Presenting Rock Art

A joint post by Finola and Robert

On Friday, the Blue House Gallery in Schull launched The Rock Art Show. It included everything that was in the exhibition at the Cork Public Museum, but with more of Ken William’s extraordinary photographs, and with the addition of some exquisite drypoint engravings from Brian Lalor.

The opening night was lovely. It was great to celebrate with friends and the community and to see their reactions to the show.*

Once the show was completely installed we were struck immediately by the way art and archaeology intersected on the walls. It’s designed partly as a museum exhibit, in which you walk around the panels, reading the information and digesting the accompanying illustrations. However, in this iteration, it is much more than that, and has truly turned into a show not just about the rock art per se, but about the power of these ancient and mysterious carvings to inspire an artistic response in others.

Some examples of what we mean…

Keith Payne’s wildly colourful painting contrasts with Robert’s sober CAD drawing

The first drawing of the Gortnagulla stone was done 40 years ago by Finola, using a tracing technique no longer approved. Brian Lalor’s engraving is of the same piece

Can you recognise the same stone in Ken William’s photograph and Finola’s drawing?

But in the end, images on a wall will only go so far in helping us to appreciate rock art. Ultimately, you have to get out into the countryside and see the rocks in their landscape.

One of Ken’s superb photographs showing how this particular stone sits in its landscape

Only then will you realise how hard they can be to see if the lighting is not good, to how difficult it can be to distinguish between natural and human markings on a rock surface, or how they all seem to be located in beautiful places with panoramic views. Or – to have an experience like this one, in which we made a breathtaking and unexpected discovery about one of our favourite rock art panels, and quite by accident recorded it all on video.

So if you’re in West Cork before the end of September, drop by the gallery. We’d love to see you.

*With grateful acknowledgement of additional photographs of the opening night by Peter Clarke, Amanda Clarke and Miranda Payne.

Posted on September 4, 2016September 4, 2016
13 Comments

Gary, Paul, and Nana’s Soup

Two local lads, from Lisheen down the road, have stolen the hearts of everyone in West Cork. Everyone in Ireland, actually, and beyond.

Gary and Paul rode the open-topped bus into Skibbereen on Monday night and then spoke from the stage at Fairfield

Gary and Paul O’Donovan won a silver medal in Rio in their rowing pairs class. They row for the Skibbereen Rowing Club, a local club that punches way above its weight in national and international competitions. The coach credited with that is the brilliant, but mono-syllabic, Dominic Casey. Taking Gary and Paul under his wing, he turned them into the hard-working athletes they are.

In the window on the left, the boys’ mother, Trish O’Donovan, and their grandmother (Nana), Mary Doab

Their parents’ devotion was sterling. Eoghan Harris’s Independent interview with their Mother, Trish, is perhaps one of the most revealing pieces of journalism about the O’Donovan Brothers phenomenon and what it takes to support an Olympian.

Waiting for the Open-Topped Bus

Gary and Paul are also dream interviewees – every sentence is a sound bite, delivered in pure West Cork accents, with artless but articulate insouciance. Their interviews are now the stuff of legend – but if you haven’t already seen them, take a look at this one done before the final race. What shines through, and makes them so endearing, is that they take their training, but not themselves, seriously.

Above: Left, Stella and Hugh sporting their ‘occasion wear’; Right, this young man let me take his photo in his Shteak and Spuds shirt. Below: Many of the Skibbereen merchants had decorated their windows

The classic quotes have already been immortalised and the T-shirts have been selling like hot cakes in Skibbereen. The night of their homecoming it seemed like the whole of West Cork turned up to welcome them, including us! It was great fun to be there, in the streets, waiting for the open-topped bus, and then to see them on the stage, with Dominic Casey, so obviously having the time of their lives.

We, thousands of us, re-lived their big moment on an enormous screen in the Skibbereen Fairfield

Someone who came in for special praise in one of their interviews was the boys’ grandmother – their Nana (the first of the interviews on this page). Coming in cold and hungry from rowing, they gratefully wolfed down her home-made soup and ‘brown cake.’ Here in West Cork when we talk about a ‘cake of bread’ – what we mean is that solid round mass of white or brown home-made soda bread that is one of the staples of our diets, and that tourists have come to love.

