adventures

adventures / history / Ireland / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on Sliabh Mor-sli Oidhreachta, or the Slievemore Heritage Trail
17
Mar 26

Sliabh Mor-sli Oidhreachta, or the Slievemore Heritage Trail

We stopped by a little ghost village, which has a different meaning entirely in this part of the world. This is a on a low mountain, or a tall hill, and people have been living there for almost six millennia. You can still see megalithic monuments and tombs if you take the full hike.

We walked around the more recent village. Slievemore is today a place where some 90 stone cottages lie in ruins on the southern slopes of the mountain. They’ve been abandoned for quite a while, and the people that lived here last worked the same fields as people did in medieval times.

Slievemore was also the largest seasonal settlement on Achill island. Booleying, as it is called, is about the agriculture, not about vacations. People moved their livestock here for the summers. This was also the most recently abandoned settlement, which was reduced largely during the Great Famine and changing agricultural practices. And surely some of their descendants live in that community in the background of this photo.

Also, right in here is where I slipped and fell. Not really sure what happened. I was standing, and then I wasn’t. The ground was level, the grass was slick, and I was laying on it, scrambling quickly, in vain, trying to avoid getting wet and muddy. Failed at both of those.

Fortunately all of the clothes that I have in this hemisphere are in the car a short walk away! So after making sure I hadn’t seriously hurt myself — I seemed to land on my elbow and shoulder and jammed that up a little — and cleaned a bit of mud off off my jacket and jeans, we made our way back down.

I think a ghost pushed me.

The research, which continues there annually through an archaeological field school, has put settlement in this spot back to the Anglo-Norman period, so roughly the 12th century. But, again, if you hadn’t fallen in the mud and kept on hiking, you’d work your way up to a tomb that indicates habitation in the area some 5,000+ years ago.

adventures / Ireland / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on Cuan na hAisléime and Keem Bay
17
Mar 26

Cuan na hAisléime and Keem Bay

Here’s a little two-for-one update.

We visited Cuan na hAisléime — which my very English fingers find difficult to type — and Keem Bay. Both are lovely, but I’ve only got a few photos of each. Not to worry, there’s also video, and that’ll turn up here eventually.

First, Cuan na hAisléime, a simple elevated car stop with lovely views of Ashleam Bay along the southern coast of Achill Island. You’re driving on some fun hairpins as you work down, and when you’re hear you get a nice view of the bright white, jagged cliffs that stand out from the rest of the geology we’ve seen recently.

Here there’s a sign that tells you all about how the locals heat their homes. They still do a lot of peat farming — though, despite the long tradition, I have to think that’s on the way out, considering either the volume needed, the carbon released, or both. It works like this, the turf cutter is a farmer, and he works his own turf bank. It takes about a week of work around this time of year to prepare and provide enough fuel to get through next winter.

You’d work in groups, using a special double-bladed shovel that cuts peat into squared off blocks, rectangles about two feet long. You’d throw those up onto the bank, and come back later and arrange them into stacks to dry. Then, by hand, bag, donkey or tractor, you haul them home. You want them dried out, to prepare for the winter. By then, your dried segments are half the size as when you started. They say the pros can work so quickly and efficiently they could get six pieces in the air at once.

That seems … improbable. And unnecessary.

We also visited Keem Bay, which is nearby.

And this is one of those charming little places you’ve never known about, but then feels certain and right at home when you find it. Of course this exists. Of course it is as beautiful, or moreso, than you’d imagine. Of course you have it all to yourself.

The strand is in the horseshoe of the bay, and near a village that is home to just over 500 people and a bunch of B-and-Bs. At one point, this little area was home to a basking shark fishery. And because of all those fishermen, the British government operated a lifeboat station from here on the beach. That was in operation for more than a century. There’s a lifeguard shack there now, and the sign says they’ll open in June.

More recently, the bay was used as a filming location for The Banshees of Inisherin, a terrific 2022 character study. There’s a small building, just off the left side of the frame here, that was used in the movie.

A picturesque beach, and, yes, there’s more video of this coming, too.

And just up from the beach, there’s this trail. Only the bold know.

I am not that bold and we had other places to see. Let’s go see them!

adventures / Ireland / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on Ocean dramatics
17
Mar 26

Ocean dramatics

Without really discussing it, I think this what we both came here for. Wild Atlantic Way is excellent branding, and here on just the second day there seems to be at least a little something for everyone. But when you say Wild and Atlantic, this is the imagery that comes to mind. This, by the way, is just a place we stopped. There’s no signage or tourist point directing you here. You just drive by, stop, and ponder: Could I build a little house up on a little hill to enjoy commanding views like these?

adventures / history / Ireland / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on Old St. Dympna’s Church
17
Mar 26

Old St. Dympna’s Church

St. Dympna’s 17th century church is on the southeast coast of Achill Island. But the name in the GPS is a bit of a misnomer. This is the new church. An early church, established by St. Dympna, sprang up in the 7th century.

