Easter Blessings from Irish Blessings Tours
It’s been unseasonably cold in many places. It’s hard to believe that it is Easter! Here is Ireland the meteorologist say it’s the coldest in fifty years, but last Easter was balmy . Yet my sister-in-law can remember with the past fifteen years having a caravan holiday on the Antrim coast and waking up to snow! March can be a bit temperamental weather-wise.
Out in our garden I noticed that the mild winter had seemed to quell our hellebores. My ‘Christmas Rose’ has taken on a more North American identity and become a ‘Easter Rose’. It felt more like Spring in February.
The daffodils bravely shiver and trumpet the coming of spring. It has dawned sunny and cold but without a frost this morning. As I write you this Easter greeting I look out a winter onto our garden and notice that the willow trees have sent forth catkins.
Living in this corner of Northwest Ireland in West Cavan, close to the boundaries of Leitrim and Fermanagh is a great blessing. When Tony and I left England nearly thirteen years ago, leaving behind a business, job security and good friends, many thought we were mad, feckless or both. Yet we have never regretted it. To be able to live out in the country on a little acre of fertile peaty ground is like living on a diamond mine – but you rarely have to dig. The fairies just toss jewels at you left and right.
I am daily mesmerised by the every changing sky both day and night. It is just past the full moon. In the absence of street lighting the soft LED effect of moonlight makes you want to go out and moon bath. We have witnessed magenta sunrises over the Playbank on a winter dawn and equally spectacular sunsets in all seasons. In autumn we wake to see a bank of mist.
Before we moved here I came across a book by an Irishman called “ I Could Read the Sky.” It was about a passing culture or , more accurately, the effect of transplanting a countryman to an urban environment with its light pollution and tall buildings obscuring a good view of the sky. Over our time hear I’ve learned the meaning of interpreting the signs in the sky.
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When one feels blessed there is a deep connection to gratitude. I wake up each morning grateful to have been guided to this very special corner of Northwest Ireland. It doesn’t have a lot of interpretation centres, museums or heritage villages – a few – and many open their doors at Easter.
What Northwest Ireland does have is pristine land that you can walk and if you listen to the land and look up to the sky you will be blessed with the most wonderful insights, inspiration and profound awe for the marvel of this good earth who deserves our respect and devotion.
The Celts, both pagan and Christian, knew that Spirit speaks to us through nature. This is what is so distinctive about the Celtic Spiritual heritage. When I walk the glens and woodlands, the stony Cavan Burren, when I look into the Source at Shannon Pot, I am persuaded that Celtic Spirituality is a great legacy gift to us in our post-modern age of hurry and haste.
This Springtime may you be blessed with the promise of rebirth
where ever you are and whoever you may be.
May the birds carol and rejoice that we are all alive under one sky
May your spirit unfurl like a sunflower following the arc of light
And may we all feel the blessing of this good earth
Irish Blessings Wishes you a Happy Easter and a Joyful Springtime
The Nature Spirits in Northwest Ireland
Over the mountain from me lives a filmmaker, Johnnie Lawson, who loves this landscape in Northwest Ireland – Leitrim, Sligo, North Roscommon, Fermanagh and West Cavan – as much as I do. Part of his mission is to share the relaxation of nature in this special powerful place in Ireland. We have an abundance of woodland, water and rock – all part of Mother Earth’s bloodlines and bones. This wildish natural landscape makes it the perfect habitat for nature spirits – or fairies as they are better known.
Water we have in abundance in Northwest Ireland. And I’m not talking about rain! Yes, we do have rainy weather, as do other parts of Ireland, but what we also have is Atlantic coastline in Sligo and North Leitrim,and hundreds of lakes in Fermanagh, Leitrim and Cavan. The limestone landscape of this region also means that we have many sacred springs and holy wells. Cavan even has the distinction of having turloughs – disappearing and reappearing lakes! Does that sound like magic?
The mountains that range the boundaries of Fermanagh, Cavan and Leitrim provide us with many spectacular waterfalls, many of which have a connection with ancient Irish legends. Fermanagh’s Sillees River flows in two directions. St. Brigit’s Waterfall near Glencar, in Sligo doesn’t fall down. She ‘falls’ up!
If you are in need of some wilderness – or even some wildishness get out in Nature and commune with the spirits. Fairies have this reputation of being ‘fluffy.’ That they are not. They can be mischievous, especially when they want to get your attention or sway you from being what I call a Fairy Agnostic. There are plenty of people who sit on the fence about fairies. They don’t want to say that they disbelieve because they don’t want to risk perhaps offending what they are not completely certain exists!
But fairies do exist – in nature – and they are shapeshifters. Often they appear as moths, butterflies and dragonflies which we have in abundance. They unleash themselves when we delight in wild orchids, cowslips and meadows that have never known a lashing with a herbicide.
But to contact the fairies you need to get close to them and what they certain like is the wildish terrain of Northwest Ireland.
