Burren Country

by Paul Clements

  Seán’s admirers have their own favourite songs. ‘The Coast of Malabar’, which is a waltz, is one of his most requested. ‘That would have been a regular one I heard when I was growing up along with Robert Service’s “The Cremation of Sam McGee” which my uncle Paddy used to recite. Another often requested song is “Sweet Ballyvaughan”, the tune for which was written by a Glasgow woman Judi McKeown who lived here, fell in love and got broken-hearted.’

  One of the biggest projects of Seán’s musical career involved tackling Merriman’s The Midnight Court. He became fascinated with the bawdy epic poem written in 1780 which is regarded as one of the most important and comic contributions to Gaelic literature. ‘I was working in a hostel in Kerry and a hosteller left a copy of David Marcus’ translation of it. I began to read it and was floored with laughter. Other writers had translated it but I thought his version was beautiful and decided to put some of it to music. Then I thought I would do the whole thing and took sections of it and worked on it over a winter. I wrote out the title of the tunes and sang the whole lot into a tape recorder. It had to be ballsy and gutsy and when we performed it in Galway it had a great reaction and was a big hit everywhere we went with it.

  ‘So again I was just the reporter. Merriman wrote the poem, Marcus translated it and he didn’t make an attempt to write a poem in English to equal the original in flowery language. But he got the humour across and doesn’t pull any punches.’

  Through his linking of music and poetry Seán has built up an unrivalled collection of songs but curiously for a professional musician he does not like listening to himself singing. ‘I constantly say “Thanks-be-to-God I don’t like the sound of my own voice.” If someone comes here and wants to hear something on CD I have to leave the room. I do listen to the songs in the car to critique them but that doesn’t happen very often. What I feel I can do best is deliver a great lyric. That’s the first, last and most important thing to me, and to do it clearly. My antenna is always tuned. I’m always looking and searching and I hope it never stops.’

  Apart from the banjo, which is his first love, and tenor guitar, Seán specialises in playing instruments from the same family: the mandolin, the mandolo, the mandocello and the mandobass. ‘For the commercial fellas I’m not commercial enough and for the folk people I’m not folksy enough. Sometimes it works against me but there’s nothing I can do about it and people find it hard to pigeon-hole me. I really don’t care. I often ask people to tell me any one song about emigration that is supposedly within the canon of Irish traditional music that has lines such as “Galway Bay”: ‘For the strangers came and tried to teach us their ways, They scorned us just for bein’ what we are, But they might as well go chasin’ rainbows …’ Just because Bing Crosby sang it does not make it a bad song.’

  Aficionados of the genre reckon Seán Tyrrell is one of the best, and have known this for a long time. In the early 1990s he was described by fellow Clare musician P. J. Curtis as ‘simply the most intensely moving, soulful and talented singer of ballads and traditional songs in Ireland’. In the intervening twenty years he has maintained that position and enhanced his reputation with his recordings and live performances. Curtis writes of ‘a strange current of electricity which passes from his heart and soul directly to his audience’.

  The sleeve notes on Seán’s Belladonna CD with its atmospheric photograph taken inside Ó Loclainn’s bar in Ballyvaughan, comes with a mental health warning: ‘I have been accused of being a Romantic, melancholic and sometime cynic. This CD is liberally laced with the first two and touches of the latter.’ Seán elaborates on this, explaining what gives him most satisfaction in his performances. ‘What I try to do in my singing is not to get people to say that they loved the lyrics. The most important thing for me is that people leave saying what an incredible song that was. If they don’t, then I haven’t done my job properly. If there’s a message in it then I have done my job well. There was a famous session which used to be held on Sunday afternoons in the Róisín Dubh pub in Galway and it was always a packed house. Someone once said to me later that he had been drawn to tears by a song called “The Orchard” and I thought I must be doing something right as I drew emotion.

  ‘I want to leave the audience with something that is worthwhile. I don’t have many accolades but it’s tremendous to think that I might have touched people in some way at the end of the night and that they’ve gone away with food for thought. Now that’s worth something.’