It seemed like the whole of West Cork turned out to greet them

In honour of Gary and Paul and their Nana, and using only locally grown and organic vegetables purchased at Levis’s of Ballydehob Wednesday Farmers’ Market, here is my recipe for Nana’s Soup. It’s vegetarian and gluten-free – and totally delicious! Serve with a wedge of brown bread if gluten is OK for you. (I’ve become more sensitised to gluten issues recently as a dear little niece has been diagnosed with coeliac disease.)

Local growers sell their fresh vegetables at Levis’s pub in Ballydehob on Wednesday mornings

NANA’S SOUP: THE RECIPE

Vegetables: I used kabocha squash, onions, carrots, parsnips, potatoes and green beans, but you can use any robust vegetables that are in season.

Other ingredients: 1 can organic tomatoes, tapioca starch, vegetable stock (I used Marigold Swiss Veg Bouillon, but Knorr Veg Stock Pot is also gluten-free)), fresh or dried herbs.

Cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds and roast in a hot oven for about 20 minutes. Leave to cool. Once cool, scoop out the flesh of the squash and chop roughly.

Peel and roughly chop the onions, potatoes, carrots and parsnips. Top and tail the green beans and cut in half or thirds. Chop the herbs (I used parsley sage, oregano and fennel from my garden, but any combination that suits you is fine).

Sweat the onions over medium heat in butter or olive oil until translucent. Over the onions, scatter about 2tbs of tapioca starch (this make it gluten-free, but if gluten is not a problem, just use flour) and stir until well mixed and starting to thicken. Pour in a can of organic tomatoes, the herbs, and a cup or two of vegetable stock. Stir until well mixed, then add all the vegetables. Bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer for at least an hour, preferably two or even three.

After a bowl of this, you too can Pull Like a Dog!

Gary and Paul aren’t intimidated by a ‘bit of wind’. This is why – Skibbereen Rowing Club is on the beautiful , and breezy, Ilen River

Posted on September 4, 2016December 8, 2022
19 Comments

Betjeman in Ireland – Poet and Spy?

I remember well the day they buried Sir John Betjeman. The graveyard of St Enodoc’s Church (above, from a 1970s postcard), is close to the Cornish village of Trebetherick – his home for many years. On that day in May 1984 there was a downpour of torrential proportions, and all that could be seen when they laid him to rest was a sea of black umbrellas. The poet himself would have loved the very English spectacle of it.

Left – the larger than life 2007 bronze statue of John Betjeman at St Pancras Station, London: the sculpture is by Martin Jennings (photo Christoph Braun). Betjeman was a founding member of theVictorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture: his campaigning was responsible for saving the Station and the Chambers from demolition in the 1960’s. Right – the headstone of Betjeman’s grave in Cornwall

The poet is well known for his accessible and, often, highly amusing writing: perhaps less well-known are his Irish connections. During the Second World War (or ‘the Emergency’ in Ireland), John Betjeman was posted to Dublin, ostensibly as a press attache in the British embassy, tasked with planting British propaganda in newspapers and trying to counter the activities of Deutsche Nachtrichten Büro – the German Press Agency which, in 1939, appointed its own official representative in Ireland, Dr Carlheinz Petersen. As the war got under way British media were swamped with propaganda stories against Irish neutrality: for example, it was suggested that German submarine crews were being entertained in remote villages in the west of Ireland, and that wireless transmitters up in the mountains were at the heart of a vast espionage system against Britain. When Ireland refused to lease back its ports to Britain during the Battle of the Atlantic, the idea began to take hold in Britain that ‘neutralit’y was a wilful act of hostility against the allies. John Betjeman was drafted in to the Ministry of Information to help calm the situation. Betjeman’s job was to rein in these anti-Irish fantasies. Luckily for future Anglo-Irish relations, he managed to put a stop to a Ministry plan to disseminate propaganda leaflets in packets of tea, soap and toilet paper. Betjeman recommended “the stopping of anti-Irish articles and cartoons”. Instead, propaganda should concentrate on backing De Valera “and showing the tightrope he is walking”. Although De Valera was convinced Germany would win the war, the poet said: “There is no doubt that he and most of his ministers feel that the better interests of Eire will best be served by a British victory. For this reason Mr de Valera is Britain’s best friend in Ireland.”

