Vespertine Quintet

Your Favourite Posts of 2014

Cape Clear Harbour

Cape Clear Harbour

What were your favourite Roaringwater Journal blog posts of 2014?

Our blogging software provides a running count of visitors to Roaringwater Journal and it’s always fascinating to see which ones receive the most views. Some of them are our own favourites as well, and some can attribute their high numbers to being re-blogged by others, or to being shared on social media. So tell us, Dear Reader – did the software capture it – or do you have a different favourite from our top posts of 2014?

From the Whiddy Island high point

From the Whiddy Island high point

The top two posts of 2014 were the ones we wrote about our trips to Cape Clear and to Whiddy Islands. We loved our time on the islands and intend to go back often – our enthusiasm probably shone through. But it may also be that islands hold a mystique for us that is hard to define – out there in the dawn mist, mysterious and peaceful, whole worlds unto themselves. The islanders of West Cork are worried at the moment by cuts to their development officer funding, and need all the support we can give them. So if you live here, or are planning a trip, include one or more of these beautiful islands in your plans.

Timoleague Friary

Timoleague Friary

Next in popularity was our post on the Timoleague Friary. It’s an iconic piece of West Cork history and architecture – the only sizeable medieval religious ruins we have, perched on a picturesque estuary of the Arigideen River.

I've learned to look carefully for road signs

I’ve learned to look carefully for road signs

Finola’s frustration at the inflexible regulations that treated her like a novice driver, despite forty years of driving experience, must have struck a chord with you. Maybe you dropped by Driving Home the Point to sympathise with her plight, or maybe it was to chuckle over the numerous example of the routine flouting of the Irish rules of the road, or the bemusing driving conditions of many rural roads.

Evans of Bantry

Evans of Bantry

We have enormous nostalgia for the things we remember from our childhood, don’t we? In that vein, it’s not surprising that Shopping for Memories was such a popular post. These lovely old shops evoke a time when a whole variety of shops lined the main streets and our mothers went from the butchers to the greengrocers to the chemists to the haberdashers and, if we were lucky, to the sweet shop on a daily basis.

Carraig Abhainn Gardens

Carraig Abhainn Gardens

But sadly, the numbers of these old-fashioned shops are dwindling. This year we said goodbye to Wiseman’s in Durrus, no longer able to compete against the hardware shops of Bantry. Fortunately, their wonderful Carraig Abhainn Gardens are still open behind the shop – and our description of this hidden gem was one of your favourite posts of the year.

The future is secure
Vespertine Quintet
Ballydehob Arts and Culture Fest
Storytelling at Levis’s
Ballydehob Jazz Fest
Timmy McCarthy as The Chief
Our rock art exhibition

A group of posts on festivals came next. We wrote about the question our friends asked us when we decided to move here, What on earth will you find to DO? We answered in a series of posts describing some of the local events and festivals we have taken in this year – the Ballydehob Jazz Festival and Arts and Culture Festival (which included our own Rock Art Exhibition), traditional music Festivals in Baltimore, Bantry and Ballydehob, and a host of musical and theatrical events. One day all of you retirees out there are going to discover that moving to West Cork is the best decision you can make!

View from Mount Gabriel
Along the Butter Road
On Brow Head
Barley Cove in February
Gortnagrough Folk Museum

The next group of posts centred on the Mizen – the Mizen Magic posts where we concentrated on aspects of the Mizen Peninsula that delight us – the Beaches, Brow Head, the Butter Road, Mount Gabriel, the Gortnagrough Folk Museum, and the history and archaeology of this beautiful part of Ireland.

How are ye?

How are ye?

In fairness, like, it looks like ye would have enjoyed our take on how to speak like ye’re from West Cork. Those little posteens made you happy out.

Moonlight Serenade

Ye must be a fierce active crowd altogether because you really got a kick out of Finola’s description of her day of sailing and (perhaps her personal favourite in the activities department) her moonlight kayaking on Lough Hyne.

Happy New Year from Robert and Finola!

Happy New Year from Robert and Finola!

And our own personal favourite of 2014? Robert’s post on the Sky Garden, of course! If you haven’t read it yet, you’ll have to do so to find out why this was the highlight of our year in West Cork.

Ballydehob Rocks Art and Culture

Looking pleased with the exhibition!

Looking pleased with the exhibition!

I’ve posted before about the amazing variety of events and festivals that West Cork towns host. The latest, and this is a new one, is Ballydehob’s Art and Culture weekend. It’s just over and it was great fun.

Rosie’s Window
Outside every pub…

For the most part the venues were intimate (think pubs, cafes, An Sanctoir) or outdoors. The weather was variable – we got everything from gales to sunshine – but only one event had to be cancelled because of it.

Vespertine Quintet
The Fastnet Four
Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil, Storyteller
Arthur Miller’s ‘I Can’t Remember Anything’

There was a bus tour to the delightful Gortnagrough Museum, and another to the Rock of the Rings (local rock art!) and an historic walking tour of the town. There was a poetry trail, storytelling, plays, dance performances, a dozen different art exhibitions (including our own), kids’ workshops and movies, a cabaret, and of course music – lots of music from trad to country to world music to drumming to classical.

