West Cork

West Cork Rocks 2

Every now and then I republish one of Robert’s classic pieces. This one is from five years ago. We were both fascinated by the West Cork landscape and, being Robert, he wanted to get under the skin of it all. So what follows is his exploration of what makes West Cork, well, West Cork.

West Cork Rocks, by Robert, from 2021

It certainly does! But this post is – literally – about rock: the hard, knobbly kind that is underneath us, surrounds us, and which has historically built our environment. In the picture above, taken on a clear February day during the most severe Covid lockdown, Finola is walking through beautiful West Cork. Beyond her is the great, gaunt outcrop of Mount Gabriel. Beside her is a traditional stone wall: its design unchanged over centuries. In the landscape all around her are rocks – large and small – scattered in the rough pasture.

In the distance, of course, is the coast: there are very few places in West Cork where you cannot, at least, catch a glimpse of the sea – and so many where you can immerse yourself in it, or stand on its shore and admire the infinite textures which those same rocks display. It’s mostly Old Red Sandstone: that’s the correct geological term. It was laid down in the Devonian period – a while ago now: between 400 and 300 million years, in fact. This followed an era during which our mountains were built, known as the Silurian times. Continents were shifting and separating, and what was to become Ireland was a great arid desert – deserted: there was no-one around to see it!

Old Red Sandstone: in fact it varies in colour depending on its local history. Broadly, some of the mountain rocks are purple-grey, while those closer to the sea could be greeny-red, but that is probably far too wide a generalisation. The sheer beauty is in the infinite shapes and colours. What artist needs any finer palette?

In those deserted times, an ‘Old Red Sandstone Continent’ extended over what is now northwest Europe, but it is worth noting that in ‘our’ part of it – the Munster Basin, covering today’s Kerry and Cork – we have one of the densest masses of this rock in the world: at least 6 kilometres thick. And we have to appreciate what it has given to us – high mountain spines sweeping steeply down to an indented shoreline of coves, creeks and inlets, with the myriad mottled islands that we oversee. An unparalleled, unfolded world.

After the ‘desert’ period, but much later – only about a million and a half years ago – came the Pleistocene Epoch. the word is from the Greek pleistos and kainos – meaning ‘most recent’ – and that brings us almost up to date. That was a time of great climate events: deserts were inundated and then covered in ice sheets 3 kilometres thick, while moving glaciers tore up the rock surfaces, advancing and retreating several times. Eventually, what had been desert became arctic tundra. It is supposed that the ancestors of our present day life forms happened along during this epoch, and managed to survive. But we don’t find any traces of them until after the last ice sheet retreated in our part of the world – only about 12,000 years ago. The landscape that was left behind was inundated by rising sea levels, and the very last land bridge (between Cornwall and the eastern tip of Wexford) was washed away after that, but not before the Giant Elk and its mammal relations had got a foothold on the western side. The snakes, however, didn’t make it. And what of the humans?

Well, the humans embraced the rocky landscape. They made their marks on the outcrops; then they moved the rocks about, and made architecture from them. We can still see their efforts, some 5,000 years later.

These Neolithic carved motifs could be the earliest human interventions on the natural Irish landscape: they might date from 3,000 BC. These examples are from West Cork, and were only discovered a few years ago. Finola wrote the definitive thesis on Rock Art when she studied at UCC in the 1970s, and we have staged exhibitions and given talks on the topic.

A couple of thousand years later, Irish people started to build things with the stones they found around them. This wedge tomb under the backdrop textures of Mount Gabriel at Ratooragh has rested here since the Bronze Age. Finola’s post today uncovers the fascinating folklore stories that generations have told about such artefacts. But restlessly working the fabric of the landscape – Old Red Sandstone – into walls, shelters, tower houses, temples and towns has never ceased.

Ellen Hutchins: The Short and Remarkable Life of Ireland’s First Female Botanist

Working with the Ellen Hutchins Festival over the last few years, I have come to think of Ellen as a ghost-friend. Having just finished this year’s involvement (above, Karen Minihane reads one of Ellen’s letters on Esk Mountain) I was looking over my posts about the Festival over the years and realised it had been over ten years since I wrote and posted about her life. So I am reposting this account from 2015, unchanged, to show you our excitement at what we were discovering. It’s also a good introduction to Ellen.

