Cloyne Connections

During our anniversary trip to Ballymaloe (over the other side of Cork) we couldn’t resist a diversion to Cloyne, where Finola remembered having visited a round tower in her youth, just a few years ago. At that time it was possible to climb up inside the tower, after calling in at the local post office to collect the key. Round towers are a significant archaeological feature of Ireland and I like the enigma of them: no-one knows quite when they were built or why (a bit like Rock Art), but there are 65 of them still standing in the Republic in various states of repair. We proceeded to the post office to be told that it had been possible to climb up the tower up until ‘just a few years ago’ – now, health and safety regulations prevented it. Later, I read an account of someone who went to see this tower in 2004, 10 years before, and was told that it had been possible to climb up the tower ‘just a few years ago’… which shows that time and memory are relative.

Although we were disappointed in our aspirations to climb the tower, our visit to the post office turned up a very friendly lady who said that she held the key to the adjacent cathedral, and would be pleased to let us go in there instead.St Colman’s Cathedral at Cloyne – a print from 1853

Cloyne Cathedral: the worship area, a small part of the large building

An 11th century gilt bronze cross was found in the Cathedral grounds

An 11th century gilt bronze ‘pilgrims cross’ was found in the Cathedral grounds

The Cathedral of St Colman in Cloyne is well worth a visit. To this Englishman the term ‘cathedral’ conjures up images of Gothic magnificence with soaring spires, arches and intricate buttressing – and set picturesquely within a medieval city centre; this, however, is a humbler structure – although grand in size – constructed in 1250 and located in a somewhat overgrown graveyard in the back streets of a small East Cork town. For more detailed information on the cathedral, have a look at the excellent blog Pilgrimage in Medieval Ireland.

Every day you should learn something new, and until then I had heard nothing of St Colman: St Colman mac Lenene lived in the sixth century and was a friend of St Finbarr, who we have encountered previously. He founded his monastery in Cloyne in 560 here and the cathedral is built over a network of caves, now inaccessible but used in the penal days by priests as a secret underground link from Cloyne House to the Catholic graveyard in order to say mass for the people.

A window by artist Patrick Pye

Nor did I know anything about the Bishop of Cloyne whose alabaster effigy rests in the north transept of the cathedral, watchfully guarded by a wonderfully personable Lion: it all made me think about how I would like the world to remember me after I’m gone…

George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne – with Guardian

You may know – or you may not – that it was Bishop Berkeley who gave his name to the University of California, Berkeley, although he gets a very scant mention on the University’s website. George Berkeley (correctly pronounced bark-lee) was born on 12 March 1685 in Kilkenny and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he later became a lecturer in Greek. He was a radical thinker and philosopher whose best known achievement was the advancement of a theory he called Immaterialism, also known as Subjective Idealism. This theory denies the existence of material substance and contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are only ideas in the minds of perceivers, and as a result cannot exist without being perceived.

He left the British Isles for the American Colonies in 1729, settling in Rhode Island but determined to found a Utopian city in Bermuda based in principles which he set out. One was: …for the better supplying of churches in our foreign plantations and for converting the savage Americans to Christianity… while …being in Bermuda would prevent the Native American youngsters from “returning to their brutal customs, before they were thoroughly imbued with good principles and habits.”

The 'Bermuda Group' - George Berkeley with his family on Rhode Island

The ‘Bermuda Group’ – George Berkeley with his family and friends on Rhode Island (John Smibert)

Berkeley’s social experiments didn’t get off the ground, mainly due to lack of funding, and he returned to London in 1732 and then to Ireland where he was appointed Bishop of Cloyne in 1734, a post which he retained until his death in 1752.

It’s a long way to Indian Rock: Berkeley, California – named after the Bishop of Cloyne

George Berkeley wrote Verses on the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America – inspired by the colonisation of the New World: …Westward the course of empire takes its way; The first four Acts already past, A fifth shall close the Drama with the day; Time’s noblest offspring is the last… and it was these lines that were remembered when the city and University of Berkeley were founded in 1866. This Californian institution ‘…became a catalyst of economic growth and social innovation — the place where vitamin E was discovered, a lost Scarlatti opera found, the flu virus identified, and the nation’s first no-fault divorce law drafted…’

From the time of Colman and Finnbarr Cloyne was a great centre of ecclesiastical power. Today the cathedral is a Church of Ireland (Protestant) house and in need of maintenance and repair – a problem for a small population of worshippers. The churchyard is overgrown, and a sanctuary for wild flowers; the ancient gravestones are leaning and barely decipherable. All in all, a place – like so many in Ireland – imbued with a fascinating history which embraces the world.

