Liz's Ireland Journal

An Chailleach Bhéara – The Hag of Beara

            The point of our drive to the Beara Peninsula on Monday was to see An Chailleach Bhéara, a rock shaped like a head facing out to sea with her hair blowing out behind her.  The legend is that this is the head of Cailleach, turned to stone, as she waited for her lover, the sea god Mannanan Mac Lir.

Although I’ve been to several places associated with the Cailleach, this is the first time I’ve visited a physical representation of her.  The place, and the rock were impressive.  People have placed coins, photographs, and necklaces on the rock like a clootie tree. Someone had placed a long tall rock on the rear of the rock, and under it was a photograph of two children.

This Cailleach, the Hag of Beara, is the subject of a famous poem “The Lament of the Old Woman of Beare”.  Her lament is for her lost youth and potency, “Ebb tide has come to me as to the sea”.  She bemoans the fact that her arms are no longer fit to embrace handsome men, and criticizes the young women of the day:

    It is riches 
    you love, and not people; 
    as for us, when we lived, 
    it was people we loved.

            When I first read it a few years ago I was dismayed.  But, Miceál Ross, a Dublin storyteller and scholar, explained to me that it had probably been written by someone in the learned class of early Christian times.  The writer  was someone who appreciated the Cailleach and understood her role as the other-worldly woman.  He said the poem could also be read as a lament for the passing of the time of the goddess, the otherworldly woman so crucial to sovereignty in early Irish belief and practice.  The poem is expressing that there is a danger that her time is over, and that a new religion, one with less humor and joy, is in ascendance. 

            But these days she's returning to public consciousness. Nuala Hayes has created a new show about her entitled The Wilder Wisdom of the Auld Ones. A young poet from the Beara Peninsula, Leanne O'Sullivan, has a new book out, Cailleach: The Hag of Beara. The stories I tell about her are amongst my all-time favorites, and they are well received by listeners. More and more people are hearing about her and becoming interested in her and what she represents.

            The ebb tide does reverse, doesn’t it?

            Mark took all the pictures.  The first one shows her up close and personal, moss warts and all with me in the proper perspective.  The second is slightly up the hill from her, looking out to the ocean.  The third is head on, and the last is the view of the bay behind her.

A Day of Beauty in Counties Cork and Kerry

            On Monday Mark and I left Killarney for the Beara Peninsula a little later than we expected.  When I tried to unlock the car with the fob, it wouldn’t work.  Mark thought maybe the battery in the fob had gone dead.  But when we got in the car, it was the car battery that was dead.  I’d left the lights on the night before.  Emer Moynihan, the owner of the Earls Court House Hotel, arranged for someone to come to the hotel to give us a jump and we were on our way 30 minutes later.

             Once on the road, we drove through some of the most beautiful countryside that Ireland has to offer. We drove south through Killarney National Park, past pristine lakes, and with Ireland’s highest mountains, the Macgillycuddy Reeks, to the west. The park is heavily forested, and it reminded both of us of driving through Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona; imagine Oak Creek on steroids with about twice the volume of vegetation.

            After we drove over the Kenmare River, we were on the Beara Peninsula.  For the first several miles we were still in forest. We stopped when we saw a sign for the Cashelkeelty Stone Circle.  We didn’t have the right shoes to tromp through the mud to find it, but we did walk in because it was just so beautiful.  The ground was completely covered with small shamrocks.  There was a stream tumbling musically over rocky outcrops. The whole place glowed green.  It looked so aggressively verdant that I could imagine being swallowed up by it if I stood still for even a few minutes.

            A few miles later, though, the landscape changed dramatically.  Beara is rocky, and the Irish consider it bare and stark, but dramatic. It’s still very green, though, and definitely not bare or stark by Arizona standards. 

             We stopped in Ardgroom for lunch, and asked for directions to the Chailleach Bheara, or the Hag of Beara, the great rock that was the point of our journey. We drove around all around Kilcatherine Point, a small loop on the peninsula. Here are the small villages and crossroads that we passed on the way: Faunkill, Ballycrovane, Gortgariff, Kilcatherine, Dreenamalack, Dreenacush, Derryvegal, Darrigroe, Cleandra, Drombeg, Ardgroom Inward, and then back to Ardgroom.

