We just passed 1,000 posts – our two today will be post 1007 and Post 1008. While this is something to celebrate, we are conscious that as the site gets larger we need to provide navigation tools. One of the ways we have started to do that is with more ‘Menus’ – more about that below. Let’s start with the basics. Here’s a quick guide to how to find your way around so that finding our content will be a bit easier. Your best friends are the three icons on our Home Page banner.
Clicking on the Three Bars will take you to our Menus sidebar. The All Pages – Navigation Menu has a general Table of Contents under four broad headings and lots of subheadings, but it’s really long, so we have started to do more specialty Menu Pages now, so that we can group subjects in one place. Today Finola added a new menu – Flora and Fauna of West Cork. Take a look – she has gathered together all her posts about wildflowers and Robert’s about the animals we see around us here. It was a good exercise for Finola – reading her very old posts she saw that she knew then very little about the wild flora of West Cork, not even the names of common flowers. Now, while still no expert, she is confident enough to lead wildflower walks.
The first Menu on this sidebar is the About and Contact Page. This is where you can send us a message – there’s a form to fill in, and it gets delivered to us as an email.
The middle icon is the Cog and clicking on it brings you to a side bar with several items. The first is the subscribe button. Entering your email address here will subscribe you to Roaringwater Journal. You should get a ‘please confirm’ email. If you have any difficulty with this let us know by contacting us using the form on the About and Contact Menu (see above).
Below that is a list of our latest posts (handy for a catch-up) and below that is a button to click if you want to follow us on Facebook. Finally, there is a list of the blogs we follow (needs updating!) and an ‘archive’ button, if you want to see what we published in a certain month, any year.
The final icon on the banner is the magnifying glass and clicking on that will bring up a search function. Place your cursor on the word ‘Search’ and type. It’s pretty sophisticated and can handle any term – a word, a phase, a title. There’s one more help menu that few people stumble upon. When you are on any page in Roaringwater Journal, scroll down right to the end of the page. Right at the bottom you will see a Plus – a Large +.
Clicking on that will open a menu of our Categories and Tags. Only the most frequently-used tags are here, but you might find them useful if you’re looking for specific content – Driving in Ireland, say, or Saint Brendan, or Traditional Music.
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You know we love the beauty of West Cork, and we can’t resist the odd foray into all our neighbouring parishes. They are perhaps a bit wilder and higher, with markedly remote open spaces. So here’s a little wander on to the Beara Peninsula and beyond: I have raided our archive of photographs to enthuse us – and, hopefully you – to travel those roads in the coming spring. Firstly, have a look at this:
There’s a house down there, nestled under some spectacularly steep fields! This is to remind you that you have to up the scale a bit if you are stepping across the county boundaries. This Kerry landscape is such a contrast to our own seascapes and islands. We have our hills, of course: Mount Gabriel was in the news this week because of the gorse fires which lit up its summit. Such fires are allowed up until the first of March – by longstanding tradition – to clear the land and improve the grazing. It all seems a bit incongruous, though, when governments are planning to outlaw wood-burning stoves because they lead to poor air quality, and we are being advised by the HSE about the adverse health effects of air polluted by smoke and ash. Fire on Mount Gabriel 26 February 2023 – photo by Magnus Burbanks – courtesy Southern Star:
Let’s leave that argument – and the drama – for others to debate, and return to the colour and spectacle of our neighbours. Below are fishing boats tied up in Castletown-Berehaven. You’ll note that ‘Iolair’ is registered in Skibbereen. If this seems strange, remember that our West Cork town on the Ilen River is still the Port Of Registration for all shipping on the south-west coast of Ireland between the jurisdictions of Cork and Limerick. My recent post on the Ilen described Skibbereen as “. . . a settlement served by water . . .” with perhaps up to nine historic quays and a Custom House located within the town in its heyday of commercial vessels working on the river. Present day Shipping registrations are administered by Customs & Excise in Bantry, even though the prefix ‘S’ (for Skibbereen) is still used – a somewhat quirky anomaly: the Custom House in Skibbereen was closed in 1890!
