s Leap road. That’s one of our favourites: the scenery is outstanding, but there can be problems if you meet someone coming the other way. In fact, that difficulty is present on very many of our local byways: hone your reversing skills!
It’s not always other vehicles you have to watch out for . . .
A rural road can be a challenge: never be in a hurry. You just have to go with the flow, even if that means reversing for half a mile. In that situation, of course, the main difficulty is making the decision as to who will have to reverse: you, or the vehicle coming the other way. If that oncoming vehicle is a large tractor and trailer, you may not have much choice.
Yes, there are still a few roads around in very out-of-the-way places which are not surfaced as you might expect. They fit well into their rural surroundings!
Take care not to get lost . . . Some of these boreens are not even marked on the map!
Give a thought to those who built these byways: quite a lot of engineering has been involved in carving through rocks to create a more or less level route.
Some roads lead to a dead end. I prefer those that fly high – over the mountain passes; the scenery never disappoints.
. . . The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say . . .
from ‘the old Walking Song’ by J R R Tolkein
There’s always a reward to be had for travelling uphill: it’s the view from the top!
WordPress, to my dismay, has now labelled all the content on this blog as ‘by Finola’. This is due to the necessity, for various reasons, of adjusting ‘ownership’ and management parameters. It’s a bit heartbreaking, though, as it’s no longer easily discernible which of the posts (approx half of the 1,132 posts so far) were written by Robert. So every now and then I thought it would be good to highlight one of his older posts. So here is his wonderful account, written originally in 2014, and titled In Search of Ghosts, of the spirits that haunt Brow Head.
Lonely and wild – Brow Head is the most southerly point on the mainland of Ireland. There are ghosts here: ghosts of ancient people who created the stone monuments, perhaps 5000 years ago, that are now inundated by every tide in the bay at Ballynaule below this Irish ‘Lands End’; ghosts of early farmers who began to lay out field boundaries criss-crossing this windswept promontory; ghosts of the defenders of an empire who feared a French invasion that never happened; ghosts of the prospectors who sunk two shafts – now barely protected by rusting wire – during the nineteenth century copper mining era; and, lastly, ghosts of the pioneers of our own digital age, represented in the brooding ruins that crown the hilltop here above West Cork’s remotest village, Crookhaven.*
Brow Head – haunt of ghosts
Napoleon setting his sights on the British Empire 1804 (Charles Motte)
Facing up to Napoleon: Brow Head Signal Tower, built in 1804 in anticipation of a French invasion
We can be very specific about one ghost: Guglielmo Marconi – born at Bologna, Italy, on April 25, 1874 to Giuseppe Marconi, an Italian country gentleman, and Annie Jameson, daughter of Andrew Jameson of Daphne Castle, Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland. The Jamesons were and are renowned distillers of Irish Whiskey. It’s reasonable to say that Marconi was an ‘Irish Italian’, and that heritage was reinforced when in 1905 he married Beatrice O’Brien, daughter of the 14th Baron Inchiquin. Marconi’s fame is that he pioneered the commercial application of electromagnetic waves – or Radio.
Marconi – wishful thinking!
At the age of twenty one, Marconi was able to demonstrate to his father how, without any visible physical link (without wires), he could transmit dots and dashes through the rooms of their home in Pontecchio. “…When I started my first experiments with Hertzian waves…” he is quoted as saying, “…I could scarcely believe it is possible that their application to useful purposes could have escaped the notice of eminent scientists…” His parents used their influence to help him travel to England to meet the Engineer-in-Chief of the British Post Office with the result that in 1896 Marconi obtained the first ever patent in wireless telegraphy.
Signal Station at Poldhu, Cornwall, 1914
Marconi’s ambitions started in a room in Italy: by December 1901 he was able to send messages from Poldhu, Cornwall, to St John’s, Newfoundland, a distance of 2100 miles – an historic achievement. In his attempts to bridge the Atlantic with Radio waves he had explored the west coasts of Britain and Ireland for suitable telegraphic locations. One of his destinations was Crookhaven, which he visited many times – using the Flying Snail en route!
The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Station at Brow Head – exactly 100 years ago
Brow Head was one of a number of transmitting stations set up by Marconi and it got off to a flying start soon after opening in 1901 when, in the presence of Marconi himself, Morse signals were received from Poldhu, 225 miles away. The fact that the Atlantic gap was conquered only a few months after this shows the rapid pace of developments at that time.