             At Ballycrovane, we saw the largest ogham stone in Ireland, about 17 feet high. Between Gortgariiff and Kilcatherine we found the Hag of Beara.  We stopped at the ruins of Kilcatherine church, windswept, atmospheric, and yes, stark.  We found a pottery studio between Drombeg and Ardgroom Inward.  The loop from Ardgroom and back is only 25 km, or about 16 miles, and it took us two and a half hours. Round trip, the whole drive was about 100 miles and it took us six hours.

            Mark took the first picture of the Killarney Lakes, the one of the ogham stone, and the sign of the hag (that's her down on the slope).  I took the other two.  Click on any of them to see them larger.

 

           

A Find on the Beara Peninsula

            Mark and I drove from Killarney to the Beara Peninsula yesterday.  Our specific mission was to find the Cailleach Beara, and we did find and meet her.  I’ll write more about that later.  As we drove back along twisty, narrow, fuchsia-laden Ring of Beara road, we saw a sign that said, “Pottery”.  We drove up the even narrower road to the studio.  Just as we were rounding the corner onto the property, Mark said, “I hope she has her blues right”.  He was referring to the Cailleach’s winter blue hue.  And then we came upon the sight above: beautiful blue pottery gleaming in the sunlight.

            It’s the studio of Marianne Klopp We met another potter there.  I think her name is Barnett, or Burnett.  I didn’t write it down, because  I figured I’d google it later.  Mistake. When I did google it, I got Marianne Klopp – not the person we met. 

             The woman we met asked what we were doing on Beara and when I told her we’d gone to meet the Cailleach we got to talking about storytelling.  She had heard Liz Weir before and said she was planning on attending the Cape Clear Festival in September.  I’m going to contact the studio to see if I can figure out who the potter we met is.   We had a good visit about the Cailleach, and she also told me about a local artists’ retreat called Anam Cara.

Two Sheela-na-gigs in Athlone Castle

             Mark and I went to Athlone Castle on Saturday, on our last full day in Athlone, to see the Sheela-na-gig. I read in Sacred Ireland by Cary Meehan that there was one there, right in my Irish backyard. Imagine our surprise when we were let into the musty, dusty museum in the castle’s round tower and found two of them. 

        The one from Athlone that I’m sitting next to has a large head, but I really can’t distinguish with any certainty much else about her. Her left arm is more distinct and the right one is either worn or otherwise damaged.  It almost looks as if her feet are at her genitals.  She was salvaged from a 12th century Cluniac Monastery in Athlone on what is now Abbey Lane.

            The other is from Rahan Church in Co. Offaly.  If you didn’t know about sheela-na-gigs you might think she was holding her knees.  Let me assure you, those are not her knees she's clutching.

The Irish National Stud - and Japanese Gardens?

How do these two things go together? Well, it all started with a wealthy English man, Colonel William Hall-Walker, who had a stud farm in Tully, just outside Kildare.  In 1906 he arranged for a famous Japanese garden builder to come to his stud farm and build a garden.  It was completed in 1910.  The colonel evidently saw the writing on the wall, and left Ireland in 1915, one year before the revolution. He gave his stud farm and gardens to Britain, and the farm became the British National Stud.

The garden fell into obscurity until the farm was returned to the Irish Government and became the Irish National Stud in 1943.  The garden got a horticultural supervisor in 1946 and has been lovingly maintained ever since. The garden is designed as a representation of the path of life, from the soul’s beginning in oblivion to its eventual passing into eternity.  

We were there on a mostly sunny day and the light filtered through the dense screens of multicolored foliage.  The garden’s design is intricate, and the signage whimsical. The plantings are sometimes wild, sometimes carefully manicured.  There are ingeniously designed changes of elevation that take you up small rocky hills and down through dark grottos. Water is integrated throughout and on this day provided us with opportunities for reflection.

We actually saw a couple of horses, too. We learned from white tags on their bridles that one was called Patience and the other Smiley. They were very small.  We couldn’t tell if they were young, or just small.  Actually, one was surely young, but the other one didn’t seem so young – just small.  So, that’s about as much ignorance about horses as I could fit into two sentences.  I’m pretty sure they weren’t studs either.  Evidently we were seeing the Irish National Colts, or the Irish National Pre-Studs. Or maybe they were mares, because who would call a stud of any variety Patience?

Another point of excitement: Mark found an Arizona Iced Tea in the café.  Woo-hoo!

Mammy, Where's Me Tay?

Mammy, where’s me tay?

