A Seaside Holiday

I’ve only just sat down to work when I hear the sound of a car door shutting. I glance out the window and see a whole family approaching the house.

This is not completely unusual. People occasionally show up out of the blue to visit the art gallery that my host runs. It’s really supposed to be Visit By Appointment Only, but few people seem to read the fine print on websites or elsewhere.

I shut my laptop and head downstairs. As I’ve been left to myself for a couple weeks while my host and her kids are off on their summer holiday, I catch myself filling in as (a not too unwilling) host (“Should I put the kettle on for tea?”), gallery opener, animal water refiller, slave to the cat, and sporadic gardener.

While I always find it amusing how little true solitude there is in the world, it’s also been a great relief to have these intermittent distractions. They save me from the loneliness that has (surprisingly) been showing up at strange times with a basketful of tedium as a gift. For certainly, they provide me with interesting interactions, I’ve met people from Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Ardmore, Berlin, and London. And, most importantly, they keep me from forgetting that I’m in Ireland.    

I could be anywhere in the world, but I’m here.

When I open the door, I recognize the man. I’d met him once, a weekend or two ago, when my host had had a gallery exhibition opening.

Today, he’s brought his mother, sister, and two nieces to try and help him find things with which to decorate his new-ish house.

The nieces (somewhere in the six to eleven year age range) make themselves right at home. They let the chickens out to scratch, say hello to the rabbit, and run through the garden the way only children can.

“Would you care for tea?” I ask the adults after they’ve seen what they came to see.

“That would be wonderful,” they say. So, I put the kettle on. Eventually, the water boils and we all sit down at the table.

“We’re going for fish and chips and a walk in Ardmore,” the man says, “you’re welcome to come along if you’d like.”

I almost decline. But then I think, why not go? My work will wait for me. I haven’t been to Ardmore yet. It’s a nice day and an excursion would be welcome. Also, why would he bother to extend an invitation if he didn’t mean it?

When our tea has been drunk and the chickens returned to their coop, we pile all together in the little car and head off to Ardmore. It’s only about a fifteen minute drive and then we’re there. The plan is to get them fish and chips, to see St. Declan’s cathedral and monastery, and to take a clifftop walk.

The man pulls into a parking spot in front of a little Take Away Restaurant and they all order fish and chips and I, thinking that lunch sounds like a fun idea, order a veggie burger and chips. The grandmother pays for all of our food despite my protests that there’s no need for her to pay for mine.

“It won’t break the bank,” she says. And I thank her.

The woman, with her coat zipped up and scarf tight round her neck, finds an extra jacket in the trunk of the car and loans it to me. I’d brought along a light jacket of my own, but she, feeling cold herself, feels it might not be enough. They find the weather cooler here than in Berlin. I find it very summery. I’ve got a short sleeved shirt on. I’m thinking about pulling out my sunglasses. Nevertheless, I tuck the loaned jacket around my bag just in case.

When it’s all ready, we take our food down to the beach, cozy up against the stone wall, and eat our lunch while looking out to sea.

Ardmore is a seaside and fishing village reported to be the oldest Christianized settlement in Ireland. This, because St. Declan came and established a monastic order in the southern area before anyone else thought about it. His establishment even pre-dates the greater-known St. Patrick and his missionary work.

What I can see before and around me is charming. I eat my veggie burger and fries and think that seaside villages make a day into a holiday. After the lunch things are tidied up, I take off my shoes and socks, roll up my pants, and follow the woman, the grandmother, and the nieces into the sea. The man comes along too. The water washes up over my feet and up to my ankles. It’s delightfully cold. The sand is soft and impressionable under my arches, heels, and toes. Paddling, as they call wading, makes a seaside holiday feel like a distinctly summer holiday day.

The sun is warm. The breeze not too cold. The jacket unneeded but near to hand. I’m content.

I feel at ease with this family, as if I were part of it—distantly anyway. As if we’d planned long in advance to take a daytrip together. How strange and wonderful people are. How strange and wonderful life is. How strange I am.

After a bit of time—the girls looking for shells and mollusks and who knows what else and then having to be convinced to leave it all behind—we brush the sand off, dry our feet, and put our shoes back on.

We’ve got other things to see and a limited amount of time to get it all done. The man has a priest coming for a BBQ at his house only a few hours from now. He’s got the priest coming to bless each room of his home with Holy Water. He doesn’t want to be late to greet him.

The girls aren’t especially eager to leave the beach. Nevertheless, we pack ourselves back into the car and drive over to St. Declan’s Cathedral. The man has been selling its charms with the promise that there is an image of Solomon. The girls aren’t convinced that this is exciting.

