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Wanderung 9

Idly Eyeing an Idyllic Emerald Isle.

April 2005

April 27, 2005 - Lough Derg and the Craggaunowen Project

Since we were already near the top of Lough Derg (a big lake north of Limerick), after breakfast we left our B&B and drove along a typical Irish country road around the lake. Ultimately we crossed over the northern neck where the River Shannon flowed into it and then curled back south along the lakeshore.

Our first stop was Portumna Castle, a relatively young fortified house built in 1609 by the Earl of Clanricarde. The gardens outside the "castle" were nice, but the castle itself was still very much in the process of conservation and restoration. The building itself was massive and had 3 or 4 floors, but the only floor we could tour was the ground floor and the only thing it contained was a series of informational posters. As a result, it didn't take us too long to see the castle despite taking the time to read the English side of the posters (the other side was in Gaelic), and we continued on our way.

We had hoped that we would get great views of the lake along our drive south, but that simply did not occur. First, the road was routed far enough away from the shoreline that the lake was usually way over yonder. But even when we came closer the hedgerows prevented us from getting a good look.

I became desperate to see the lake to see what we were missing, so I made a detour over to a scenic outlook over the lake. The road became narrower and more poorly marked and paved the nearer we came to the lake, which surprised me. Then when we finally reached the shore I was startled to see a large parking lot and a big concrete pier with metal bollards, but otherwise absolutely nothing at all. Who uses the dock? What do they do after they come ashore? The juxtaposition of a large dock and parking facility with nothing but farms for 10 miles in every direction just bam-foozled me. I later read somewhere that local folks take sailboats up and down the lake in the summer sailing season, so maybe that is why someone had build the marina in the middle of nowhere.

I tried to see the lake again at Mountshannon and had a bit more luck. Mountshannon had a marina located near the downtown area with a bunch of sailboats, which at least made sense to me. We had nice views of Lough Derg from the small seawall protecting the anchorage, but of course by then the sky was clouding over for the afternoon rain, so the pictures were not as nice as they could have been.

A few miles further we drove down the narrow streets of Killaloe where we stopped for lunch in a nice cafe.

We also tried to get into the Heritage Center located right next to the lake's outflow, but it was not opening until May 1st, so we missed that by a couple of days. However, we had a beautiful view of the River Shannon as it emerged from Lough Derg under an old bridge with stone arches.

Just down the street we saw St. Flannan's Cathedral, built in the 12th Century, and it was open. It seemed to me that as we crossed Ireland I kept seeing these huge churches that must have been constructed right after the Anglo-Normans defeated the Irish and imposed the Roman Catholic hierarchy on them. The modest monasteries, beehive huts, and oratories of the pre-Norman period seemed to reflect a very different approach to Christianity than the huge, imposing cathedrals after 1200.


 

Inside the church we found a "high cross", which seemed to be just a Celtic cross made of stone about 9 feet tall. An old arched doorway off to one side had been reused from an earlier church on the same site. It was clearly a different kind of stone than that used in the rest of the church and was heavily carved. Much of the decoration was deep angled cuts, but it also had some carved stone faces that looked similar to what we had seen in Cormac's chapel on the Rock of Cashel, so I would guess that it dated from about the same period.


 

What really interested me was an "ogham" stone, an old stone with Celtic writing (it looked like a bunch of carved lines to me). This one was rather unique in that it had been carved by "Thorgrimr". The Viking runes on it said something like "Thorgrimr raised this stone", while the Celtic writing on it said something like "God's blessings on Thorgrimr". It was clear that Thorgrimr was covering all his bases, both linguistically and religiously speaking, and it gave me a good laugh.


 

At Killaloe the lake flows back out into the Shannon River going south toward Limerick and we followed it for a while. We saw a canal boat on the canal right beside the river, but I have no idea how intact or extensive the old canal network is in Ireland. That certainly would be an unusual way to see the country and probably a lot more relaxing than driving!

Branching away from the River Shannon over to the west, we made the last stop of the afternoon at the Craggaunowen Project, a kind of open-air museum. But we almost didn't go in because the sign out front was worn, weather-stained, and almost unreadable in spots. I really didn't think the place was still open, but it turned out that it was just in dire need of some TLC.

The museum consisted of Craggaunowen Castle itself, one of those square stone towers so beloved by the Irish lords, and a couple of reconstructed dwelling areas from much earlier periods in Irish (pre)history. The castle had not been totally destroyed by Cronwell after he defeated its defenders (he just removed the battlements), and it had been recently restored into quite good shape. The interior furnishings were sufficient to help us imagine a bit what life was like back then, which was nice.

The Crannogh, the Celtic stone-age defensive lake dwelling, was undergoing renovation and not open to visit, so we had to skip it. But the ring fort exhibit area was open and we had fun looking at the reconstructed dwellings there. We were surprised both to see a very old-fashioned loom in one hut and a foot-powered wood lathe outside, and I did wonder when those developments had really spread in the old Celtic society.


 

Bur for many tourists, the major attraction of the Craggaunowen Project is the "Brendan". This is a reconstruction of the ship that St. Brendan supposedly sailed to America. Tim Severin build the reconstruction and actually sailed it to America to prove it could have been done; we have a copy of his book.


 

As we wound our way back to the car, we saw some wild boars (in a cage) and some "Jacob's sheep", an ancient breed that was very distinctive. First, the sheep were piebald. Now I have seen white sheep and I have seen black sheep, but I have never seen sheep that looked like small, fluffy, Holstein cows! The other thing that was quite amazing was that some of these sheep had 4 horns growing out of their heads, and I've never, ever seen sheep with more than 2 horns.

The Craggaunowen Project with its odd sheep basically finished our sight seeing in Ireland, and from there we just headed back to the village of Sixmilebridge where we found a B&B for the night. That location put us almost within spitting distance of Shannon airport where we had to drive the next morning, and our B&B was right in the heart of town with several restaurants and pubs nearby so I wouldn't have to drive out for dinner.

As it turned out, however, dinner was not as easy to come by as I had thought. When we finally stepped out for dinner, all the pubs were either closed or did not serve food. The only restaurants we found in town were Indian and Chinese, neither of which appealed to us very much. In desperation we turned to a garishly colored pizza parlor with two giggling teenage girls seated on the windowsill talking on their cell phones. But the pizza place was "Take away" only and had no place to sit and eat. We decided that we could do our own "Take away" just as easily (and much more cheaply) by going to the local supermarket, buying six rolls, some ham and cheese, and small bottles of wine. Taking these back up to our room, we enjoyed a last meal together, after which we spent the rest of the evening packing for the flight home.

Copyright 2005 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
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April 2005
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