Mammy, where’s me tay?

I’m your pride and joy, your blue-eyed boy,

Though me hair is turning gray.

Mammy, where’s me tay?

Mammy, where’s me tay?

Your love for me, given tenderly,

Made me what I am today.

Mammy, where’s me tay?

            Last Saturday night, June 27, I was at the Ballyeamon Barn for the weekly session.  One of the special guests Liz Weir invited was Declan Forde from Omagh, Co. Tyrone.  Declan describes himself as “a teacher by profession, a poet by inclination, and a pauper by circumstance.” He’s also one of the most engaging performers, and persons, I’ve ever met.

            Declan is very well known in Ireland, England, and the US.  He writes much of his own material, and he is also an illustrator.  He produced a program for the BBC called A Sense of Place, which you can hear here. The program features Declan and other poets and authors, including Ireland’s greatest living poet, Seamus Heaney.  But the real focus, of course, is the subject: the relation of people to place which is so crucial to understanding Irish culture, life and art.  In the beginning of the program, Declan describes his grandmother’s house, now abandoned. “No roof on it. All you see are the tops of the trees just pointing like dead men’s fingers toward the grey Tyrone sky. It’s desolate looking then.  But when I stand here and look around it, what I think of are the people who lived here; the hearth where the people sat, and talked, and ate. There’s something timeless in it.” Give yourself a treat and listen, because to hear Declan speak it is much more satisfying.

            Declan sang and recited poems, and then someone called out for “Mammy, Where’s Me Tay?” which I’m thinking must be one of his signature pieces.  Just a few days earlier over dinner with Jackie Gorman and Brian Garvin of the Atlantic Corridor, Jackie had told us that Jesus was an Irishman.  “He didn’t leave home until he was 33.  His mother thought he was God. He thought his mother was a virgin.” So, to hear Declan sing this song just reinforced what I’d been learning about Irish men and Irish mothers.  In truth, a similar song could be sung about Jewish mothers and sons, and let’s not forget those mothers and sons from Skull Valley and Gilbert, Arizona.  The image of my brother in his early twenties dropping a dirty white shirt at my mother’s feet at 6:00 pm and saying, “I need this at 7:00”, is indelibly imprinted upon my memory.  Do I need to add that the shirt was clean and ironed at 7:00 pm?

            Declan’s song is not just about how Irish men are treated by their mothers, it’s also about how their wives take over the job once they marry.  He describes the woman’s plight as a life sentence, caring for two children – one with a beard and one without. It’s one of those songs that makes you wince even as it makes you laugh; such is the truth it contains.

            I’m very much looking forward to meeting and hearing Declan again in the future. “Tay”, by the by, is tea.

Three Dips, Three Sips at St. Brigid's Well in Kildare.

    

            One of my favorite stories about St. Brigid is about how she destroyed her beauty – long red-gold hair, big blue eyes, peachy skin – so that she wouldn’t have to marry and could devote her life to her faith.  Once she took her vows, her beauty was restored.  The way I tell it is that she went to the well at Kildare, filled her hands with water and poured it over her head and face three times, and she was as good as new.  I can’t remember where I learned that.  I don’t think I made it up, but I couldn’t find a reference to it. I hope it did happen that way, because I can see it very clearly.

            Mark and I visited the well yesterday. It’s large and well maintained. Near the entrance is a focal area with stone paving, stones across the stream, stone arches and niches, and a statue of the saint holding her flame, the flame being one of her primary links to the goddess Brigid.  Back against the far fence is the actual well. Next to the well is a “clootie” tree , on which people have tied pieces of cloth, photographs, shoes, and other items as part of prayers for healing.

            I decided to douse myself three times from the well.  I figured it couldn’t hurt.  And just for good measure, I took three drinks too.  Mark says my appearance improved noticeably!

            Brigid is known as the Mary of the Gael, and another of my favorite stories about hear is that she was Mary's midwife, divinely enabled to be present for Christ's birth four centuries before her own. This traditional Irish prayer for children reflects that connection.

May God bless you, child.

I put you under the protections of Mary and her Son.

Under the care of Brigid and her cloak.

And under the shelter of God tonight.

 

Another prayer, said as the fire was smoored for the night, links Mary, Brigid, and Brigid's sacred flame as it resided in the hearth. 

I will build the hearth,

As Mary would build it.

