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| MUSINGS
ON AN OCTOBER 2003 VISIT TO IRELAND I While rambling around Northern Ireland without any particular destination in mind, we saw a poster announcing that the Wolfe Tones would be putting on a concert in Crossmaglen (pron. Cross-MA-glen) Co. Armagh (pron. Our-MA, which is the name of a pub in that village). Well, we weren’t having much luck in our quest for Irish (or any other) music, and we sure are partial to the Wolfe Tones, so we hied over to that tiny (pop. 1500) village to see if a bedroom and place to get a meal could be obtained. We did obtain both, and so we went to the concert. The village did not hide its political bent. Large IRA signs welcome visitors from all directions. All over the place are posters advising the Brits to get the hell away. One poster of which we took particular note depicts a hand dropping trash into a can with the words “Keep our town tidy. Brits out now.” The Irish tricolor flies in abundance; the Union Jack is nowhere to be seen. The scheduled concert start time was 11:00. and the Wolfe Tones did not actually start until 11:30. At that time the GAA hall was virtually empty. The official in charge assured us (and, we learned later, the Wolfe Tone members) that the place would soon be packed; we were skeptical. But the people kept coming. After midnight the hall was starting to fill. Soon the place was, indeed, packed. (Our guess is that the people came to the concert after the pubs had closed.) The music was loud, and the category was strictly of the rebel variety. Up to then we thought that we had heard most of the rebel songs, but on this occasion we heard a number of them that were new to us. The songs had messages, of course, such as “how dare you call me terrorist?” Between the songs were exhortations of the pep-rally type—with accompanying hoots and hollers from the audience. We are accustomed to pub music (both in the US and Ireland) with audiences largely indifferent to the entertainment. But not here. Most attendees joined in singing all the words—not solely the choruses, mind you—to most of the songs. By midway into the concert the band could whip the audience into near frenzy simply by offering a relatively mild selection such as Fields of Athenry (“You are all now required to sing with us because if you don’t know the words to this song you don’t belong here.”). We performed our share as best we could. We knew the words of some of the rebel songs, such as Come Out You Black and Tans, God Save Ireland, Fields of Athenry, etc. The Wolfe Tone leader had come over to us when we first entered the hall. He chatted with us a bit about, among other things, the Irish pubs and singers in the DC area of which he had some familiarity. At one point in the performance he announced our presence, and we were given a warm welcome. Later, when traveling in the Republic, whenever we mentioned that we had been in Crossmaglen for a Wolfe Tones concert we were met with the comment that we had been brave to have gone to that place for that event. Some of the Wolfe Tones band members had quarters in the same accommodation in which we stayed, and we had interesting talks with them before the concert and the next morning. This was assuredly one of the highlights of our trip. II On a prior trip to Ireland we paid a brief call on the An Creagan Visitors Center, near the tiny, tiny (virtually nonexistent) village of Creggan, Co. Tyrone, halfway between Omagh and Cookstown. We decided to return one day for a longer visit. When we learned by the website (www.an-creagan.com) that a traditional music festival was scheduled for October, we reserved a cottage, and that was the start of this particular visit to Ireland. The cottage was great—and amazingly inexpensive. It consisted of two stories, the bottom one holding a living room (with fireplace all fueled and ready to be ignited) and kitchenette (with all sundry of pots, pans, silverware, dishes, etc.), and the top floor housing a large bedroom and bathroom. There were lots of heat and lots of hot water. The premises and contents were modern and in fine condition. The cost for the four nights was about US$160, which is quite a bit below what a B&B costs just for a room and breakfast, usually without adequate heat and hot water. We didn’t use our kitchen much, beyond making coffee, breakfasts, and late night snacks, because a quality restaurant was on the Center premises. The staff on duty at the Center, particularly the manager, John Donoghy, could not have been friendlier, more fun, or more helpful. The so-called traditional music festival was not truly that (and we hadn’t expected it to be). On one evening there was a concert by a four-person band. It was not great, but it was certainly good. The next evening there was a so-called session, but it was not that. Rather, what it was was a series of performances by groups of kids. The audience was clearly comprised of mums and dads. It was amateurish, of course, but, hey what the heck! it was fun. That was the sum total of the festival. The area is jam packed with ancient megalithic (mega=big and lithic=stone) tomb sites that are from 3500-6000 years old. We spent our four days in the locality finding and visiting many of these sites. We had topographical maps and literature produced by the Center which we used to find the tombs. A good deal of trudging across terrain and climbing hills was involved, and we could not find some of the sites that we pursued. Those failures do not bother us. We are accustomed to them. And the looking is just as important to us as the finding. Much of the fun we derive in our wanderings in search of archeological sites (tombs, forts, castles, churches, abbeys, ogham and other standing stones, stone circles, etc.) is in meeting people. Farmers almost universally welcome us and give us as much help as they are able. Just as