Calling America…
The village of Crookhaven had long been the first and last port of call for ships going between Northern European ports and America. Over the centuries ships stocked up here with provisions before tackling the open sea. Because of this, the major shipping lines had agents here. Reuters and Lloyds had flag-signalling and semaphore equipment on Brow Head to communicate with the maritime traffic, superseded by the telegraph station. At the end of the 19th Century it was said that “…you could cross the harbour on the decks of boats…” Up to 700 people are reputed to have lived in the area at that time: now, Crookhaven has a permanent population of no more than 40. An article written by one of the telegraph operators in 1911 summarises:
…As Crookhaven is the first station with which the homeward bound American liners communicate it is naturally a busy station. By the aid of wireless all arrangements are made for the arrival of the ships, the landing and entraining of the passengers and mails, whilst hundreds of private messages to and from passengers are dealt with. Messages are also received from the Fastnet Lighthouse, which is fitted with wireless, reporting the passing of sailing ships and steamers. These messages are sent by vessels not fitted with wireless by means of signals to the Fastnet, thence by wireless to Crookhaven, whence they are forwarded to Lloyds and to the owners of the vessels…
Engraving by Mary Francis Cusack, 1875
We have some first hand accounts of the workings of the signal station in its heyday from the handwritten log books of Arthur Nottage – for many years landlord of the Welcome Inn at Crookhaven – who died aged 90 in 1974. In 1904 he arrived in West Cork (from England) to work on a shift basis with one other man as Marconi telegrapher at Brow Head. Until 1914 he operated the Morse code apparatus with a salary – generous for the time – of £1 per week.
Arthur Nottage of Crookhaven
A hundred years ago telegraphy had advanced to such a stage that it was no longer necessary for stations to operate close to the shipping lanes, and small, isolated sites such as Brow Head were closed down. Legend has it that in 1922 the Irregulars destroyed the buildings during the Civil War.
Becoming archaeology: the ruins on Brow Head today
Finola and I have both been inspired by the landscape and atmosphere of this Atlantic frontier. It’s a place we will return to. All West Cork landscapes are impressive, but this is a place apart. If you want to feel at the end of the world, walk here: you won’t meet many others, even in the height of the visitor season. Perhaps that’s because it’s haunted – but in the best possible way. Like so much of Ireland the world has come here – a mark has been made – memories have been left behind. Now, you hear the ghosts in the ever-present currents of wind and surf.
Base of Marconi’s mast at Brow Head
*I am grateful to Michael Sexton and the Mizen Journal (Number 3 1995) for many fascinating items on the Crookhaven Telegraph Station not recorded elsewhere.
I’m reposting this, written six years ago, for the season that’s in it.
It’s not the trees that lend autumnal hues to the Mizen, as they do elsewhere. It’s the whole landscape – that combination of rock, heather, bracken, moor grass, brambles, filtered through the light and shade of our notoriously changeable climate – that creates the special colour palette we associate with autumn. It’s my favourite time of year.
Today, early, we drove up Mount Gabriel and looked over the whole of the Mizen, back to Mount Corrin and Mount Kidd, and across to the Sheep’s Head, the Beara, and away to the mountains of Kerry.
Upper: looking down to Dunmanus Bay from Mount Gabriel; Lower: looking across to Mount Corrin
But every day brings changes. What trees we have are not yet bare. The thorns, blackthorn and whitethorn are loaded with berries. The heather is hanging on here and there, providing a wonderful contrast to the yellow gorse.
Haws, Sloes, Heather and Gorse
The bog asphodel is fading now, but earlier in the month it had reached its peak orange state and looked spectacular consorting with the other bog and mountain flowers that were still blooming.
Upper: Bog Asphodel, Gorse, Scabious; Lower: Cappaghglass Bog
When you get a clear day, like today, there is nothing on earth like a walk on the West Cork hills, drinking in the colours and trying to store them in the memory. Or perhaps, in a blog!
Upper: Toormore; Lower: Derryconnell
Upper: North Side of the Mizen; Lower: Crough Bay and Long Island
Scarecrow in an abandoned garden – quintessential autumn image!
This is a companion piece to Lying in the Grass. That slideshow was shot in May three years ago, all the photos taken in my own garden within the previous week, and all native wildflowers.
This time, all the shots were captured in one day, July 18th, on a visit to Barley Cove with my friend and fellow nature-lover, artist Damaris Lysaght. The purpose of our visit was to monitor a rare plant, Dodder (below). This is one of the very few places in Ireland in which it grows, parasitising on the roots of the Wild Thyme, and mainly visible as a twisted mass of reddish stems. We were not sure if the tiny flowers, looking like miniature cauliflower heads, were about to flower or had flowered already.
At this time of year the dunes at Barley Cove are a carpet of wildflowers. Many of them are tiny so you have to get up close to make their acquaintance. Photo taken by Damaris.
Damaris had another reason for getting closer. We were lucky to catch a Dark Green Fritillary flitting from spot to spot and Damaris, a butterfly expert, figured it was probably laying eggs on the basal rosettes of the Common Dog Violets that flourish on the dunes. In the last photograph of the slideshow she is trying to see butterfly eggs – a task that defeated even her!
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:
It was a big day in Ballvourney yesterday: the public unveiling of two replicas of the 800 year old wooden figure that has been central to observances of St Gobnait on her day for as long as anyone can remember – we must be talking centuries! If you are not familiar with St Gobnait – or her celebrations – read my post here.
