Mizen Magic 2: The North Side

A pet day on The Mizen

We are once again being battered by Atlantic storms, but on a sparkling day earlier this week we drove, on a whim, to Durrus for breakfast. The day was so pure and sunny that it seemed a crime to go home again, so we set out to drive along the north side of the Mizen Peninsula.

Dunbeacon Castle

What a day! We rambled down to the shore to investigate the 15th Century Dunbeacon Castle. There’s nothing left except one tall wall, standing sentinel against the wind, facing down the length of Dunmanus Bay. Its commanding position would have given its builders, the O’Mahonys, a strategic advantage in protecting and controlling their territory from adventurers arriving from the Atlantic.

Not much left

Further along we explored an abandoned cottage, and found one of the water pumps that were once ubiquitous in the irish countryside. We saw few other cars, but we weren’t alone – our movements were observed from above by interested parties.

Preserved, Observed

Heading towards Dunmanus Harbour we stopped to pay our respects at the little ruined church and graveyard, beautifully called in Irish Kilheangul – the Little Chuch of the Angel. This was a curious mixture of cillín and modern graveyard: rough unmarked stones stood shoulder to shoulder with more recent granite headstones and lovingly tended graves.

The Little Church of the Angel

We headed west along the road that skirts the sea and eventually leads to Barley Cove. We are convinced that this is one of the most breathtaking drives in Ireland – and, in a land as scenic as this, that’s a tall order! To the east we looked back up Dunmanus Bay to the Kerry Mountains in the far distance.

Looking East up Dunmanus Bay

To the north lay the Sheep’s Head and beyond it the looming presence of the Beara Peninsula.

Across to the Sheep’s Head and Beara Peninsula

To the west, Knocknamadree (the Mountain of the Dogs) and the wild Atlantic.

Bird Island and the Atlantic beyond

Once home to hundreds of families, this is a depopulated area now. There are some small farms, but many of the houses are holiday homes, seldom used. Sobering, that such a wildly beautiful place is no longer economically viable to support a thriving community.

Northside of the Mizen

But thanks to the foresight and hard work of local writers, we can have a true appreciation of what life was like here. Northside of the Mizen has its own book! Recorded, edited and written by Patrick McCarthy and Richard Hawkins, and illustrated by Thelma Ede and with old photographs, it’s a charming, quirky compendium of character sketches, folktales, customs and traditions, poems and songs, and descriptions of country life. With chapters organised by month, it’s the kind of book you keep by the bedside and dip into when the spirit moves you. In January, for example, there’s a section on scoriachting, or visiting neighbours. It’s accompanied by a photo of a man and his jennet in somebody’s kitchen, with the caption Michael and Tom McCarthy out scoriachting. Once the neighbours arrived (but not on Saturday night as you would have to get ready for mass early the next morning) the night…

“…would start with games, blackguarding (horseplay) and sometimes dancing, then progress on to songs and poems. Storytelling was the preserve of an evening by the fire. With flames flickering and the wind and rain howling like the Banshee, the imagination of the storyteller and his forebears was let loose on a delighted and spellbound audience of children and adults alike. This, in turn, would lead to stories of a more superstitious nature, into a world of small folk, púcas (sprites), mermaids and of people’s misfortune when they interfered with the fairy ways.”

Look out for future posts about the Mizen – we’re only scratching the surface of this marvellous region of West Cork.

Where once were farms

Posted on January 26, 2014February 2, 2014
7 Comments

Outlook: Changeable

Sunday morning sky over Nead an Iolair

One of my favourite expressions about the weather was learned from an elderly gentleman who had lived all his life in Hampshire, England. …Tis black over Will’s Mother’s… This would have described very well the scene above, which was taken from Nead an Iolair when we awoke this morning. As an Englishman I would be expected to talk about the weather all the time; Irish people are not far behind in this, probably because there is such a variety of weather – even in a single day – that it demands to be described. …Is iomaí athrú a chuireann lá Márta dhe… means: …There is a lot of weather in a March day… This might just as well refer to a January day, or a day in any month in our experience. To illustrate this I decided to try a time lapse video, using my iPhone and a tripod. I had to shoot it through the window, hence the reflections – just as well because during the process we had torrential hail to add to the variety. So this is a thirty minute session of Irish weather coming in to Roaringwater Bay compressed to thirty seconds, each frame being shot a second apart:

By asking around the locality I have compiled some Irish expressions for weather. These are ones that I particularly like:

A snipe won’t stand in the morning… (meaning icy weather)

It’s a hure of a day… (meaning it’s a hure of a day – Finola has her own version here)

Bad aul’ day isn’t it?

