A year on the West Coast of Ireland:
We took the bikes out to Ballycurren. There was a small lighthouse by the lake so old that no one knew its age. The water of Lough Corrib had flooded the base of the old stone tower, that you couldn’t go near it or further still, climb up the precarious looking stairs that twirled around its cylindrical build.
It seemed like access to the lake was limited in every instance. Lots of driveways had a private property sign and it would be hard to find a way through to the water. The lake was the second largest in the whole of Ireland, the North included, and was filled with thousands of small islands.
Paul and Mandy took their small fishing boat out and caught two trout and lost two trout. Paul gutted the fish in the kitchen when he came back to the little white, red window frame, cottage.
They say that the fresh water in the lake is colder than the sea and you wouldn’t survive very long if you had to swim a mile in it. There used to be a ferry that took passengers along the narrowest part of the lake to the Oughterard side which went on to the Connemara national park that was full of big purple mountains and small pools and lakes that shone like silver when there was no wind to disturb them.
From the cottage, called The Dwelling House, on Mount Henry, you could see the Maamturk mountains in the distance. The lake was shining yellow from the evening sun, the last time I looked out. Paul and Mandy had a little field and it was in the top corner that you could see the mountains and the lake in the distance.
They would go on to buy a small Shetland pony called Roxy to eat the grass of the field. The man who sold her to them died a few weeks later. They didn’t know why he died so suddenly, he was only in his forties.
They were often on guard with Larry, their Bedlington Terrier cross Lurcher, because the travellers who lived in caravans on the way to Galway had been scouting places to steal ponies and other animals including dogs.
The church four miles away toward the main road had built a 10-foot metal fence to keep the travellers from leaving their ponies on the grass.
Paul told us stories of how the travellers would race in cars down both sides of the main road and all you could do was get out of the way, by the time the police got there, they had all disappeared.
There were a lot of new born lambs in the spring. It gave me a great desire to be a shepherdess one day. We met a group of very friendly black faced sheep by Greenfields one day. They, very unconventionally, came running up to the fence to say hello to us and presumably acquire some food which we didn’t have.
What a simple life it would be to tend a pasture green besides the still waters, making wool on a spindle and caring for my sheep.
I remember the first time we came to Ireland. We travelled down from the North to County Mayo and Galway. Our friend’s father, Padriac told us horrific stories about his neighbour’s killer cows.
‘He went up one morning to feed them, and they killed him’.
Growing up in the countryside in Norfolk, I was surrounded by farms and cows, though never had I ever heard of killer cows. The cows here are more deadly it seems.
My friend and I would take a canoe down the river past the Highland cows, I was slightly suspicious of them so I would get out of the canoe and walk along the other side. That ‘cow stare’ always had me a little alert but never would I imagine they would kill a man.
Padriac met his wife Dolores in a pub in Galway and proposed to her on their next meeting. He asked her quite directly, ‘if she wanted to be buried with his people?’.
And she said yes.
One day, we went with Padriac to sing songs in the nursing home.
He preached to them the gospel in his strong Mayo accent, and sang songs about the Nazarene.
‘He did it all for me, saved my soul and set me free, on that cross on Calvary, where He bled and died for me’.
We had lived in Galway for several months over Christmas, just before the coronavirus lockdown started.
There were a lot of tourists in Galway. Many Americans came to dig around in their ancestry and buy Aran Island jumpers and drink whisky.
Out in the countryside, you get a truer sense of the Irish narrative, as told by her great lakes, green mountains and pastures. The lack of traffic, noise and commercialism lend to the wilderness off the unmarked road.
The narrative tells of small white cottages with red frame windows, and shebeens, thatched roofs, and the tiny, little pub playing Uilleann pipes at a lock in. These roads tell the story of poets, the writers and fishermen, the Irish mother cooking potato gratin and Oughterard Salmon.