Young songwriters

Young songwriters

Perhaps one of my favourite moments was watching the girls who had taken the songwriting workshop, which had been led by a 12 year old, perform the songs they had written. We’ve been having fierce gales and the whole of Ballydehob was without electricity, so the pub was lit by candles and gas lamps. It was like going back to the rare old times when we made our own entertainment for gatherings of neighbours and friends. The lack of power didn’t bother anyone – the following act simply switched from electronic to acoustic with no fuss and soon we were singing again. The Choir I (try to) sing with, A Capella Bella, had a sing-along too – it was great to hear so many voices belting out our African rythms, enthusiastically conducted by the talented Caz Jeffreys.

By lamplight

By lamplight

Our own event, the Prehistoric Rock Art Exhibition, proved to be popular. The talk was packed and people lingered afterwards and peppered us with questions. There is a lot of interest here in anything to do with our heritage, and rock art is a little-known aspect of it: many people commented that they had no idea it existed or what it was like. People also liked Robert’s account of rock art in other parts of the world. For those of you who would have liked to be there but couldn’t, we are planning a permanent blog page on rock art which will contain some of the images we used as well as the program we produced for the show. You can also read our friends Amanda and Peter Clarke’s accounts of the exhibition here and here – they supplied the photographs of the exhibition I’ve used in this post.

Robert
Finola
What does it all mean?
the spillover crowd

These small local festivals can make a huge difference to a place. I’ve written before about the economic downturn in Ballydehob and the depressing effect it has had on local business, but the community has never lost its positive attitude and its volunteering spirit. One of our local writers, Sarah Canty, illustrates, in her documentary Down But Not Out, the challenges facing small villages like ours.

The Eileen and Marilyn Experience

‘The Eileen and Marilyn Experience’ Caberet

This festival was spearheaded by a great team, many from the Ballydehob Social Club, with lots of other volunteers pitching in. A huge thank you to the pubs and other venues for providing free space and paying for entertainers. And a special shout out from us to Joanne Cassidy at the West Cork Gourmet Store for providing a wonderful gallery for our Rock Art Exhibition. 

The Weekend ended with a huge party – more music, more dancing, more laughter and camaraderie.

Ballydehob – you rock!

Starlight Bliss

Lough Hyne twilight

Lough Hyne twilight

Have you ever had one of those experiences where you float home afterwards, totally blissed out, knowing that something very special just happened to lucky you? Yes, I suppose the day you meet The One would qualify, but here’s another one – kayaking under the stars on a West Cork lake to the strains of baroque music. Let me explain…

Lough Hyne is a unique ecosystem. A partially landlocked seawater lake, it is filled by the incoming tide and then empties twice a day, through a stretch of water called The Rapids. Aquatic marine plants and animals flourish in the warm protected waters – many not found elsewhere in Ireland. It’s also a beautiful and peaceful place, steeped in archaeology and history.

In a kayak for the first time in years!

In a kayak for the first time in years!

Jim Kennedy and his family run Atlantic Sea Kayaking and a couple of times a year, to coincide with local festivals, they offer a special kayaking trip on Lough Hyne called the Starlight Serenade. I was disappointed to have missed the first offering earlier in the summer so as soon as they announced a second one, during the Taste of West Cork Festival, I signed up to go with my friend Sheena Jolley.

We're off!

We’re off!

After a brief introduction to basic paddling techniques we were off, a group of about 20 of us, mostly local. Jim led us first to The Rapids, pointing out the birdlife along the way. It was an unusually high tide and the water was thundering in. We rafted up in a sheltering eddy, trying not to be too intimidated by the tidal surge. Jim explained the ecology of the constant filling and draining of the lake and then he pushed us out into the rushing water. Hanging  on to each other’s kayaks, we swirled giddily in the torrent, gradually swinging back into the calmer waters of the lake.

Loght Hyne with the islands. The Rapids are at the top right. Photo by 'Riekeshieldmaiden' at en.wikipedia

Lough Hyne with the islands. The Rapids are at the top left. (Photo by ‘Riekeshieldmaiden’ at en.wikipedia)

As dusk closed in the next stop was the island, and stories of an O’Driscoll warlord who once ruled supreme in Baltimore but who lived out his final days in this remote place. Then Jim told us to head ‘towards the light’ and pointed to the far shore. As we got closer the ‘light’ began to resolve itself. Several steps led down to a tiny quay and on each step and all over the quay were candles – dozens of them. Then we heard the music. Two violinists were playing Bach. One by one we drifted in, rafted up as silently as we could, and then lay back in the kayak seat and just listened. The Milky Way arced across the sky, the music floated to us from the little quay, we dangled fingers in the warm water and each of us felt in our own way that surely heaven couldn’t hold much better than this.

The Serenade

The Serenade

The concert continued – some Telemann, a song composed by Jessie (these were two members of the Vespertine Quintet I reported on at the beginning of August), something gentle and minimalistic, more Bach – and then it was ‘follow the light’ again: this time the light was on the helmet of the lead guide. But before we started, Jim asked us to look down into the water and to dip our hands in. Suddenly, the stars were beneath us: bioluminesence shimmered and shook from our fingers. As we paddled back every stroke of the blade struck sparks from the water: flash on the right, flash on the left, flash, flash, flash, flash.

