A Corrugated Roof

the bijou cottage

the sleeping shelf

a faery post

The doldrums is a nautical term for an area of the ocean where the air rises and there is no wind, the term was coined by the seafarers of sailing ships. Therefore to be in the doldrums is an expression of having no movement and that is where myself and Mrs Heron are today.

The builders are due soon, firstly to erect scaffolding and then to put a new roof on this bijou cottage, not a big job. We are also to have new windows and a draught proof front door. Which I will enjoy for the last few winters, when the winds were from the north east, I sat with a rug around my head and shoulders. Fortunately we only get the wind from that direction a few days of the year.

In the meantime we have been doing some research on how long this place has had an iron roof. We used the on-line Census for 1901, identified our place and how may people lived here plus their names of course. In those times it had a thatched roof above stone walls and then we visited the 1911 Census to discover that the thatch had been replaced with corrugated iron and a different family was installed.

Which means for approximately 100 years it has remained with the same type of roof covering.

There are two distinct features inside the front room, called here in Ireland the kitchen. One is the wooden post in the corner, through which a ley line passes. I was told this post was the remains of a faery tree that was built into the cottage rather run the risk of cutting it down and receiving bad luck. The other feature which can be found in traditionally built cottages (modernly described as 'vernacular architecture') is the sleeping shelf above the front door. Up there would have slept the passing stranger or traveller. The shelf is approximately 6 feet long x about 20 inches high x 30 inches wide, suitable for a rather slimly built person !

Today it is a hideaway for odds and ends. The jug-like container in the foreground is yet another product of the Tinker, just as was the copper scuttles in an earlier blog.

The original building had two rooms: a sleeping room for the parents and the kitchen, which was fitted with settle beds that closed up in the mornings to provide bench like seating. In this confined space, a family of 6 children and their parents lived. It was from one of the sons of the family that I bought this cottage. By then an extra room had been added at the rear and I added more. I also dowsed and found a source of water within a few feet of the rear wall, a bore hole was drilled and water was brought into the cottage from the well by an electric pump.

The previous owner came visiting as soon as all facilities were connected and to him I gave the honour of using every item in the bathroom. He sat with me when I lit the stove and kept touching the pipes from the back boiler to feel the gradual heat that was emanating from them, as hot water flowed into the copper cylinder situated in the hot press. The year was 1991 and eighty years on from when his parents first moved in.

It is very hard now to imagine the privations that the family went through during the course of their lives here, such as walking a quarter of mile down the road to the communal well in all winds and weathers frequently throughout the day and every day of the year.

This is a cosy warm home in the winter and a cool one on hot summer days. Strangely when it rains it is not as noisy as you might imagine and when it snows there comes a soft swishing noise. It can be though quite worrying in high winds, for there is always a fear of a sheet of iron breaking loose and letting the rain enter through our wooden ceilings. All of these things we will miss and that is sometimes the price of modernization, in that we cut ourselves off from the natural world.

Summer's work - Winter's fuel

From the middle of May to July or even later the cutting and saving of the turf starts. It is an annual ritual for a lot of families in rural Ireland today, even though other fuels are used such as oil, coal and electricity. It is turf that is still the main fuel in the countryside and the rural towns.

The turf bank in the background & Bog Cotton.

In the last century it was quite common for these flowers to be

collected and stuffed into pillows.

The freshly cut machine turf drying in the sun, each piece

has to be turned frequently by hand before it can be stacked.

There are many different styles of stacking the turf

from the large heaps (that remind me of ancient beehive huts)

to these small stacks that are called footings.

In a wet summer the heap will dry qicker than the footings

because of the way in which it is built , it allows the rain to run off.

Constructed in similar style to the beeehive huts that are built

out of dry stone which is angled upwards, preventing the ingress

of rain into the chamber which remains dry.

When the Turf is brought home it is stored in a shed or built as a

large freestanding heap called a clamp in the backyard.

Life and ....

Several years ago an incident occurred at my home whilst I was three counties away on a sunny afternoon enjoying myself in the company of friends. Immediately on returning home I realized that all was not as I had left it.

For the back door was wide open, because robbers had forced their way into my home and every room had been disturbed, the bedroom was in complete and utter disarray.

I was numb with shock not really knowing what to do next, my first action was a 999 call to the Garda (Police) I then slowly took stock of the situation to see what was missing and what had been damaged.