Not far from The Dwelling House, in Mount Henry, is the popular village of Cong. The film called The Quiet Man was filmed here starring John Wayne and Mareen O’Hara.
Ashford Castle is presented to the walker like a grand ancient wonder, its mighty grey façade, ornate interior and lavish settings now used as a five-star hotel sat on the Corrib lakeside.
They have a falconry school in the grounds. You can sometimes catch a wandering bird trainer with his big leather glove on calling out for the return of his falcon.
Paul and Mandy say there is a great viewing spot here of the lake, further down in the woods. From Clonbur, a short drive away, you can see the outstretched lake with its thousands of dark green islands, some forested and some used for livestock.
Ireland has been for me, a land of new favourite places. Exploring the Connemara national park is an adventure worthy of special affection. The mountains turn purple in the setting sun standing proudly above silver pools of water. Sometimes, the wind comes across the water like a white fire. You could drive for hours to get to a new spot. The Twelve Bens are twelve mountain peaks on the way to Clifden. At a certain spot along the coastal road you can see the famous Cliffs of Moher across the other side of the sea. And out to the other side, you can capture a glimpse of the notorious Aran Islands.
It was my birthday when we took the ferry to Inis Mór, the largest of the three Aran Islands. As the small ferry boat, the size of an enlarged speedboat and small fishing boat. It could seat around 60 people and as it slowly sailed off from the mainland some thirty-minute drive from Galway city, I exclaimed to my husband, how I so loved to be on ferries. This sentiment didn’t last very long.
Soon enough the boat was being tossed left to right and up and down like we were on a fairground ride. The side windows were so low that we were submerged under the wave line, and each great six foot wave came at us from one side and pushed the boat to the other side and at the front the engine made the boat go so fast that we where not only going from side to side but up and down, up and down, some ten feet or more.
I naively had sat in the front of the boat and felt the full effect of motion. A kind skipper wobbled up to the front to hand me a plastic bag that I proceeded to be sick into. And in between every time of being sick, I began to cry at the unfortunate state that I found myself in. There was no getting off this death wagon for another forty-five minutes.
My husband, though supremely supportive, did try his best not to laugh.
When we finally arrived at Inis Mór, I thanked God for I had survived. And on my birthday too. I tried very hard not to dwell on the fact that we had to return the same way we’d come.
When we disembarked from the ferry, I could see the passengers behind me, that they too, most of them, had plastic bags and looked quite dishevelled.
They didn’t warn us that it gets a little choppy out on the ferry crossing.
A large group of the passengers, in fact, all of them apart from my husband and I, and a couple more, got into a fancy looking mini bus to take a tour of the island.
A less so fancy minibus was parked next to him, and no one went up to him, so we decided to go with him. We were joined by an American couple who strangely had the same names of myself and Krzysztof. All four of us with brown hair and the same names, went with local guide, Tom, for an exhilarating drive around the island.
‘Now, this is the only shop on the island, it has some many great things in it, but it is the only one…and here is the recycling centre…and here are some cows’.
The previous weekend had been the yearly festival of the popular TV comedy show of Father Ted. This island was where they based Craggy Island though Father Ted’s house was actually in real life on the mainland in a mysterious geological park called the Burren.
Our guide, Tom, dropped us off to have some lunch and then walk up to the ancient site of Dún Aonghasa, a ruined fort that sits 330ft high on the cliff’s edge. From this height, you could see the great waves crashing into the cliffs further down. The wind was howling through the hollow part of the metal railing that divided one against the great drop below to the sea and rocks. It sounded like an ancient wind instrument being blown by the approaching storm that turned on us cruelly as we rushed back down to the visitor centre before it started to hail.
The Aran Islanders are incredibly hardy people. Historically, they made small wooden boats which were painted with black tar and taken out on the wild ocean. Some even boated out across the sea to the mainland in the high, choppy waves.
