Category Archives: landscape

70. This close to Dublin?

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Last Saturday, I had six hours to kill between an airport pickup and an airport drop-off. I thought about what I could do with our friends from Lithuania, to give them a taste of Ireland. I didn’t want to take them into the city – that’s one version of Ireland, and we’d done that earlier in the week. I thought Howth might be nice. And then a friend suggested the Howth Cliff Walk. I’d never heard of it, but my friend had done it a couple of times and had only good things to say about it. So, I did a bit of research, saw that the car park where we could start the walk was less than 30 minutes from the airport, and decided on that for our ‘taste of Ireland’ day out.

I’d only been to Howth once before, years ago on the Dart with Julian, and then only for about an hour. There were a number of routes we could take on the cliff walk and, after consultation with the girls and our visitors, we decided to tackle the longest and most difficult walk – the 3 hour, 12km Bog of the Frogs walk. And what a walk it was.

We parked the car (for free) close to Howth Marina
I was delighted to see that Yeats had lived here for a time.

I couldn’t have imagined that there would be such a varied rural landscape so close to the city. I mainly took photos along the coastal portion – as we walked along the coastal path on top of the cliffs, with yachts from a sailing club flying past and practicing manoeuvres, a fishing boat dropping lobster pots, and herring gulls, kittiwakes and cormorants swooping high or flying low over the sea. At times, the grey sea blended into the grey sky, creating a mesmerizing horizonless seascape.

At lunchtime, we wound our way down to a small stony beach and, after a delicious picnic (if I do say so myself), we quickly changed into our swimsuits for a quick dip in the sea. The water was warm and we all could have stayed there all day. But we were only half way through the walk and our friends had a plane to catch to Lithuania in a few hours.

A dip in the sea here after lunch was glorious.

The path soon brought us away from the sea, up through birch woods and then up the side of a hill overlaid with blanket bog and heather. That took some effort and, for twenty minutes or so, we barely spoke – our chatty group focused now on getting up the hill and controlling our breathing. But that ended too and then, after a brief foray across a busy golf course, it was downhill all the way and back, once again, into the middle of Howth village.

It was a delightful day out. Just the perfect weather for a walk, a swim, a picnic. The other walkers we met were friendly and chatty. And, despite advice to the contrary on the cliff walk website, the trail was clearly and frequently marked.

I think it would be lovely to do it again.

68. Worse, not better.

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Around the clock, the cars whizz by. Breaking the 80km/h speed limit by 20, 40, 60km/h. Early morning is bad – commuters late to work, or timing their commute to perfection only by driving at high speed. You hear them coming at great distance, then drowning out all other sounds as the rush past, leaving a trail of noise in their wake. Sometimes, they overtake each other outside the house – a car doing 120km/h overtaking one doing 100km/h on this narrow little road. Once the commuters have passed, it’s the turn of the lorries. Great, hulking lorries, with ‘Long Vehicle’ signs on the back, made for roads much bigger than this one, they too going at or above the speed limit – lorry after lorry carrying triple, quadruple decks of frightened pigs to the slaughter house a mile farther along the road, or taking goods and supplies to who knows where. Then it’s the commuters again – going in the opposite direction at the end of the day. And then night comes and it’s the racers – joy riding at unimaginable speeds – speeds that I don’t want to imagine. A couple of nights ago, a car stopped in front of the house. It was 9:30 and I hadn’t yet closed the curtains. Odd, I thought. We’re not expecting anyone. Then I thought maybe it was waiting at the bottom of the narrow hill to let an oncoming vehicle pass. But it wasn’t that either. The driver revved and revved and revved the car and then shot away up the road like a bullet. The noise was deafening. I waited for the sound of a collision – with another car, or with the old tree on the bend in the road up at Smith’s house; my heart pounding.

We used to live our lives on this road. Cousins my age lived in the house across the road and in the house down the road; so, as kids, we were constantly going between the three houses. On summer evenings, we’d tie a skipping rope to the gate and stretch it out across the road. Daddy would stand for hours turning the rope, while us kids jumped til it got too dark. Every twenty minutes or half an hour, we’d have to make way for a car to go past.