Starlight repast

Starlight repast

It was hard to leave the magic that was happening on the water. Sheena and I walked back to where the cars were parked, breathless with the wonder of what we had just experienced. But wait…here were more candles and luminarias, and a table groaning with wonderful food, and grinning guides handing out cups of tea and glasses of wine, and Maria Kennedy presiding over a homemade feast of organic goodies: smoked salmon, seaweed scones (delicious!), salads from her garden, cheeses and biscuits and cake and chocolates. We sat or stood in the warm night air, munching contentedly, unable to utter much more than superlative heaped on superlative.

luminarios

Words are inadequate tools to fully convey the essence of an evening like this. I can’t tell you. You have to do it too.

Sensory Upload

Skibbereen Arts Festival

In the words of one of the organisers, Robert and I have been doing a marathon – an arts marathon. The Skibbereen Arts Festival has been running all week and we’ve taken in as many exhibitions, concerts, events and experiences as we could. Last year we missed most of this festival, as we had just arrived and were occupied with settling in. This year we wanted to remedy that.

In the bottling plant*

In the bottling plant*

And what a sensory feast it was: music, art, dance, drama and various items that defied categorisation. There was something for everyone, no matter what your age and taste. We took two days to cover the art walks. There were several pop-up galleries – empty houses converted into pro tem exhibition spaces ideal for the kind of modern installations that leave you scratching your head and worrying that you’re not sophisticated enough. The Working Artist Studios, a building run by artists for artists, had opened all their rooms for the duration of the Festival. Some of the rooms functioned as galleries, while others provided a glimpse into the working process of an emerging canvas.

Works in progress
I want one!
Glimpsed in a studio
Working Artist Studios gallery

In one room we discovered Caoine by a young local woman, Michelle Collins, which explored the ancient practice of keening, the Irish funerary custom of women lamenting over the dead. In a darkened room, among scented candles, we listened to the sorrowful songs and sounds of an age-old tradition. To give you an idea of a keening song, listen to Iarla O Lionaird singing the Lament of the Three Marys, with its repetition of the phrase  Óchón agus óchón ó – which can translate as alas and alas, or my grief, my grief.

Old bottling plant
Space transformed
Janet Murran with cacti

At the other end of town an old bottling plant had been cleared out to become a perfect space for showing artists’ work. Several of these exhibitors had graduated from an innovative visual arts degree program offered on Sherkin Island by the Dublin Institute of Technology. We talked to Janet Murran and Donagh Carey who were enthusiastic about their experiences in the Sherkin Program – their work clearly showed mature artists seeking meaning in a variety of media. In one corner an intriguing little installation by Tess Leak featured Haiku written by Sherkin Islanders and inspired by island life. And in an adjacent building photographs, by Yvette Monahan, of Bugarach in France – where a new arcadia was supposed to begin once the world ended on December 21st, 2012. Moody and elegaic, the colour reminded me of the Agfa prints of my youth.

Robert is writing about Canon Goodman – see his post for more on the concert in his honour (and in his church) that has become a staple of this Festival. Another highlight for us was the staging of The Playboy of the Western World by J M Synge, a classic of Irish theatre: one which caused riots when first performed. This was an amateur production but it was hard to tell – the Kilmeen Drama Group had won the All-Ireland Drama finals with this production, had performed it at the Abbey Theatre (Ireland’s National Theatre) and are taking it to New York next. It was superb – full of energy and humour with each line singing with poetic expression.

The Playboy of the Western World

The Playboy of the Western World

To illustrate the sheer variety of what was on offer we also attended:

Men Without Names: a poignant exploration in poetry and music of the Irish diaspora. 

Sunrise/3Epkano: a classic silent movie with soundtrack provided by the group 3Epkano. A surreal experience, different from what I was expecting but in the best way.

The Vespertine Quintet: in the beautiful setting of Lissard House, an afternoon of gentle, haunting, minimalist music from Iceland mixed with baroque.

Croi Glan Dance: I have written about this marvellous dance company before – these two dances looked at the challenges of finding our place in the world and once again brought lumps to our throats.

Croi Glan Dance
Men Without Names
Sunrise/3Epkano
Vespertine Quintet

We couldn’t go to everything and I was sorry to miss the dancing at the crossroads and the sean-nós evening. Sean-nós is a traditional style of highly ornamented unaccompanied singing – here is Nell Ní Chróinín showing how it’s done. There were events for families, a river day, a drama day, outdoor movie screenings…But most of all I was disappointed that Starlight Serenade sold out before I could get a ticket. Moonlight kayaking on beautiful Lough Hyne with musical accompaniment. For a taste of what I missed, take a look at this, and add music. 

‘Paddling Through Stars’ on Lough Hyne

Next year! But I might have to call that one Sensory Overload.

*Sorry, I don’t know the name of this artist. Can anyone supply it?