We stopped at the west end of the island to take a closer look at the sea front. The waves appeared in the distance on the horizon higher than our point of view. There was a small outcrop of rocks that large white waves crashed upon sending cascades of water spray into the air. To the other side another mighty current of roaring waves rolled in between the two islands and all that one could feel was the mercy of God in keeping us safe from the fury of the sea that convulsed before us.
Paul and Mandy had a neighbour called Moira. She was the mother of ten year old Mark who, being a farm boy, would drive around to the Dwelling House, on his quad bike.
Moira met Paul and Mandy at a fly tying class that was held at the village hall in Headford. The art of fly tying would look to the uninitiated, as some form of jewellery making for fishermen. We went with Paul one day to go fly fishing on the small boat on Lough Corrib. Paul had made some small brass flies that dangled off the end of the fishing line, dancing and bobbing up and down on the small current waves as he pulled the rod back and forth to imitate a fly upon the water. I caught a small Corrib trout that day. It was the first time I’d caught any fish on a lake but it was too small to take home with us so we threw him back into the water.
We didn’t catch anything else though we’d stayed there the whole day.
Paul would sit at the table in the cottage by the big fire place and make intricate fly ties. They were often very colourful with different feathers attached to shiny brass lures that spun and looked like a tribal earring.
Though we were in the lockdown, some social meeting was still happening.
Moira came round one day and told us the story about an old man that lived near by who had become very sick. He was taken to the doctor by another neighbour, who drove the 10km to drop him off at the appointment. When he got there, he realised that the old man had died in the passenger seat. The doctor told him to take him home and call the funeral director, there was nothing he could do.
When the neighbour came back, he inquired of the woman next door to the old man’s house and told her that he’s gone to take him to the doctor.
‘Ah, bring him in fer a tea’, said the woman next door.
‘No, he’s in the car’.
‘You can come in fer one’, she insisted.
‘No ye see, he’s in the car and he died on the way to the doctor so I brought him back home to call the funeral director’.
Moira then told us that she replied, ‘Dead pig good, dead man not good’.
One day, Moira was filmed on national television swearing at her dogs.
For some reason, a very high up Chinese politician decided that the first thing he wanted to do on his visit to Ireland, was to come to a traditional Irish farm, which happened to be next door to Moira’s house.
No one had informed Moira and her family that the Irish government, Chinese Officials and an entourage of news reporters and journalists, security personal and TV crew would be filming right outside her bedroom window the next morning where unbeknown to her, she shouted out in a fury to her barking dogs to ‘effing shut up!’, as they’d woken her up.
She told us that one time, when she returned home with her husband, known to Paul and Mandy as Big Mark, a black bat flew at them through the living room. They traced where the bat had come from and found they had bats living in the attic. They scared away all the bats they could find and closed up the small opening at the cottage gable.
That evening when night fell, they were left traumatised when hundreds of angry bats tried to enter the small opening to the attic. When they found out that they couldn’t get in, they started hurtling themselves at the closed up hole and then started flying into the windows and doors of the cottage. Moira said that it went on all night and she couldn’t leave the house on fear for her life.
Northern Ireland is quite different from the South.
There are so many things, the Unionists, the Troubles, the Hunger Strikes, the Peace Lines. Our first time in Ireland, we came to Belfast and stayed in Bellaghy, which was the birth home of famous Irish poet, Seamus Heaney.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave, They buried us without a shroud or coffin, And in August the barley grew up out of the grave. Signed Seamus Heaney February 2002.
This was a handwritten poem addressed to Colm that hung on the wall of his house, naturally there is a copy of Field Work signed by Heaney too, and personally addressed to Colm. His house was less like a house in parts and more like a museum. There were framed pictures and photos of all sorts, a pencil sketch portrait of Christy Moore, with another dedicated handwritten sheet of music and lyrics along with it, and signed posters of the Irish band The Dubliners. On the opposite wall hung commemorative swords and daggers and old pieces of metalwork. On the shelves sat books about Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and revolutions all over the world. The Palestinian flag hung at the end of the shaded living room and small trinkets from the Hunger Strikers littered the desks. Colm had been arrested when he was young. Part of the IRA, he told us his side of the Troubles. He had been in a cell with famous Hunger Striker, Bobby Sands at one point. He told us that he’d spent five years in prison. He was caught again by the police guard but refused to talk so they let him go after seven days. He said that all he could think about was to be silent for seven days rather than be banged up for seven years.
