In Search of the Ice House

At first glance, all the small Irish country roads seem the same. How anyone knows which turn to take without a road sign or a landmark more specific than a field or a tall hedge has had me amazed more than once.

All roads lead somewhere. Usually. Don’t they?

My walking buddy who I met on my first attempt to find Balleyheeney Castle (and the finding of which took several tenacious attempts, a survey ordnance map, and the bravery to knock on a daunting door to ask for very specific directions) has been helping me cross off the other items from the Clashmore Village plaque with its handful of other impossible to find sites. He showed me where the Lime Kiln was buried under ivy, grass, trees, and other miscellaneous foliage.

Together, we walked to St. Mochua’s Well and to the Raheen Quay. Both of which were actually signposted and relatively maintained.

St. Mochua's Well

Ten or so years ago, after hearing about them, he’d once tried to find the Ice Houses (also listed on the plaque) and failed. When I mention my plans to find them myself, he suggests we do the trek together. He talks about the steep hill with its rocky terrain as if it’s a nearly insurmountable mountain. He talks about the pathway as if it’s the wild wilderness.

I like the wilderness. And, here there are no bears. There aren’t even any snakes.

One day, when I’m out walking alone and end up at the starting point for that hill, I give a little shrug and decide to do a pre-exploratory venture.

I go up the hill. It is a bit steep, it does have some slightly rocky terrain, it is overgrown, but it’s not so very bad. I only get stung by one nettle. I only get buzzed by one, annoying and persistent fly. As I make my way, I look into the dense overgrowth to see if I can see something (anything) that might be an Ice House. But if the Houses are crumbled down and their ruins completely overgrown, how would I know that I’d seen them? To be honest, I don’t exactly know what to look for.

The Lime Kiln

If it’s anything like finding the Lime Kiln or Balleyheeney Castle, good luck to me.

I make it to the top of the hill and eventually come to a road. I’ve already walked more than I’d planned to for the day, so I turn around, thoughtfully—either I’ve passed the Ice Houses, they’re farther off the beaten (or overgrown) path, I didn’t go far enough, or they’re no longer visible to the naked eye. I go on back home.

I report to my friend what I’ve done and suggest that maybe he ask his neighbors or other locals if they know how to find these elusive Ice Houses. I’d heard through my own grapevine that the man who knew all the history and the directions had passed away sometime in the recent past. I bet he had some amazing stories to tell. I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to meet him.

In good form, my friend does actually ask around and on another afternoon, after the rain has passed, we meet at the overgrown stile that leads up the steep hill.

Before this, having a theory, I’d looked at several maps, read a few old survey reports, and feel that I now know more or less where the Houses are (or were). If I’m right, they’ll be slightly beyond the road that I’d come to on that exploratory day. This doesn’t surprise me much, for I’ve found when following directions (however vague) that often I miss something simply because I haven’t gone quite far enough.

I’ve also found that knowing specifically where to go saves a lot of walking and wondering.

Having measured the distance on my previous walk, I know it’s only just over half a mile along the overgrown lane to the road. Overall, I expect this to be a relatively low-mileage excursion. I can deal with that. I’m a bit tired. My knee is acting up some. Nothing major. But I’m not feeling like doing a massive hike.     

The Last Wall of Balleyheeney Castle

My friend has printed out some satellite images of the area (it all looks like one big green-brown page to me, I can’t distinguish the roads he says are there, but I follow the handwritten arrows he’s added to show the route he wants us to take) and I show him my maps and give my theories. He’s got his own theories in mind, and I’m not sure he actually hears what I say. But that’s all right. Our plans take us more or less the same direction.

Walking stick in hand, he leads the way.

When we’re within sight of the road I’d come to before, he stops and begins to pull out his maps.

“I think we cross the road and shortly thereafter one House will be on the left and then up a bit further the second House will be on the right,” I say, confident.

He seems to doubt me. So, I show him the maps I’d saved to my phone. We consult all the maps and then he’s persuaded enough and we carry on.  

After a while, it feels we’ve gone too far and now I’m doubting me a bit. One House should be here on the left at any moment. But maybe it’s too ruinous to see. Maybe it’s too overgrown.

Ice House Number 1

But then! I see a leafy mound. Bits of stone show through the greenery. It’s too tall to be the normal stone walls like the ones we’ve been passing. It’s too round to be anything else but an Ice House.