St Colman

Posted on May 18, 2014June 21, 2015
3 Comments

Old Nog

The Heron Family – a 19th century print

Here at Nead an Iolair we are on a flight-path. Not for Eagles – which you might expect (Nead an Iolair means Nest of the Eagle) – but for Herons. I have often watched one of these most prehistoric seeming of birds lazily flapping its way across our view, apparently from the hills behind us, towards the islands in front – no doubt heading for its shallow water fishing grounds. Yesterday I saw the Heron being mobbed persistently by Crows – presumably worried about their eggs and young – but our Old Nog ignored the harrying and continued stolidly on his way. Herons roost in trees – and do so communally: I would like to search out the Heronry, which would be a rich experience in both sound and smell.

A ‘Tarka’ edition illustrated by Tunnicliffe

Old Nog – there’s a good name for this character. It comes from Tarka the Otter, probably the most famous book by Henry Williamson – a master nature writer and novelist who lived from 1895 to 1977, spending many of those years in Devon. The book – winner of the Hawthornden Prize for Literature in 1928, and never out of print since it was published – opens with these lines:

…Twilight upon meadow and water, the eve-star shining above the hill, and Old Nog the heron crying kra-a-ark! as his slow dark wings carried him down the estuary. A whiteness drifting above the sere reeds of the riverside, for the owl had flown from under the middle arch of the stone bridge that once carried the canal across the river…

Henry Williamson

The story of Tarka unfolds in places I know well: I was in Devon for nearly four decades before I came here to Ireland. The stone bridge that once carried the canal across the river is still there, not far from where I once lived: the old aqueduct on the Rolle Canal over the Torridge now carries the driveway to a private house. Tarka’s travels took him right up to the heart of Dartmoor: to Cranmere Pool, close by which stand, today, the ruins of an old farm. This was once described (by William Crossing the Dartnoor writer) as ‘the remotest house in England’. My mother’s grandmother was born and raised there in the nineteenth century, one of fourteen children from a single generation. The name Cranmere comes from ‘mere of the Crane’, and the Crane was and still is a name often given, in England and Ireland, to the Heron.

Home of my forebears: Teignhead, Dartmoor (Strutt 1828)

Having established, perhaps somewhat tenuously, my own relationship to the Heron, I will enlarge upon the bird’s place in folklore and tradition. The Heron was once a regular dish on the English medieval banqueting table: as the property of the crown, heavy fines were levied on anyone caught poaching the bird, while in Scotland the penalty was amputation of the right hand. From observations of the bird standing still for hours in shallow water waiting patiently for its lunch to pass within range of its sharp bill, anglers assumed that the Heron’s feet had some means of attracting the fish towards it, and it was once a custom for the fisherman to carry a Heron’s foot for luck, but also to coat the fishing line with Heron’s fat and a noxious mixture made from boiled Heron’s claws.

Aesop penned a fable about the Heron and the Fox: Fox invites the Heron to dinner but only provides a shallow plate of soup which the bird is unable to partake of because of its long beak. In retaliation, Heron invites Fox, and provides the food in a bottle with a long narrow neck: Fox is unable to share in this food. The moral? ‘One bad turn deserves another’.

Fox and Heron – Frans Snyder 1657

I have never successfully photographed a Heron, but you can see some excellent pictures in the portfolio of Sheena Jolley – a professional wildlife photographer who lives not far away from here, in Schull. And here’s another – by our friend Lisa who lives out on the Sheeps Head.

In Ireland the Heron is known as Corr reisc or Corr-ghrian (crying Crane). Although a common bird, I have found no specifically Irish folktale which includes Herons: if you know of one I would be delighted to hear it. There are some superstitions: if a Heron lands on your house you will have good luck, and if some of its plumage floats down to you – then you will have amazing luck! So, come on Old Nog – how about an occasional perch on the roof of Nead an Iolair? And, while you’re at it, throw out a few feathers as well… Of course, if there are more than one of you we will be able to say …there goes a siege of Herons…!

Posted on May 18, 2014May 18, 2014
9 Comments

In the Wilds of West Cork

West Cork night life

What on earth will you find to do in the wilds of West Cork? One friend asked me this when I announced my plans to move here. Others may have been too polite to express the thought, but the question hovered. They needn’t have worried, of course. I don’t think I have ever lived anywhere else where there was so much going on and so much to do. If that was true in the winter, it’s more so now. It’s spring and summer’s around the corner, so West Cork Festival Season has gone into high gear. I wrote about the Ballydehob Trad Festival six weeks ago. Since then, there have been two more – a jazz festival in Ballydehob and the Fiddle Fair in Baltimore.