‘Have you been tortured?’, I asked.
‘Ah yes, of course!’. Was the animated reply.
He said that the British army tortured and beat them all. The IRA are now defunded but apparently still operate in secret. My friend from further north says that we are really in the thick of IRA history in Bellaghy. We took a bus here from Ballymena, and the bus driver let us off at the exact right spot and directed us where to go. Every one seemed to be so friendly. It was hard to believe that all that friendliness came on the other side of a coin that was thick in blood from the Troubles. I read an article about a shooting in Belfast at a betting shop, where British Army guards started shooting at IRA volunteers who were carrying a broken gun. The police guards said that they just kept shooting and the betting room floor became black with blood.
I am a naive walker, watching a big, brown bird make flights from trees and back again around the house The sunlight came with the evening breeze Bran the dog, like a rain swept sheep Waiting by the stable door The horticulture is well maintained This hedge makes a peace line Where does one catholic house meet protestant? The people all so fiercely intelligent Forever fighting for freedom Forever fighting for Ireland And someone’s dream Because someone is somebody here The eulogy on the fridge door, the band in thatched pub Older than the fire of London And Derry is absent of London But we don’t talk about that here.
Bobby Sands was arrested after the bombing of Balmoral Furniture Company in Dunmurry. Put in prison for a fourteen-year sentence, he led a group who became known as the Hunger Strikers who in protest, refused to eat. He died in his cell, sixty-six days into the strike.
We stayed with Colm for a night in his house which was now a B&B. He had a shaggy dog called Bran who stood outside by the backdoor and dropped us off at a convent the next day to catch a bus back to Ballymena.
The Giant’s Causeway is a UNESCO world heritage site. Most agree that the peculiar basalt columns and rock formations were made from a volcanic fissure so many thousands of years ago, but many would rather believe that it was in fact made by the Irish Giant, Fionn Mac Cumhaill, who created the causeway to reach Scotland where he could fight his rival Scottish giant, Benandonner. On the Isle of Staffa there are identical basalt columns and rock formations which many believe is where the legend came from.
Ireland, the North and the Republic, is full of natural wonders. In the Burren, the coastal road takes you to the magnificent Cliffs of Moher which stand some 702ft in its highest point. You can see the Aran Islands far off into the distance and by the first few turns there is Puffin Rock which attracts the migrating puffins every year as they nest and breed and then fly away again for winter.
One famous landmark in County Mayo is the pilgrimage mountain of Croagh Patrick which you can see in the distance from Padriac’s house.
I was two months pregnant when we left Ireland. We decided that for our last adventure we would climb Croagh Patrick, my husband, our unborn baby and I. We climbed for some two hours up to the peak which at the end becomes very steep.
At the top is a small church and a memorial St Patrick’s bed where pilgrims, who’d walked up the 764m mountain, sometimes in bare feet, would rest and have their photo taken. The mountain is named after St Patrick who climbed the peak and slept on its top, fasting and praying for forty days in the year 441AD.
It was a remarkable event to end our time living in Ireland. We’d bought an English registration car from the North and took our guinea pigs back to England on the ferry from Dublin.
I’d like to end on this note of non- essential interest.
Irish milk is by far the best that I’ve ever tasted in any country.
That being so, the Macdonald’s milkshake is simply the best. They even have a green shamrock milkshake for St Patrick’s day. And if that is reason enough to come to this wonderful, enchanting country then I don’t know what is.