The people of the Beara Peninsula quite likely think of themselves foremost as an entity, rather than a mixture of Corkonians and Kerry people. In Eyries a Seanchaí – or storyteller – is celebrated: Pádraig Ó Murchú. His story is a somewhat sad one, certainly not untypical of many remote areas in Ireland. He was born in Gort Broc (Gortbrack, Co Kerry – north of Kenmare Bay) on 15 February 1873. His parents were Seán Ó Murchú whose wife Máire Harrington. (‘Caobach’) and he had four sisters and two brothers. Five of them, the boys and three of the girls, went to Butte, Montana. Seán died in Gort Broc at the age of 47 when Pádraig himself was a young boy. None of his forebears ever returned home but he would receive a letter every now and then from one of his aunts. Folklorist Martin Verling states that 707 men and 431 women emigrated to Butte from the parish of Aorí between 1870 and 1915. An account of how his great-grandfather, Seán Ó Murchú, settled in Kerry was taken down from Pádraig’s mouth (or Patsy as he was called): Seán was abducted by one of the ‘Cithearnaigh’ (a name given to certain Irish landlords in Beara) in Kerry and sold in France as a slave. When he managed to escape, he landed in Beara.
Commemorating Pádraig Ó Murchú in Eyries
Measles affected Pádraig’s eyesight so badly that he was given a blind pension; ‘flickering’ left him unable to read or write. He spoke English fluently, with Irish his native tongue. Until she died in 1923 his mother lived with him, and it fell to him to tend to her during the decline of old age. He earned his living by farming and fishing and was always in good health, apart from his eyesight. Writer and folklorist Máirtín Verling recorded memories of him from men who were young boys during Pádraig’s old age. Pádraig was part of a culture now vanished, and Verling states “. . . the day Pádraig Ó Murchú was lost as an old man – the habit of storytelling, and the habit of speaking Irish, died together in Béarra . . .”
Map of the Beara Peninsula from the Royal Society of Antiquities of Ireland, T J Westropp 1919. Principal archaeological sites are indicated.
These Beara landscapes are typical of the remote grandeur of the territory. Human settlement has encroached upon it – the patchy forestry plantations above are unnatural and uninspiring – but there are sufficient wild prospects remaining to ensure that the all-embracing beauty can never be eroded. Plenty of living history remains in evidence.
Archaeology, colour and community are all part of the local scenes on the Beara. The tourism industry is undoubtedly thriving, bringing fresh life with it.
We hope you will agree that the Beara – whether it’s Cork or Kerry – is deserving of a visit – and a stay: you have to delve deeply into the lifestyle and traditions. Enjoy!
(Above – the work of stained glass artist George Walsh. A visit to the little church in Eyries to take in more of this is a must)
We were saddened to hear recently of the death of Leda May. Hers was a familiar face in Ballydehob, where she lived for many decades. Her little pottery studio on The Parade has always been a landmark in the village:
Above – Brian Lalor and Leda May in the Ballydehob Arts Museum, 2019. Leda continued to work until her recent illness, and her blue porcelain ware is familiar to many of us in and around the community.
A documentary about Leda – ‘The Elephant & The Dandelion’, directed by Martin Daley, was made in 2015 – and is available to view here. Leda May was born in London, grew up in Suffolk, and studied ceramics at Hornsea College of Art in the 1960s. She was also drawn to the medium of stained glass which gave her the opportunity to create with colour. Here are two of her glass pieces (reproduced from the documentary film with thanks to the crew):
Leda was at first attracted to the culture and landscapes of India, but in due course Leda and her husband Bob set out in a converted ambulance ‘to visit all the potters in Ireland’, and arrived in West Cork in the late 60s, meeting Christa Reichel at Gurteenakilla. Christa encouraged them to set up their own pottery behind the Flower House: this was known as Luba Studios.
When the Ballydehob Arts Museum opened in 2018, Leda was among the West Cork artists celebrated, and she was always a supporter of the Museum, which has put on several exhibitions to date. The Museum is sited within Bank House, a colourful building owned and run by the community.
This dresser in a household within our village displays several examples of Leda’s work – and other works by Ballydehob’s creative community of artists:
We wish Leda farewell, knowing she has left behind her a legacy of original work which will always be appreciated. But she will principally be remembered as a gentle spirit and talented artist within her community.
Leda May at her wheel in Ballydehob in 1980. A retrospective of Leda’s work is currently being prepared and will be shown this year in the Blue House Gallery, Schull between Friday 28 April and Wednesday 17 May.
This beautiful medieval church sits on the shores of Roaringwater Bay, close to Kilcoe Castle. It was in danger of destruction by ivy but is being rescued – more on that in a minute. This (below) is what it looked like up to recently.