A surviving photograph of John Betjeman (left) in Dublin during the war years – note the two pipers; the context is unknown

It’s hard to know whether Betjeman was actually a spy – even his biographer can’t clarify that. But the IRA thought so, and dispatched two men to permanently put him out of action. Diarmuid Brennan was the IRA army council’s head of civilian intelligence in 1941, and he was approached by two gunmen from the second battalion of the Dublin IRA who were looking for a photograph of …a fellow called Betjeman… These second battalion types were known to us as the Edward-Gees of the IRA, after Edward G Robinson… 26 years later Brennan wrote to John Betjeman telling him about the plot: …I got communications describing you as ‘dangerous’ and a person of menace to all of us. In short, you were depicted in the blackest of colours…

However, Brennan was interested to know more about this condemned man and began to read his poetry. The story goes that Brennan was swayed by reading Continual Dew, a 1937 volume that contains several poems about Ireland and another about Oscar Wilde, as well as Slough, in which he implored the Luftwaffe:

…Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn’t fit for humans now,
There isn’t grass to graze a cow…

Brennan decided that someone who was as passionate about poetry as Betjeman should be given the benefit of the doubt and aborted the assassination. There’s no doubt that Betjeman liked Ireland – and had some appreciation of the Irish outlook on life, in particular the love of literature. He was a lifelong friend of the poet Louis MacNeice and also of Patrick Kavanagh, who wrote a poem for Candida – Betjeman’s daughter – in celebration of her first birthday in 1942:

Candida is one to-day,
What is there that one can say?
One is where the race begins
Or the sum that counts our sins;
But the mark time makes to-morrow
Shapes the cross of joy or sorrow.

Candida is one to-day,
What is there for me to say?
On the day that she was one
There were apples in the sun
And the fields long wet with rain
Crumply in dry winds again.

Candida is one and I
Wish her lots and lots of joy.
She the nursling of September
Like a war she won't remember.
Candida is one to-day
And there's nothing more to say.

The Betjeman family: John, Candida, Paul and Penelope 1948 (Bassano)

Betjeman is also particularly remembered for the part he played in bringing Laurence Olivier to Ireland to film Henry V on the Powerscourt Estate. This film, itself a piece of wartime propaganda, brought a short period of prosperity to County Wicklow in 1943. The doughty yeomen who faced the French in the Agincourt battle scenes were actually Irish farmers: these ‘extras’ each received an additional pound if they brought along their own horse!

Battle scene – Agincourt in Ireland, Powerscourt, Co Wicklow

The small towns of Ireland by bards are neglected,
They stand there, all lonesome, on hilltop and plain.
The Protestant glebe house by beech trees protected
Sits close to the gates of his Lordship’s demesne.

But where is his Lordship, who once in a phaeton
Drove out twixt his lodges and into the town?
Oh his tragic misfortunes I will not dilate on;
His mansion’s a ruin, his woods are cut down…

(from The Small Towns of Ireland, John Betjeman)

Posted on August 28, 2016August 28, 2016
21 Comments

Green & Silver

This book review has been a long time coming: I first read the book in 1963! I was still at school then, and I was given it as a prize for essay writing (although I have no memory of the essay). I chose Green & Silver because I was already familiar with the author – Lionel Thomas Caswall Rolt, more usually known as L T C Rolt or ‘Tom’ Rolt. I had found in the local library his first book – Narrow Boat – written in the late 1930s when the author and his wife were living and travelling through England and Wales on board a converted canal boat. At that time the canals of Britain were still in commercial use, although water transport as a way of life was declining. I was smitten with the romanticism of the nomadic life of the canal boatmen – and of Tom Rolt – and Narrow Boat is beautifully illustrated with woodcuts by Denys Watkins-Pitchford, which enhance the experience of reading this classic book (which has never been out of print). Sir Compton Mackenzie wrote “it is an elegy of classic restraint unmarred by any trace of sentiment… Rolt’s pen is as sure as the brush of a Cotman… Narrow Boat will go on the shelf with White and Cobbett and Hudson.”

Woodcuts by Denys Watkins-Pitchford which illustrated the first edition of Narrow Boat by L T C Rolt, published by Eyre + Spottiswoode, 1944

When choosing my essay prize, therefore, it seemed perfectly natural to go for another of Rolt’s books. A brief foray through book catalogues (remember – there was no internet in those days!) brought to light Green & Silver, first published in 1949. I established that it was an account of a journey by the same author through the canals of Ireland. It was the cover as much as anything else that attracted me to the book – it stood out as something quite unusual; I little knew that the content would have a profound effect on me, instilling an immediate yearning to visit the land across the Irish Sea, about which I knew very little.

