An Irish Journey - An Interval

On the Wednesday we had a quiet day and I took the opportunity to go for a walk round the grounds and along a few local lanes. It was cold and windy but at least the sun was shining. Caher House is on the banks of the lough and this boat was on one of the little jetties, you can see from the little white horses on the water how windy it was.

Once I reached the top of the drive I turned left and walked up the lane, there were lots of wild flowers along the hedgerows and thanks to Southern Ireland's mild climate they were well ahead of those in the north of England. This is Greater Stitchwort which is only just coming into flower here a month later than those in the photograph.

There were lots of daisies - as a child I spent many happy hours making daisy chains to wear as a necklace or a crown:)

There were a great many violets growing in the shelter of hedge banks too and I've seen more round here this Spring than I've ever seen before. It is among the earliest of the wildflowers, not obvious unless you are looking for it and gone before full summer comes in.

'A violet in the youth of primy Nature
Forward, not permanent,sweet,not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
No more.'

From Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Everywhere we went in Ireland there was blackthorn, great clouds of white blossom on the leafless branches - it definitely brought with it the Blackthorn Winter too.

The lane ran alongside the lough and eventually I came to the point where it ended. Lough Graney (Greine in Gaelic) is the largest lake in Co Clare and yet in all the time we were there I only saw two mallard and a heron on it. I found it a rather forbidding and unfriendly stretch of water though apparently it's a wonderful place if you're a keen angler.

The road crossed the end of the lough by this bridge and I could see that there was a little stony area at the edge of the water so I scrambled down the bank to have a closer look.

When I peered under the arches I could see the little River Graney beginning its journey to Lough O'Grady, from there it becomes the River Scarriff and eventually flows into the River Shannon.

At the side of the road where the lough ended stood this large stone. At first I didn't see the writing on it and when I did I couldn't understand what it said as it's in Gaelic. I took a photograph of it anyway and when I got home I enlarged it and copied the words of the title into Google to see whether I could find out what it said.

To my surprise 'Cúirt An Mheán Oíche' turned out to be the Gaelic title of a long poem called in English 'The Midnight Court' and this is a translation of the lines on the stone.

’Twas my custom to stroll by a clear winding stream,
With my boots full of dew from the lush meadow green,
Near a neck of the woods where the mountain holds sway,
Without danger or fear at the dawn of the day.
The sight of Lough Graney would dazzle my eyes,
As the countryside sparkled beneath the blue skies;
Uplifting to see how the mountains were stacked,
Each head peeping over a neighbouring back.

It was written by an Irish poet called Brian Merryman who lived from 1749 to 1805. He was born in Ennystymon but lived and taught for many years in Feakle a village which is just a few miles from Caher. It is apparently the greatest comic poem in Irish literature and has influenced the work of modern Irish poets Seamus O'Heaney and Thomas Kinsella. More detective work produced the information that this stone is actually a memorial to Brian Merryman and was unveiled by Seamus O'Heaney who in a lecture in 1993 said

"Perhaps I can convey the ongoing reality of the poem's life more simply by recollecting a Saturday evening last August when I had the privilege of unveiling a memorial to Brian Merriman on the shore of Lough Graney in Co. Clare, where the opening scene of 'The Midnight Court' is set. The memorial is a large stone quarried from a hill overlooking the lake, and the opening lines are carved on it in Irish."

I was out for a couple of hours exploring the local area but eventually I returned to a nice cup of coffee and the log fire. This wonderful old tree stands on the lawn in front of Caher House. Hopefully there won't be such a long gap until the final Irish post:)