From an early age, I walked or rode my bike the two miles from home into town, never giving a minute’s thought to my safety because the traffic was limited and no-one drove fast. When I was 12, and started secondary school, I rode my bike, alongside my cousins, to school every day, just like Daddy rode his bike to work every day, and my aunt Lillie and uncle’s Tom and Gerry rode their bikes out to Ballygibbon regularly. The road belonged to the people, not to the cars.

The road was a place for animals too. Our farming neighbours regularly herded their cattle or sheep along the road from one field to another and, on Thursday mornings, farmers from farther afield would herd their livestock down the road towards the cattle mart. We walked our dogs along the road, often not on leads, never giving a moment’s thought to their safety. Lassie, the black labrador my parents gave to me as a puppy for my fourth birthday, got into the habit of crossing the road over to Betty’s house every day for a slice of bread.

There was the summer of 1992, the year of the Barcelona Olympics, when my friend Niamh came to visit from Kilkenny. We wondered how fast we could run, compared to Linford Christie. We measured out 100metres on the road and my neighbour timed us. While Niamh ran her 100m in a handy 12 seconds, I came in at 22 seconds! I wasn’t built for speed!!

I remember a few times in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with my friend Gavin or with Julian, walking the two miles home from the pub in the dead of night. On those nights, with no lights to guide us, I worried only that I might twist my ankle in a pothole or along the side of the road. Meeting traffic was never a major concern.

Not much has changed on this road in the 52 years that I have known it. The signs have improved a bit and the surface on the bridge over the River Boyne is definitely better. Apart from that, it remains the same. The road is as narrow as it always was, with sporadic road markings at best. The same houses line the road – only two new houses have been built in the past 50 years – each house home to succeeding generations of young couples raising their children to adulthood.

The only thing that has changed on this road is the traffic. The road no longer belongs to the people or to the animals. To leave the house now, we must go by car, because it is too dangerous to walk or ride a bike. To walk her dogs, Mammy has to load them into the car and drive them to somewhere else where it is safer to walk. Even driving the car out onto the road is nerve-wracking, as drivers speed up and down the road with little thought for the inhabitants of the houses they pass. Impatient drivers occasionally honk their horns or dangerously overtake when we slow down to turn into the driveway or pull in to open or close the gate. There’s no stopping on the road for a friendly chat with a neighbour in a passing car.

Because of the traffic, the neighbours see less of each other, simply because they stay well away from the road. It’s sad and infuriating to see my lovely townland torn apart by the very road that once brought us all together. Is this progress? I don’t think so.

65. Newgrange

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Today we went to Newgrange and Knowth megalithic tombs in the Boyne Valley in Co. Meath. I’d like to tell you all about the 5000 year old burial and ceremonial sites, the biggest collection of megalithic art in Western Europe, the astronomic knowledge and building skills. But half of us have come down with something (me included). A cold? A flu? Who knows. So, here are some photos of the best bits of today….

64. Ballygibbon

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‘My surname is Walsh,’ I hear a man with an American accent tell the librarian. I’m at Edenderry library, supposedly working, but the conversation going on behind me distracts me. The man tells the librarian that his family came from somewhere around Edenderry, but he doesn’t know where. ‘There’s a place called Walsh Island a few miles from here,’ the librarian tells him, but then admits that she’s not from here and doesn’t know much about local history. She offers to go get one of her colleagues who is from here.

At this point, I can’t stop myself. ‘Excuse me,’ I say, getting up from my desk and walking over. ‘I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.’ I could help, of course, if I was less nosy. ‘I might be able to help you out a bit,’ I tell the man. The librarian leaves us to it, while she goes off to gather up an armful of local history books that might be of interest to him. He and I start talking and, within a couple of minutes, I’ve invited him to come sit at my desk, because I feel we might have a lot to talk about.