According to Catholic and Orthodox tradition, Dympna was born in the seventh century to a petty king, a Celtic pagan, and a devout Orthodox Catholic mother. When she was a teenager she consecrated herself to Christ and took a vow of chastity. Then her mother died and her father starts to go a bit mad. The story gets Shakespearean from there and Dympna goes on the run, sailing to modern Belgium. One story tells us she settled there and began to care for the sick and the poor. Somehow her father found out about this, so he pursued her, killing her travel companion, insisting she return home. She refused, and he killed her. They built a church in her memory in Belgium in 1349, and people from across Europe made the pilgrimmage for more than a century, seeking help. For more than 500 years they’ve cared for psychiatric patients — but they are considered boarders, living and thriving within the community. More than 4,000 boarders were there in the 1930s. But that’s in Belgium. Here, the roofless church is surrounded by the Kildownet cemetery, with the Kildavnet Castle nearby.

There is a T-shaped altar at the eastern end of the church, and a number of medieval stone crosses in the graveyard. Two have been repurposed as gate posts.

Down by the water line sits St Dympna’s Holy Well. Dip a ribbon in it and wrap it around your head to cure a headache. Taking a few sips are said to ease your toothache. In this way, the well has helped heal the area, so they say.

You can’t see it from this angle, but this marker is tilting at an unfortunate angle. I hope someone fixes that soon, it has a great look to it.

I’ve never seen markers decorated this way, but there are a few of this in that cemetery. I don’t know if it was just a moment of time, or a regional trend. Maybe the memory of a certain personality drove the colorful limestone treatment.

That 7th century church also became the site of a 16th century church ruins largely thought to have been built by Grace O’Malley. She lived up in the castle and her people needed a house of worship. The ruins we see — as the sign calls them, the present ruins — may be that of an 18th century church.

I love this about Ireland. “You threw that building up in the 1700s? Maybe you’ll get a sign. Maybe. We’re not going to expand a lot of energy figuring out the details though. It’s only from the 1700s, after all.”

Some of the older markers we see here are believed to date to about the time of these present ruins. Some of the graves mark people that died in the Drochshaol, the Great Famine of the mid-19th century. Others are unmarked, or are recognized by a single, half-buried stone.

On the northern side of the church is a low wrought iron gate, and it marks where those young people who died in the Scottish fire, or out in the bay. We just learned about them at Dumhach Bheag. They all rest together with their names all on a single marker.

There’s still a humble stone altar inside the roofless church. People go in and stack rocks on it. I bet it’s a site to see at night, with the stars above, just the stones and the water in sight.

adventures / history / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on Bhí Armada na Spáinne anseo
17
Mar 26

Bhí Armada na Spáinne anseo

It is a testament to the nature of this rugged bit of nature that there are beautiful places to stop, historically interesting places to stop, and also grand places with no signage or suggestions whatsoever. Sometimes you’ll find a place which has a connection to global events and you wouldn’t even realize it if you weren’t looking for it.

And so we’ve come to this spot, where out there the ocean does what an ocean does, and in here we try to cast our mind’s eye back some 440 years.

After the British routed the Spanish Armada — in sea battles that reshaped naval doctrine, bolstered the legend of Elizabeth the 1st, changed the geopolitical power structure, perhaps the course of human history and maybe even influenced the religions of Europe — the surviving vessels of the Spaniard squadrons were all headed home. Some of them sailed somewhere right out there.

The sailors and soldiers who had just been taught a new way to fight at sea and were licking their wounds now had to endure gales and stormy seas. Maybe the men on the galleon El Gran Grin, served by 75 sailors and carrying 261 soldiers, felt fortunate to have survived the British. It was a 1,100 ton vessel, loaded with 28 guns, and it had anchored off the big island that fronts the bay, so they could trade with the O’Malley clan, which ran things in the area. It was all going well until the winds blew in. Somehow the ship slipped its anchorage and it wound up on the shore, with most hands lost.

Then there was the San Nicolás Prodaneli, a bit smaller, but no less prickly. She had 68 sailors 226 soldiers aboard when she wrecked on the shore, right near here. History records that maybe 16 survived. They burned the wreckage and were picked up by their countrymen.

It’s easy to think that maybe they waded ashore, because that’s what you and I would think they’d do. But probably not. The weather is bad. It’s likely dark. And it’s cold. And you don’t know the area. You don’t know there’s a road, right there, just a few steps from the waterline.

If only they’d been able to see that.

I bet they didn’t see messages like this, either.

In all, five ships of the Spanish Armada sank in these waters. Some of the wreckage has yet to be re-discovered.

There are two subtle markers here memorializing them.

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