  Musician Seán Tyrrell at his home in Bell Harbour © Trevor Ferris

  16

  The Weavers of Sheshymore

  No ground or floor

  is as kind to the human step

  as the rain-cut flags

  of these white hills.

  Porous as skin,

  limestone resounds sea-deep, time-deep,

  yet, in places, rainwater has worn it thin

  as a fish’s fin.

  Moya Cannon, ‘Thirst in the Burren’

  Few manage to make their way into it, but those who do take the trouble, find themselves in an area with an unbounded sense of freedom, a veritable limestone landscape de luxe, and a place where you could be forgiven for thinking that the earth is cracking open. Sheshymore is hard to locate and does not flaunt itself. It is not visible from the roadside because it is hidden by an impenetrable tangle of tall, thick clumps of hazel trees interwoven with sharp, thorny bushes,brambles, nettles and thistles concealing grykes and forming a barrier to deter all but the most determined.

  Its inaccessibility means that it is a peaceful few acres of limestone. Not many choose to pause here and prise their way through the undergrowth. Even though I have been to it more than a dozen times, I still have trouble gaining an entry and have been frustrated trying to find a way in. On several occasions I have given up since I had not enough time to work out how to access it. On another occasion I plunged my foot and leg into a gryke covered with grassy tussocks, drawing blood and leaving a legacy of an 8cm-long bruise that changed from red to blue and then deep purple. The bruise stayed with me for several weeks reminding me of the suffering that is sometimes made for art, or at least in finding an uncelebrated section of limestone pavement.

  So where exactly is it? If you were to draw two lines forming a large X over a Burren map, Sheshymore would lie some way south of the intersection of those lines tucked away amongst the Burren’s cartographic nooks and crannies although it is not a place to take your grannies. From a topographic point of view it is best located through the better known place names surrounding it: north of Leamaneh, south of Carron church, west of Mullaghmore and east of Ballyganner.

  Peaceably, it lies undisturbed in the south central section of the Burren. It is 24km inland so does not attract the seaside trippers, sightseers or tourists in search of big waves. The mountain avens growing here, sheltered from the sea, wind and rain, look much healthier than those along the coast at Black Head.

  Sheshymore straddles the main Ballyvaughan to Kilnaboy road although most of it is concentrated on the western side of this road. The best way into it is to leave the main road at the T-junction from Carron, clamber through a breach in thewall and search for a way through the thick, mixed woodland. Walking sticks are recommended, not so much for support, but as beaters to help force a way through the tangle of dense vegetation. Masses of silverweed, with its distinctive gleamy silver foliage (which does not seem to mind being trampled) along with meadowsweet, cuckoo-spit and willowherb, grows comfortably alongside circular cow pats.

  I had read in Westropp’s Archaeology of the Burren a reference to the Sheshy forts, Cahermore and Caheraclarig. I liked their euphony and one day in need of an excuse to cross Sheshymore, I thought I would try to locate them. On the Folding Landscapes map they are shown close together and are the two forts nearest the road. In Irish they appear as Cathair Mhor and Cathair an Chiáraigh. Megalithic tombs, cists, souterrains and cairns lie all around on the edge of the townland. Within a 5km radius, I
count no fewer than twenty-seven archaeological monuments dotted across the map. After clambering up a small grass and stony bank I reach the limestone within a few minutes. Once found Sheshymore is worth taking time to explore. At first glance there is not much to see but it is a microcosm of the wider Burren. An extensive open expanse of limestone, it contains one of the longest and most complete sections to be found anywhere.

  This vast but little-known oasis is characterised by long slabs of continuous and unbroken crisscrossed pavement, undamaged and with a clean metallic sheen. So far inland, the sea has not washed it and few if any tourists tramp its huge, rectangular, table-like clints that look so flat they might have been ironed to a pristine smoothness. Wide grykes stretch north–south in straight deep cuts for hundreds of metres or as far as the eye can see.