The encompassment of Bride and of Mary,

Guarding the hearth, guarding the floor,

Guarding the household of all.

 

Mark took all the photos.  The prayers are from The Life of Saint Brigid by Anna Egan Smucker.

 

Yes We Did! (Visit Obama's Ancestral Irish Hometown)

            Mark and I drove to Moneygall in Co. Offaly on Friday.  Moneygall is the hometown of Barack Obama’s great great great grandfather, Falmouth Kearney, who left Ireland when he was 19 and arrived in New York on March 20, 1850. I’d heard about it during the election, and on inauguration day CNN showed the residents and distant cousins celebrating his achievement.

            I’d read on the internet that Moneygall had installed billboards on either end of town announcing the connection to our current president.  They were nowhere to be seen.  We were hoping to get cool Irish/Obama chotchkes, but we found none.  We planned on having lunch in the Obama Café, but it wasn’t open.

            We walked a couple of doors down the street to Ollie Hayes, a nice looking pub with Irish, US, and EU flags above the door.  It wasn’t open, but as we were walking back, a small door in a larger door for deliveries next to the pub opened. Two men, one holding a beautiful little toddler with curly black hair, came out on the street.  The one holding the child said, “Are you from the states”?

            We got to talking to them and it seemed that the older one, the one with the little girl in his arms, was the proprietor of Ollie Hayes.  He told us the other man, pictured here, was Obama’s eighth cousin.  I didn’t really believe them, but I said, “Well, you’re probably as close as we are ever going to get to Barack Obama”!           

             I’d posted on Facebook before we left that we were on our way to Moneygall.  When I got back I had a reply from Jackie Gorman who works for the Atlantic Corridor, an economic development group in Tullamore.  Jackie asked if I’d seen the red, white, and blue sheep.  I said no, and told her about meeting the eighth cousin, Henry or Harry, or so we’d been told.  She wrote back, “Henry. It was all over the news here for a while.” And she sent me this link in which you can see Henry Healy waxing enthusiastic about his cousin. I think you’ll agree; his resemblance to Barack is uncanny!

There Once Was a Charming Larne Farmer

There once was a charming Larne farmer,

His soul clad in poetic armor.

            When he was reciting,

            Those verses inviting,

We forgot he was ever a farmer!

One of the special guests that Liz Weir invited to the session on Saturday night was Wilson Logan.  Wilson is a very accomplished reciter, and he performed several poems for us.  I googled him later and discovered that at one time he was President of the Robert Burns World Federation.  So, I imagine he knows Burns poetry too, but I don’t think he told us any on Saturday night. 

Wilson is known as The Ulster Scots Voice, and is involved in preserving and perpetuating the Ulster Scots language. He has an engaging style and it’s very clear that he enjoys telling poetry.  Many of his poems were about love and courting, and to finish one of them off he came over and gave me a kiss! Everybody laughed and I blushed. My apologies for the picture; the only other one was even blurrier.

My favorite poem of the evening was one by Percy French. It’s a poetic tour of the lands, politics, and personalities of Ireland.  Wilson told it movingly, and changed accents for each region. It looks so flat on the page in comparison to his robust, warm telling. Nonetheless, here it is:

THE FOUR FARRELLYS by Percy French
In a small hotel in London I was sitting down to dine.
When the waiter brought the register and asked me if I'd sign.
And as I signed I saw a name that set my heart astir —
A certain "Francis Farrelly" had signed the register
I knew a lot of Farrellys and out of all the crew
I kept on "sort of wonderin' " which Farrelly were you.
And when I'd finished dinner I sat back in my chair,
Going round my native land to find, what Farelly you were.

 

SOUTH

Were you the keen-eyed Kerryman I met below Kenmare,
Who told me that when Ireland fought "the odds were never fair?"
If Cromwell had met Sarsfield, or Owen Roe O'Neill,
It's not to Misther Gladstone we'd be lookin' for repeal.
Would have Ireland for the Irish, not a Saxon to be seen,
And only Gaelic spoken in that House in College Green. Told me landlords wor the Divil! their agints ten times worst,.
And iv'ry sort of government for Ireland was a curse!
Oh! if you're that Francis Farrelly, your dreams have not come true,
Still, Slainthe! Slainthe! Fransheen! for I like a man like you!