And – occasionally – The Sun does be splittin’ the stones…

Sun circle, Bohonagh, a week ago

Now, as we get near to St Brigid’s Day – more on that next week – we can truly be saying:

There’s a grand aul’ stretch to the evening… (the days are getting longer)

Posted on January 12, 2014
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Loon the Sentinel

Our friend Julian lives beside the water in the Cove, and we were excited when he told us there were Great Northern Divers in the bay. During the recent storms he saw a large number of them – fourteen or fifteen – huddled together for shelter close by the shore. He called this gathering a ‘Raft’: In fact the collective noun is usually said to be Asylum, Cry or (more attractive) Water-dance. We saw them too, but distantly through our spotting scope up in Nead an Iolair, although we came across them close to when we were walking by the shore in Ahakista on the Sheep’s Head. Here they were mixed up with Cormorants (collective noun Flight of…) and Shags (Hangout of…) – but their markings were distinctive enough for us to be sure.

In Canada the same birds are known as Loons. Believe it or not, the International Ornithological Committee met especially to consider the problem of the differing names in America and Europe and proposed a compromise: the Great Northern Loon. I like the term Loon: supposedly this name comes about because the bird has large webbed feet set well to the back to assist diving but is clumsy on land. In Icelandic the word for ‘lame’ is lúinn, and in Swedish it is lam – this could well have been an influence. The Canadian Loon is featured on the one dollar coin – which is therefore know as a ‘loonie’ – the two dollar coin is a ‘toonie’.

When Finola and I were on a road trip up to the north of British Columbia (through spectacular scenery) we stopped by a lake and we could see diving birds a considerable distance away. Finola told me they were Loons and I said I really wanted to have a good look at them. She immediately put her hands up to her mouth and produced the distinctive wavering call:

I couldn’t believe it when a few seconds later a Loon surfaced right beside us! I was full of admiration (as always) for Finola’s many talents…

An endearing habit of the adult bird is that it carries its chick on its back until it can swim on its own.

Hitching a ride…

I can’t find any Irish legends mentioning Loons, Great Northern Divers or any other variants, but there are plenty of Canadian ones among the First Nation cultures. There the Loon is invariably a ‘good guy’, and even helps Raven the Creator to make the world, and to bring Sun, Moon and Water to it. It has various names in these tales, including Big Loon, Black-billed Loon, Call-up-a-storm, Ember-goose, Greenhead, Guinea Duck, Imber Diver, Ring-necked Loon, and Walloon. We also have a very fine carved Loon on our living room wall, from Finola’s First Nation art collection.

I call Loon the Sentinel because he seems to stay just outside our Cove, swimming and diving across the entrance – keeping it safe for us. When our spring comes (and we can begin to feel the sun getting stronger already) he will be off to colder climes to breed.

Posted on December 28, 2013December 28, 2013
11 Comments

Stormy Weather

This picture of Nead an Iolair is here to create a seasonal feel: it was taken by our neighbour Dietrich in the Great Winter of 2010 – 2011 when the extremes were all about deep snow, frozen roads and frozen pipes, unusual for this little corner of the island normally kept mild by the Gulf Stream. This winter we have a different extreme – hurricane force winds!

‘Hurricane’ on the Beaufort scale means wind speeds of 118 km/hour or more. We went to bed on St Stephen’s Day evening, having measured the wind speed outside as 87 km/h. That seemed wild to us: the trees were bent over and the salt laden rain and sleet were coming in horizontally and lashing our south west facing windows. It was hard to sleep: the slates were rattling loudly above us and the aerials and lightning conductors on our roof were shrieking and bending. The noises got louder and more terrifying as the night went on. I wanted to venture outside with my little hand-held anemometer but I couldn’t face it. The violent storm began to abate only in the early hours of the morning and, when we did creep out, it was to find some damage: two trees down in the haggart, sadly, and our beautiful weather vane collapsed. It was as well that we weren’t underneath when the flying Eagle and its sharply pointed arrow came crashing on to the lawn, just missing our door.

St Stephen’s Day Session, Ballydehob

Earlier in the day we had enjoyed an unexpected visit by the Wren Boys to Levis’s pub, where we were involved in an improvised session. Two groups of Wren Boys in fact: the first an adult company with musicians, colourful costumes and bizarre masks, and the second a group of boys dressed in old coats turned inside out, pyjamas and sailor caps, carrying large collecting tins. All were welcomed and the festivities grew merrier as the wind strengthened.

Keeping traditions going: outlandish Wrenners visiting Ballydehob – top – and local lads collecting in Levis’s Bar – below

As I lay in bed at the height of the storm I found myself worrying about our birds: how on earth could the Goldfinches, Chaffinches, Robins and Wrens (any Wrens who had escaped the St Stephen’s Day hunt that is) have survived that terrible gale – which stripped the bird feeders of everything moveable and the bushes and shrubs of their sheltering leaves? In the morning, there they were back again, and noisily demanding a refill which, naturally, I was delighted to provide.