Ballylickey House, Home of Ellen Hutchins. Although the burned down, it was rebuilt exactly as the original.
Ballylickey House, Home of Ellen Hutchins. Although the house burned down, it was rebuilt exactly as the original

Re-posted from 2015

In West Cork, we have been celebrating the short but extraordinary life of Ellen Hutchins who died 200 years ago this year. Acknowledged in her lifetime as one of the most knowledgeable and accomplished botanists in the British Isles, she contributed specimens and drawings to the great collections in Glasnevin and Kew and kept up a lively and learned correspondence with some of the leading botanical scientists of the day. When she died, aged only 29, her name had already been memorialised: several plant specimens bore the title hutchinsia.

Looks and character

It’s been a fantastic week of lectures, guided walks, exhibitions and demonstrations. Jointly organised by the Bantry Historical Society, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Hutchins family, the week has been a marvellous success, with all the events well attended and everyone eager to learn more about Ellen. For a program of what was available, take a look at the excellent Ellen Hutchins website and the Facebook page.

Dublin Botanic Gardens

While many of Ellen’s specimens ended up in Kew Gardens, some went to what has become the Dublin Botanical Gardens

The website contains biographical data about Ellen, her accomplishments, her family and her place in the scientific community, and a links and resources section leading to much more information. Ellen Hutchins was born in Ballylickey, near Bantry, in 1785 and spent most of her life there. During schooldays in Dublin she lived with family friend Dr Whitley Stokes who introduced her to the discipline of botanizing. She became an avid and scholarly collector of plants and seaweed, annotating, sorting and cataloguing as she went, and an expert illustrator of marine and terrestrial specimens.

Quiet cove, Bantry Bay
Ellen identified new species of seaweeds on the shores around Bantry Bay

She roamed freely around the shores of Bantry Bay and took her family’s boat out to Whiddy Island. She also climbed (we’re not sure how) to the top of Knockboy, the highest mountain in Cork at 700m, identifying new species of plants right at the top. We followed her footsteps last weekend, led by Wildlife Officer Clare Heardman of Glengarriff Nature Reserve, botanist Rory Hodd, writer Kevin Corcoran, and Madeline Hutchins, great great grandniece of Ellen, who has been uncovering all kinds of new material on her ancestor.

group botany

What a day we had! It was warm and dry until we got to the top, where we were subjected to a hailstorm for form’s sake before the sun re-emerged. It was an insight into what gets botanists excited – tiny plants, apparently, with subtle variations from other tiny plants.

Among the bog cotton
Rory talks roots
Bog asphodel
Not heather after all – wild thyme!

We were in awe of the knowledge on display, and the boundless enthusiasm of all the plant experts in the group. The highlights for them were finding some of the species that bore Ellen’s name, although Rory and Clare were particularly pleased to find a dwarf willow at the summit that had originally been identified by Ellen over 200 years ago. Along the way, we also learned a lot about the characteristics of that kind of high mountain environment, with its burden of boggy moss and highly acidic environment.

Kevin Corcoran demonstrated the properties of sphagnum moss, and showed us how soft the bog underneath us was, by probing with his staff
Knockboy descent

We felt on top of the world on Knockboy. We drove up to Priest’s Leap and only climbed the final 300m.  But how did Ellen get up there, with her long skirts and her intermittent poor health?

In Bantry House we viewed Ellen’s drawings, beautifully framed and presented and on loan from their permanent homes in Kew Gardens, Trinity College, Dublin and elsewhere. Her drawings were used by other botanists to illustrate books and were considered to be superior in their exactitude.

The Bantry Library hosted an exhibition about her life. This was curated by Madeline Hutchins and here we came closer to appreciating the woman herself, of whom no portrait exists. We learned, through her letters, of the struggles of a home life dominated by an ailing mother, a disabled younger brother and two bitterly feuding older brothers. She suffered from intermittent ill health, which often prevented her from collecting, but when she was strong her delight in her outdoors pursuits was palpable. One of her greatest pleasures was her correspondence with fellow botanists, among whom she earned true respect, especially Dawson Turner.