  

NORTH

Or were you the Francis Farrelly that often used to say
He'd like to blow them Papishes from Derry walls away?
The boy who used to bother me that Orange Lodge to join,
And thought that history started with the Battle o' the Boyne —
I was not all with ye, Francis, the Pope is not ma friend,
But still I hope, poor man, he'll die without that bloody end. -
And when yer quit for care yerself, and get to Kingdom Come,
It's not use teachin' you the harp — you'll play the Orange drum!
Och! man, ye wor a fighter, of that I had no doubt.
For I see ye in Belfast one night when the Antrim Road was out!
And many a time that evenin' I thought that ye wor dead,
The way them Papish pavin' stones was hoppin' off yer head.
Oh! if you're the Francis Farrelly who came from North Tyrone -
Here's lookin' to ye, Francis, but do leave the Pope alone!

 

EAST

Or were you the Francis Farrelly that in my college days
For strollin on the Kingstown Pier had such a curious craze?
D'y mind them lovely sisters — the blonde and the brunette?
I know I've not forgotten, and I don't think you forget!
That picnic at the Dargle —' and the others at the Scalp —
How my heart was palpitatin' — hers wasn't — not a palp!
Someone said ye married money — any maybe ye were wise,
But the gold you loved was in her hair, and the d'monds in her eyes!
So I like to think ye married her and that you're with her yet,
'Twas some "meleesha" officer that married the brunette;
But the blonde one always loved ye, and I knew you loved her too,
So me blessin's on ye, Francis, and the blue sky over you!

 

WEST

Or were you the Francis Farrelly I met so long ago,
In the bog below Belmullet, in the County of Mayo?
That long-legged, freckled Francis with the deep-set, wistful eyes,
That seemed to take their colour from those ever-changing skies,
That put his flute together as I sketched the distant scene,
And played me "Planxy Kelly and the "Wakes of Inniskeen."
That told me in the Autumn he'd be Bailin' to the West
To try and make his fortune and send money to the rest.
And would I draw a picture of the place where he was born,
And he'd hang it up, and look at it, and not feel so forlorn.
And when I had it finished, you got up from where you sat,
And you said, "Well, you're the Divil, and I can't say more than that."
Oh' if you're that Francis Farrelly, your fortune may be small,
But I'm thinking — thinking —Francis, that I love you best of all;
And I never can forget you — though it's years and years ago -
In the bog below BeImullet, in the County of Mayo.

The Two-L Llama? In Ireland?

The one-l lama,
He's a priest;
The two-l llama,
He's a beast.
And I will bet
A silk pajama,
Saint Patrick never
Saw a llama.

(with apologies to Ogden Nash) 

It was a gloriously sunny, bright day. Liz Weir drove us up narrow Knowehead Road, between Broughshane and Ballyeamon Barn.  The trees made a green tunnel. Slemish, where Patrick worked as a slave after he was kidnapped in Wales, was off in the distance.  I asked Liz to pull over so I could get a shot of it.  No sooner had we hopped out of the car when this lovely llama poked his head over the fence to check us out.  Liz said, “Be careful. They spit”! There were several other llamas in the field below him, and there was a nice muddy duck pond with ducks and geese.

            We started our day driving into Cushendall so I could visit Celtic Crafts, a favorite stop.  Then we drove east along the coast to Glenarm, and specifically to the Walled Garden at  Glenarm Castle, where we had lunch in the tearoom and then a wander.  The garden, built in the 1700s, is one of the oldest formal gardens in Ireland.  The castle itself has been the home of the Earls of Antrim since the 1600's, right up to the present day.

     Then we drove into Broughshane, known as "the garden village of Ulster", to visit the chemists and to pick up some supplies for dinner.  Broughshane is one of the most beautiful villages in all of the U.K., and has won the British equivalent of the Tidy Town prize for its size for several years running. Hanging baskets, charming stone bridge, smartly painted house and store fronts, public art – it’s got it all, plus Union Jacks and red, white, and blue flag-festooned streets.  Broughshane is a staunchly loyalist town and July 12 is just around the corner.

            After Broughshane, we visited Blackthorn Cottage and its owner, Roseanne.  Then on the way back we met the llamas as we gazed out on Slemish.  A totally satisfying day! As Liz noted, "There's no place more beautifl than Northern Ireland on a fine day."

The first photo is the Llama and Slemish, then the Walled Garden at Glenarm, public art in Broughshane.  The ceramic butterflies were painted by local children. Lastly, the realy thing in the lavender at the Walled Garden.