Posted on December 15, 2013December 31, 2021
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Wrens and Rhymers

…..…In comes I the Wran,

The Wran, the Wran, the king of all birds.

On St Stephen’s Day I was caught in the furze.

Although I am little my family is great,

Rise up landlady and give us a trate.

Up with the kettle and down with the pan,

Give a few pence to bury the Wran.

Then I’ll dip my wings in a barrel of beer,

And I’ll wish you all a happy New Year.

St Stephen - the stoning — *Stoning of St Stephen by Uccello*

– St Stephen was the very first Christian martyr: in the same year that Christ was crucified he claimed to have a vision of Jesus in heaven standing at the right hand of God. To Stephen’s enemies this was a blasphemy, and he was forced into hiding. But his hiding place was given away by the song of a little Wren, and St Stephen was publicly stoned to death. In retribution for this the Wren is traditionally hunted in Ireland (and some other Celtic countries) on St Stephen’s Day – December 26th, and groups of Wrenboys carry the bird from door to door – slung from a pole or interred in a small wooden coffin: there was a time when the poor Wren himself would have been stoned to death. An old story also blames the Wren for alerting a band of Vikings to the approach of the Irish army by pecking on a drum; yet another claims that when Cromwell’s soldiers were asleep and the Irish were about to attack, a flock of Wrens rose into the air and wakened the enemy with the sounds of their wingbeats. So there has always been a strong connection with betrayal.

Wrenboys in Cork - 19thC and Wren Boys by Jack Yeats — *Wrenboys in Cork – C19th and The Wren Boys by Jack Yeats*

Troglodytidae (cave dweller) is such a small bird: here at Nead an Iolair we occasionally catch sight of him darting out from thick, seemingly impenetrable bushes close to the bird feeder – his movements seem more like a mouse. Small, yet in mythology he’s a giant – King of the Birds in several traditions: Koning Vogel in German, Konije in Dutch, Reytelet in French, Bren in Welsh – all mean King or Little King. When the birds were electing their king they decided that whoever could fly the highest would win the contest; the Eagle easily outflew everyone else but the Wren was hiding in his wings until the Eagle had exhausted himself and then flew on up to claim the title. But there’s more: the Wren is forever associated with that turning point of the year when everything goes topsy turvy: the Twelve Days of Christmas. At this time the Lord of Misrule presides and traditional roles are reversed; it’s not surprising, then, that the tiniest of the birds should become the most important. But, like all kings, his reign is finite – and he is sacrificed at the dark year’s end to ensure that the sun will rise again.

Which brings us to Rhymers… and Wrenboys, Strawboys, Guisers and Mummers… The Feast of Stephen is their day too. When I was a boy we went out every Boxing Day morning to Crookham in Hampshire to watch King George slaying Bold Slasher, who was miraculously brought back to life by the quack Doctor, after which the young fertility figure Trim Tram Jolly Jack ‘…wife and family on my back…’ killed Old Father Christmas – something which must have seemed odd to a child, who might not have understood the symbolism of the old, dark winter giving way to the new life of spring. Danny tells me that when he was growing up in Limerick he saw the Strawboys or Rhymers performing the same play on the streets – and he remembers the Wren being paraded in procession, too.

crookham mummers — *Mummers in Hampshire, England, above – and Wrenning in Kerry, Carrigaline and Dingle below*

The folk play is alive in Ireland: there are Mummers in Wexford, Cork and Dingle, and the Armagh Rhymers travel across the world to perform their rituals. Here at Nead an Iolair I shall be reciting ‘…In comes I…’ around Christmas time: the words of all the characters are locked firmly in my brain – I have never seen them written down. It’s a true oral tradition – and a surviving one. Who knows – if I don’t repeat those words, the sun might just stop shining… It’s not worth the risk.

And – on St Stephen’s day – I shall be on the lookout for a Chime of Wrens, but I love all our birds, so it will only be a token ‘hunt’.

Posted on November 24, 2013November 26, 2013
8 Comments

Theme and Variations

Prelude: November sky over Nead an Iolair

Up on our hill above the Cove we are constantly treated to painterly skies. We could fill a whole blog with these changing skyscapes, and now – in late November – we have an extended period of clear cold weather which offers us spectacular sunsets: each day seems to outdo the previous one. On our walks we can’t resist using our cameras to record the wide West Cork skies, although these pictures are barely adequate to recreate the full celestial symphony. We have tried to come up with words to express to ourselves how magnificent these are: somehow the words seem trivial…. Stunning crops up frequently, as do mesmerising, awe-inspiring, exquisite, sublime, unsurpassed. Perhaps it’s best just to let the images speak for themselves: we feel privileged to be living in this incomparable land.