Left – the bookplate pasted into my first edition of Green & Silver (it’s now in print again); right – the exuberant dust cover which attracted me to the book, painted by Evelyn Hunt

It was, however, to be a dozen years before I first visited Ireland (and then it was more a search for music than the canals), but Rolt’s works as a whole (he wrote more than 50 books) cemented in me an enduring interest in engineering, industrial archaeology, and, specifically, water transport. I spent my youthful leisure time campaigning to restore canals, physically digging them out of dereliction and even building lock gates with oak beams and elm boards using traditional techniques. Within a few years of reading Rolt I had acquired and restored my own boat and followed in his wake, spending a year travelling over the British canal system and writing a new book about their engineering and architecture.

Green & Silver is illustrated with photographs taken by Angela Rolt on the journey through Ireland. They are a valuable and evocative record of life just after the ‘Emergency’ years of the Second World War. Here is the Rolts’ borrowed boat – Le Coq – at Robertstown, on the Grand Canal: pleasure boating was virtually unheard of in rural Ireland in those days and the voyagers seemed much troubled by groups of children who gathered whenever they moored up, all demanding to see – and board – the ‘yacht’

Tom and Angela Rolt faced many challenges in their journey – well documented in the book. They set out to navigate the Shannon, starting at Athlone, to the entrance of the Grand Canal at Shannon Harbour; along that canal to Dublin, then up the Royal Canal to rejoin the Shannon at Tarmonbarry and exploring the river northwards as far as Lough Allen, also taking in the River Boyle. The final part of the journey to Athlone crossed Lough Ree. The ‘Emergency’ years and their aftermath saw restrictions on the availability of fuel: this affected the Rolts’ plans, although they did complete their journey. They encountered commercial traffic on the Grand Canal – some horse drawn – and a little on the Royal Canal, which became derelict shortly after their travels. Le Coq was probably the last boat to complete the circular journey in the twentieth century: after significant efforts by the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland (founded in 1954) the Royal Canal has been fully restored to navigation and reopened in 2010.

From Green & Silver: a map of the navigable waterways of Ireland at the time of the book’s publication in 1949

This book is full of descriptive detail and observation of the ways of life and the people that Tom Rolt encountered: every page fascinates. It’s hard to pick out any one section to exemplify the writing style, but here is an extract describing a visit to a corn mill at Cloondara in County Longford close to Richmond Harbour, the junction of the Royal Canal with the River Shannon (the mill ceased operations in the 1950s, not long after Rolt’s visit):

…Across the canal bridge there was a large corn mill which had seen better days but which I was pleased to see was still at work. Moreover it was not, as our few surviving [British] watermills are, relegated by the milling combine to grinding cattle meal. Cloondara Mill was grinding 100 per cent extraction flour for the village bakeries of the district. As we walked over the bridge a small water-turbine was churning merrily, driving the dynamo which provided electric light for the mill and the miller’s house. But the great undershot wheel which drove the mill from the waters of the Fallan River, a tributary of the Shannon, was still and silent. I knew why because, from somewhere in the dim recesses of the rambling stone building I could hear the chip chip of a mill-bill tapping away like some busy woodpecker. This Irish miller, like the English country millers who I have been fortunate enough to meet, was obviously proud of his mill and was delighted by our interest. Having assured himself that the stones being dressed were out of gear, he insisted upon opening the sluice for our benefit, setting the giant wheel revolving with a rumble and surge that wakened the mill and which, via a complex of wooden gearing, shafts and pulleys, set screens and sieves shaking and revolving to the very top of the building…

Angela Rolt’s photograph of Le Coq moored at Richmond Harbour, Cloondara – ‘derelict warehouses and empty cottages’

…There were four pairs of stones, two sets of ‘Peaks’ for meal and two sets of French Burrs for wheat. The runner of one pair of Peaks had been swung off the bedstone, and the dresser sat on a sack, legs astraddle, as he tapped away at the worn furrows with his bill. I had expected to find that the language of the miller’s craft was different in Ireland, but this was not so. Thus the stirrup and shoe which feeds the grain into the eye of the runner stone and whose cheerful clink clack contrasts with the rumble of the stones, our miller, like his fellows in England, called the ‘damsel’. In an earlier book I described how the miller of Minshull Mill in Cheshire used apple wood to renew the teeth of the wooden mill gearing. Here beech wood was used for this purpose…