  On the colourful geological map of the Burren, Sheshymore is given the classification ‘be’ standing for Ballyelly Member and is shaded light grey similar to the colour of the pavement. Thespecific brand of bedrock found here is described as ‘nodular and with chert’. Chert is a flint-like form of quartz composed of chalcedony. There are aspects of the outdoor appearance of the place that make it stand out as being different from other areas. The most obvious signs are the absence of stone walls and the lack of grassland in its central core. Although trees surround the area, they are not found in large numbers on the limestone and apart from the occasional erratic, nothing interrupts the long horizon.

  Wordsworth would have loved it. He always wrote walking up and down or in a spot where the continuity of his verse would not be interrupted although he would have had to have been careful of the grykes and may not have approved of the lack of daffodils. The views stretch several kilometres to all points of the compass. To the east the ground rises slightly, but mostly it is a flat, plateau-like landscape. I try to work out the best route to explore it to find Westropp’s forts. Although I am on a quest, the idea of a wander at will appeals to me. A plane streaks overhead and I glance up. The clouds sit low here but the sky is vast, a mirror of this wide open area. Put someone in the picture and they are insignificant in this place. Two photographers who have accompanied me on visits have both stared open-mouthed across the landscape before spreadeagling themselves on the limestone. On all my visits I have never come across anyone else. The creatures of the natural world know about it and are well represented. Butterflies, bumblebees and hares are found trafficking here. They do not appear to have any difficulty locating its natural riches. At first sight there does not seem much to photograph with little evidence of the imprint of human activity yet photographers who have discovered the place have produced extraordinary images.

  If you were to look down on this stretch of pavement with a robin’s eye view, it is a complex mosaic of limestone reminiscentof the patterns on an Aran jumper – a spaghetti junction with a confluence of grykes and somewhere that at first glance could be mistaken for having experienced an earthquake. After brushing off bits of twigs and branches stuck to my T-shirt, trousers, socks and trainers, I set off from my entry point with birdsong my only company. Nonchalantly, a skylark advertises itself high up perhaps to attract a mate or to warn off intruders entering its territory. Coming from the surrounding trees and hedgetops, meadow pipits, wrens, and a yellowhammer – still looking for its little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese – all throw out their calls into the bright spring air.

  The clints are firmly embedded without any of the usual wobbling associated with other areas. Bird’s-foot trefoil and early purple orchids have a firm foothold. It is a warm May evening but the grykes with their miniature woodland habitat are damp and shady places. They are amongst the deepest I have come across. One stretches down for at least two metres. I plunge my metre-long blackthorn walking stick into its semi-darkness and discover that it does not even reach halfway to the bottom.

  Honeysuckle, hart’s-tongue fern and the pale greenish yellow flowers of wood sage flourish in the yawningly wide grykes. I also identify woodbine, plantain, the delicate wall lettuce with its small flowerheads and maroon stem, and the tiny green feathery spikes of lady’s mantle. The crevices contain small patches of wall rue as well as holly and ivy, all typical woodland plants.

  I stare at insignificant things that I find on the ground alongside the flowers: a solitary beehive with a delicate honeycomb; the fossil debris of crinoids and beside them hazel shells most likely opened by a wood mouse and with a remarkably clean incision. Strange are the things – Jim Perrin refers to ‘the bright particularity of things’ – that sidetrack you on a ramble.

  Half-a-dozen tall clumps of hairy rock-cress with its white flowers spring erectly from a gryke. Its name does not immediately conjure up a flower of singular beauty and as a member of the cabbage family, it is hardly one of the Burren’s ‘A’ list of spectaculars, but I have always had a sneaking admiration for it and its exotic botanical name Arabis hirsuta. Searching around I come across more clumps of it – for me it is an exciting find and a previously undiscovered flower to tick off my list.

  My dilly-dallying leads to an even more remarkable sight – spiders working busily in numerous grykes creating delicately woven orb webs. I peer into one and notice a large spider on overdrive. It is 7.00 p.m. and an early evening maintenance session is taking place. Kneeling on the ground for a micro look I consider how an eight-legged arachnid repairs the silk web of fibres strung across one of the grykes like a washing line. The gap measures about 4cm and the web is connected firmly to each side with long tightly woven straight diagonal web-lines. In the gryke it is well protected from the full force of buffeting wind. I flick my finger and feel the strength and elasticity – experts say they are many times stronger than steel and contain remarkable properties. In fact they are said to be the strongest natural fibre on earth.