Kilcoe is the Church of Cóch – but who was St Cóch? For information we turn, as always, to what has become the bible for anyone interested in Irish Saints, the magnificent A Dictionary of Irish Saints by Pádraig Ó Riain. According to Ó Riain, the great St Ciarán (of Cape Clear and also of Seirkieran in Ossory), always spent Christmas here, with his foster mother, Cóch. Little is known of Cóch, except that she was of the people of the Corca Laoighdhe, with whom Ciarán also had a close association. She may have given her name also to Kilcock in Kildare. Her feast day is June 29th.
If the church was indeed founded by St Cóch, then there must have been a centre of worship here from very early Christian times, since typically a church grew up around the relics of a venerated and holy man or woman. Whatever the form of the original church, nothing survives of it now. Take a look at my post Mizen Magic 23: Croagh Cove, for what might have been there in, say, the 6th to the 10th centuries.
Note also the proximity of the Church to Kilcoe Castle – a stronghold of the McCarthys, now magnificently restored by Jeremy Irons. It was normal for lords and chiefs to have ecclesiastical foundations close by, on land they had ceded for that purpose. The monks made sure that the lord’s soul would be saved by ceaselessly praying for him, and his endowment of the monastery or church gained him many indulgences, shortening his time in Purgatory.
Around the core of the original church was a burial ground, with burials placed on a hierarchical basis closer to or farther from the church. The bones or relics of the founding saint were often under or immediately beside the church, with the most coveted spots going to high-ranking individuals.* The association of ancient churches with burial grounds continued through the ages. Only in more recent times have modern cemeteries been established on new ground not associated with churches.
The Parish system did not evolve until the 12th century and parish churches were often simply an evolution of the older monastic church, occupying the same ground and with a continuation of the burial practice. What we see now at Kilcoe is a parish church, and although it may be based on a much older site, the architectural remains are solidly gothic, and probably 15th century – the same style of architecture we see in Kilcoe Castle. We can imagine the head of the McCarthy family of Kilcoe Castle crossing the drawbridge to hear mass or confess his sins in the little church under his patronage.
In recent years, the church has become more and more buried in ivy. You can see the condition of the exterior in the second photograph of this post, and of the interior of it (above) in a post I did way back in 2015, A Tale of Four Churches. Worried by the deteriorating condition a group of local people raised funds through Go Fund Me for an assessment by a conservation engineer. That report is a detailed survey of every aspect of the church and makes numerous recommendations for remediation. From the report:
The church is in fair condition with its walls and main architectural features largely intact. However, the substantial ivy canopy and embedded ivy stems are damaging the masonry and, without intervention, there is likely to be significant loss of historic fabric in the short to medium term.
The ivy canopy on all walls should be reduced immediately by cutting back the ivy to the wall face. This should be preceded by an ecological assessment which may impact the timing and scope of the vegetation control measures (unless advised otherwise by the ecologist, cutting back of vegetation should be carried out between September 1st and February 28th). The ivy should not be treated with herbicide or removed unless conservation work can be carried out shortly after treatment and removal.
Kilcoe Church Condition Report John Kelly (conservation accredited engineer) David Kelly Partnership. Oct 2022**
When we visited yesterday we were thrilled to see that this work is underway, following best practice as advised by the conservation report. Although we are not sure of the details, it appears that the church itself is in private ownership, and that the landowner may be the one who has undertaken this work at their own expense. (Happy to receive further correction or confirmation of this, in order to direct appreciation appropriately.)
And – now that this work is underway, the church is rising like a phoenix and once again it is possible to see the major features of this fine and important piece of our heritage.
The church is a simple rectangle. The chancel, containing the remains of an altar table, is at the east end, and there is one doorway in the south wall. While this entrance, when viewed from inside, is a straight opening with a plain lintel, from the outside it is totally different – finely carved stone provides a graceful arched surround.
Two ‘basins’ are set into the walls, as are two stone ‘cabinets.’ The basin on the south wall is a piscina, in which vessels were washed, and has a carved bowl, although it is hard to make out under under a cover of dark lichen.
The basin in the north wall is more visible now that some of the ivy has been cut back. It may have been a baptismal font.
There are two fine gothic windows, tall and slim, with carved ogival heads. The window is the south wall is now visible inside and out. It seems to have an asymmetrical splay, designed to let more light in. For a similar window – and indeed for more on what this church may have looked like – go to my post Mizen Magic 19: Church of the Angels.
The window at the east end, behind the altar, was particularly worrying, as ivy was threatening to get between the cracks and break it apart. It looks so much better now, and on the outside the hood mouldings can once again be admired.