“Is this it?” I ask.

He knocks the stones with his walking stick and agrees that it is.

I take some pictures.

“It’s a shame they don’t clear this off and take care of things,” he says. “Don’t you think?”

I gaze up at the leaf-covered Ice House. “Well. It’s a bit misleading to have the sign in Clashmore advertising the walk with all the sites and then not have made them easier to spot.”

“That’s a very nice way to put it. Can’t you say it more strongly than that?” He says something along the lines of no one being able to appreciate the past or take care of things. 

Front View Ice House Number 1

But I don’t feel more strongly about it than that. I’m pleased that we found it at all. I’m pleased that there’s something to see. I’m pleased that we made it far enough. “They had an economic crisis,” I say. He and I have talked about the 2008 recession before. He’s studied it. He’s been fascinated by it. “It takes a lot of money and energy to restore a historical site. I think people have been more concerned with what they’d eat and where they’d work.” Survival overrides restoration.

“They have the Tidy Towns volunteer work. How hard would it be to get them to clear this off?”

“You feel pretty strongly about it. You could join the volunteer group and head up the restoration,” I’m only half joking. “Start a committee.”

He dismisses this idea though he does say he’s of half a mind to come back one day and clear it off himself. “I’ve done that before with things,” he says.

We carry on.

 

The lane becomes more like a real road rather than a farm path. We pass a few pretty houses with flowery gardens. We should come upon the second Ice House at any moment. We both peer through the breaks in the hedges to see if there’s a round mound in any of the grassy meadows. My friend goes through several gates to stand in the cow fields to look more scrutinizingly in all directions.

Ice House Number 2

Then, to my suppressed amusement, we come nearly to the end of the lane and to a nicely painted gate with a nicely mown meadow and a very evident Ice House.

“There it is,” I say.

Only half the House has been kept clear, but now we get a good picture of what it would have looked like 100 or so years ago. An Ice House!

Once, there was a five-acre lough (a lake) nearby which froze over in the harsh Irish winters. The Youghal fish sellers would pay locals to bring over chunks of ice from the lough and throw it the thirty feet down into the bowels of the ice houses. During those ice collection times, two men (lowered in by ropes) would wait inside for the ice to be tossed in and then they’d pound the ice to bits so that eventually it all formed together again in one massive block.

The sellers then used the ice to export their Blackwater salmon to London and beyond.

The Houses fell out of use when the severity of the winters eased and the lough no longer froze often enough to produce the amount of ice needed.

Ice House Number 2 Stone Work

Of course, this one lough wasn’t the only Irish ice source. Other counties had their own loughs and ice houses. Ice was also imported from Norway even up to the time when, eventually, ice machines were invented.

My friend is happier with our excursion now that we’ve arrived to this House with its cleared off side. He admires the stone work, marveling at the craftmanship and ingenuity from a time that did not have the technology we now have.

I think to myself that with our technology we’ve lost much of craftsmanship and artistry. Not completely. But it’s not as valued as it once was. Or maybe it’s just not as necessary. We don’t build for permanence because we don’t have to. Craftsmanship demands long and often lonely hours. Who would sign up for that?

My host has recently had a friend of hers visit who used to make classical guitars. Talking with him about artistry, artisanship, and craft, he’d mentioned the long, lonely hours. In my mind’s eye, I’d seen the thin wood shavings, the sanded down panels, the varnish, the perfection of piece placed against piece. I’d seen, as if on a film, the lonely hours involved in making a musical instrument by hand. I know all about the time involved. For writing is also a craft. But, I generally love the long, lonely hours. In fact, I don’t usually find them lonely at all.

I’m thinking all this as I take my pictures and admire the Ice House. The other side is completely overgrown and there isn’t (an easy) way to get around. There’s no way to go inside. Certainly, no way to go down thirty feet into the ice storage area. So, I content myself with what I can see.  

My friend seems content enough as well.

The Clashmore Plaque

I’m thinking now we will turn around and go back. Mission successful, but my friend wants to make a longer loop.

Torn, not sure exactly why I don’t want to go further on (it has to do with being tired, having dinner time pressing in upon me, and feeling it’s more than I’d signed up for), but unable to vocalize my reluctance, I go along with him.

We follow his maps. He’d been told to take a left and then another left and then there’d be the Lickey Bridge and it’d be smooth sailing home from there.