Dawson Turner

Dawson Turner: Although they never met, he thought of Ellen as a beloved sister and was devastated when she died

Although we were not able to join the group tour of the Ardnagashel Arboretum, we ventured down there on our own and were shown around the east section by the gracious Arethusa Greacen, herself a Hutchins on her mother’s side. The arboretum was started by Ellen’s brother and was maintained and added to by succeeding generations of Hutchins – the botany gene was obviously strongly embedded in the family!

Myrtle Woods Path

Ardnagashel colour
Myrtle groves and colour at Ardnagashel

The enormous contribution made by Ellen Hutchins to science has languished in obscurity for two centuries, known only to a few experts in the field (a bit like that other West Cork woman of science, Agnes Clerke of Skibbereen). All that changed last week. West Cork, and Bantry/Ballylickey in particular, has celebrated and honoured Ellen Hutchins in style. There is talk of future events, perhaps even a summer school.

Ellen Plaque

A new plaque has been erected on the wall of the old ruined church in Garryvurcha graveyard, final resting place of Ellen Hutchins

Well done to the hardworking organisers of this exceptional festival! Thank you to them for illuminating the life of this remarkable woman and to helping us appreciate, in the most hands-on and interesting way, her enormous contributions to science.

Madeline Clare Angela

The team behind the Ellen Hutchins Two Hundred Year Celebration: Madeline Hutchins, great great grandniece and biographer of Ellen; Clare Heardman of the National Parks and Wildlife Service; Angela O’Donovan of the Bantry Historical Society. This photo was taken from the Ellen Hutchins 200 Years Facebook Page, with appreciation

Don’t forget to check out the website Ellen Hutchins: Ireland’s First Female Botanist for so much more detail than I could give you in a blog post.

Fastnet Trails: The Butter Road

Every now and then I like to re-post one of our older pieces and this one qualifies – most of it is from 2014! Robert and I have walked the Butter Road many times since, so I am updating the post with newer photographs. The Butter Road is a mostly green road, and there aren’t a lot of those around, so that makes it a special experience.

The old Butter Road runs between Schull and Ballydehob
The old Butter Road runs between Schull and Ballydehob

The Fastnet Trails have a snazzy website, which didn’t exist in 2014 – it will give you all the information you need and show you where to start. However, note that this route is designed as a ten km linear walk, ending in Ballydehob. We have never done it that way, preferring to walk to the end of the green stretch and back again, or come back along one of the parallel roads clearly marked on this map. You can start just outside Schull, at the Mill.

The rest of this post is a lightly edited version of our 2014 post, with some newer photographs.

For most of its history, roads were a hit-and-miss affair in Ireland. We didn’t get the great Roman road builders, and anyway, it was easier to get around on the water. Some routeways led to Dublin or Tara in the early medieval period, but a real road system didn’t develop until the 18th Century with the building of turnpike highways between major cities. In the 18th Century, Cork became the largest centre for the butter trade in the world and needed transportation corridors to ensure butter could get from remote rural areas to the Butter Exchange (now a museum) in the city. The Butter Roads were built from the 1740s on, and provided an efficient and speedy (for the time) route to market. Butter was packed in firkins (40 litre barrels), stacked onto carts, and transported from West Cork and Kerry to Cork City to be loaded onto ships for Australia and America.

The Old Mill
The Old Mill

Here and there, traces of the old butter roads remain. One stretch runs between Ballydehob and Schull and in the last few years a project to open it as a walking route has been spearheaded by students of the Schull Community College. It starts at the Old Mill, now open as a gallery by our friend, the esteemed wildlife photographer, Sheena Jolley. Sheena has enhanced the mill stream and stabilised the workings, still intact in her basement. If it’s open, a visit to her gallery is a great way to start or end your walk.

Robert on the stepping stones
Robert on the stepping stones

Setting out from the mill we were immediately on the old green road, soft underfoot, running between hedgerows alive with wildflowers, winding gently uphill. A plaque tells the story of the butter roads and of the current project. Gurgling and murmuring, the mill stream is on your right until you come to cross it. This is accomplished on stepping stones where we found it impossible not to linger and contemplate the gentle water. 