The north wall of the church, outside, is a good place to see how the ivy has been carefully clipped. There’s an old chest tomb here which incorporates what might be the top of another gothic window – further exploration of this tomb is recommended in the report.
There is much more work to be done on Kilcoe Church, but what has happened so far is terrific and very encouraging. Compare the photo below with the second one in the post. They were taken from about the same place – and look at the difference! On behalf of all of us in West Cork, huge appreciation must go to everyone involved in the efforts to preserve it for posterity.
One last comment is that this church is a listed National Monument, so future work needs to be done in consultation with them.
We had, unknowingly, driven past this wedge tomb many times. It’s located on rising ground overlooking the Barley Cove wetlands, in the townland of Ballyvogebeg. The townland name (according to logainm.ie) translates as the Little Place of the O’Buadhaighs, a very scattered clan sometimes translated as Bogue, or Bowe.
The wedge tomb here was formally recorded by archaeologists de Valera and Ó Nualláin in their Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland in the early 1980s. They provided the scale drawing, below.
It was next surveyed by the Cork Archaeological Survey Team in the early 90s. Oddly, neither of these reports contain any reference to one of the most striking aspect of this megalithic tomb – the cupmarks on the capstones.
The next person to record it was Jack Roberts for his Antiquities of West Cork series, and his drawing clearly shows the cupmarks.
If you are new to this series on Mizen Megaliths, or to megaliths in general, you can catch up with a quick read of my post Wedge Tombs: Last of the Megaliths. This wedge tomb, Ballyvogebeg, fits the pattern, although its ruinous state doesn’t allow us to observe much detail. The side stones have collapsed under the weight of the two large capstones, although you can still see them underneath, leaning at a perilous angle.
De Valera and Ó Nualláin noted that there was no indication of a surrounding mound, which seems to be typical of West Cork wedge tombs. It likely dates to the Copper or Bronze Age, making it around 4,000 years old.
Cupmarks are normally found on open air rocks and boulders, not associated with any monuments and are the most frequent element or motif in Rock Art. However, they are found occasionally on Wedge Tombs and Boulder Burials, so while their occurrence on the Ballyvogebeg wedge tombs is uncommon, it is by no means unique. Intriguing, though! If the tomb had been covered by a mound, they would not have been visible, leading to the conclusion that it was the act of carving them that was important.
Like all of our West Cork wedges, it is oriented towards the west and the setting sun – that is the ‘entrance’ or tallest and widest end, faces the west. The most striking feature of the view is the pyramid-shaped Mizen Peak. What gives the Mizen Peak its distinctive point is a small cairn on its summit.
I haven’t yet been up to this cairn, although I am hoping to get there one of these days. So I am relying on the generosity of our friend Michael Mitchell, of theWalking to the Stones Facebook Page, for the photograph below. Like us, he has been struck by the fact that Mizen Peak seems to be visible from many sites, saying, It’s obviously a very important hill. It seems to be a focus for various megaliths, even some that are not on the Mizen peninsula itself. Michael points out that the cairn does not have the appearance of being ancient but more like a marker cairn.
Curiouser and curiouser, because there is very ancient folklore indeed about this cairn, which, in fact, gives its Irish name to Mizen Head – Carn Uí Néid, or the The Cairn of the Grandson of Néid. Which grandson are we talking about here? Néid had a son, Elathen, who in turn had five sons – the Daghda, Oghma, Bres, Alloth and Delbaeth – all of them figure prominently in Irish Mythology as members of the Thuatha Dé Danann.
Bres is the grandson in question, but Bres was his nickname. He was really Eochaid bres – that is Eochaid the Handsome, because everything comely and handsome that is seen in Ireland, ’tis to Bres it is likened. I am getting my information here from a piece written by J. F. L. in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society of 1912 (available online).
The Dinnshenchas of Carn Uí Néid has been translated by Dr Whitley Stokes
Bres, son of Elathan, died there; ’tis he that in the reign of Nechtan Fairhand. . .King of Munster, demanded from every rooftree in Ireland a hundred men’s drink of a hornless dun cow, or of the milk of a cow of some other single colour. So Munster kine were singed by Nechtan with a fire of fern, and then they were smeared with a porridge of the ashes of flaxseed, so that they became dark brown. . . And they also formed three hundred cows of wood, with dark brown pails on their forks in lieu of the udders. These pails were dipped in bog stuff. Then Bres came to inspect the manner of these cattle, and so that they might be milked in his presence . . . All the bog stuff they had was squeezed out as if it was milk. The Irish were under a geis to come thither at the same time, and Bres was under a geis to drink what should be milked there. So three hundred bucketsful of red bog stuff are milked for him and he drinks it all.