We take the first left and suddenly, I feel I recognize where I am. I’ve been by this hurling (Football? Lacrosse?) field with its blue painted goalposts and blue painted trailer office before. Around the corner, I’m sure I’ve seen that warning sign against cutting Japanese Knotweed. I almost don’t say anything because I’d like to go back home and if we get to the path we’d come in on, we’d take it, right? But then, I also don’t want to backtrack a million miles. And really, do I need to rush back home? No, not really.

“I know all these roads look the same,” I say. “But I think this will go back to my house.”

My friend doubts me. I can see him thinking that all these roads look the same and how would I know from the curve of a lane, from a plastic sign where I was having only lived here forty-six days. “There are,” he remarks, “a lot of warning signs against cutting Japanese Knotweed.” He consults his maps. Mine no longer do us any good. I’ve gotten us as far as I’d thought we’d go. Of course, I’m the hero in my own story. And I’m always willing to be wrong, but this time, I don’t think I am.

Well, anyway. We go along until we reach the path from which we’d crossed this very road on our way to the Ice Houses not all that long ago. It is the way home.

I feel vindicated. I do know where I am. I do know the way back from here. Two ways, in fact. I can almost taste my dinner.   

However, my friend still wants to do the loop. I still want to go home. But I’m afraid if he carries on alone he’ll end up terribly lost. I don’t know why I feel so responsible. Standing in the middle of the road, I feel this pull of resistance in me and I wish I knew how to vocalize my feelings better (I wish I knew what exactly my feelings were). 

He makes his case for the loop. Just so we’re clear, I remind him that we will end up walking half again what we’ve already walked. But I don’t think he hears me. In any event, we retrace our steps. We go away from the known way home. He thinks he knows where we went wrong.

Now I’m doubting him.

“I’ll make you a wager,” he says. I shake my head. I don’t want to bet. Not if it’s on Irish roads. Not if it’s on Irish directions. Not even if I’ve been right once. He carries on, perhaps thinking my reluctance to bet is because of money. “I’ll wager you a piece of sea glass that there are no more doubtful turnings.”

“You’re saying that there are no little lanes off the road from this point on? At all?” I’m almost willing to wager actual cash money on that. He smiles. He feels he’s right. He accepts the bet as being on and we walk and walk.

If he’s right, that’s good, we’ll end up walking less than if we get lost and lost again. I really don’t want to wander forever. The excursion has turned from simple fun to a bit of an ordeal. Of course, this is my own fault. This is my own problem for not knowing what I want or how to achieve that. Not knowing how to talk a thing out so that all parties come to, if not full agreement, at least an easy compromise.

Let this be a lesson to you, I think. Know what you want. State it. Do it.

Easy peasy.

We near a fork in the road.

“Oh no,” my friend says. “I think I’ve lost my bet.” But then he grins for the left hand of the fork dead ends into a farm. He’s confident. He’s winning. So, we carry on to the right. We go around the bend straight into a farmhouse driveway and the real dead end to the road.

I say not a word.

There’s an overgrown lane heading off into a stand of trees just there. A fallen tree lays over the overgrown lane, blocking the way, making it seem a dead end too. I wonder if that’s the path we’re supposed to take. There are no sign posts, no little arrows to point the way, so how would we know? At this point, none of our maps do much good. I have the feeling that my friend will not think that that overgrown lane is the path onward. I don’t mention the lane.

My other idea is that if from the second Ice House we’d gone up to the main main road and then turned left we would be going according to his maps. I do mention this.

He ponders it. Thinks it’s a possibility and then decides that, if we can’t find anyone to ask directions from, we’ll just go back down the steep, rocky hill we’d climbed up hours and hours ago.

At Raheen Quay

We don’t encounter anyone.

We re-retrace our steps.

I lead the way down the steep, rocky hill.

At the stile, we turn to say our fare-thee-wells. If he’s terribly disappointed, he doesn’t say so. “I think it was a wise idea to come back at this point,” he does say.

We agree to try the loop on another day.

As I walk the last bit home, on a road I definitely recognize, and happily alone, I resolve to better communicate for myself in the future. It’s got to be as easy as talking through the options, right? As easy as taking a moment to feel out what I want and then to express it. I’m sure it’ll be a work in progress. At any rate, we’ve both seen the Ice Houses now, and that’s something.