The greatest loss/hurt was not monetary. It was the bald fact that my home and inner sanctum had been invaded by strangers, my privacy taken from me. My emotions were in turmoil as I went from anger to disappointment, to anger combined with sadness, to outrage. Finally I came through the storm to recover the status quo.

The experience enriched my senses for it gave me a small measure of what it must be like on a larger scale to have your home - country in a state of oppression and invaded by a foreign power.

Thus I have been feeling rather distraught and angry this week, after reading about the unnecessary deaths and injured activists that were on the Humanitarian Aid ship Mavi Marmara 130 miles off the coast Israel, in international waters.

This was an act of piracy and willful murder by Israel. The Somali fishermen are also conducting acts of piracy. To whit an international force is patrolling those waters in order to protect shipping. As I write this blog another humanitarian aid ship the Rachel Corrie is steaming towards Gaza with supplies - will it's activists too become victims ?

[Rachel Corrie you may recall was a 23 yr old American activist who was murdered by an Israeli Army bulldozer in 2003]

This madness, this sick disregard for human lives, the propaganda machine and aggressive military machinations of Israel have been continuously funded by the USA for dozens of years, costing them trillions of dollars.

All it takes is for one brave phone call from the President of the USA to put a Stop to this insanity!

Red Bull Footstick

Barrow beach & ford

Footstick

Pinkeens at play

The road of the disappearing hare

This sunny Sunday I decided to go on a solitary walk, away from the tarmac and on to the old roads used these days by the farmers and their cattle. Walking speed is reduced to an amble once you leave the council road. It suited my purpose, giving time to listen and enjoy the surroundings; as well as to think.

I noticed cows with calves in one field taking shelter from the hot sun and a large bull looking benign, standing quietly in his paddock on the opposite side of the road. I raised my camera and asked him to look at me 'I want to see the whole of your face please ?' and he turned his great head remaining in pose until I said 'Thank you'.

My route led me to one of this land's three sister rivers The River Barrow, the other two are the Nore and the Suir which rise within a few miles of each other, to meander through familiar named places and join as one great river that flows into the sea at Waterford. The Barrow, perhaps named after the goddess Berba, runs a few hundred metres to the rear of our home, to a place where it is both narrow and shallow, providing a ford for sturdy tractors. The banks are about 3 metres above the rivers' summer level and a footstick leaps the gap.

Here at the ford I stopped. It is truly our nearest sandy beach, one that on quiet summer afternoons when I lived alone, I would visit with a book, my pipe, a bottle of wine to while away time in peace and in perfect harmony with nature. Today I sat for a while and listened to the babbling Barrow as it flowed over stones. The sound isn't constant, it has a rhythmic sequence. It was to rivers such as these that

the bardic-filidh came to compose their poetry and to travel in a shamanic way.

As I looked at the shallows there was a shoal of pinkeens, or you might call them tiddlers or fry, they were darting in and out of the shallows, I was very conscious that it was the vibration from my movement on the bank that made them quite so active and so I stood still as possible to get the best photo of them.

From across the other side of the river, there came the sound of a cow pumping water. ref www.riferam.com/pasture/index.htm

She was a brown cow one of those with baleful eyes, as she finished drinking and came near me, I asked her to come closer to fill the lens and she did. Following this I tuned and ambled along only to see a smallish animal running towards me, at first I thought it might have been a hungry fox, then I realized it was a hare and by the time I had the camera up it had disappeared from sight. Similar thing happened with a field of sunbathing rabbits, that as soon as I stepped closer they all bolted. Perhaps I could have a camera attached to my hat so that the raising of an eyebrow takes a snap; I am able to raise one higher than the other just in case you are wondering.

Bealtainne - May

A decorated Maybush

The blossoming May tree with a well hidden

in it's roots.

Mare with a foal that was born

on 5th May

A possible Grand National winner ??

New Chest of Drawers !

I get an earthy sense of May or Bealtainne, as it is in Irish Gaelic, a few days before the start of the month, a quickening or enlivening of the inner self, so much so that I understand what is meant in the old poem about 'the merry month of May'. For yes, I feel Merry and slightly Loopy - actually it is with me now as I write this blog :-)

There are many folk traditions throughout Ireland and indeed Europe to do with the this month, too many for me to do them justice. Locally in the mountains the Maybush is still decorated with rags, ribbons and egg shells and some people get up early in the morning to wash their face and hands in the dew.