More of Angela Rolt’s photographs from the book: top – Peter Farrell’s working boat on the Grand Canal; centre – the Beirne family outside their inn at Battlebridge, close to the entrance of the abandoned Lough Allen Canal. Le Coq was the first boat to visit Battlebridge in seven years! Bottom – the Lock Keeper and his family at Draper’s Bridge, Royal Canal. The Rolts were always impressed with the generosity of the lock-keepers, particularly on this little-used waterway: they were constantly plied with milk, potatoes and scallions – ‘enough to sink the boat’…

Rolt was at heart an engineer: on leaving school at 16 he took a job learning about steam traction, before starting an apprenticeship at the Kerr Stuart locomotive works in Stoke-on Trent. Railways were in his blood as much as canals were. Thus he couldn’t leave Ireland without a journey on the West Clare Railway – then one of the last surviving narrow gauge railways in Ireland – and the subject of a song written and – famously – sung by Percy French, which includes the refrain:

…Are ye right there, Michael, are ye right?
Do you think that we’ll be there before the night?
Ye’ve been so long in startin’
That ye couldn’t say for certain’
Still ye might now, Michael
So ye might!

The Rolts’ journey on the line from Ennis is well documented in Green & Silver:

…We consigned the bulk of our luggage direct to Limerick to await our arrival there next day, and booked a first class ticket to Kilrush. We might as well enjoy this protracted journey in the maximum of comfort and seclusion. The little train, the only one of the day, was standing in the bay, and we settled ourselves into a compartment that was a period piece in itself. The seats were covered with black American cloth well studded with buttons. Braided arm rests (were they ever used?) were looped over the door pillars, and the captions of the ancient and faded photographs over the seat backs were hand written in painstaking copper-plate. To do justice to such an interior I should, I felt, be wearing a deer-stalker and an ulster…

The West Clare Railway: left – a photograph by Angela Rolt from Green & Silver showing L T C Rolt in a first class carriage on their journey from Athlone and – right – a stamp issued by the Railway Company for the ‘conveyance of single post letters by railway’

L T C Rolt was heavily involved in a movement in Britain to ‘save’ the declining canal system and in May 1946 the Inland Waterways Association was founded with Robert Aickman as chairman, Charles Hadfield (the canal historian) as vice-chairman and Rolt as secretary. Since that time the IWA has successfully campaigned to secure the restoration of many threatened waterways, and even to build some new ones in Britain. Sadly, within 5 years, Rolt had fallen out with the IWA over ideology, and was expelled from its membership. But Rolt moved on and campaigned to prevent the closure of the Talyllyn narrow gauge railway in Wales. He was involved in its resurrection as the first ‘preserved’ railway line in the world. His name is commemorated on one of the restored locomotives operating on the line: fittingly this engine began life working for Bord na Móna, the company in Ireland created by the Turf Development Act of 1946. The company is still responsible today for the mechanised harvesting of peat and uses narrow gauge railways: formerly steam driven, the lines now use diesel traction. The Tom Rolt (formerly nicknamed Irish Pete) was one of three 3 ft (914 mm) gauge 0-4-0WT well tank locomotives built by Andrew Barclay Sons + Co, an engineering workshop founded in 1840 in Kilmarnock, Scotland.

Tom Rolt, the former Bord na Móna locomotive now reconstructed and operating on the Talyllyn narrow gauge railway in Wales, at Tywyn Wharf (photograph courtesy Optimist on the run)

Following in the footsteps of L T C Rolt I wrote my own book on canals and it was published in 1969. The publishers, Hugh Evelyn of London, asked Rolt if he would write an introduction to the book. In the event he was unable to do so, passing the job on to Charles Hadfield. I was sorry not to have a ‘hero’ of mine endorsing the volume, but in my preface I mention my indebtedness to him for introducing me to the world of navigable waterways. Tom Rolt died in 1974 and he won’t know that I am also indebted to him for introducing me to Ireland, now my home.

Posted on August 28, 2016
12 Comments

Into the Woods

Glengarriff Woods – serene, beautiful and incredibly diverse

The second (now annual) Ellen Hutchins Festival has just concluded in West Cork. We wrote about this exciting new festival last year in the post Ellen Hutchins: The Short and Remarkable Life of Ireland’s First Female Botanist. This year there were all sorts of events and activities once again but we were able to participate only in one, a guided walk through Glengarriff Woods. Robert and I agree that we learned more about plants in that three hour walk than we had in most of our lives to date!