an example: In search of a truly unsual tomb, we were parked by the roadside while we pored over maps. A woman pulled up alongside us to see if she could help. She drove up to a place, told us to climb over the locked gate and to walk up the hill in the direction she pointed. She departed with our thanks. When we had climbed over the gate, we saw a boy of maybe 12 leaving the nearby house and running toward us. To tell us to get off his property? Hardly. His mother had seen us and had sent him to us to provide guide service to the tomb, which was a steep quarter mile distant. During the entire walk—and the boy, Brandon, patiently waited when we older folk paused for breath—he kept up a constant chatter about the terrain, the trees, and other features of the locality. When returning from the tomb, he pointed us in the distance higher up the hill to a mass rock, i.e., a place where priests held mass during the penal-law days when the celebration of mass was illegal. Back at the bottom of the hill we went to the house to meet, and to thank, Brandon’s parents. We talked for a while but, due to the lateness of the evening hour, we had to turn down their offer of coffee or tea. III We have no family in Ireland. But two of the singers in the DC area have family in the vicinity of the An Creagan center. Per prior arrangements, we visited those relatives. IV From An Creagan we went to Carrickfergus to visit the famous castle there. Carrickfergus is located northeast of Belfast, and so it is necessary to become involved in Belfast traffic both going to and coming from. It was not worth the effort. Carrickfergus town holds little of interest, and the castle is not near as interesting as castles we have visited all over the Republic, such as Trim (clearly the best of the oldest), Bunratty, Blarney, Craggaunowen, Cahir (the best of all), Cashel, Dunguaire, Kilkenny (the best of the more recent ones), Knappogue, Parke’s, etc. V We experienced a truly awesome feeling when entering the passageway of the largest cairn on the hill called Carbane East at a site called Loughcrew near Oldcastle, Co. Meath. We were paying a call on a passage tomb perhaps a milenium older than the pyramids of Egypt. Everything was as intact as the day it was constructed. Some climbing and wandering over the hillside were required to find the site, but the effort was truly justified. Part of the weird feeling of being there comes from the fact that one is alone there—without guards or other visitors. The passageway is blocked by a grate, but we had the information beforehand to obtain a key without any cost except a deposit that was refunded to us when we returned the key. VI We were largely disappointed in our nightly searches for music. We found, somewhat to our surprise, that music does not seem to be a pub tradition in the North anywhere near to the extent that it is in the Republic. But we struck out most of the time even in the Republic. There was music aplenty, but not usually where we happened to be at a particular moment. We were especially disappointed over an absence of music in Rath Cairn, Co. Meath. That village is too small to be shown on maps, but we learned that it is just south of Athboy. The village is the only gaeltacht (principally Irish speaking) community in the eastern portion of Ireland. The Comhaltas magazine informed us that Comhaltas-sponsored sessions are held every Thursday in that village. Alas, however, when we arrived we learned that those sessions are held only in the summer. VII A bartender (presumably the bar owner) in Tulla, Co. Clare once said to us: “You’re Americans? We don’t see Americans here except when they zip past us in their tour buses.” John Donoghy, the aforementioned manager of the An Creagan Center, said sadly (and this is a paraphrase): “We don’t get many Americans here. Maybe they just don’t like this kind of thing. Or maybe they just don’t know about it.” Well, each person has his own views on how best to expend precious vacation time. If any reader of these words would like help from either of us on what to do in Ireland, just give either of us a call. Arnold and Sheila Fieldman |
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Travels of Arnold and Sheila Fieldman We (Sheila and I) are CCE and O’Neill-Malcom members. We recently returned from our 11th trip to Ireland. In this note I provide a summary of some of the highlights of the trip with an emphasis on matters that may be of use to other CCE members in planning visits of their own. If anybody seeks information from either of us, just communicate with us via the telephone or by the snail mail or e-mail addresses shown below. Now that I am retired, we travel to Ireland twice a year. The spring trip is timed to coincide with the Fleadh Nua, a CCE traditional music festival held at the end of May each year in Ennis, Co. Clare. To be assured of a hotel accommodation in the center of Ennis at the time of the Fleadh, before we leave home we contact the three main centrally located hotels in Ennis to obtain rate quotes and to make a reservation for three, four, or five days near the end of our trip. We have at times in years past arrived in Ennis during Fleadh time without any reservation and were always able to secure hotel or B&B space; that situation might not have been as convenient as being centrally located, but neither did it present any major problem. Incidentally, we invariably spend the final one or two days of our fall-winter trip in Ennis when the Fleadh is not in progress; and for those trips we arrive in town without any prior reservation. Other than for Fleadh purposes, we almost never make hotel or B&B reservations. Indeed, we do not on a day-to-day basis know where we will spend the night. We study the guidebooks, consult numerous maps (including locality topographical maps), jump into a rented car, and start off from Shannon Airport (usually) in