However, I do find the image of Solomon something to look forward to. Will it be Solomon on his own? Solomon with his wives and 700 concubines? Will it be a story showing proof of his purported wisdom?

I know that the man has recently published a book on the Song of Songs (aka the Song of Solomon) and so I can understand why he’d emphasize as interesting anything to do with the Israelite king.

The image, when we come around to view it, is a Romanesque Arcade (according to a website about Ardmore) with multiple biblical images including Adam and Eve, The Adoration of the Magi, and the highly advertised Judgement of Solomon.

We admire it. The girls walk the borders of the graves as if they were gymnast beams. These children are energy, bright and endless energy. We move onward.

I trail along behind the man and the nieces and listen to the facts that he passes on to the girls who may or may not be listening. The mother and the grandmother have lingered behind somewhere. Other visitors walk by. 

As we wander past the gravestones and over to the little oratory where, we’re told by the man, St. Declan used to go to get away from the other men in his order for some peace and quiet, I am reminded how little I know about Ireland and its history.

I try to think up some sensible questions to ask about the place and the history. I come up with one or two while we’re sitting on some stones next to the Round Tower. The Round Tower was originally a bell tower and also used as a refuge during invasions. The man tells us that the only entrance is on the far side from where we are and only reached by ladder. I go around the tower to see. Sure enough, he’s told the truth. About 13 feet off the ground is a smallish window-door. It’s the only way in or out. We ponder the tower as a refuge.

“Invaders would only have to wait around until food ran out,” I say, thinking about what it’d be like to be inside with invaders below.

Even though it’s four stories high, it seems a small space to live in. I ponder peace and war. I ponder desperation and invasion. I ponder the clouds moving overhead.

And then, after we’ve all seen what we can, we take the car up the road, park once more, and begin our clifftop walk.

We pass St. Declan’s Well. We pass the stone wall with crosses etched into the surface. The trail narrows and then widens slightly.

A mist has moved in since we left the beach. Now, the air has a mystical quality to it. I feel above the entire world, isolated, islanded, enchanted.

The man forges on ahead of us all. He’s checked his watch and stated that we don’t have much more than twenty minutes for our walk. The woman and the younger daughter go ahead of me.

The grandmother and the older daughter are behind.

As the path ascends, I take some moments to look down. The cliff faces grow taller as I go. Then there, below and before me, is the rusted out frame of an old crane, blow in and wrecked by a 1987 storm. Off to my right is a Gothic Watchtower. It stands alone in a field with the mist moving around it like a forgotten castle. At the top is a World War II Lookout Post, not much more than a cement bunker looking out over the sea.

“I told my daughter that if she looks that way she’ll see America,” the woman tells me as she and the daughter head off toward the Gothic Watchtower.

“Maybe on a really clear day you can,” I say. I go to stand in front of the Lookout Post, gazing into the mist, thinking about America being the next stop by sea. Thinking of all the nautical miles in between.

The clock clicks on. It’s time to go.

The man and I are the first ones down to the car.

“They’re snails,” he says of his family, checking his watch. He looks over his shoulder to see if they’re in sight. They’re not. “I’d better go collect them.”

I hope they hurry along, for his sake. I know what it’s like to have a plan for something. I know what it is to want to be on time, to want to be prepared.

“You should come,” the woman had said to me earlier. “It’d be an interesting experience for you to see a house blessed with Holy Water.”

That’s true, it would be. But I’ve had my adventure. To get back home from the Blessed House would take some planning. It’s too far for me to easily walk. The man has a fixed schedule for the next few days and couldn’t drop me home again. And a taxi, though feasible, seems an expense and hassle I’m not in the mood for.

“You’re welcome to come,” the man tells me, before going to find his family of snails.

“Thank you,” I say. “I think if it’s not too much trouble, I’d rather go on home. I do appreciate the offer.”

When we’re all together again and settled once more in the car, he drives us back the way we came.

“What have you decided?” the woman asks me.

“I think I’ll go on home. It’s been a really nice day, though, thanks for inviting me to come.”

The man speeds along, checking the time once or twice with a sideways glance. As he does, the woman, his sister, asks, “Does the Holy Water expire if you’re late? Does it go off?”

I hold my smile in to myself as I think of Holy Water with an expiration date printed on the top of the bottle. I don’t catch if the man replies to her or not. I stare out the window and soon the hedged road, the trees, the bends become familiar again. I know where we are now. I’ve walked this way before. A few turns later, the man stops at the top of the road where I live. I clamber out of the car and bid them many thanks for such a wonderful day. I bid them all goodbye.

“If you’re ever in Berlin,” the woman says through the open window.