He tells me his people are from Georgia, by way of other places in the US that I wish I had paid attention to – Indianapolis, maybe, or Indiana? And did he mention New York? He’s here with his half-brother, who is English. The two were unaware of each other’s existence until a few years ago (the English brother a war-time baby) and now the two are here tracing their roots. While the American brother is here in the library, the English brother is up at the parish office, looking at the parish records of births, deaths and marriages.

‘Have you been to Walsh’s bridge?’ I ask him, and tell him that the Walsh family lived in a house by the bridge. I know of three brothers – Pascal was my science teacher at school, Andy is an auctioneer, and John recently deceased. He tells me he’s met some Walshes, has looked at headstones in the graveyard in Monesteroris and went knocking on doors at houses he thought once belonged to Walshes. His phone rings and he answers it. It’s Andy Walsh, the very man I have just mentioned, who tells him that his son is interested in genealogy and might be able to help him out.

When the call ends, he tells me that he and his brother have been here for a few days and are leaving tomorrow and they haven’t confirmed any relationships with the places or the Walshes they’ve met. I ask him where they’re staying. He tells me they’re at an AirB&B called Rushbrooke, a few kilometres outside of town. The name rings a bell and I’m pretty sure it’s a house near my house. ‘Who owns it?’ I ask. ‘Young guy. Arthur,’ he says. ‘Can’t remember his surname.’ He rings Arthur. ‘What’s your surname?’ he asks. ‘Arthur Stones,’ Arthur replies.

I almost do a comical forehead slap. ‘Arthur Stones is a distant relative of mine,’ I tell him. ‘He lives down the road from me. My grandmother and Arthur’s great-grandmother were first cousins.’ He shows me a photo of Rushbrooke, where he and his brother are staying, and now I know exactly what house it is. ‘It’s Billy Mather’s house,’ I say. ‘Up Mather’s lane.’ This is no more than 500 metres from my house, up the lane from Arthur’s home (which, coincidentally, is the house my grandmother grew up in).

Mr Walsh (I can’t believe I didn’t catch his name) opens the folder he’s carrying. He shows me photos from 150 years ago and then produces a most remarkable document. A photocopied letter sent from an aunt in Ireland to her niece in America in 1925. The niece is Mr. Walsh’s paternal great-aunt or great-great-aunt. What is so remarkable about this letter is the sender’s address: Ballygibbon.

Ballygibbon is where I come from. Ballygibbon is where Arthur Stones comes from. Ballygibbon is where Rushbrooke House is situated. And, in the back of my mind, I remember that, when my father was young, before Arthur Stones owned Rushbrooke, before Tim Mann owned Rushbrooke, before Billy Mathers owned Rushbrooke, it was owned by the Walsh family. This can’t be real!!

I phone Mammy and ask her if she can remember which house up Mather’s Lane was originally Walshes. She narrows it down to two possibilities. I phone my cousin Colette, holder of so much family and local lore. Colette is on holidays in Lanzarote and can’t say for sure which house it is.

I turn to my laptop and the 1901 and 1911 census. I search Kildare, Ballygibbon West, and there they are – the entire Walsh family – the brother of the man who emigrated to America and who Mr Walsh is directly descended from. There he is, Patrick Walsh, with his wife and six children in 1901 and with four adult children in 1911 – the other two likely married and moved away. One of the female children is the author of the letter that Mr Walsh is holding in his hands.

As the realisation dawns, we are both giddy with excitement. Through a complete coincidence, a random search for an AirB&B in Edenderry, these two long-lost brothers are staying in the very house their great-grandfather lived in and left for America in the 1850s. ‘You’re searching the wrong records,’ I tell him. The brothers have been looking for evidence of their family in County Offaly (King’s County, as it was then) and in Edenderry parish. But Ballygibbon is across the border in County Kildare and in Balyna Parish.