The swallows have returned though there are few near us, so I am wondering whether this is may be a portend for bad weather. I did see a huge amount of them on the West coast the other week and I heard a Cuckoo there too and I have yet to hear one near us this year.

I have been rather busy this last week assisting Mrs Heron rearranging and redecorating the roost (bedroom) The colour she chose is I am told Ashes of Roses, though to me it is a sort of lilac-pink, which I find amusing because it is similar to what it once was before herself deigned to migrate from Brighton (UK) to join me on this sacred island. As they say here 'What goes round comes round' and that is true.

Being a simple male little did I realize at the time I agreed to assist, that it was not going to be just a paint job or that it would entail the purchase of new curtains, bed-coverings, a chest of drawers and a decorative cushion solely to catch the light! To be honest though it does look and feel rather more comfortable than it did. I think this transition has much to do with the change of energies it being Bealtainne.

Connemara, Co. Galway

Connemara

Coastal mountains

Cool Atlantic waters, tranquil, flood, surround

seaborne stone that glows in golden light,

A caress from Sun, a gift, a gentle kiss, a farewell.

For night is soon to birth.

All the world has heard of Connemara, a very special area in Co. Galway and it was to Carna, a small coastal village, that we headed off to early on Saturday morning for Carna's Sean Nós Festival and to visit friends. The journey of 3 hours was eased by using the motorway, which I generally try to avoid because they are so boring, my preference is for the quieter and more scenic type of road.

Many are the families that have lived long in Connemara, of who's sons & daughters have travelled out of this land to settle in every part of the world.

One in particular is Seosamh O hEanai (Joe Heaney) 1919 - 1984 a native of Carna, who spent much of his life living in England, Scotland and New York. Heaney was an artist-in-residence at the University of Washington in Seattle. The Joe Heaney Collection of the University of Washington Ethnomusicology Archives was established after Heaney's death in 1984. The Féile Chomórtha Seosamh O hEanai (Joe Heaney Commemorative Festival) is held every year in Carna.

In the pub where the Sean Nós singing was taking place, all attention was given to the singers, even pints of the black milk are left on the bar, customers stand with their backs to the counter and no conversation takes place, that is apart from the necessary hushed whisper to order another pint from the barman.

The long melodic notes of the singers in gaelic tongue, fit in very well with this land they suit the skies, the special quality light that landscape painters thirst for, the rolling fogs and the long waves that sweep the shore. Their songs and clarity of voice sweep before them conjuring images in the listeners minds, to such an extent that it matters not a jot whether you understand the language.

I feel that it would be remiss of me to ignore another family, who promote their Gaelic culture by contributing to the arts of literature, song and music, the Mac Con Iomaires.

(I am not sure whether I have done this correctly, if not please paste references into YouTube)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4pUOpdgTWM&feature=related

5:44

Joe John Mac Con Iomaire - Caoineadh na dTrí Mhuire

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF2CfAjwcAs&feature=related

4:24

Colm & Darrach Mac Con Iomaire & Frank Tate - 'Frailach' & gan ...

The Seven Wonders of Fore

Please double click to enlarge images

St Féctains church next to the yew tree, the hill behind

is Carrick Balor (Balor is ancient one eyed god) the field

to the left is a water meadow. In the foreground is Féctain's

healing well & Rag tree where the water will not boil,

it is aso the site of a megalithic tomb.

The stone lintel that was lifted by the power of prayer

Photo taken from window hole in St Féctain's church,

the Mill is a small stone building on the right

The Sheela na-Gig in St. Féctain's Church

The Rag tree at Féctain's well it is

actually an Ash.

The tree that will not burn

Sheela na-Gig at St Munnas Church

Before Munna became a Christian

he was a Druid apprentice under the tutelage of his father.

Hello my friends!

Last weekend I had every intention of writing about The Hill of Tara and of showing you pictures from angles which are not normally shown. Alas, I went to Tara on Tuesday of this week with two others, who like myself normally carry a camera and guess what ? It was one of those days when the three cameras were left behind.

Wednesday afternoon, it being so very sunny, we made a trip to Fore [Fobhair] in Co.Westmeath which nestles in an airy valley between high stony hills. There is something very precious about Fore, in that on leaving I always feel as if I have had a long holiday; even though my stay there was only for two hours.