The mill stream
The mill stream

Onward and upward, passing an abandoned farmhouse, and marvelling at the variety of flowers along the route. Having been presented with the superb Zoë Devlin’s The Wildflowers of Ireland (thank you, Amanda!) I can now identify most of them, so here is a selection – captioned, by dint of my new-found knowledge. (Mousing over the pictures will bring up the captions, clicking on them will take you to full size images.)

tutsan
oxeye daisies and foxglove
meadowsweet
marsh woundwort
marsh thistle
fuchsia
bindweed or morning glory

As the road ascends, we could look back towards Schull and Long Island, or north to Mount Gabriel. The sense of peace, of being in a place of age-old tradition, is palpable. 

Mount Gabriel
Mount Gabriel

Near the top of the hill we met the Newman family, setting out from their farmhouse to walk down to Schull. John and Helen grew up in this house, walking to school in Rossbrin (about 4 km away) every day and John still lives in the house. He has a fascinating collection of old tractors and an obvious interest in farm machinery of every kind. They told us they had the butter road all to themselves in the old days, but now it’s quite popular and they are glad to see it used and enjoyed. A Mr Henry Ford once lived in the farmhouse, related to THE Henry Ford, whose father came from Ballinascarthy, near Clonakilty. 

Three generations of the Newman Family
Three generations of the Newman Family

The Butter Road is an ancient right-of-way, but access depends on the goodwill of those, like John Newman, and like Paddy Hayes whom we met on the way down [now sadly deceased], whose farms and fields lie along the route. This is a marvellous resource for the people of Schull and Ballydehob and we are grateful to those whose vision and hard work and generosity of spirit have made it a reality. 

Old friend
The Atlas
Keeping it handy
Old barn

If you want to experience the tranquility of the deep countryside, lovely views, and a sense of how the making of a road could connect far-flung communities to the wider world, we recommend an afternoon spent on the Butter Road. 

We used to use this gallery format a lot in the old days, so here is a new set of images in the old gallery format.

And a second set of some of the wonderful old equipment we glimpsed along the way.

Walking back down: Long Island comes into view
Walking back down: Long Island comes into view

PS: I can’t believe how little I knew about wildflowers in 2014. It has since become one of my abiding passions.

‘The Triumph of our Long Persecuted Faith’

The Catholic Church in Timoleague stands proudly on a hill, instantly visible as the largest and most imposing building in the town. It belongs to the great era of Catholic church-building at the beginning of the 20th century and reflects, in its neo-Hiberno-Romanesque architecture, and its sheer size, many of the Catholic and nationalistic narratives and preoccupations of the time in which it was built. 

I have already written about the Timoleague Friary and the Church of Ireland Church of the Ascension. Together, they tell the story of Ireland from the 16th to the 19th centuries – the dissolution of the monasteries, the suppression of the Catholic Religion and the special position of the Established Church. But from Catholic Emancipation (1829) to Disestablishment (1869) and Cardinal Cullen’s Devotional Revolution (from 1850), the Catholic Church gained the ascendancy. An ambitious program of building was necessary to replace broken down ‘mass houses’ and provide large and suitable places of worship for the vast majority of the population. 

Ground-breaking and foundation stone ceremonies were highly ritualised. Fund-raising efforts were enormous and often involved canvassing emigrants. This took energy and dedication by the Parish Priest, Rev Peter (later Monsignor) Hill.

Once the church was built, or largely finished, it was consecrated, usually by a Bishop and in the case of Timoleague the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, this was conducted in 1912 by the Bishop of Ross but the oration was delivered by Dr Michael Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe. 

Bishop Fogarty was a passionate nationalist and noted orator who ‘involved himself closely in the social and political challenges facing Ireland’. Fogarty’s speech is remarkable to our modern ears as much for its nuance-free and emotive evocation of the centuries of Irish oppression as for the note of sectarianism that emanated from deep and long-held resentments. However, it seems to have been fairly typical of the speeches given by churchmen on such occasions and I have decided to quote it at length because it provides such a striking example of the kind of nationalistic rhetoric that congregations were listening to on these occasions. Some of us may indeed find it very familiar and remember the impassioned little patriots that we became as we wrote our history essays and sang about Kevin Barry.