I phone Balyna Parish office and Fr. Maher answers the phone. The parish secretary is away on holidays. He tells me that Mr. Walsh needs to email the secretary and she will see what she can dig up in the parish records. But, he says, the records don’t go back very far, so she might not find much. I assure Mr. Walsh that they go back at least until 1918, having done a bit of digging around into my own family a few years ago. Fr. Maher suggests that the brothers go to Carrick cemetery, the most likely location of the Walsh family graves.

Mr. Walsh packs up, we shake hands and say goodbye. I assume that’s the end of it, but half an hour later he’s back, this time with his brother. He wants to take photos of all the census information I found on my laptop. I end up drawing a map of Ballygibbon and showing them who lived in all the various houses over the years. The brothers head off to do some headstone detective work at Carrick graveyard.

It’s hard to believe this happened today. That, on the very last day of their trip to Edenderry, this man should come into the library, and I should overhear him, and he should show me, by chance, a letter, and the address on that letter should be my townland, and I should trawl back through my memory to something my father had told me about neighbours of ours when he was young, and I should find a trace of them online, and they should live in the very house that this man is now staying at, owned now by a distant cousin of mine!

Isn’t life full of wonder and possibility!

61. Playful weather

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The last time I came home to Ireland for an extended summer visit – 2023 – it rained every day but two of the almost four weeks we were here. Not always heavily and not always prolonged. But every day but two it rained at least for some part of the day.

I wouldn’t really have minded. We live in a hot, dry country after all, and coming home to Ireland’s more temperate climate doesn’t really bother us. We’re here for family and friends, really. So what if there’s some rain? We just don our rain coats and sturdy shoes and get on with it.

Except that I came home for those four weeks in the summer of 2023 on a mission. I’d planned it in advance, discussed it with Mammy and with my sister. I was here to work. The wrought iron gates and garden furniture needed to be painted and the two sheds needed to be cleared out. On my first day or two home, I went to the hardware shop in Edenderry and bought the paint, brushes, rubber gloves and whatever else I needed. I was going to spend much of those four weeks out of doors, getting these much needed jobs done.

But it rained and rained. Day after day. What could I do? If the painting didn’t get done now, the gates and furniture would be facing into another winter of damage. So, I painted in the gaps in the rain, glancing worryingly at the sky and willing the rain to hold off for a few hours to let the paint dry. It rarely did. The painting got done, but the gates still carry the pock marks of raindrops on not quite dry paint.

The garden furniture was easier. We could haul it into the shed to paint it. But first the shed had to be cleared. I did that over two rainy days – clearing the contents of the shed, loading them into the boot and back of Mammy’s car to take them to the recycling centre, then back home to fill up another load. There were decades worth of old stuff to be thrown out – old paint cans, old rusty tools, old broken bits and bobs from the house and the garden. All hauled away in the rain. And then I tidied up what was left and now had space to paint the garden furniture.

Two days without rain that whole summer in Ireland. And it was cold too. We had to light the fire in July to keep warm.

I arrived in Ireland this year with no plans to do any outdoor work around the house. Well, you can guess what’s happened. Glorious weather most of the time, barely a cloud in the sky. The odd day or rain here and there. We’re dining al fresco for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I could be out painting the gates, or cutting back the hedges, or weeding the patio. Instead, I’m sitting inside at the kitchen table, a warm breeze wafting through the French doors, the light too bright for me to work outside on my laptop.

Maybe if I want a break in this glorious summer weather, I should plan to do a bit of painting.

58. The Irish Wake Museum

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So culturally embedded are our death rituals that they are honoured and commemorated in a museum in Waterford city, The Irish Wake Museum. I didn’t know this museum existed until I walked past it a couple of days ago. How could I not take a trip inside?

Housed in an early 15th Century alms house in the heart of Waterford, the museum explores Ireland’s funeral rituals from pre-Christian times, through the Vikings and up to the present day.

It was easy to see how memorial objects from the 1400s – commemorative pendants, coins and jewellery have been transformed into the memorial cards of the dead that are given out today.

Daddy’s memorial card, one of many I have of various family members and friends.