Padraig pauses in front of the Guelder Rose (see below for more on this species)

Our guide and educator was Dr Padraig Whelan, a former Chief Scientist at the Charles Darwin Research Station on the Galapagos Islands, and now with the School of Bio, Earth and Env Sciences at UCC. Erudite and encyclopaedic in his understanding of individual species and in the interactions between the living organisms in the woods, Padraig’s talk was riveting. Nothing was above our heads, everything was explained in the simplest terms, but we came away with something approaching a profound appreciation for biodiversity. (Padraig is also camera-shy – I am honouring his request not to use full photographs of him.)

Dr Howard Fox, the lichen expert

Along on the walk also, and contributing on the way, were Dr Howard Fox of the Office of Public Works, who had earlier given a sold-out two day workshop on Lichens, Algae, Fungi & Bryophytes (mosses and liverworts), as well as Clare Heardman, a Conservation Ranger with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, and Madeline Hutchins, great great grandniece and biographer of Ellen.

St Patrick’s Cabbage – there are three varieties of it here

The talk started with an outline of what makes Glengarriff Woods such a special habitat. It’s the rain, of course, combined with a mild climate, that leads to the perfect conditions for a temperate rain forest. We learned that these woods are home to many Lusitanian species that are mysteriously only found here, or on the Iberian Peninsula. One of these is St Patrick’s Cabbage, a member of the Saxifrage family. The attractive flowers had finished, but you can see what they look like here. In Irish they are called Cabáiste an Mhadra Rua, or Fox Cabbage. Nobody yet knows how plants that grow in Spain and Portugal managed to flourish in the south west of Ireland, skipping France and Britain entirely on their traverse, but it’s probable that they arrived after the last ice age.

Another Lusitanian tree we encountered was the strawberry tree, which apparently is a member of the heather family, but grows to tree height in our West Cork climate. There was some discussion about the edibility of the fruit – it’s supposed to taste fig-like, but only one person present had tasted it and wasn’t recommending the experience. The examples we saw hadn’t ripened yet – it really does have the hue of a strawberry once fully ripe.

Walkers are reflected in the stream that flowed along our route

A second theme of the walk was ‘alien’ species – those non-native plants that have colonised the area as a result of importing activities. In this regard, the Glengarriff Woods are facing a double whammy – the botanic gardens at Garnish, and the arboretum at Ardnagashel, ironically started by the Hutchins family. Padraig pointed us to a young myrtle tree as an example of just such an alien intruder – they belong in Chile and Argentina, not in Ireland.

The Myrtle Grove at Ardnagashel

The culprit, of course, is the famous Myrtle Grove at Ardnagashel, which we visited last year and where myrtle trees imported by a Hutchins ancestor flourish. In Glengarriff it was threatening to take over all the available space for trees and measures had to be undertaken to limit them, as they create so much shade that little can grow underneath them. It was painstaking work, but there are now very few growing actively in the Woods and they can be eliminated more easily.

Bog Myrtle

Interestingly, there is a native myrtle – the Bog Myrtle, an aromatic shrub. We passed around crushed leaves to inhale the woodsy scent. According to my favourite wildflower source, Bog Myrtle was used to flavour beer before the advent of hops.

Fuchsia and Montbretia (or Crocosmia) flourish in the West Cork Hedgerows, but are actually alien species

Ironically also, the colourful and attractive wayside flowers that we think of as quintessentially West Cork, Fuchsia and Montbretia, are introduced species. Rhododendron was introduced in the 19th century and is considered a terrible threat to native species in Kerry. The same is true for Gunnera (that giant rhubarb disaster that has colonised vast tracts of Connemara), and Griselinia (ubiquitous for hedging). None of them would have been known to Ellen Hutchins. As Clare Heardman pointed out, Ellen recorded over a thousand plants, with no mention of them.

Ivy is just on the brink of flowering – we found one open bud after much searching

A third theme was the inter-dependence of species, both floral and faunal. About now, ivy starts to bloom, just as other flowers finish, and the ivy flower becomes an important food source for bees, moths, butterflies and other insects, such as hover flies. Unfortunately, ivy gets a bad rap for its habit of covering and damaging archaeological sites, such as medieval castles and churches and I wouldn’t have been sympathetic to it before our walk. Now I look at it in a whole new light. Pollinators also depend on holly, and the berries can also be a food source for field mice.