“If you’re ever in London,” the grandmother says.

“Thank you! I’ll visit if I am,” I say.

Goodbye, goodbye, safe travels, goodbye. A turning of wheels, a rounding of the corner, and they’re gone.

Full of holiday and happy, I walk down the boreen and to the house.

At the door, the cat greets me and tells me its food bowl is empty. Obediently, I fill the cat’s bowl. Then I go upstairs. There’s still time in the day to do some work.

 

The Great Castle Quest

I go in search of Ballyheeney Castle. In preparation, I’ve doubled knotted the laces of my walking shoes and have packed a bottle of water and some snacks. The sun is out. The air is warm. It’s summertime in Ireland.

“The most perfect summer of all time,” one woman told me as we chatted about the weather in passing.

Once already, I’d ducked under the small rope strung between the Ballyheeney Bridge and a tree and gone down to stand at the water’s edge. I’d thought then I could follow the river to the castle (the map I’d taken a picture of from an informational placard in the little village of Clashmore made it look just that easy). But the ground was boggy, muddy, threaded with thorny bushes, and completely overgrown with trees, shrubs, stickery sticks, and big leafed plants. Does Ireland have poison ivy? Did St. Patrick truly drive out all the snakes? Not as intrepid as I’d like to be, that day I’d admired the bridge from river level, thought wistfully of old castles, and then clambered back up to the road.

This day with a fearless spirit and my need for an adventure whistling like a boiling kettle, I head out again. A mile or so down the road, I approach the Ballyheeney Bridge. According to the vague placard map which I consult again from my phone’s photo library as I go, the castle is near the river on the far side of the bridge. The bridge itself is no great monster to cross. It gives dry passage over the Licky River, a decent-fair-sized strand of water that feeds into the much greater Blackwater River which feeds into the sea.

As I near it, a man wearing a hi-vis (high visibility) vest is himself crossing the bridge and coming my way. We exchange pleasant greetings and then I ask, “Do you by any chance know how to see the castle from here?”

“I’m going that way,” he says. “I’ll show you.”

I trot along beside him back the way I’ve just come. We head around a bend and stop to stand at an iron gate that looks out over a field which dead ends into a stand of dark green trees.

“I haven’t looked for it for a couple of years, but I think it’s right in there somewhere.” He points at the trees. “It’s hard to see in the summer when everything is all grown up.”

“If I were to cross this field would that be trespassing?” I ask.

“I think it would be. This is John So-and-so’s land,” he says, giving me the name of the farm owner (which I’ve forgotten). I lean my elbows on the top of the gate and ponder. I keep meaning and forgetting to look up Irish Trespass Laws and Irish Countryside Etiquette.

“If I asked permission, do you think they’d let me see it?”

“They might if you did,” he says. He speaks with a British accent, and is what is called a “blows-in.” Someone who blew in and stuck around.

By this time, we’ve turned back toward the bridge. He’s heading home. And I figure I might as well go all the way to town. Maybe the Heritage Center is open. Maybe the man who runs the little village shop will know the secret to finding the castle.

We chat amiably as go, passing a place called Castle Farm. He tells me that that is John So-and-so’s farm and land. Ah, a literal name. That’s easy. The property gate is open and I make a plan to march through it and ask for castle-viewing permission on my return trip.

It’s warm. I wipe some sweat off my face and match my steps to the man’s. After we’ve trudged up a hill, he stops, points over to the right, and says, “There’s an old lime kiln.” The lime kiln was also marked on my placard map and I’d planned to see it. I’d figured it would be easier to find than the castle being just off the road as it was (according to the vague placard map). I was wrong about that. Not so easy. It’s greatly camouflaged by ivy and leaves and trees and shrubbery. A tiny bit of stone peeks out. I would have mistaken it for a wall. However, now that I know what I’m looking at I can see that next to the peeking stones, covered by hanging strands of greenery is an inset kiln, taller than I am and who knows how deep. I would never have known that that was it without this local help. I mentally check the lime kiln off my list of things to see and we carry on.

The Lime Kiln Covered in Greenery

When we get to his street, my new friend invites me in for tea. Well, why not? I had only this morning thought to myself that I needed a friend or two to make my months in the Irish countryside a bit more fun and a bit less like a stint alone in the wilderness.

My friend puts the kettle on and I stay and visit for a few hours (What is tea etiquette? When are you supposed to leave?). I leave with us having made tentative plans to take a walk one day with the end goal of trying to find the Ice Houses (also marked on the vague placard map). My friend thinks he knows the way.

When I get back to Castle Farm, the gate is closed. It’s early evening. I don’t know if the closed gate means everyone is home for the night or if it means everyone is gone. Having had an adventure, having made a friend, I’m happy enough for the day. I’ll save the castle for another time.