Live jazz in the Irish Whip Bar

The Jazz Festival featured a street market, and jazz sessions in most of the pubs all afternoon and well into the night. The village hall was decked out as a night club one night, with dancing into the wee hours. There were musicians and jazz aficionados from all over Ireland, and the pubs were bursting at the seams and spilling over onto the sidewalks.

Soul Driven and the riveting dancer Ksenia Parkhaskaya

This is the second time we have been here for the Baltimore Fiddle Fair, which has ben going now for over 20 years, under the brilliant direction of Declan McCarthy. World class acts come to play in this tiny village. The audience is diverse too – we met people who had come from Britain, Germany and the USA just for this weekend. We had season tickets, which meant we weren’t asleep before 2 in the morning for four nights in a row – probably earlier than most of the attendees!

Eddi Reader

A highlight was Eddi Reader, a Scottish singer/songwriter with a larger than life stage presence, a great line in stories, and a soaring voice. Robert loved seeing Aly Bain, one of his musical heroes, in concert and we both appreciated the wide range of music on offer, from Appalachian old time fiddling to Swedish polskas, Scottish and Irish tunes, and an entertaining group call the New Rope String Band who kept us laughing with their slapstick humour. For the readers who have been requesting videos, I recorded one lively number and uploaded it to YouTube – take a look. It’s a tiny taste of what we experienced.

John Sheahan with young fans

One unforgettable afternoon was devoted to a concert by John Sheahan, the sole surviving member of the legendary Dubliners. Accompanied by Eamon Keane on the keyboard, he told stories, read us his poetry, and played his own compositions. He is truly an Irish icon, and it felt like a real privilege to hear him in such an intimate venue. He played a wide variety of music and I recorded this one: St Patrick’s Cathedral.

Of course all these late nights and bouncing around on seats takes a toll on the body, leading to the need for a rejuvenating day at a spa. Fortunately, there is a marvellous one in West Cork, on Inchydoney Island, where my friend Amanda and I repaired for a girly day of pampering. You can read her account of our hedonism here.

The strand at Inchydoney Island

And in case you might feel that the entertainment described above is not highbrow enough, last night we attended a performance of a Haydn mass and Mozart’s Requiem by the West Cork Choral Singers. Accompanied by an excellent small orchestra (we recognised some of the players from our regular Firday night trad sessions: fiddlers turned violinists) and four outstanding soloists, the choir rose to the challenge of an ambitious program magnificently, garnering a well-deserved standing ovation by the appreciative audience.

West Cork Choral Singers present Mozart’s Requiem in Skibbereen

We won’t have much time to recover from all those late night – next weekend is the Fastnet Short Film Festival in Schull as well as a Skibbereen Historical Society trip to Cape Clear, and the one after that is the Ballydehob Country Music Festival (where I may have a small role to play). More on those events in an upcoming post. If I survive it all…It’s a tough life, out here in the wilds!

Posted on May 11, 2014May 11, 2014
7 Comments

Durrus Delight: Carraig Abhainn Gardens

This week we visited a tiny jewel of a garden. Tucked behind Wiseman’s general store in Durrus is a two and a half acre gem called Carraig Abhainn (Rocky River, pronounced KA-rig OW-in [OW to rhyme with now]). It’s been a labour of love for over 20 years – the work of Eugene and Hazel Wiseman. We were lucky to have a chat with Eugene while we were there.

Robert and Gill by the mill stream

Eugene Wiseman

Glimpsed amid the foliage

There are no large signs out on the road pointing the way and little advertising in the local media, so this is not as well known as it deserves. You pop into Wiseman’s shop, pay €5, open the gate at the end of the building, and step into a small wonderland.

The first thing you become aware of is water. A mill stream forms one boundary of the garden, crossed by little bridges here and there. The Four Mile River forms another – and this stretch is truly magnificent. Clear and sparkling, it rushes and falls and leaps over the rocks that give the garden its name. The paths have been cleverly constructed so that as you stroll you encounter the river at different points. Each point has a unique vista that encourages you to gaze, contemplate, photograph or just sit and listen.

The daffodils were over when we went and some of the rhododendrons had faded too. Nevertheless, around every bend was a new feast for the eye and the camera, from the undergrowth of bluebells to the camellias, yellow irises and the climbing clematis. Exotic trees add variety of colour, texture and size – “I wonder what that is?” became our mantra. (For those who need an answer, the garden website provides a list of plants.)