I was familiar with the origins of the wake and many of the rituals surrounding it. The two or three days of sitting with the dead to ensure they really were dead. The liminality of the wake, when clocks are stopped (literally), mirrors are covered to prevent the spirit of the deceased from getting trapped, and when there is much socialising and, despite the circumstances, merriment. In certain parts of Ireland, keeners were brought in; women who performed highly ritualised keening (from the Irish ag caoineadh – to cry) over the body.

I learned that women were generally the ones who prepared the deceased for the wake because, on account of their ability to give birth, women were more able to defy death.

I learned that, in the old days, the drinking and socialising at wakes so concerned the Catholic church that notices were put up stating that unmarried young men and women who were unrelated were not allowed to be in attendance at a wake from sunset to sunrise!

It was heartwarming to see our death rituals so faithfully rendered and retold, sharing this part of our culture with visitors and instilling a sense of pride and belonging in those of us for whom this is a living and evolving tradition.

57. Now here’s an activity for me!

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This morning, we went to the gorgeous Co. Kilkenny village of Graiguenamanagh, which sits on the banks of the River Barrow. Our purpose? Some high skilled, high powered, highly competitive* hydro-biking.

Sure, I was a bit overheated in the life jacket. But what an opportunity to demonstrate my superior biking skills AND superior navigation skills to the children. 🤣🤣

*None of the above!

56. The Guillamine

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It’s a beautiful evening, warm and sunny, and the plan is to go for a swim at The Guillamine out in Tramore. Niamh and her family regularly drive the few miles from their house in Waterford city out to this cove where the swimming is good and, towards high water, you can jump from a high concrete platform into the sea.

There are a lot of people there when we arrive. Far more than I was expecting. Men and women of all ages, with a steady stream of people going down the narrow concrete steps from the car park and back up again.

When we get down to the swimming area, the sea is turquoise and there must be 50 or more people in the water. Niamh’s husband and son go straight to the diving platform.

That’s not for me. Without my glasses, I’m quite lost. I can’t really see where I am and, because I’ve never been here before and there are so many people here and it’s noisy with people splashing into the water, I suddenly feel overwhelmed and scared. I hold into a railing, with people asking if it’s ok to go past me. I let them pass. Niamh is in now, and Lily, and I momentarily think I should just turn back and wait for them up by our towels.

Lily swims back to me and tries to convince me to get in. But I don’t like this. Not one little bit. And why am I here? And this is not for me. Niamh swims over and suggests I enter the water via a hand rail. But I’ve already tried that and I couldn’t do it. She convinces me to try again.

It’s my eyesight. That’s the thing. Because I can’t see anything clearly beyond the end of my nose, I am figuratively, if not yet literally, out of my depth. I follow Niamh’s instructions, and now, in an instant, I am in and swimming away from the shore, away from the gentle waves breaking against the rocks, away from the hoards of people lining up to enter and exit the water.

And it’s glorious. The water is cold, but not too cold. Clumps of bladder wrack float past, dark green and slimy. The saltiness of the sea buoys me up with little effort. How could I ever have thought I didn’t want to be in here? I feel alive alive alive. I think I want to come back tomorrow.

48. Weathering

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We had already decided to stay an extra night, to hole up here, in a house on a granite cliff, on the far northwest coast of Ireland. Better than running the risk of driving across Donegal and down through the country in the middle of a storm. We’d drive to the shop, get in supplies for the extra day.

Mid-morning, Katie called from the bathroom, ‘Is someone using the water out there?’ The shower wouldn’t heat up. A minute later she appeared wrapped in a towel. ‘The shower’s stopped working.’ Our trip to the shop in Dungloe delayed, we spent the next half hour trying to work out the source of the problem. The safety switch on the electricity junction box kept tripping. By a process of elimination, we realised that certain plug sockets also weren’t working. Michael stood on a kitchen chair, flicking switches on the junction box. ‘Shit. There’s smoke coming out of it,’ he said suddenly. I unlocked the door into the terrace in case we needed a speedy exit. My sister has survived two house fires – one in Ireland, one in Spain – both due to junction box fires, so I knew what could happen next

We ran around, unplugging and turning off lights. The smoke didn’t develop into anything more. Time for a sit down and a chat and decide what to do. It was Sunday morning, a bank holiday weekend. So calling out an electrician would be expensive and possibly not resolve the problem in the short term. Better to leave that til Tuesday and a normal working day. The house belongs to Michael’s aged aunt, so we didn’t want to bother or worry her when, at this moment, nothing could be done. And, the storm was still on its way.