Irish Blessings Tours can guide you to special fairy habitats in many places around Northwest Ireland. If you are visiting Ireland and would like to do some fairy hunting, do contact us. Our guiding rates are 30 euros and hour with special rates for half days and full days itineraries for groups up to eight people.
But if you aren’t able to get over to Northwest Ireland for the The Gathering 2013 then I think you deserve to treat yourself to one of Johnnie Lawson’s wonderfully relaxing videos filmed here in Northwest Ireland. Clear here for a taster Johnnie Lawson Relaxation.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day from Irish Blessings Tours
I’ve been pondering the word blessings lately. While Irish blessings are a form of well wishing and protection what crossed my mind was that phrase “Count your blessings.” If I were to count my Irish blessings this St. Patrick’s Day I can start with the break of day.
My first blessing is that cup of tea brought to me in bed by my partner. Then when we draw the curtains open on this sunny morning I feast my eyes on a panorama that begins in county Cavan. The next hillside is in Leitrim where my friend’s polytunnel is glimmering a reflection. On the far horizon I see the wind turbines on Arigna Mountain in County Roscommon. When I moved into the office to type this blog my eyes are drawn to the birds – finches, blue tits, siskins and robins – who are gathering at the bird feeder outside the office window. Then a red squirrel decides to get into the mix and skittishly scampers and leaps branches to get to the peanut feeder. When the red squirrel eats it looks like it is saying grace.
On Ireland’s national holiday we celebrate with parades full of traditional music and dancing, a bit of political satire and a Lenten let up. Virtually every every little town in Leitrim – from the county seat in Carrick on Shannon to Dromahair, Mohill to Manorhamilton and plenty of places in between- will be having a parade. The border towns of Blacklion in Cavan and Belcoo in Fermanagh will join forces on the bridge that is their boundary to celebrate the day. Enniskillen will have mummers. St. Patrick’s seat will be having a parade and a busking competition as well as the Bard of Armagh challenge.
I wish everyone well on this St. Patrick’s Day. Dance a bit, enjoy music, sing a song, revel is springtime whatever its manifestations wherever you live. Kick up you heels like the Eddie Fitz’s lambs down the road.
But in the midst of all this convivial craic I’m saying my Irish blessings like beads. Yeats call this island the “holy land of Ireland” and blessings recall all that is sacred. I’ll share this poem I wrote which is a way of counting the blessings I see from my own Irish front door. That door is always open and there is a welcome.
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
The heat of the sun warming stone
The milky glare at full moon
The vibrant glints of planet and star
As the plough furrows the night sky
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
One New Year’s morning I looked up
Called by the harsh honking of four
Bewick’s swans in formation
Gliding in to land on Lough Moneen
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
John O’Rourke’s cows now graze in
The flat fold of field Paddy’s sheep
Yielded as they moved from
Winter pasture to lambing barn
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
The willow quenches itself on our acre
Drinking deeply from sodden peat
An oak nurtured from an acorn now leafs tall
While the ash as usual is the last to peek
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
The cats scratch at the dandelions
The dogs doze in a patch of sun
The cuckoo immigrates each April
The bee feasts on the nectar of apple blossom
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
Gaudy gorse blazes on the hillside
Meadowsweet shrouds the acre in bridal lace
Lady’s mantle does her juju in the border
Blood from bramble thorn bears sweet berry
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
They call this ‘the briary place’
The root system curls around my ankles
So that now I enter into the world
Awake to this bounty and beauty
© Bee Smith 2011
An Authentic Slice of Ireland
We roved around the hills of Fermanagh recently to capture some of the the ordinary joys of living in our part of rural Ireland. What we take for granted as ‘just ordinary’ are often extraordinary to our visitors. When I imagine our visitors coming over to Ireland for The Gathering this year I hope that each and everyone will pause and take in some of the quite joys of our extraordinary, ordinary authentic day-to day landscape.
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Seven Things to Do and See in Ireland: Sligo
I’ve veered over towards the Atlantic coastline in Northwest Ireland for the first time in this occasional series of things to do and see in Ireland. Sligo is a smallish county but is big on heritage with plenty to see and do all round the county. It has to also be said that it also has some of the countries most stunning scenery. Between ancient sites, some of the richest archaeology per square inch in Ireland and the bracing peace of Atlantic coastal seascape, Sligo is a great stop on any itinerary of a tour of Ireland.
June Busting out and Biodiverse
With the summer months I am lured away from the computer and desk binding tasks and find myself drawn outdoors. It’s been helped by the fact that we have had two hot and sunny spells. Not hot by North American standards maybe but as a Spanish friend said after returning from a trip back to visit family, “I’m not used to it anymore. My body has gone Irish.” So when the mercury is above 80 degrees Fahrenheit my brain feels fried. And a week of relentless sunshine just feels weird.
But we are back to overcast so my body feels normal in my regular attire of fleeces, socks and jeans. I’ve ditched my Factor 30 for the time being until then next outbreak of sun and hot weather. And I’m back to tell you of how amazing and beautiful is the Irish countryside and scenery in summertime.
