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11 July 2016

It was another wet morning, so we waited until the children’s programs were over on TG4 before we got moving.  We had a friend coming into the village on the bus, so we took the children to Ghleann Cholm Cille’s great playground (which happens to be across the street from the bus stop).  They had a great time playing while we waited for our friend Éamonn (who is a native Irish speaker) to arrive on the bus.  He arrived soon and we went to meet him ran to meet meet him and Fionnuala (4), without being prompted, ran up to him and greeted him with a cheery “Dia duit!”.  We spent a few more minutes on the playground before the rain returned and then we went back up to the house.

We had a cup of tea and by the time we had finished our tea the sky began to clear a bit.  Soon, we were all packed into the car and ready to leave.  We decided we would begin the day at Tobar Ciarán and the Shalwy and Croagbeg Court Tombs outside of Cill Charthaigh.  We made a brief stop at Tobar Ciarán (St. Ciarán’s  well) which is just next to the road (R263) and then began to formulate our plan for reaching the tombs.  On our last visit here, we could not for the life of us figure out how to get down to the tombs.

After a few minutes we set off into the wet, soggy ground.  Éamonn and I were the vanguard and Sarah had the children.  We started to make some progress and all of a sudden the old church (St. Ciarán’s) that is part of the Turas was in front of us  (Sarah and the children had decided to stay behind before this point).  Local tradition says that this area was called Kilkieran before it was known as Kilcar (Cill Charthaigh), but since St. Carthach was a disciple of Ciarán it seems more likely that this well and church were dedicated in his honor by someone else (perhaps even Carthach himself).  It was nice to finally see this church building as it is part of the turas that is held at the well in honor of St. Ciarán every March 5 (his feast day).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We investigated the church for a few minutes and then continued down the valley with our target in sight.  We were moving really well when I realized that the fence ahead looked new.  We decided to proceed anyway and see if it was possible to pass through it.  Once we reached the fence it was clear that it is was very, very new (it had to have been put up this summer/spring) and it was intended to prevent access to the tomb.  It’s really a shame that there is no access to such a site!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disappointed, we turned around and returned to the car.  Not to be defeated, Sarah suggested that we head to the beach at Narin as the sky was now sunny and off we went to the Kilclooney Dolmen Centre.  We ate our lunch on the picnic tables while the children played at the amazing playground and then we headed up to the Dolmen.

Once we crossed the road and began heading up the path next to the church that leads to the Dolmen I realized that this place has changed a lot in the last two years.  The fences in the fields were mostly gone (as well as most of the livestock) and there are now steps to pass through the gates (instead of opening and closing each one).   It was nice to see that these changes were made in order to increase access to these fine portal tombs (dolmens).  The biggest change however is the horizon.  Last visit I saw that the dolmens were clearly aligned with one of the mountains on the horizon.  Now the view of that chain of mountains is interrupted by wind turbines.  It really does ruin the view.  The tombs however were as magnificent as ever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a great time there (once again) and Liam especially enjoyed playing with a family of children that arrived while we were there.  On our way back to the car we met Sarah and Fionnuala looking at the donkeys that were on the side of the path.  Fionnuala had not wanted to leave the playground, so they had gotten a late start up to the dolmen.  Now we changed our focus to the beach.

I have always wanted to go to Inishkeel island and was hoping that when we got to the beautiful blue flag beach at Portnoo/Narin it might be low tide and we could sneak in a visit.  The kids played away on the beach and Sarah got the chance to walk out and see how close she could get to the island.  She got pretty close, but the children needed to leave and we hadn’t checked the tidal charts so we didn’t get to the island today.  We loaded back into the car (starving) and returned to the house for a meal and settled in for a evening of catching up with our friend.

Gaeilge Experience:  TV, Radio, Liam was speaking Irish with me at Kilclooney Dolmen and another visitor responded to him with, “Maith thú!”.  We also had the opportunity to interact with our native speaker house guest.

 

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