Island-hopping on the West Coast of Ireland

 

My best holiday ever was spent island-hopping down the west coast. Tory, Clare, Inishbofin, Inis Meain, Cape Clear and Skellig Michael. It’s awhile ago now, but each year since, I have thought about repeating it; now I have made up my mind, this is the year.

But what a decision: I want to see the islands I haven’t seen, and revisit those I have, but there’s not enough money to do it all. Apart from those listed above, I’ve also visited Inis Óirr, Inis Mór , Arranmore, Achill and the islands in Ceantar na nOileán in Connemara.High on the wish list of those not  visited are, Inishmurrray with its wonderful monastic and archaeological remains, Inishturk, Scattery Island in the Shannon estuary and, of  course, the Blaskets ( I’m amazed I haven’t been there yet).

It was August, that last time on Skellig, the gleaming gannets seemed to waft on air currents like fantastic mythical birds, however we managed  to miss the puffins which we would have caught  had we arrived two weeks earlier,  before the end of July. It is hard to imagine that there could be a more glorious excursion on a fine blue July day. And then there’s the other worldly atmosphere of walking between the stone walls on Inis Óirr, the excitement that being in such an unusual  landscape brings. It beggars belief that you are looking into fields that would, sometimes, barely accommodate a standing heifer. Moving up the coast, I have the best of memories of the ‘Club’ on Clare Island very late at night, and the great hospitality we received there; I promised myself I would be back much sooner than this.

Given the wild craggy landscape sculpted by a heaving, often angry Atlantic ocean, the openness of that landscape,the unending skies, the curious constructions left by generations stretching back to prehistory, the ancient culture less damaged  by modernity than elsewhere in Ireland, the special ecologies associated with that strange mix of karst limestone and climate modified by the Gulf  Stream and the particular nature of the people  that live on the  islands, It is not surprising that I should have such an urge to go again.

This poem from ‘Turn Your Head’ refers to a holy well on Inis Óirr. The clear rings on the rock under the water testified to someone’s alternative ‘cash-stream’.

 

At Naomh Einne’s Well 

 

Kneeling down, the jacket off,

shirt sleeves rolled to the oxter,

he slipped his arm into the water,

scooped out the price of a pint,

then thought the better of it

and decided he’d have two.

 

Then again the following Tuesday

and the following Tuesday too

till there were only clear circles

and coppers on the green bottom,

a bowl in a gap in the wall,

a cross in another with a ladder

of matchsticks and thread.

 

 

 

 To  see some beautiful photographs of Inis Óirr  visit

 http://www.photojournale.com/categories.php?cat_id=156&sessionid=463f712c16a4224e9ddcd707a3ecf72f&page=2

Click on the slideshow and enjoy, the well is in there too.

 

 

 

A Beautiful Face

I have been wanting to write something about Murillo’s ‘Two women at a window’ for a long time. I’m so taken by it, in particular the maid-servant’s expression. It is so natural; so accurate in its depiction of her pleasure and humour, the spontaneity in the moment, in catching her status in relation to the younger woman  ̶  close, very knowing of the young  woman’s life and mind, but subordinate  ̶  .

 

 

There’s no point writing; there’s nothing I can write that would convey the beauty of the image and the moment more eloquently than time spent gazing at the picture.

The first day of 2015 came windy and wet

The first day of 2015 has come wet and windy. I’m looking out at the Bluestacks, their colours, shades of straw, duns and browns, muted in today’s mist; their heads stuck in dusty-looking cloud.

 Whatever the weather, this view is beautiful. On sunny blue days the mountains bridge the void between sky and earth. The low sun on crisp, shiny, winter days throws all the undulations on the mountainside into relief, bright swathes of sunlight are trimmed with rasher-shaped patches of shadow while broad expanses of dead  bracken gleam burnished bronze. Other parts of the mountains planted with larch, spruce and fir, have each tree sharply defined, steeples standing in serried ranks, bottle green, grey-brown rusting red. Lower down the slopes, a few angular fields, still clear, are traces of meagre living long gone.

This side of the valley is different. Ragged fields dotted with houses, mountainy sheep and rocky outcrops. If there was a logo for this side, it would be the hawthorn.

The hawthorn, more than any tree, evokes the character of this place. Rugged, resilient, sculpted through hardship; if the grey lichen-covered outcrops could grow into trees, they would be hawthorns. They are scattered up and down the humpy fields, ash-grey or black against the leaden sky. Sometimes their shapes are human-like, cries for help with starved limbs extended or stubborn resistance in the face of razor-edged winds.

But yesterday, the clouds were running, and spokes of smoky yellow sunlight radiated down on Donegal like God’s smile. In the distance Ben Bulben looked mythical in a warm, straw-coloured glow. The clouds were blue-tinted charcoal, some torn, others barrel-shaped; they had their own wars to contend with. Down here the hawthorns, standing bold on the curve of the hill, were transfixed like myself gazing westward, towards those lands of ancient legend. 

The world is beautiful. Happy new year.