It’s actually St Gobnait’s Day today: the eleventh of February. As I write this, the congregation in the saint’s church will be venerating the 13th century wooden figure by ‘measuring’ her with ribbons. But also, for the first time, they will be able to view the two copies of that figure which have been made over the last few months. That exercise has been undertaken so that the figure itself could be fully studied because it is of great historical interest. There are other medieval carved wooden figures of saints surviving elsewhere in Ireland, but this is the only one that is still in regular active use.
. . . A medieval wooden image of Gobnait, kept traditionally in a drawer in the church during the year, is venerated in the parish church on this day. The devotion is known as the tomhas Gobnatan . People bring a ribbon with them and ‘measure’ the statue from top to bottom and around its circumference. This ribbon is then brought home and is used when people get sick or for some special blessing. The statue is thought to belong to the 13th c. A second pattern in honour of Gobnait was traditionally celebrated in Baile Bhúirne at Whit . . .
The above citation is taken from The Diocese of Kerry website, which sets out a comprehensive review of the saint and the activities which honour her. Here’s the measuring taking place a few years ago:
National Heritage Week 2023 explains the purpose of the project to replicate the carving:
. . . As patron saint of the parish, the statue provides a tangible link to the saint but importantly represents the long-standing living devotion to Gobnait. The wooden figure carved out of oak clearly depicts a female monastic. It was guarded over the centuries by the O’Herlihy clan, who were the ruling Gaelic lords of the Ballyvourney area during the medieval and late-medieval periods. It remained in the safe-keeping of members of the O’Herlihy family until they handed it over to the local parish priest in the late-19th century and it has been protected and kept secure by the Ballyvourney Church Committee ever since. The 3D project will comprise the digital scanning of the statue which in turn will enable a 3D generated wooden print out. A second replica will be hand carved as an integrative representation of how the statue would have looked originally before the centuries aged and tarnished it. The replicas will then be placed permanently on display in the Parish Church with information signage . . .
Above is a view of the original carving (in the centre) with the replica of that on the right. On the left is the ‘integrative representation’ – that is the carver’s interpretation of what the figure might have looked like when she first saw the light of day in the 1300s. On the left is Bishop William Crean – Bishop of Cloyne since 2013: he presided over the unveiling of the two replicas yesterday. On the right is John Hayes, of Special Branch Carvers in Fenor, Co Waterford. He was responsible for the carving project and has made an excellent job!
John gave us a presentation yesterday, after the unveiling ceremony, and we learned how he closely examined the original statue, taking detailed measurements and a full photographic survey. This enabled a Sketchfab 3D rendering to be produced: this became the basis for his work. During the examination he was able to find traces of paint, which enabled him to render the interpretative version with – very likely – a high degree of fidelity to the original.
I got the chance to talk to John and ask him about the timbers used for the original and the replicas. The original is of oak, and we don’t have a way of knowing where this came from. The replicas are of ash: this is a good material for stability and longevity. John had access to a good source of seasoned wood.
The day was a study day for St Gobnait, and encompassed a whole lot more than the unveiling of the replicas (they are waiting under the cloth- above – to be revealed)! Note the currach in the pic also: that’s another project – to establish a Camino tracing the route which Gobnait took as she travelled around Ireland from the Co Galway Aran Island of Inisheer, having been told by an angel that her life would be fulfilled when she saw nine white deer. She spent time in Dun Chaoin and Kilgobinet in Kerry, Ballyagran in Limerick, Kilgobinet in Waterford, and Abbeyswell and Clondrohid in Cork, before finally finding the deer in Ballyvourney. You can see those deer on the stern of the currach, above. There are at least eight holy wells in Ireland dedicated to the saint. Amanda has written extensively about Gobnait’s travels and – of course – about her wells.
There was also an excellent series of talks about Gobnait. Events took place in Ionad Cultúrtha an Dochtúir Ó Loinsigh, which is a great facility in the community. Here we are – together with our good friends Peter and Amanda (you have met them frequently on the pages of this Journal), - waiting for proceedings to begin:
This is the moment of unveiling: the Bishop is accompanied by the Parish Priest – Very Reverend John McCarthy SP – and archaeologist Dr Connie Kelleher, National Monuments Service: she has played a significant role in this Ballyvourney project.
The decoration on the hull of the Camino Currach is based on the depiction of Saint Gobnait in the Harry Clarke window from the Honan Chapel, UCC. The bee image on the right reminds us that Gobnait is the patron saint of bees and beekepers. We enjoyed a comprehensive talk on bees by Peadar Ó Riada – who has first hand experience of the subject:
There were many more dimensions to the day. One of my favourites was when the audience was requested to produce anyone named Gobnait to be photographed with the carved figures. That included the variations of the name: Library Ireland (1923) (Rev Patrick Woulfe) gives these as Gobinet, Gobnet, Gubby, Abigail, Abbey, Abbie, Abina, Deborah, Debbie, and Webbie. Ten candidates stood up to be counted:
Thank you to Finola for providing many of these photos
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