Schull Foreshore Walk

West Cork Villages and Towns – Schull

What better time to visit Schull than during Calves Week? That’s a big sailing festival at the beginning of August every year, and you have to be a sailor to understand the nuances of its title. It’s held at the same time as the UK’s premier sailing event – Cowes Week, ‘…the world’s longest running sailing regatta…’ and is focussed around the three Calf Islands in Roaringwater Bay. So there you have it – Cowes and Calves! What it means, of course, is that the village of Schull is at its busiest and, since Covid has given a boost to outdoor socialising, the streets are crowded with visitors enjoying the shops, pavement cafés and galleries.

In this occasional series on the Towns and villages of West Cork we will take one community and try to discover why and how it has developed through history, and how it fares in the present day. A snapshot of the place will be presented – hopefully – in the best possible light (although this won’t always be on a sunny summer’s day!) From the aerial view above, you can see how Schull has been built up around its connection with the water. Schull Harbour is at the head of a long sheltered inlet, and the pier today is always busy with fishing and pleasure boats, ferries and yachts.

That’s the road to the pier, above, and it’s just a few steps from the village centre. If you are a visitor, you may have no idea that Ireland’s most south-westerly railway line once ran right on to this pier! The narrow gauge Schull, Ballydehob & Skibbereen Tramway and Light Railway was in service between 1886 and 1947, connecting these remoter parts of the county to Skibbereen and then, via the main line, Cork city. Although never considered a commercial success, it was a valuable element of infrastructure enabling local passengers to get to shops and markets, and fishermen to send their catches to distant merchants as hastily as possible (bearing in mind there was a speed limit of 15 miles per hour on most of this rural line). This photograph from the NLI Lawrence Collection (below) dates from the 1890s, and shows barrels of fish stacked up next to the railway track on Schull pier, awaiting despatch. They are likely to contain salted pilchards and herrings.

In all these pictures of the pier and pontoon areas above you can see the lively sailing activity in the background. Below are two extracts from early OS maps, one showing Schull and its location to some of the offshore islands, and the other showing the town centre, probably around 1890. It’s thought-provoking to see on the latter the various facilities which the town offered at that time, as well as the railway: Court House, Constabulary Barrack, Smiths, Schools, Hotel and Dispensary.

Note that on both the maps above, which date from more than a century ago, the settlement’s name is given as Skull: it still is on all OS Ireland maps up to the present time. Mostly today it’s known as Schull, or in Irish An Scoil, which translates as The School. Some of you may remember my posts earlier this year when I looked in to the possible origins of this village name – and the earliest ‘School’: a site described on Archaeology Ireland as a ‘possible early Christian settlement’:  . . . the ancient school of Sancta Maria de Scholia, ‘a place known in early times as a centre of learning’ . . . There’s a fair bit of local lore surrounding the subject, and you need to read Schull resident John D’Alton’s article on this to find an alternative view to the perhaps romanticised ideas of an ancient monastic site: I’m sitting on the fence!

Historic village – perhaps with medieval origins – to vibrant sailing centre and colourful streets in the 21st century. Schull has come a long way, and has far to go. Today the resident population numbers around 1,050: this is boosted substantially with the influx of summer visitors. It’s good to see long established names and new businesses on the streets, contributing to the colourful palette of the architecture. Great things are happening in the future: the old bank building (below) is to become a cinema and film centre: a focal point for the acclaimed annual Fastnet Film Festival.

Year round, Schull is worth exploring. Mount Gabriel, the area’s highest point, is above the village and offers superb vistas over the bay and islands. Finola has looked at the many legends associated with this peak and there is ancient history there, too: the remains of Bronze Age copper mines on its slopes. Good walks can be had on the high ground and on the coastal footpaths – see the Explore West Cork website.