A wonderfully idiosyncratic feature of this garden is the statuary – a unique blend of the classical and the quirky, perfectly placed to enhance a long path, mark a set of steps, or simply be discovered rounding a corner. Near the entrance is a mural, with Greek columns and a water garden and benches that invite you to enjoy this sunny spot.

There’s a West Cork Garden Trail in the second half of June and Carraig Abhainn is one of the gardens featured on the trail. But don’t wait until then – if you are anywhere in the vicinity of Durrus drop by Wiseman’s and treat yourself to a quiet hour or two soaking up the beauty and tranquility of this charming oasis. Bring a latte and piece of cake from the excellent Gateway restaurant next door – that’s all you need to complete your little slice of heaven.

Posted on May 11, 2014March 9, 2026
10 Comments

Troll Tuning

Baltimore - with Dún na Séad before restoration - painted by Val Byrne

It’s May, and time for the Baltimore Fiddle Fair, still in progress as I write this, and keeping us up well into the nights with world class concerts: music from so many cultures that involves the ubiquitous violin. My post today has been sparked off by the opening event held in the restored Dún na Séad – the name means fort of the jewels, which may be a reference to the building’s role in the collection of taxes levied on foreign vessels entering the harbour. The Anglo-Norman castle was built in the early 13th century, was besieged and sacked many times, became a garrison for Oliver Cromwell in 1649 and fell into ruin until it was rescued and underwent a superb full restoration only completed in 2005. Friday’s candlelit opening concert featured a fiddle master from the Shetlands, Aly Bain, and his long term musical collaborator Ale Möller, a multi instrumentalist from Sweden.

One piece in their programme immediately caught my attention: Hjaltadans – literally translated as ‘lame’ or ‘limping’ dance. It’s also the name of a Bronze Age stone circle near Houbie in the Shetlands. It’s said that the two central stones of that circle are a fiddler and his wife who were entertaining a group of Trowies (trolls) and were interrupted in their music making by the rising sun which turned them all to stone. Trolls are undoubtedly related to The Other Crowd in Ireland, and also inhabit the shadows in Scandinavia.

Here is an extract from the latest album from Bain, Möller and Molsky – Troll Tuning: King Karl’s March –

The Shetland troll dance was followed by a Swedish ‘Troll Tuning Set’. Aly and Ale explained that Troll Tuning is a particular way of setting up a fiddle where the strings are tuned AEAC♯, rather than the more usual GDAE. This tuning is sometimes used in Scandinavia, Shetland and in American old-time music (this probably because there were so many settlers from Sweden in North America). The tuning produces very distinctive, haunting music: ‘…Once you’ve heard a trowie tune you can never forget it…’ Even more interesting is the legend that playing such tunes connects the musicians with magical powers.

All this reminded me of traditional stories involving musicians and characters from the Otherworlds: they are pretty universal over many cultures. I also thought about a particular type of fiddle from Norway (regularly seen and heard at the Fiddle Fair) which has ‘magical’ associations: the Hardanger Fiddle or Hardingfele in Norwegian. This traditional instrument is usually magnificently carved and inlaid, and has understrings which are not actually bowed, but are tuned to vibrate when other notes are sounded. The tone and ambience of the instrument is unique and compelling: it is easy to imagine the Trowies or Sióg (pronouced Sheeogue: Irish Fairies) requiring such striking sounds for their festivities. But some have thought the Hardingfele has diabolic connections, and in fact many good players were reputed to have been taught to play by the Devil himself. During the 1800s many fiddles were destroyed or hidden both by fiddlers and laypeople who thought ‘…that it would be best for the soul that the fiddle be burned…’ as it was viewed as ‘… a sinful instrument that encouraged wild dances, drinking and fighting…’

In Ireland, boys were sometimes dressed as girls to stop the Sheehogue from stealing them away

At this time of the year it’s not just the instruments and the music we have to be wary of: throughout the month of May the Sióg are active. Yeats tells how an old man saw them fight once: ‘…they tore the thatch off a house in the midst of it all. Had anyone else been near they would merely have seen a great wind whirling everything into the air as it passed. When the wind makes the straws and leaves whirl, that is the Fairies, and the peasantry take off their hats and say, God bless them…’

The wind is certainly whirling and tearing at the trees outside as I write this: May has seen the return of strong gales – the trees are bending again and Roaringwater Bay is alive with white breakers. Looking out to the islands I bring to mind a tune from the Blaskets, over on the coast of Kerry. Port na bPúcaí (Music of the Fairies) is a haunted song if ever there was one. It’s said that the islanders were out fishing in their currachs when a storm broke out. It turned into a gale and they feared for their lives as the canvas hulled craft became swamped. Then, the wind suddenly died and they became aware of music playing somewhere around them – an unearthly music. The island fiddler was amongst the crew; when they got safely back to land he found he could remember the tune they had heard. It has passed into the traditional repertoire and has been played ever since.