  For more than thirty minutes, under the shade of a small elderberry tree, I watch the spider at work. Painstakingly threading, nimbly running up and down, thrashing around industriously repairing the silk, it crisscrosses the concentric web with an all-consuming zeal. The intricate pattern of circles containing tiny rectangular box-like shapes of many different sizes (reminiscent of a map of America showing the individual states) is a remarkable feat of creative design. Sometimes the spider pauses, dangles for a short while, puzzling its next move, then turns around in circles again scurrying hither and thither, unconcerned at an intrusive spectator encroaching on its world. The spiders’ webs here are similar to thousands found elsewherebut a scrutiny of a small weaver quietly going about its business in this special place is a memorable sight. Waylaid by Sheshymore’s spiders and with darkness descending, I abandon my search for Westropp’s forts and decide to leave them for another day – a perfect reason to return.

  The Burren offers many dreamy places in which to linger and return to. But if you seek your own few private compressed hectares of limestone and somewhere with a profound sense of solitude, Sheshymore is the place to visit. A delectably secretive location, it retains a distinctive and largely unvisited character conferring a sense of ownership. Being here can feel like an intense trespass but it seems selfish not to share its lonely and elemental beauty with discerning readers and those who appreciate havens of ancient peace.

  The Geological Society of Ireland has, without much fuss, designated Sheshymore as one of five sites in the Burren of international importance. Another seven are regarded by the geological community as being of national significance. If international awards were made for quiet, untrodden, epiphanic places then Sheshymore, laden with magic, and a sanctuary in which to escape from the madness of the world, would win the Nobel Peace Prize.

  Uplifted after each visit and always with regret, I take my leave, buzzing with adrenaline and wishing I could remain for longer in this enclosed and exhilarating fold of the earth that soothes the troubled spirit. Being here induces a sense of inner peace. The top of Mullaghmore may be the place from which to shout your barbaric yawp but Sheshymore invokes the urge to cry
out in ecstasy … especially after an hour considering the silky skills of a fine-spun web or even in pursuit of the hirsute.

  Sheshymore pavement © Marty Johnston

  Epilogue

  Flirting with the Spirit of the Burren

  It does not matter where his body lies for it is grass; but where his spirit is, it will be good to be.

  Nicholas Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks

  As I drove into Ballyvaughan one night as dusk was falling, a pine marten trotted swiftly across my path on the road at Ballyallaban before scampering over a stone wall. I caught my breath. It was an arresting moment and a defining experience, but within a few seconds our brief encounter was over. At first appearance I thought it was a cat. I had noted its luxuriant, thick, chocolate brown hair and creamy-yellow throat patch. Its local name is ‘marten cat’. There was not time to swap glances but luckily I had a long enough glimpse of it, and its furry tail, to know that this was the seldom seen Martes martes. In factI have seen it only three times during my visits and in every case it was not a face-to-face encounter – more face-to-rapidly-disappearing tail, and mostly for a maximum of ten seconds. As one of Ireland’s rarest native animals, it hides its light, mostly under bushes rather than bushels, partly owing to the fact that it is a nocturnal prowler with few daytime outings.

  The pine marten likes well-developed ground vegetation. One of its favourite habitats is hazel scrub, and the Burren has an abundant supply of hazel trees for this agile climber. It thrives on the limestone and has adapted to spending time foraging on the open pavement. Pine marten love deserted cottages and derelict stone buildings where they can set up house in an undisturbed way; again the Burren has a plentiful offering of scattered, dilapidated buildings left by people who gave up trying to wring a living from this tough land. Their nests include hollow trees or holes in dry, rocky places – once more the Burren offers ideal territory. Their menu includes berries, fruits, and birds’ eggs. They eat small insects, rabbits and birds and have been known to attack poultry. According to the naturalist James Fairley, they have ‘extraordinary catholic tastes and a menu of greater diversity than any other Irish mammal’.