The speech is quoted in full by the Skibbereen Eagle, Sept 14, 1912: Solemn Dedication by His Lordship Bishop of Ross/Impressive ceremonies/Eloquent Sermon by His Lordship the Bishop of Killaloe

So here is a deep dive into 1912 nationalistic and Catholic fervour.

Bishop Fogarty began

For many years, the faithful of Timoleague worshipped God in one of the poorest of churches … The Church in Ireland had passed out of its long night of persecution: she had entered on the bright dawn of freedom with renewed vigour, and her faithful sons and daughters strove to reconstruct her temples …. 

He went on to castigate those who criticise the expenditure of money on churches,

as if they begrudged to the service of the Most High a shilling of that wealth they squander so lavishly in the service of man. For it is to be observed that the people who speak this – and I am happy to say that they are not Catholics – but if they worship at all for the most part worship in churches which they never built, but which they plundered by violence from others who built them – have neither scruple nor objection to that limitless expenditure which we every day witness in erecting public buildings, courts of justice, banks, Royal palaces, and private dwellings, some of which … have cost more money than would build all the churches in Connacht. But let the poor Irish man spend a shilling in honour of that God whom he adores … let a new window be painted, and organ erected, and we are told at once that this is money misapplied, that it shocks the economic sense, that it had been better spent in starting industries or given to the poor.

He continued, 

Poor plundered Ireland. What a history has been hers. Nowhere else in the world has the faith of the people passed through so many ordeals of persecution without being conquered. Of temptation without being shaken, of scandal without being corrupted. And, therefore, much as I admire this splendid building and rejoice with you in its consecration, it is not, I confess, the beauty of its architecture, nor the solidity of its structure, nor the amplitude of its dimensions that move me now, but the thought of what it represents and stands for, the triumph of our long persecuted faith. Your Catholic ancestors lie buried for many generations around the walls of the old monastery yonder, now roofless and in ruins. They passed out of life, those brave soldiers of the faith, apparently defeated in their long and direful struggle for God and country; and when they died everything seemed lost to Ireland – land, freedom and religion. 

But the flag for which they fought was not buried; nor was the spirit which spread it fearlessly to the breeze, despite all opposition, extinguished in the land. The blood which they shared as martyrs carried in it the seeds of ultimate triumph, and your noble new church, now built and consecrated in an atmosphere of freedom, is the fruit, as it is also a monument of the illustrious and lasting victory won for Catholic Ireland by these, our faithful forefathers. Their race and blood have passed through many vicissitudes of fortune since the dark and disastrous night of Kinsale; they have suffered many a wrong and many humiliations in the intervening centuries, and have undergone many great and sorrowful changes …

Referring to the fundraising needed to build a church like this, by voluntary contribution and without any form of state aid, he stated,

… though this system may sometimes press hard upon us, and though our richly endowed Protestant neighbours may sneer at our sometimes humble efforts, I regard it not only as a tribute to the intensity of our faith, but as a merciful dispensation of Providence for the preservation of the holy faith in the hearts of our people … the result of this system is that our priests and churches belong to the people themselves – that is the Irish priest as a rule is sprung from the people amongst whom he ministers. He is one of themselves, bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh. His heart and theirs keep perfect time and empathy. He is no foreigner, no outsider, no distant Aristocrat who disdains their humble lives, or chills them with his lofty airs.

Bishop Fogarty lived until 1955 and died, still a committed republican, at the ripe old age of 96. He played a significant role in the struggle for Irish independence although he surprised many by being pro-treaty, possibly related to his personal friendship with Michael Collins.

Can you imagine him thundering from the pulpit in Timoleague in 1912, delivering his fiery oration to the willing ears of the congregation? How would you have felt, if you had been sitting there?

. . . And Hello Schull!

First of all, a HUGE thank you to all the readers who sent me such kind messages of support on my last blog. I am normally very good about responding to comments, but moving house took its toll on my time and energy and I just never got to it. But I want you all to know that I read and appreciated SO MUCH every single message and I felt totally supported by this Roaringwater Journal community we have built together. 