Schull Sculpture – Anchor, Mermaid and Lunachán

The harbour town of Schull, in West Cork, is wonderfully located on a naturally sheltered inlet looking out to Long Island Bay and ‘Carbery’s Hundred Isles’. From the pier you can take the Foreshore Walk (above) – a significant community asset – and follow a route which encircles the settlement, passing, on the way, another surviving piece of sculpture from the West Cork Arts Centre Living Landscape exhibitions, dating from the 1980s to the 1990s and masterminded by Cóilín Murray. We are indebted to Cóilín for providing an archive of photographs to the Ballydehob Arts Museum, and for being willing to contribute his own memories of the installation of the West Cork Sculpture Trail, which has greatly helped in putting together the story of this venture, over a quarter of a century later.

This is the second in a series of posts being published simultaneously by Roaringwater Journal and the Ballydehob Arts Museum, celebrating an important aspect of art history in West Cork. The first article – Behold, Their Bright Shining Future Rising Before Them – discussed Michael Bulfin’s ‘Pyramid’ sculpture beside the N71 road at Skeaghanore East between Skibbereen and Ballydehob. That work can still be seen, but is in a very overgrown state. The subject today is a piece by Mick O’Sullivan, titled Anchor, Mermaid and Lunachán. This is at present a well preserved surviving work from the Sculpture Trail although, like many others, it has suffered in the past from vandalism.

Upper – this photograph dates from the time of installation of the Anchor sculpture in Schull: it was originally situated close to the water below the Sailing School. Lower – the restored Anchor sculpture (far left of picture) is now sited above the Foreshore Walk, by the top of the slipway

The Anchor has the remarkably realistic texture of a corroded and barnacle-encrusted ancient piece of ironwork which might have rested on the ocean bed for countless years… In reality, it is fabricated from glass-fibre resin and – if dropped into the sea – it would float!

It was, in fact, sent out to sea… Deliberately damaged in the late 1990s, it was broken into two parts and thrown in the water. The two sections ‘sailed’ side by side towards Long Island until they were rescued by one of the Schull fishing boats. Eventually the remains of the artwork arrived in Cóilín’s garden in Skeaghanore, awaiting a saviour.

Upper – Michael O’Sullivan at the launch of his ‘Anchor’ sculpture, together with Christine Choice, board member of WCAC. Lower – a 1982 watercolour by Michael O’Sullivan: St Brendan Discovers the Crystal Pool (IMMA Permanent Collection)

Michael O’Sullivan was born in Dublin in 1945. He gained a Diploma in Sculpture from the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), and was a lecturer there until his retirement. He has been greatly influenced in his life and art by the works of James Joyce, and is a noted scholar and lecturer on Joyce. Cóilín Murray and Michael O’Sullivan remain good friends and when the pieces of the anchor were recovered Michael came back to Schull to help in a restoration project on the sculpture instigated by a staff member at Schull College. The Anchor was reassembled and placed in its present position, where it is hopefully less vulnerable. A plaque there commemorates the 2000 ‘resurrection’ project and gives the names of the students who were closely involved in the reconstruction work.

The restored Anchor is appropriately located in the context of the Schull Sailing Centre

The word Lunachán – referring to the topmost part of the Anchor sculpture – is made up (by Michael)! I asked Cóilín for clarification and here is his response:

The word is an invention of his …Witty? ….
Amadán …in Irish …a bit of a fool …
Luna …the moon …
Lunachán …the reference to the moon and the howling at the full moon etc … Most of Mick’s work has layers and riddles…

Upper – the Lunachán today. Lower – Michael O’Sullivan and Lunachán – shortly after the sculpture was first installed in Schull

It’s good that the community in Schull was sufficiently enthusiastic about the restoration of this sculpture to support its reinstatement in the Millennium year. Twenty years later, perhaps we should consider a revival of the West Cork Sculpture Trail with new artwork to link in to the few surviving pieces? The overall Living Landscapes project – of which this was just one part – helped to give the West Cork Arts Centre its still vigorous identity and national reputation. Surely – when tourists return to the Wild Atlantic Way post-Covid – such a venture could provide a stimulating cooperation between art and landscape?

Schull-Under-The-Mountain, spring 2020