On reflection I think that it might have something to do with the water that flows rapidly through a large water-cress meadow.

Fore is unspoilt by commercialism, given that its' former glory was as an early Christian stronghold of St Féichin - his name means Little Raven. The Seven Wonders of Fore are all connected to him in some way, these being :-

1. The Monastery in a bog.

2. The Mill without a race. Féichin built the mill and then walked to Lough Lene struck the bottom of the hill that stands between it and the waters flowed into Fore.

3. The water that flows up hill. This is an optical illusion of course, though it does appear that way until one looks at the lay of the land

4. The tree that won't burn. It would if you were brave enough to face the consequences of burning a tree with a cure.

5. The water that won't boil. Similar to 4 above, the waters can be bathed in for healing purposes only and one would have to face Féichin's curse if you removed any.

6. The anchorite in a stone. This refers to a stone tower on top of Carrick Balor.

7. The stone lintel raised by prayer. It is said that the builders became exhausted trying to position the huge stone, so they stopped work for refreshment and when they returned it had been perfectly positioned by Féichin using the power of prayer.

The 8th wonder for me was the Sheela na-Gig carved into a coinstone that we saw in Féichin's church.

On the way home I became fed up with the behavior of other road users who were tailgating me, whilst others were simply dangerous drivers, so I turned off onto a narrow country road to connect with another route home. It was on this narrow road that we came across St. Munnas church, a very untypical design for a church, having a Norman style rectangular three storied tower (known in Ireland as a Norman fortified farmhouse) attached to the church. Above one of the windows there was yet another Sheela na-Gig.

Sheela na-Gigs in situ are rare finds in Ireland for most of them have been removed to The National Museum in Dublin where the majority are stored in the cellar and rarely see light of day, the public display of them is rotated so we are told and permission has to obtained from the Curator to view the majority.

My travels for this week are not yet finished, for on Saturday we will be driving to Carna in Connemara, Co. Galway for The Joe Heaney Commemorative Festival of Traditional Singing & Music. Where pride of place is given to Sean Nós singing which is unaccompanied and has a highly ornamented melodic line.

COOLE PARK -revisited

Please excuse me for returning so soon to Coole Park. My reason for doing so is that I want to share my recent poem with you before the trail went entirely cold.

Coole Park in March Twenty Ten

Coole Park in March Twenty Ten

Blackbird song under sun

echoes in sparse gentle rain

Through trees a breeze whispers

rattles twigs on bare branches

That wait expectantly to birth

bud leaf as hesitant Spring lingers

Above gravelled paths trodden

through woodland to lake or garden

Hidden old voices traverse converse

Tracks to collide with modern mind

to hear the intonation, an energy

A creative literary expression

borne in tranquil ancient air

Old inspiration so very rare

To kindle bright fires in the mind.

as a line of white ferries queue

On lakeside to carry earth spirits

from shore to shore across time

Past beyond AE or Yeats or Shaw

Where Tuatha and their Gods dance

forever, still alive noble proud race

On glowing illumined waters an entrance

extends past finger tips pens paint a grace

That human kind interprets tenderly.

As fragile as glass, as bright as bronze

a glimpse of fianna, faery and sidhe

Rise in wood smoke before our eyes

cry tears bereft of a child's vision, yet

We listen and yearn again to see.

©MRL 01-04 -2010

Bitter and Red Tea

A dimpled pint of bitter

Rooibosh

Friday morning saw me sitting in a comfortable chair in the library, the sunshine was streaming down and warming me, over my forehead came a slight, cool waft of air and in the quietness of that cosy corner memories started to flood into my mind, as I drifted back in time, revisiting places and tastes.

The flavour of a pint bitter filled my senses and in half closing my eyes I was sitting in the bar of a small pub in Builth Wells, Wales where the dark wood wall panels and cushioned benches provided me with an inner warmth. I muse on how the dimpled glass is held not by it's handle but with one's hand placed around the glass with the underside of the top the part of the handle resting on the the right index finger, as I sup to swallow a goodly draught of the nectar.

April does this to me, it draws in the memories more than any other month. I was reflecting on this earlier, when I recalled visiting another pub on the outskirts of Combe Down, Bath. I think it was called The Pack Horse, an old establishment that sold a delicious cider that oft tempted me as a refreshing lunchtime drink. It was there on the radio that I heard the news of John Lennon's untimely demise and where I immediately wrote the following piece

John born Liverpool 1940

ex Beatle and M.B.E.