We decided to ride it out here, without electricity. The girls raided the house for candles, torches, matches, while Michael and I figured out how to set up the ancient gas barbecue in a sheltered corner out the back of the house. Our shopping plan changed, as we considered what we could eat in the absence of electricity. We charged our phones as best we could during the drive.

When we got back from the shops, we went for a long walk across the island, still no hint that a storm was on its way. Michael lit the wood burning stove in the house and fired up the barbecue out the back. Up at this latitude at this time of year, it isn’t fully dark til 10:30. We sat chatting by candlelight til close to midnight. Michael was last to bed, leaving only a single (and safe) candle burning in the bathroom.

The wind woke me up around 5am, the back of the house, where I’m sleeping, creaking in its path. I was up at 7am, no longer able to sleep, keen to see what the sea looked like. I’m sitting here now by the big window that takes up half of this little house. Waves smash huge and white against the islands in the farther distance. Closer in, the sea is choppy, with gusts of wind dancing across its surface. A group of cormorants sit on the sea just down from the house, being tossed this way and that. The occasional seagull soars on a current of air, feet splayed as it attempts to land on firm ground

I’m glad we stayed. The lack of electricity gives a Wuthering Heights feel to this storm. We’ll leave later today or, more likely, tomorrow, whenever the storm has passed. All I’m missing is my morning cup of tea. For now, I’m going to sit back and enjoy the stormy sea.

47. Ukaliq

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In late 2000, I’d already been working as a volunteer teacher at Levi Angmak Elementary School in Arviat, Nunavut, for some months. Kip Gibbons, one of the teachers who had befriended me, offered to show me how to sew my own mittens. She sent me to the Northern Store to buy ukaliq (arctic hare) fur. I duly went a couple of evenings later and bought two ukaliq skins. On Saturday, I went around to Kip’s house and we sat on her floor, where she helped me to cut the pattern and showed me how to stitch the parts together.

I’ve never been much of a crafts person, so I was delighted to be making my own mittens. It was probably -20C or -25C as I walked the snow-covered streets back to my house a few hours later, proudly wearing my new mittens. I would wear them for years, and still have them today, although there isn’t much call for them in southern Spain.

On the Monday after I sewed the mitts, I wore them to school. In the school foyer, I met Peter 2 Aulajoot, an older teacher, who was always friendly and jokey with me. He chuckled when he saw my mitts. I hadn’t cut them badly or sewed them poorly. But Peter 2 noticed something that I hadn’t. While the fur on my left mitt was mostly white with a little smattering of black, the fur on my right mitt was mostly black with a little smattering of white. They looked completely mismatched. How could I not have seen this?

From that day on, Peter 2 always called me Ukaliq – arctic hare. A few other people picked it up too, but it wasn’t a name I was commonly called. But I liked that name for myself. I’d always loved hares, always got a thrill when I’d see them in Ireland. Now that I was in Nunavut, I saw them more often – including one that lived out past the reservoir and seemed as tame as a pet bunny.

I’ve carried that name – Ukaliq – with me ever since, making the frisson of excitement I feel whenever I see a hare all the sharper. So, yesterday when Michael said, ‘There’s the hare,’ I immediately turned to the window. And there she was. At the base of a granite outcrop beside the house, ears up, alert. She paused, nibbled at a hind paw with her teeth, hopped along and then sat, ears back, looking out over the sea.

I was in a state of awe and nostalgia and joy all mingled together, remembering Peter 2 and Kip and that ukaliq by the reservoir and the person I was twenty-five years ago.