So here I am now, happily settled in Schull, looking back on what we have written about this wonderful village over the years. And what we have eaten as well.

Robert did a series called West Cork Towns and Villages and he wrote about Schull in 2021. (Don’t be confused, by the way, by the fact that the author is given as “Finola” on the top of many of these posts: now that I am the sole administrator of the website, WordPress has automatically assigned all authorship to me and I can’t seem to change it back.) It was during Calves Week in August and Schull was en fete and looking sunny and busy and gorgeous – as it is all summer anyway.

One of the topics Robert tackled was the name – Schull, or Skull as it is invariably given on old maps. In two posts he traced the possibility that somewhere around here was an ancient ecclesiastical settlement named for Mary. In the first one, he referred to the The National Monuments record which states: According to local information, this is the site of Scoil Mhuire or Sancta Maria de Scala, a medieval church and school that gave its name to this townland and to Skull village . . .

In the second, Schull – Delving into History, he charts the various evidence, or mythology, that gave rise to the ‘local information.’ As a corrective, he urged the reader to also look at John D’Altons’s sceptical take on the placename. I also urge you to do so: it’s here.

Robert re-visited St Mary’s church in 2022 to write about the ship graffiti in the porch. Subsequently our friend Con Manning wrote an erudite piece for the 2025 Skibbereen Historical Journal on the same graffiti: The ruined church at Schull, Co. Cork, and its ship graffiti

Before we leave St Mary’s I will mention it is the final resting place of many anonymous souls who died during the famine, as well as the Rev Robert Traill, about whom I wrote in my series Saints and Soupers. Traill’s story in Schull started out as that of a typical evangelical clergyman, despising the Catholics and railing against Popery and its thousand forms of wickedness, but ended heroically as he laboured night and day to feed the hungry all around him, dying himself of famine fever. Read more about Traill here and here.

And of course, this is Robert’s final resting place also, with his beautiful hare headstone. I love it that, at the entrance to the Graveyard, is a Fastnet Trails informational board written by me and designed by Robert, about the history of this important place. The watercolour is by Peter Clarke.

Like all the West Cork villages, Schull is also a haven for wildflowers, although you might think they are only weeds. We had a very enjoyable Guerrilla Botany session in early June in 2020 wandering around and chalking in the names of all the plants we found. Time to do that again this spring, I think – who’s up for joining me?

The train used to come to Schull – the Schull and Skibbereen Light Railway came all the way down the Pier and Robert wrote about this rail line in a series of posts. The Schull-related one is here – a set of reminiscences about the stops, the engines, the buildings and the people who made it all run. My personal favourite was Gerry McCarthy who was known as ‘Vanderbilt’ from the careful way he had with money. 

One thing Schull people love to do is walk and there are several lovely walks that start or end right in the village. You can walk from Schull to Castlepoint, or from Rossbrin to Schull. You can do the Butter Road – a green road for much of the way. If you have limited time, you can do the foreshore walk from the Pier out to the graveyard and back (below). Or just keep going out to Colla Pier.

Best of all – you can do Sailor’s Hill, and hope to Catch Connie Griffin so he can explain his stonehenge to you, or lean over the wall and admire Betty’s garden.

Regular service will return soon – I’m already planning my annual Brigid post.

Our Lúnachán.

Peter Somerville-Large and The Coast of West Cork

I was out of the country when the writer, Peter Somerville-Large, died in October – I just realised this week that he is gone. What another loss to the world of Irish culture and writing. I never met Peter, but we exchanged letters in the aftermath of me publishing the post I wrote in 2014 and which I reproduce below – a review of his most beloved book, The Coast of West Cork. The book is still in print, although the newer paperback editions lack the black and white photographs of the original.

Here’s an example, and it’s one that shows why this book is such an important record of its time, the early 1970s. According to Mindat, The Coosheen Copper Mine was. . .

Once dubbed the “richest mine in the world” by a correspondent with the London Times, . . . worked a small but extremely rich copper deposit close to the surface from 1839-1877. The mine briefly reopened in 1888-1890 and again in 1906-1907 but only produced a trivial amount of ore. . . On the top of the hill 5 fenced off shafts can be seen and the largely obliterated ruins of the engine house built in August 1860 (bulldozed by the local council in the 1980’s as it was deemed both dangerous and an eyesore!).