May is Merry in Ireland: Things to Do and See in the Month of May
While some people reckon the beginning of summer is marked by the solstice near 21st June, in the old Irish way of seeing the wheel of the year summer begins with May. It still may be chilly, especially at night; we could still be in for a frost and anxiously tuck up tender plants. The days are quite long and the showers are gentle and infrequent. But May, or Bealtaine in the Irish language, is the start of the fast and furious schedule of festivals, fleadhs and feis. I do have to say the Bealtaine is my favourite month of the year in Ireland. To my mind the month of May, or Bealtaine, is the most blissful and best time of year to visit Ireland.
Ireland at Winter Solstice
Midwinter marks the shortest day of the year and in Ireland winter solstice is a welcome signal that the days will lengthen. While we generally have mild winters what some visitors find surprising is just how short are the days. Sunrise at winter solstice this year is 9am. If it is overcast the twilight draws down the curtain by 3:30pm. While we generally have mild, rainy weather at winter solstice and during the twelve days of Christmas there have been exceptions. The period over winter solstice right through the holidays in 2009 and 2010 had record breaking low temperature and wide spread snowfall.
Irish Peat, Pots and folklore embedded in the beautiful Irish scenery
When we purchased our little acre in West Cavan we were novice gardeners but we soon found out that in our townland we were thought to have enviable gardening soil. It was rich in peat and while that is highly acidic it also is very fertile. The blackberries and nettles that flourished confirmed that local opinion. The peat rich bog land hosts a wealth of natural flora. My personal favorite is seeing the appearance each spring of bog cotton, which most certainly does seem like the fiber that fed the engines of the Industrial Revolution. This plant is completely rural though.
There is a sort of saucer shaped dip in the southwestern corner of the field where a previous owner had harvested turf to burn for fuel. We have never done this but there are plenty of locals who have turf rights to cut sods from the bogs on common land on Boleybrack. Handcutting and ‘footing’ of the sods is still done in the early summer and the turf is stacked to air dry before being carted home for a family’s consumption.
Machine harvestings has become outlawed on blanket bog which is now conserved. The blanket bog on Cuilcagh Mountain National Park has been brought back into good heart with the help of the Marble Arch Caves Global Geopark. Harvesting had adversely affected water run off into the lower lying land in counties Cavan and Fermanagh. Flooding became more prevalent in the underground caverns that zigzag beneath the international boundary between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Conservation management measures create a win-win for natural habitat and humans who can be affected by flash flooding. Apart from being used for home heating there is another product from the bogs.
Turf Stacks near Cavan Burren Forrest
When we started to create our garden on this peat rich acre we needed to deal with one problem – drainage. In came the JCB. In the course of creating a series of ditches for rain run off the digger also unearthed some bog oak. Both bog oak and bog fir have macerated and been preserved for thousands of years in peat. One of the first human residents might have used a flint axe to fell that tree. Or perhaps weather or other non-human agents topple the preserved wood that has been buried for thousands of years.
This naturally hard wood is used by Irish sculptors to create many works of art and jewellry. Welsh born artist Idris Bowen is just one artist who uses this material to create unique carvings that are inspired by Irish myth and Celtic legend. http://www.irishtwistedspirit.com/celtic-pate.html
The moorland bogs that surround our part of the Cavan section of the Marble Arch Caves Global Geopark is rich in legend and lore. Coming across the Bellavally Gap one dark night we spotted a will o’the wisp, a spectral light darting across the lonely moor. Now there may be a scientific explanation (escaping methane?) or it might be fairies. Or perhaps it was the ghost of a murdered maid servant whose perfected preserved body was accidentally exhumed by turf cutters fifty years after her disappearance!
The moors high up on Cuilcagh and the other mountains along this border feed those underground caverns that I mentioned criss-cross this international border. The mighty River Shannon has its source in those underground caverns in County Fermanagh before it bubbles up on the Cavan side of the border at Shannon Pot.
This cauldron shaped ‘pot’ is alive with Ireland’s own creation myth where it is Síannan, rather than Eve, who is hungry for knowledge. In this case she seeks the salmon of wisdom, the oldest animal on earth, who is key to knowledge rather than a fruit on tree. There are trees in Ireland’s legend, too, but they are nuts of wisdom from the hazel that fed the salmon.
I’ll close with a poem I wrote after that JCB departed from the acre and I was left to ponder the three bog oak logs that had been unearthed.
Bog Oak
This is what is made by
time, temperature, water,
the patience of insect life
underground
under the cover of peat
its acidity burnishing
earth’s black gold.
When the man with his
mechanical digger exhumed
the three bog oak logs
prehistory
reached out
and shook me
by the shoulders.
Eternity is not hard won
or over in an instant.
What means the millennia
that was in the making?
Now the light and air
gives the appearance
of brittle bark
but let them stand in the rain -
their heart is ancient
and indissoluble as
stone dolmens
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