My own rendition of Port na bPúcaí on the concertina –

To close, a verse by Seamus Heaney which was inspired by this story of the Fairy music:

The Given Note

On the most westerly Blasket
In a dry-stone hut
He got this air out of the night.

Strange noises were heard
By others who followed, bits of a tune
Coming in on loud weather

Though nothing like melody.
He blamed their fingers and ear
As unpractised, their fiddling easy

For he had gone alone into the island
And brought back the whole thing.
The house throbbed like his full violin.

So whether he calls it spirit music
Or not, I don’t care. He took it
Out of wind off mid-Atlantic.

Still he maintains, from nowhere.
It comes off the bow gravely,
Rephrases itself into the air.

Posted on May 4, 2014
8 Comments

A Little Adventure

Aderrawinny – a Portal Tomb

The landscape of West Cork is so densely populated with archaeology and historical sites that it will be a lifetime’s work to visit every one. Whenever the sun shines – and often when it doesn’t – we are out exploring. A great resource for us is the Archaeological Survey Database, set up by the National Monuments Service of Ireland. This lists and describes every site in the Republic which has been recorded to date – and it is expanding all the time. I have to say that the way it works in practice is slightly clumsy: you have to know which County and which Townland you are searching in, but once you have got your head around it it is fairly straightforward to locate a record. One of the really good things about it is that you can see the position of each record laid over the modern Ordnance Survey mapping of Ireland, or historic 6″ and 25″ maps – and even over satellite views of the terrain: all this makes locating the sites relatively easy, although it doesn’t help overcome bogs, barbed wire fences and seemingly impenetrable undergrowth.

Prehistoric Landscape West of Schull

We have been researching Megalithic tombs, and there are many of these on the Mizen Peninsula. On Sunday last we compiled a list from the Survey Database, donned our boots, filled up our flasks and went out to tackle the wild unknown…

View from Aderrawinny

Our first stop was in the townland of Aderrawinny – a Portal Tomb. The site is shown north of the Schull to Goleen road, up in a rocky hillside. In spite of having looked carefully at the maps it wasn’t easy to locate precisely, but I find you begin to get an instinct about these things and we headed off expectantly across boggy land and through painful patches of gorse and bramble, pausing frequently to examine every outcrop for undiscovered Rock Art. Eventually our travails were rewarded when we crested a low ridge and found ourselves looking down on a lonely construction created perhaps 5,000 years ago. It’s a humbling experience to think of the history which has befallen our ancestors during those millennia: through it all this little monument to humanity has survived with little change, eternally pointing its entrance to the movements of the sun and having always in its sight the distant blue waters of Toormore Bay. The landscape, also, has changed so little, apart from the minor interventions of agriculture. This is what makes the west of Ireland such a special place – for me, at least.

5,000 year old Monument

We travelled on, passing by the well known and well signposted Altar Tomb, a Wedge Tomb which is constructed so that the setting sun around Samhain (November) is aligned with a holy peak at the far end of the Mizen.

Altar Wedge Tomb: Sacred Orientation

We found another Wedge Tomb near Goleen: this has been ‘domesticated’ because somebody’s garden is built around it: it has to share its presence with chicken runs and a wheelbarrow.

Back Yard Wedge Tomb

Lastly, we searched out another type of tomb: a Boulder Burial. This lies almost drowned in a salt marsh near Dunmanus. Since the time of its construction water levels are reckoned to have risen by up to two metres. It reposes like some great amphibian reptile on a watery bed, as dramatic in its own way as any of the other Megaliths.

Drowning Monument: Boulder Burial at Dunmanus

These hillsides, mountains and monuments will outlive humankind. Interesting to ponder whether something we have created in our own lifetime could still be around and – for all we know – still performing its original function in 5,000 years’ time…

Email link is under 'more' button.

Email link is under 'more' button.

Email link is under 'more' button.

Email link is under 'more' button.

Email link is under 'more' button.

Email link is under 'more' button.