The Royal Fern – an unusual native fern

There are a huge number of native plant species in Glengarriff Wood, and the conservation work that goes on there is of national importance. Padraig pointed out the filmy ferns that grow here and are rarely found in the rest of Ireland. He also showed us the native Royal Fern, which is unusual in that the spores grow not on the underneath of the fronds but on separate stalks.

Filmy Ferns

Howard introduced us to a macro-lichen that, because the underneath bears a resemblance to lung tissue, was once tried as a cure for breathing ailments. Lichens, of course, are normally microscopically tiny, so an enormous one like this is rare, and exciting to visiting lichen-specialists. Like ivy, I gained a new appreciation for lichens – up to now, my normal emotion in regards to lichen has been frustration, since it functions to obscure rock art and stone carvings.

Large lichens like this one are very unusual, but Glengarriff Woods provide perfect conditions for them

Glengarriff Woods has preserved meadowland as well as woods. Important species use this habitat, such as the hairy wood ant and frog species that may be specifically Irish.

The meadow

There was more, much more, but I will mention only one – the Guelder Rose tree. The dense and intensely red berries provide winter food for birds, but the flowers make it an attractive shrub in the early summer. There are some growing wild in the hedgerows just below us here along the Fastnet Trail Rossbrin Loop. I hadn’t been able to identify it until now. Pointing out that it would make a wonderful and ornamental garden plant, Padraig made a plea to us to insist on such native varieties when we develop our own gardens.

A Guelder Rose tree found near our house in early summer

Throughout the walk, we meandered by the river that runs through these woods. It’s an important factor in the lush growth here, carrying high acidity levels from the bogland above. It’s also beautiful, serene and musical, adding immeasurably to the pleasure afforded by a walk in this woodland national treasure.

Thank you to the Ellen Hutchins team for yet another fascinating botanical adventure!

Posted on August 21, 2016August 21, 2016
9 Comments

Cycling the Sheep’s Head

The joy of cycling! The fresh air! The wind in your face! The sun on your back! The sights, the sounds, the smells! Wait – those killer hills! The wobbly legs, the burning lungs! No problem – we have Kalkhoffs!

Is that enough exclamation marks for any decent blog post? And what on earth is a Kalkhoff?

Above, a Kalkhoff electric bicycle and below, the Sheep’s Head – the perfect combination

Earlier this year we cycled the length of the Sheep’s Head and back, all of us on electric bicycles, mostly Kalkhoffs. The day was organised by Patrick Murray and Helen Guinan of City View Wheels in Cork, and a masterpiece of organisation it was, featuring stops for coffee, lunch and a pint at the end of the day, followed by a lovely dinner in the Maritime Hotel in Bantry.

Riding an electric bike has revolutionised cycling for me and for many others. Let’s face it, West Cork is nothing but hills, and huffing and puffing up one of them, pushing a bike, can take the joy out of a day’s adventure. But with some battery-powered help, you can stay on the bike and arrive at your destination still able to breathe.

The Old Creamery at Kilcrohane is a great place for lunch

It’s like having the wind at your back, giving you a gentle push when you need it. It’s still a work-out (you don’t stop peddling) but it just makes the whole venture doable. No, more than doable – pleasurable!

Above: This is as far as you can drive or ride on the Sheep’s Head – after this, it’s a goodly walk to the lighthouse (below)

The Sheep’s Head is the perfect destination for a day’s cycling – incredibly scenic, lots of places to stop for refreshment, lots of things to see and do along the way, and relatively flat. Note that word relatively – if you start at Durrus and cycle along the south side to the end of the road and back, you don’t climb over any mountains but you do gain considerable altitude – enough to ensure that you deserve lunch by the time you reach Bernie’s Cupán Tae.

The good news is that it’s mostly downhill all the way back to Durrus.

It was a congenial bunch and the day was full of chats and laughter. As the ‘locals’ in the group, it was lovely to be able to show off West Cork. We made a detour down to Lake Faranamanagh and told everyone about the Bardic School and the King of Spain’s sons.

The Sheep’s Head , Lake Faranamanagh

When you’re cycling with a group you can’t really stop to take photos whenever you want, so the photographs in this post are a mixture. Photos of the day itself were taken either by Patrick (thank you, Patrick!) or by me, while general photographs of the Sheep’s Head come from my own collection and were taken at various times of the year. They will give you a feel for what’s to do and see along the way.

Top: The beautiful and moving Air India Memorial site at Ahakista; bottom: Critters encountered along the way

We were blessed with a lovely day for our bike trip. But then, as you know, the sun always shines in West Cork. And sure, if it doesn’t, you can hole up in a pub and sing, or stay home and cook up some fresh eggs from the happy hens at Faranamanagh.

