Thursday, 20 April 2017

A trip to Achill

Subject: A trip to Achill

Sitting in the lounge looking out across the flat grazing land that edges the bay, the early morning light floods in etching the scene of white cottages which dot the hillside behind.
It's 6am and the holiday let we are in is quiet as its occupants chase their dreams, snug in their sleep like a deliverance.
The sun, warming the landscape, prods the sheep who patiently await  a new day, chomping the grass to maintain its condition, oblivious of the ignominy ahead.
Behind the cottage the hill rises to catch the first glow. Houses dot the hillside, each eager to gimps a sea, which today's flat calm, is a mote between us and America.  Maybe tomorrow, the water will be angry, white topped waves rushing in from a thousand miles of unchecked ocean to crash with force onto this first bit of inhabited land since they were whipped up in the deep mid-Atlantic.
Arriving for the first time onto this broken archipelago, the West Coast of Ireland, one is mindful of the weather. The main survivor of this wind and rain swept land is the gorse bush, clinging to the roadside. There are few flowers to illuminate the isolated houses. Grass and sheep are the main feature and whilst it is somehow attractive in its sparse practicability, one is aware that nothing without an evolutionary purpose would exist here and that we, on this trip have been blessed for our first visit, with clear sky's and exceptional day long sunshine.
History describes those ranging marauders, the Vikings, coming in on their longboats, knives and axes at the ready, they beach their vessel on the sand and run ashore to plunder and kill whatever they could find.
A history full of bloodshed. Bloodshed enough from the raiders and even more bloodshed from each other as the family clans continued to attack each other with an unnatural ferocity, remembering a family slight or regaining land. A continual never ending battle. This bloodletting continued from generation to generation and did much to inhibit the formation of civil society or any sort of allegiance to central rule.
But today all is calm as the sleepers awake and think only of food. The quiet is soon pierced with chatter and laughter. Lets do this or that, lets look for fairies and leprechauns, in this land of bogs and demons now made famous for its strange folk-law melding truth and fiction into one.
The road clings to the edge of a cliff as we first climb up and then descend to an isolated beach. The 'faint hearts' squeal with apprehension, pleading with the driver to slow down and keep his or her eye on the road as the car is forced closer to the edge to make space for an oncoming vehicle. The drop, sheer into the sea, leaves little to the imagination as the surf pounds the rocks below and to some it's no laughing matter this terror of heights, the irrationality is lost on them, as they exhibit their own personal terror, whilst we simply smile.
The rhythm of this part of the country is slow and easy going. We became mixed up in a long funeral procession yesterday but it seemed to make no difference to our patten, or flow released as we are from the frenetic pace of Southern England. The Irish wake is a tradition to wonder at as the whole town turns out to "celebrate" the passing of a respected friend. The pipe band in their Irish kilt, more brown than the Lovat of Scotland but so similar that you would find it hard to tell the two nations apart. The bagpipes, to an untrained eye are the same and one wonders at such a strange invention being in the two separate nations since the language, binding the Welsh, Irish and Scottish doesn't as far as I know make provision for the bagpipes in Wales. I suppose like the Vikings the Scotts in their thrusting raids down the shores of Ireland left their own impression, perhaps it was the other way around and the Irish bequeathed this strange instrument to Scotland ? 
It's interesting to watch from our lounge window a Shepard training his dog to round up the sheep. Apparently he offers this as a service for local farmers who need a trained dog. I love to watch the dog ranging back and forth, ever watchful of his errant target, a nudge here a rush there as the wilful flock dart around in startled disarray.  Once the pantomime is over and the dog returned to its home, the sheep continue their placid, chomp chomping, wondering I'm sure, what the hell all that was about !!
We too are momentarily placid as we also chomp our way through the three meals a day signalling a pause in our pursuit to learn what the island has to offer. This insatiable quest to dig and turn over all the rocks in the pool. Are we programmed to stir around to discover, or is it our inability to sit still and muse about what we already know ?

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