Today, we'll journey from Westport to Galway, choosing the longest route possible at every crossroads. Our days are running short and we're due in Trim tomorrow. This is our semi-farewell to Ireland and we don't want to miss a thing.
A few miles outside of Westport, we stopped to visit the National Famine Memorial. This bronze sculpture is of an 1840's Coffin Ship similar to that we visited in Dunbrody. However, skeletons swirl around this ship, reminding us of the Irish peasants who died at sea on their way to the New World. This is a solemn visit, and there are more to come before nightfall..
Directly across the road from the Famine Memorial is Croagh Patrick, a 2500 foot mountain upon which St. Patrick may have fasted for forty days one early Lent. I'm most pleased that he also rang a bell from this mountain and banished all the snakes from Ireland. Ever since our Sun City Grand neighbor discovered a rattlesnake on the spit of ground between our homes, I've been obsessed and done most of my neighborhood walking with eyes down watching the areas around my feet. Ireland, by contrast, was totally relaxing...we walked through tall grass, piles of leaves and deep dark woods with no worries at all.
Excuse me, ladies--you're on the wrong side of the road and I think you may be "moo-ing" at the wrong gate.
This is NOT the Ireland the travel brochures highlight. This is the Ireland in which crops failed and starvation was real and the English Lords looked the other way. I so love England as well as Ireland...but not right this minute. We're in the Doo Lough Valley--or Black Lake Valley. We look around and this is exactly what we see. Everywhere. No homes, no farm buildings, no fences, no brilliant shades of green. There is, however a slight touch of wind and the soft keening echoes of sorrow and death. We stop the car and walk our separate ways. It's a place to be alone and quiet and prayerful.
As we approached Black Lake we stopped to read this sign--part of a larger memorial topped by a rough cross. It reads: "To commemorate the hungry poor who walked here in 1849 and walk the Third World today...Freedom for South Africa 1994...'How can men feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings'" Mahatma Ghandi in South Africa. A similar plaque on the same memorial noted Archbishop Desmond Tutu's participation in a commemorative walk in 1991 along this famine trail.
We've reached the Black Lake. The farmers of County Mayo were completely dependent on potatoes for their food. We heard numerous stories of the Irish, boiling one potato per meal for each family member, then placing those boiled potatoes on the table. That was the extent of their nourishment--simple, plain boiled potatoes. Obviously, the Potato Famine hit them particularly hard. Because the English were known to have food in their personal storehouses, a group of 600 starving Irish families walked twelve miles from the town of Louisburgh to the estate of their landlord--Delphi Lodge--hoping he would take pity on them and give them food. He did not. Nearly 200 of them died on the walk back to their homes. They would have walked exactly where we are wandering this afternoon.
As BC walked along the lake, dreaming fisherman dreams...
...I explored this little oasis across the road. The trees and dark grass were out of place in this area, and I was sure it was the entry to an abandoned estate--perhaps even, Delphi Lodge. I followed a rocky lane into the property, but found nothing but an abandoned currach and a large storage building. As I re-crossed the highway and met BC near the shore he stopped short and asked, "Listen--can you hear that?" I hadn't heard anything. Again, "There--did you hear that?" We both stood still and concentrated. Finally, very faintly...a distant bird call? Perhaps a light wind blowing through the trees? It was a very weak cry or a plaintive wail...just for a moment...and then another. We thought of the starving families stumbling by exactly where we stood. The despair pouring from their hearts must have permeated all that was around them. Yes...I believe the spirits might have remained, just so we who listened would always remember.
A few miles later, we arrived in bog country from whence comes the infamous and ubiquitous peat. We began walking toward these two fellows to learn about bogs until, as our shoes filled with water, we realized that traipsing through a bog is not an easy stroll. The land "gives" slightly with each step. We had read that if you jump up and down in the bog, someone thirty feet away can feel it. So...BC jumped and, yes, I could feel the vibration. But, more disorienting--because it is so completely wrong--I could see the ground move up and down under his feet. For lack of a better word, it was spooky, but kind of fun. Then we saw that jumping could make the fence posts and wire sway. Wow! There is nothing like two old people jumping in the bog. Apparently, the Irish men working that day were used to it. Crazy Americans!
The peat is cut very neatly (special shovels) from the bog and then laid out to dry. We did see peat in most of the B&B's where we stayed. Unfortunately, no one was burning it and so we never smelled it. Supposedly, you'll never forget it and, if you're Irish, it will always smell like home. We do have a small piece we brought back. We'll light it one of these days and see if we can sense the magic.
Again, as with so much in Ireland, we have experienced the sublime as well as the ridiculous...all in one afternoon. Obviously, I would have liked to have been "to the manor" born, so I am enjoying and pretend-decorating the lovely Kylemore Abbey It was built by a wealthy Englishman, Mitchell Henry, sometime after he and his wife (her name was Margaret) visited this area on their honeymoon. Years later, it became an exclusive girls' boarding school, even later it was a convent and, since 1920, the Benedictines have owned it. Today, it attracts hordes of tourists. Our guide-book (the cynical one--we always travel with at least two) said the best thing about Kylemore Abbey was the view of it from across the lake, so we took that literally, bought an ice-cream cone, sat back and admired.
The afternoon flew by and we continued the journey toward Galway, planning to find an attractive B&B on the way. However, we had forgotten the value of pre-planning our stays, and realized the only time B&B's appear on every corner is when you're not looking for one. Near dusk I was just a bit nervous, and trying to stay calm by remembering our first B&B hostess who claimed, "You can always find a B&B somewhere...it's not a problem." And--after what seemed a very long search, we did! We found a guesthouse a mile or so down a very narrow lane just beyond the village of Maycullen on the outskirts of Galway, complete with two Beagles and a super hostess. The next morning we stayed much later than planned, chatting with her. It's fun to meet people who, within minutes seem to be an old friend. That is Ireland and that was Bernie.
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