If you love to get out on a bicycle but aren’t the iron-man type, fear not – there is life after lycra!

And if you just want to explore the Sheep’s Head, bike or no bike, take a look at our post on Walking the Sheep’s Head Way or head on over to Living the Sheep’s Head Way, the website of the Sheep’s Head and Bantry Tourism Co-operative, for lots of information the peninsula and places to stay. Or take a browse through The Sheep’s Head Way for all the walking routes – it’s the website of the voluntary committee that takes responsibility for the way-marked trails.

Keith Payne’s wildly colourful painting contrasts with Robert’s sober CAD drawing

The first drawing of the Gortnagulla stone was done 40 years ago by Finola, using a tracing technique no longer approved. Brian Lalor’s engraving is of the same piece

Can you recognise the same stone in Ken William’s photograph and Finola’s drawing?

One of Ken’s superb photographs showing how this particular stone sits in its landscape

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Gary and Paul rode the open-topped bus into Skibbereen on Monday night and then spoke from the stage at Fairfield

In the window on the left, the boys’ mother, Trish O’Donovan, and their grandmother (Nana), Mary Doab

Waiting for the Open-Topped Bus

Above: Left, Stella and Hugh sporting their ‘occasion wear’; Right, this young man let me take his photo in his Shteak and Spuds shirt. Below: Many of the Skibbereen merchants had decorated their windows

We, thousands of us, re-lived their big moment on an enormous screen in the Skibbereen Fairfield

It seemed like the whole of West Cork turned out to greet them

Local growers sell their fresh vegetables at Levis’s pub in Ballydehob on Wednesday mornings

Gary and Paul aren’t intimidated by a ‘bit of wind’. This is why – Skibbereen Rowing Club is on the beautiful , and breezy, Ilen River

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A surviving photograph of John Betjeman (left) in Dublin during the war years – note the two pipers; the context is unknown

The Betjeman family: John, Candida, Paul and Penelope 1948 (Bassano)

Battle scene – Agincourt in Ireland, Powerscourt, Co Wicklow

(from The Small Towns of Ireland, John Betjeman)

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Woodcuts by Denys Watkins-Pitchford which illustrated the first edition of Narrow Boat by L T C Rolt, published by Eyre + Spottiswoode, 1944

Left – the bookplate pasted into my first edition of Green & Silver (it’s now in print again); right – the exuberant dust cover which attracted me to the book, painted by Evelyn Hunt

From Green & Silver: a map of the navigable waterways of Ireland at the time of the book’s publication in 1949

Angela Rolt’s photograph of Le Coq moored at Richmond Harbour, Cloondara – ‘derelict warehouses and empty cottages’

The West Clare Railway: left – a photograph by Angela Rolt from Green & Silver showing L T C Rolt in a first class carriage on their journey from Athlone and – right – a stamp issued by the Railway Company for the ‘conveyance of single post letters by railway’

Tom Rolt, the former Bord na Móna locomotive now reconstructed and operating on the Talyllyn narrow gauge railway in Wales, at Tywyn Wharf (photograph courtesy Optimist on the run)

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Glengarriff Woods – serene, beautiful and incredibly diverse

Padraig pauses in front of the Guelder Rose (see below for more on this species)

Dr Howard Fox, the lichen expert

St Patrick’s Cabbage – there are three varieties of it here

Walkers are reflected in the stream that flowed along our route

The Myrtle Grove at Ardnagashel

Bog Myrtle

Fuchsia and Montbretia (or Crocosmia) flourish in the West Cork Hedgerows, but are actually alien species

Ivy is just on the brink of flowering – we found one open bud after much searching

The Royal Fern – an unusual native fern

Filmy Ferns

Large lichens like this one are very unusual, but Glengarriff Woods provide perfect conditions for them

The meadow

A Guelder Rose tree found near our house in early summer

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Above, a Kalkhoff electric bicycle and below, the Sheep’s Head – the perfect combination

The Old Creamery at Kilcrohane is a great place for lunch

Above: This is as far as you can drive or ride on the Sheep’s Head – after this, it’s a goodly walk to the lighthouse (below)

The Sheep’s Head , Lake Faranamanagh

Top: The beautiful and moving Air India Memorial site at Ahakista; bottom: Critters encountered along the way

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