MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
The way we walked the Red Trail on the 12th and the 20th wasn’t quite right, but with Sally as our guide, it was much smoother, less steep, shorter and far more interesting. Sally knows the way — she should…she created the map.
But even more compelling was her knowledge of history and local lore, which embellished an absolutely sparkling day. It was cold, clear and bright. The Irish blues and greens were indescribably bold and vibrant. The air and sunshine were so invigorating even the cows seemed happy. They were playing in the fields, kicking up their hoofs, chasing each other.
WHY PUT A CASTLE HERE?
The trail starts by the lake and gradually, but steadily, climbs a hill. As we ascended, a bit of castle became apparent on the tip of the highest point. Sally surmises that the lake once must have been part of the sea. “Why else,” she asked, “would you put a castle on top?” There is a local belief that every seven years or so, since forever, a ship (and ships don’t sail on lakes) appears on the lake. For the unfortunate person who sees the ship it is a bad omen. They are believed to be the next to die.
Sally told us of both the dark with the light of Irish lore, weaving a complex story about her people and their history.
HOUSE FIRE
Just down the street from Fiona’s house, there is a little, one room stone house that is boarded up. Weeds grow around the large stone chimney. The small plot of land it sits on is wild and overgrown. The electrical wires are rusted and flap when the wind rises. When we passed the house, I asked Sally about it. She told us an old woman burned to her death inside. Everyone figured she must have been drunk and passed out when the fire caught.
“No one goes near it now,” Sally said. “It’s been abandoned since her body was taken out.” I asked why. She looked at me as if I was joking. From this exchange, I understood that beliefs about the dead are strong and the dead have a presence.
A few days before our walk, Sally, like everyone else, had attended a funeral in Dublin. She confirmed what we had read about funerals and told us more. She said they can be a burden for the family who have to sometimes greet up to 200, even 300, people, which is what happened in Dublin.
TROLLS AND RING CIRCLES
We turned the corner past the castle ruins, still climbing, breathlessly keeping pace with Sally and her dog Rosie. To our left was a fenced off area inside of which was a very large circle of trees around what appeared a giant mound. It is a ring circle, Sally explained, built as bunkers by the people who lived here before the Christian calendar.
The double rings were placed at the top of hills and dug into the ground with walls on the outside to serve as barricades against marauding invaders — the Vikings and the Anglos. The one we passed is on private property and the owner won’t allow access.
Many people are spooked by the ring circles because they believe in trolls. Sally has a troll theory: the people who lived in the ring circles were physically short — excavations have proven it — and they likely looked even shorter emerging from sunken barricades at the top of hills. The visual effect — a troll.
As we reached the hilltop where we could see the inlets of water breaking into the land below, we talked about Brexit. Sally postulated that the English middle class were those who voted for Brexit and that they did so because their lives have not improved over the last 30 years. Those with the least and the most have seen improvements, but not them. Brexit will likely financially devastate England, she thinks, but it could make Ireland a very wealthy country.
She is hopeful, though, that Brexit won’t happen and Trump will be ousted. Sally believes hope is our human nature.
ONE WOMAN’S MUSEUM
Farmer’s fields surrounded us as the open sea broke into view. We wound down a steep slope past a small cottage, hidden at the end of a long road that is thick with foliage. The woman who lived there (now she lives in elder care in Skibbereen) created her own museum of objects she collected, objects mostly of no significance. But she claimed she had dinosaurs scat stones, and other ancient oddities, and charged tourists two euros to enter her “museum.” Somehow she received comment on tripadvisor and her museum became a tourist destination.
From this high vantage point, we could see the inlet where an Irish rebellion was defeated by the British in the late 1600s. The Irish rebels who survived fled to fight against the Brits for the Spanish and the French.
That evening Chloe and I went to Clonakilty for excellent pizza at the Oak Fire Pizza, and to see the film “Black 47” at the Clonakilty Park Cinema. The film made me think of how the Irish are the indigenous peoples of Ireland, like Native Americans in the US or the First Nations in Canada. Similarly, they have endured invasions and colonization.