JCHAS Notes and Queries Carn Uí Néid, by J. F. L. 1912, Vol 18, 96, Ps 211-213
Of course it’s a huge and unreliable leap from mythology to a wedge tomb, but I can’t help thinking how great it would be if the Ballyvoguebeg wedge tomb was indeed the tomb of Bres, brother of the Daghda, handsome King of Munster, dead from a surfeit of bog stuff.
It’s time for another look at Ireland’s history, through the medium of early maps. We have previously examined the Down Surveyhere and here (the latter looked specifically at West Cork). You may remember that the project was instigated by Oliver Cromwell to catalogue the ownership of land given to British settlers after his invasion of Ireland which commenced in 1649. The Act of Settlement 1652 formalised the changes. We don’t like the recollection of those times, but we do find all early maps fascinating when we compare them to our present day topographical knowledge.
Kerry: it’s one of our favourite destinations. Visually spectacular, it offers a dramatic natural terrain of coastlines, mountains – and remembered history. Above is a view from Church Island, on Lough Currane near Waterville. The Down Survey gives us a mid-17th century aspect of the landscape, but there are earlier maps. The header is a part of Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, published in many editions from 1570. Note Queen Elizabeth prominently displayed. Here’s the full page map (courtesy of the David J Butler Collection of Maps of Ireland):
Above is an enlarged detail from the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum showing much of today’s Cork and Kerry counties. You have to get used to thinking through ninety degrees: it was the convention in many early maps to put West at the top of the image, and North to the right. Here you will see Roaringwater Bay over to the left. To make things easier, here is a much enlarged view of part of this map, although with some loss of definition:
You will recognise Dorsey (Dursey Island), Croke haven (Crookhaven), Cape Clere (Cape Clear Island), Baletymore (Baltimore), Tymolay (Timoleague), Kynfale (Kinsale), all within Movnster (Munster). Going round the corner we find Balenftyn (Valentia), Kery (Kerry), Trayly (Tralee), and many more, including names we cannot now relate to.
(Above) – here’s another pre-Down Survey map: Hiberniae, Britannicae Insvlae nova descripto, published by Abraham Ortelius (1527-98), a Flemish engraver. The map is thought to date from 1598 and is in the collection of The Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Washington, DC. Here’s a detail of the area which interests us today – again, many names can be recognised:
Another present-day Kerry scene: in fact a photograph from a friend’s garden. To add a further dimension to our review of Kerry through time, this Jack B Yeats painting – Kerry Landscape – dates from 1913 (current whereabouts unknown – it was offered for sale by Adams in 2016):
Getting back to The Down Survey, the following details are from the available survey documents which were taken in the years 1656-1658. They show parts of Clare, Limerick and Kerry:
Here is a specific County map of Kerry in greater detail: it encompasses the land divisions spanning from Kenmare to the mouth of the Shannon (Down Survey GIS 1641 – 1670).
Above: a ferry across the Shannon, c1890. Below: this map is also from The Down Survey collection and is titled Landowner Map 1641 – 1670.
Before leaving this little outline of Ireland’s ancient western coastline, I can’t resist going back to the Twelfth century and to Giraldus Cambrensis (c 1146 – c 1223). Described as a Roman-minded Cambro-Norman cleric, Giraldus lived most of his life in Wales but visited Ireland in 1183 and 1185. He wrote descriptions of what he encountered there, and they are entertaining. Here are two examples: though not specific to Kerry, they are not geographically distant.
. . . There is an island called Aren, situated in the western part of Connaught, and consecrated, as it is said, to St Brendan, where human corpses are neither buried nor decay, but, deposited in the open air, remain uncorrupted. Here men can behold, and recognise with wonder, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and great-great-grandfathers, and the long series of their ancestors to a remote period of past time . . .
Giraldus Cambrensis
. . . There is another thing remarkable in this land. Although mice swarm in vast numbers in other parts of Ireland, here not a single one is found. No mouse is bred here, nor does it live if it be introduced; when brought over, it runs immediately away and leaps into the sea. If it be stopped, it instantly dies . . .
Giraldus Cambrensis
Further Reading! Some past Roaringwater Journal posts which look at early maps and the West of Ireland can be found here and here.
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