A day or so later, after I’d asked if she knew anything about it, and after I’d told her I planned to walk to some nearby points of interest (castle included) with only a screenshot of a vague placard map as my guide, my host’s mother loans me some ordnance maps and I take a picture of the relevant parts with my phone’s camera. The castle is marked by a small red dot. It’s labeled, tellingly enough, on the map as Castle. I study the map to get my bearings. There’s the fork in the road leading to the gate where my friend and I had stood. There’s the Ballyheeney Bridge. There’s the tiny line leading the way along the river to the castle. I can follow a map. I mean, really, how hard can it be to find a castle?

In the meantime, it rains several days in a row. I get some writing done. On the next sunny day, I decide that, by gosh, by golly, I’ll find that Ballyheeney Castle.

All set, I have my shoes tied, my water bottle filled, snacks packed, and my vague placard map and the ordnance map saved on my phone.

The miles fall away beneath my feet. I walk across the bridge and over to Castle Farm. The gate is once again closed. I don’t see a way to open it or to ring in. So I walk to Clashmore. The Heritage Center is closed. So I go to the little shop across the street. As I pay for some bananas, I ask the shop owner about the castle. I show him my maps.

I ask him something about trespassing or permission and he says, “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. It’s not like they’ll shoot you.”

“Good grief, I hope not,” I say.

Thus encouraged, I take my change, pack my bananas in my bag, and tell the shop owner thanks.

The Castle Farm gate is still closed. The gate looks forbidding. The farm buildings are far down the lane. They won’t shoot me, I think. But I’m not quite game for climbing this fence. I glance across the street to another little house and wonder if it’d be less frightening to ask there.

Undecided, I stand for a minute, looking at my maps. Then I look more intently at the ordnance map. It shows a line—that has to be a road, or at least a path. Doesn’t it? There’s the river. There’s a road. That road leads to the castle.

A short way from Castle Farm, and not quite back to the bridge, there’s a gated lane. This metal gate is less forbidding. It isn’t padlocked shut. It isn’t even tied shut. It’s just pulled in and held closed by the growing flora beside it. Mustering my daring, and practicing some words for forgiveness in my head, I open the gate, slide past it, close it behind me, and walk down the lane.

At just about the point that I feel the castle should be somewhere near, I reach the end of the lane and come smack up against a large building. It’s obviously some kind of place for cows as evidenced by the abundance of cow patties sliming the cemented ground.

To venture further feels very much like trespassing. It feels very much like a good way to get ambushed and run over by crazed cattle. Maybe even very much like an opportunity to be shot.

But! I’m so close. I know I am. I turn away from the building and look down the green field that leads to the river. If I could get to the river and follow it from here, surely, I’d find the castle. That’s what my map promises. It’s worth a try. I trip my way across boggy, uneven, cattle plodded grass. I step over a wire fence, avoid a patch of brambles, and stand at the edge of the river. There’s no way to follow it. I’d have to walk in the water itself, squelch through the ankle-deep mud of the bank (are Irish river bogs like quicksand?), or whack my way through the stickery under-and-overbrush. For that, at the most I’d need a machete, at the least a hardy walking stick.

Chiding myself, mocking myself even, for my lack of fortitude (I don’t want to get my shoes muddy. I don’t want to be scratched to death by brambles. I don’t want to get eaten by giant spiders), I concede defeat. I step through the mud, trip my way back across the boggy, uneven, cattle plodded grass, and return to the lane.

Having retraced my steps, I let myself out again through the gate and close it behind me. That’s it then, is it? All that’s left now is to go on home again.

From the road, as I look up toward Castle Farm (wistfully), I see a tractor trailer in front of the gate. A delivery! Which probably means that someone is home.

I walk back up the hill.

The truck driver is sitting in his truck, his young grandson is in the seat next to him. I talk at the driver through the window, asking him if he knows anything about the castle. He admits he’s heard about it, but that’s it. After making a call, he climbs down and we stand together at the forbidding gate. As we wait for someone to open it for him so he can make his delivery and get on about his day, we chitchat about the weather, about places we’ve traveled, about where we’re from.

Then. Like a miracle. The gate opens. Seizing the moment, I walk through as the driver maneuvers his truck in and begins his slow progress down the forbidding farm lane. He says something to me over the rumble of the motor as he goes by and I say, “I’ll just follow along behind you.” He drives on. The gate closes behind us and suddenly I wish I was in the cab with the driver and his grandson.

The farm seems quiet. No cows hustling around. No people working. Not even a dog.