Departed New York 1980

Cupro-nickle six

Impales vital flesh

Discord rhythm slips

Lennon into death

Amplified sound loses

Earth’s mystic beat

Playing Yoko’s love

with substituted pain.

Songs of love and peace

Will flower forever on

Echoing thro’ the world

In green growing harmony.

©MRL 1980

I don't want you to think that I spent all of my time in pubs. I did tho' frequent many an establishment in my younger days and they provided me with insights of human characteristics and some of them quite pitiable as:

Bristol 6

My favourite Pub

My favourite pub stands

gaunt to the street.

Yet alive with vitality

It’s balance of humour

A serious intent.

Not in this pub stand

the pretentious and proudly sober

they drink not at this bar.

They exist stoned, cold

Beyond their fronts

With hand held can

and

Hypocrisy for company

In this bar

Faded winter flowers

Open deep their centres

Bright blemishes lie honest

naked, bare to the sky

Avoiding not the quick glances

Nor to ask for dispensation

For here drink labourers, pimps

lags and tired working girls.

©MRL 1982

I was aroused from my reveries in the library by the arrival of Mrs H, who dragged me off to the health shop to purchase our weekly supply of Red Tea (Rooibosh).Which is now our favourite tipple, with it's versatile and restorative powers; and the person to who we have to thank for bringing it to our attention is the author Alexander McCall Smith and his series of books on Botswana - 'The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency', where the main character Precious Ramotswe indulges herself by making pots & pots of red tea. For it was in this library that we borrowed his books.

ref www.alexandermccallsmith.co.uk

DUBLIN

Dublin's famous beverage

Anna Livia - personification of the River Liffey as a woman.

Locally known as The Floozie in the Jacuzzi,

The Hoor in the Sewer or Viagra Falls.

Oscar Wilde

locally known as The Fag on the Crag, The Quare in the Square

or The Queer with the Leer

Sweet Molly Malone

locally known as The Tart with the Cart,

The Dolly with the Trolley or The Trollop with the Scallop

James A.A. Joyce

locally known as The Prick with the Stick

The second holiday of the year happened Thursday when we went up to Dublin, which is my second most favourite city in Ireland. My first preference, whatever the weather, will always be Cork. Some places have a special effect on us and speak directly to the heart and Cork does that to me.

Not that there is anything wrong with Dublin, for it is a friendly city as cities go. Small by comparison to most European capitals, though it still manages kill my feet and I am glad to find a bench on which to take a rest and have a puff on my pipe. Better was the pipe today for my sole purpose for making the visit was to go to Peterson's and replenish my stock of 9mm charcoal filters. My next visit to them will be to buy a new pipe.

I had a shock that morning for our rail station was jam packed with folk going to Dublin, even more than on that day when we joined the anti - Iraq war march and a 100,000 people peacefully marched through Dublin's main thoroughfares. So this morning I was almost tempted to go and ask a few of them if there was something going on that I should know about. It was a grand journey despite the fullness of the train and I managed to get a window seat, plugged in my Nano Shuffle only to find after fiddling with it that the battery was flat, so I caught up on some sleep instead.

From Heuston rail station we took the bus to St.Stephen's Green - Mrs H's first visit to Dublin's 26 acre inner city park. It is I believe a must for any visitor to this city with it's bronze statues, fountains, lakes and formal gardens with dozens of benches to sit on and watch the world go by. From there we went to the nearby shopping arcade the St Stephen's Centre, I felt that it would be the ideal therapy for my busy artist wife, especially with TK MAXX on the second floor.

On Grafton Street were even more stores to whet a shoppers' appetite, catering for the many different classes of credit cards right up to Platinum. This is a street of character though, with it's liveried doormen, conjurors, musicians, singers and many flower stalls whose scents perfume the pavements. It was on this street that many a now professional musician/pop star started their career. I once met the mother of a cellist in Belfast, who would regularly drive her daughter to Grafton St. for the sole purpose of getting the young woman accustomed to playing in public.

Throughout the city there are dozens of bronze statues, depicting some of Dublin's most famous characters: whether they be real people or fictional representations such as Molly Malone. It is the characteristic nature of the Dubliner to have an earthy sense of humour, that sportingly derides poshness or false dignity: thus there are nicknames for almost every piece of bronze in the city.