County Clare, Wednesday, 27th July 2022…
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While the ideal spreads harmony from
a central sun, or moon, or star.
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Cahermore
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The dystopia sucks everything
into the black, black hole of an abyss.
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Centripetal
and
Centrifugal…
Continue reading at France&Vincent
County Clare, Wednesday, 27th July 2022…
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By the time we came across this fellow
it had started raining in good earnest.
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‘A dark sorrowful place’
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Perhaps the well hag
had taken against our pound coin?
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Which reminds me,
before the two bulls were bulls
they were maggots…
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County Clare, Wednesday, 27th July 2022…
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The presence of Skull Rock
is probably responsible for the number
of ‘tombs’ in the field across the track, which is now a road,
of which there are, reputedly, a goodly number.
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It is a little vaunted fact that many of the human remains
discovered at ancient monuments were deposited
long after the sites were constructed?
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And that is a question well worth pondering…
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The bones of an adult and child were recovered from this one,
yet it is still difficult not to wonder what type of adult and child
and if they met their end together, and if so, then just how?
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The debri that now litters
the interior and the exterior
of the site is the remains of the cairn
which once covered the ‘tomb’.
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The tuft of grass on top
suggests that even here the cairn
might have eventually become a mound.
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Is it a train or a wake?…
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County Clare, Wednesday, 27th July 2022…
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A glacial erratic deposited
in a ‘stony place’.
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The ancients would have
venerated such a stone and may
well have adapted it for symbolic purposes.
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The limestone ‘shelving’
of the Burren stretches
for mile upon mile.
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And provides a perfect platform
for ancient boulder art.
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Against an inspiring backdrop…
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County Clare, Wednesday, 27th July 2022…
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The ruined church at Killinaboy
had a number of surprises in store for us.
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The stump of a round tower, above, showed
only a few signs of polygonal walling
which is maybe one of the reasons
why it is no longer standing?
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By far the most pleasant surprise,
though, was the Sheela-na-Gig
over the now door-less doorway to the church.
*
It is badly eroded, and in need of protection
from further weathering, but still very much a Sheela…
*
These figures appear predominantly
in Ireland on church and castle exteriors
although there are a few in England and Scotland,
and, indeed, elsewhere…
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County Galway, Wednesday, 27th July 2022…
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‘Church of the son of the black man’
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Standing at one hundred and twelve feet high
the round tower here is the tallest in Ireland.
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It also leans alarmingly,
as can be clearly seen
from the photograph above.
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The ‘miracle’ of its still standing
when all about it has fallen prey to the ravages
of time, or politics, has been attributed to its construction
by the Goban Saor, legendary wonder-smith of the Crafty Folk!
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County Roscommon, Tuesday 26th July 2022…
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The ‘oldest’ tomb at Carrowmore has recently been
controversially dated to the Late Mesolithic,
using the latest new-fangled dating method,
but the folk of that time are not supposed to have been
building tombs and burying the remains of their kinsfolk.
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That privilege is reserved for the ‘agriculturalists’!
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Modern agriculturalists show little respect
for any of the monuments, be they Mesolithic, Neolithic
or indeed Bronze or Iron age…
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County Roscommon, Tuesday 26th July 2022…
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Weirdly, our next site came
with a, ‘beware of the bull’ sign!
*
And while there was no animal visible,
there were signs of its presence
liberally spread about the field.
*
As well as, more reassuringly,
a Fairy Tree!
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‘The monument consists of a quadri-vallate earthwork,
meaning it has a series of three ditches
and four earthen banks surrounding a central area.
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It is one of a very few such enclosures in Ireland,
along with The Rath of the Synods on the Hill of Tara
and Tlachtga on the Hill of Ward in Co Meath.
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These sites are thought to have been the burial places
of high status individuals and/or important ritual centres.’
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Which does not actually tell us a great deal, really…
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County Sligo, Carrowmore, Tuesday 26th July 2022…
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Dark and dire,
mighty in muzzle,
long in horn;
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narrow flanked,
beefy breasted;
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his thick-maned neck
tough and strong;
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his haughty,
curl-browed-head
cocked high;
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ferocious his eye,
furiously glaring;
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brutal and brave,
growling and snorting
big as a hill,
the bull of the earth…
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County Sligo, Carrowmore, Tuesday 26th July 2022…
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White his heavy mane
and his massive hoofs
pounded in purple;
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his body dyed, blood
red, from the clay bog
with a blank pap
under breast and back;
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and from nape to rump
a thirty-boy gap
his ponderous tail
hanging hinder haunch;
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to his cows the
beloved idol of herds;
father of big beasts,
born to bear victory:
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bellowing in greatness…
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Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 