Not even a dog until I’ve followed the truck all the way in (past signs that say Authorized Access Only that bring me up short and nearly turn me back). Having reached the end of the lane, the truck driver gets down and says, “Might be someone in the house there,” as we both say hello to the large, black dog that comes to sniff our hands and ask for a pat on the head.

Having made it this far, I bid the truck driver farewell and walk to the house.

Taking in a breath for courage, I ring the doorbell.

A moment later, it opens.

I smile. “I’m sorry to bother you,” I tell the lady. “I heard there’s a castle nearby and I was wondering if it’d be okay for me to see it.”

“There’s nothing to see,” she says.

“Oh,” I say. I stumble out a few nearly incoherent sentences sounding probably something like, “I thought it’d be interesting to see if there was something there. I saw it on the placard sign at the edge of Clashmore. I guess if there’s nothing to see, there’s nothing to see.”

“It’s just one wall.”

“Oh, okay,” I say, and still I chatter on about not wanting to trespass and thanks anyways and sorry to bother you when she steps outside and says, “It’s just a wall.” Going fast, she leads me through some cow buildings (a milking facility?) and soon enough we emerge on the other side. “That’s it,” she says, pointing across the way to a crumbled down, ivy-covered wall.

The castle!

I ask if it’s okay to take pictures and how I should leave the property when I’m done. She says, pointing vaguely, that I can go through that gate there and the lane beyond it will take me toward the bridge.

“That’s exactly where I need to go.”

Without any more ado, she hastens off and I clamber over some rocks, across the field, and make my way to the last wall of this castle.

As I walk up to it, I’m delighted by success. It might be only a wall, but I’m seeing it.

As I inspect the sheen of spiderwebs and the old stone and the ivy, I wonder about its history. I don’t know if it’s as old as the 12^th Century or as new as the 18^th. I don’t know if to the Irish it represents all the bad parts of their history, all that they fought so long and hard to be independent of. I don’t know anything about it. Even the website I’d found that proclaimed the charms of Clashmore said, “The history of the castle is vague.”

 

The castle itself is vague, I think.

I take some pictures. I walk through the one open doorway. I gaze through the open windows and see the dark green of trees. I note that from the side facing the river the castle wall looks like a giant mass of ivy, like a dark set of trees. Even if I’d followed the river, would I have recognized that as a castle? Would I have recognized it as a wall? I don’t know. Maybe not. It certainly is The Hidden Castle.

When I’ve appreciated all that I can, I bid the castle farewell and exit through the gate the lady had shown me. I walk across a cow pattied slab of concrete—the same one I’d approached earlier from the opposite direction and been too shy to cross. Wow, I think, I’d gotten so close on my very own. Thoughtful, elated, I make my way back down the quiet lane for the second time this day.

Back on the road, I cross the Ballyheeney Bridge.

The air is warm. The day is sunny. It’s summertime in Ireland. I swing my arms. When I get there, I stop at the iron gate my friend and I had stopped at the other day. I lean my elbows against the top of the gate and gaze into the trees. There’s no way to distinguish the wall from here.

But I was there, I think. I saw it. I conquered the castle. Happy as the proverbial lark, I walk back home.

*Information regarding Ballyheeney Castle is very sparse.

The aforementioned Clashmore site (http://www.discoverclashmore.com/history.html) says this: “Set back on the right hand side a few hundred yards beyond Ballyheeney Bridge is the ruin of a notable fortress known as Ballyheeney Castle which was likely a Norman Tower-House and was reputedly built by a person named Sineach Ruaidh. The history of the castle is vague but latterly it was certainly a stronghold of the Desmonds and in particular was in the ownership of Gerald (Gerrot) Fitzgerald during the 16th century, who was a son of the 3rd Lord of the Decies, Dromana. Records also show that for long periods of time it was in the ownership of the powerful Ronayne family who presided at D'Loughtane House.
A local Seanachai claimed that the castle of Ballyheeney was once owned by an O'Heeny woman who, for her fortune, left a daughter an old horse's skin and as much land as it would cover or enclose. The quick witted daughter cut the hide into thin strips of which she made a rope long enough to enclose the entire townland of Ballyheeney, which thereupon became her property, all 381 acres of it!”

And another site (http://snap.waterfordcoco.ie/collections/ebooks/99755/Ordnance%20Survey%20Letters.pdf) has this tidbit: “On the Townland of Ballyheeny in this Parish is the south wall of a castle but the foundations of the other walls are not traceable. This wall is thirty five feet in length seven feet six inches in thickness and about forty feet in height and well grouted. It is said to have been built by a [170] person of the name of Sineach Ruadh but nothing is remembered of his period or history.”