This photograph of Ballydehob reminds us what a thriving commercial town it was. 55 years later, you can still recognise the shopfronts, although few are actively trading.

The final photograph from the original edition of the book that I want to share is of a temperance meeting in Skibbereen. Do any of our readers remember this?

And now, here is the original post, written 11 years ago, 1n 2014

The Coast of West Cork

Coast of West Cork cover

Every personal library in West Cork, maybe in Ireland, has a copy of the book The Coast of West Cork by Peter Somerville-Large. First published in 1972, it is a classic of travel writing – amusing, learned, thoughtful – that still holds up as a fascinating portrayal of this part of the world. The photograph above is of the front cover of the book, signed by the author, that I brought with me to Canada when I emigrated in 1974. Forty years later, I am living on the very spot where this photograph was taken! It took me a while to figure this out, as the picture is actually reversed. [EDIT: note that when this photograph was taken, in 1970, the castle was still intact – most of it collapsed in a storm in 1974. For what it looks like now, see Robert’s 2020 post, The Castle of Rossbrin.]

Peter Somerville-Large, now in his 80s, is still writing. He is connected to the old Castletownshend families (Edith Somerville was a relation and he mentions Townsend aunts) and was already very familiar with West Cork when he set out to tour it by bicycle in the spring of 1970. He takes every road, every byway and boreen, and describes in detail the scenery, the characters and the conditions along the way.

Grand road for cycling!
Grand road for cycling!

Far more than a travel diary, this is a comprehensive account of West Cork. Somerville-Large’s erudition is impressive. Either before or after his journey he spent many hours in the National Library, researching the history, folklore, archaeology and literature of the area and he weaves this knowledge seamlessly into his narrative. Because of his own personal background, he is able to include stories and anecdotes from the Big Houses of the gentry. A great aunt

…remembered going down to a cellar which was filled with swords used to arm the tenants during the time of the Whiteboys and also with empty stone wine jars which had carried wine smuggled in from France. From this cellar there was believed to be a passage underground to the O’Driscoll Castle of Rincolisky, whose truncated remains are to be found in a neighbouring field…An earlier Townsend sent his…page down the passage to see if it was clear. The boy was never seen again.

Castletownsend Castle
Castletownshend Castle

His affection for the place leads him to mourn the loss of population from the Islands of Roaringwater Bay.

One by one the small islands became deserted…Only a few years ago I visited Horse Island, just opposite Ballydehob. The last people there, an elderly couple, were living all alone. It was summer, and the old man was sitting in a chair outside his house, his feet in a basin of water. His wife, behind him, fed hens. Next year, they were gone. The house, still intact and comfortable, stood empty, the linoleum in place, last year’s calendar on the wall. Down by the pier a plough had been thrown into the water where it looked like a gesture of despair.

Looking across to Horse Island
Looking across to Horse Island

He documents the importance of the creamery in the social life of the townlands, the old occupations of fishing and mining and the loss of such sources of income, the string of castles that dot the coast and the great irish families that built them, the brash new bungalows springing up around the scenic areas, the awful legacy of the famine, and the sheer beauty of the scenery. He is conscious of a way of life passing. Going out of his way to visit a sweathouse (a feature of the Irish countryside in times past) he ends up in the O’Sullivan’s kitchen, drinking whiskey and eating biscuits.

Mrs. Sullivan told me that the valley was once thickly populated, and when she was a girl there had been sixty children at the school that closed last year. The way of life had gone with it…Once it had been a great place to live in, her husband said. There were monthly fairs at Ballydehob and Schull, and he had walked all the way to Bantry with the cattle and all the way back again.

Deserted cottage
Deserted cottage

The parts I have quoted deal with the area around where we live, but the bicycle trip stretches from Clonakilty to the Beara Peninsula. Describing West Cork as it was in 1970, it is now an important historical document in its own right, alongside such accounts as Thackery’s Irish Sketchbook of 1879, or the Pacata Hibernia of 1633. Mostly, however, it is a charming, engaging and fascinating depiction of a special place.

Over the hill to Durrus
Over the hill to Durrus