a predetermined general direction. From there we wander where the wind blows us. Our maps have been pre-marked with things we might want to do at various places. It hardly requires mention that in the evenings we prowl for music--preferably Irish traditional and/or ballads, but also country-western, which is popular in Ireland. Our daylight hours are devoted to searching out antiquities—megalith tombs some 3500-6000 years old, dirt and stone forts going back maybe 1500 years, castles and ecclesiastic sites of more recent vintage, etc. This activity can be quite physical. The ancient builders frequently built on the tops of mountains or crests somewhat below mountaintop peaks. Probably half the time, or more, when we go afield with a map as a reference in search for a site, we fail to find it. But the fun is in the walking and the looking. We also meet interesting people on the way, such as when we ask for permission to enter property or when we look for, and find, people willing to provide help. There is a family in Co. Clare who befriended us a few years ago that we now drop in on each trip for a cup of coffee. Our May 2003 trip was of 16-day duration, which is about normal for us. We spent the first night in Ennis, not far from Shannon Airport. Then off to Donegal and Bundoran, where we spent the night. We had passed this way previously and so did not stop much during the day. Bundoran is a town for tourists from Northern Ireland. We found decent music at the hotel that evening. Then to southwestern Donegal, a rather remote location where we had never previously been. We stayed in Glencolumbkille, an interesting, scenic place with a great deal of ancient megalith burial sites. We were probably the only tourists at the hotel (Donegal has a short summer season), and the landlady suggested in a nice way that we might not want to overnight there. It seems that the hotel was starting that evening a two-day murder mystery weekend, and, she said, a good deal of drunken noise might be expected all night. We stayed and, perhaps unfortunately, there was not a whole lot of noise. In any event the lounge was packed for some good music even while the murder thing was in session. The first day and the next day in the area we scoured the vicinity for a marvelous collection of ancient burial sites, some of which required a good deal of terrain exploration to locate—and a fair number that we were not able to locate. Then we drove over scenic roads and through mountain passes along western Donegal, then easterly to Leterkenny, then to a tiny village Raphoe, where we did B&B for the night. The music in the packed pub (Sat night) was not our kind of music, but we met some jolly young people and had a lot of fun with them. Outside Raphoe is a large stone circle that we had previously seen and did not revisit. Within the town are well-preserved ruins of a castle and a church. Then to Northern Ireland, which we have barely visited in the past. Overnight in Portstewart (near the Derry-Antrim border)—just rock and roll music. Nothing worthwhile in town, but in the vicinity we visited the Giant’s Causeway and a huge castle ruin and partook of the pleasures of a Jameson Whiskey (with an e, note) factory tour, where Sheila was selected to test and express judgment on a handful of whiskey drinks. Then to Cookstown, Co. Tyrone. Among the good archeological sites here are a highly unusual earthen fort where ancient kings were installed and a church site with an exceptional high cross. On the way to Enniskillen we came to An Creagan, a location with a number of fantastic ancient sites of which we had little prior awareness. The problem was that the people in the community sponsored visitor’s center had little knowledge of what was around them, and maps available there were more for show (to mention things in the area) than for use in finding those things. We looked around and saw fantastic stuff—including, if you can imagine, a field with no fewer than seven stone circles and several cairn burial sites. We will have to return some day with a little more time and some decent maps. Then to Eniskillen, Co. Fermanagh. Once in the past we found good music here, but not on this visit. The good archeological sites here are primarily located on islands in the lake, but on each of our visits boat transportation was unavailable. We did visit an ancient fort (after a hefty uphill walk, of course) and one or two other things. Then two nights in Ballyvaughn, and for Sheila, great seafood at Monk’s pub. With a lot of map consultation and a heck of a lot of climbing, we visited several ancient (and some very unusual) forts and burial sites. Then to Ennis for the Fleadh Nua. We stayed at the hotel there for five nights. For us the highlights each year are participation in meetings of the CCE Ennis Singers Club (yes, we sang our share at three such meetings, each of about four hours duration); the parade on the final day of the festival (with the younguns ages maybe as little as, say, seven years, all in costumes and with their band instruments); and the concert of teen and sub-teen champions in their competition divisions. Sheila and I are not dancers and did not have time to attend the several set dances held every day. If anybody wants a copy of the Fleadh schedule, we can provide same. On prior visits we met the four members of an excellent music group that performs both traditional music and ballads. We always call them to locate their gigs, of which there was one in a pub during the time of the Fleadh. After the Fleadh we had a day to visit eastern Co. Clare and some of the sites there. Mountshannon was holding a smallish festival of the arts, so we went there for the final day of the trip. It was a rather low-key affair. The music at the evening concert included one Irish song. Arnold and Sheila Fieldman |
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