We both need a good long holiday. We haven’t really taken the time for one this year and one of the consequences is that we are getting a bit tired a lot of the time. So my bright idea last week was to get away for the long weekend to Connemara.
We have been to Connemara before and there is something about us and that side of the country – it rains – it rains a good deal. The last time we went we rented a cottage for the weekend and spent most of the weekend reading as the rain didn’t stop at all.
The time before was nowhere as bad – but we still had more than our fair share.
So going on previous experiences you think I would be expecting rain and be prepared for it. Well prepared for it I am, as I walk in Ireland quite a bit and the raingear is always with me – but I had it in my head that I would be out walking for two of the three days. It didn’t happen.
One day of a bit of walking and another touring round the area where they only speak Irish and only have the road sings in Irish – it is one very depressing place. Firstly I though it a bit rude not having the road signs in English – you can travel all round this country and the road signs are in Irish and English – but this one little bit takes away the language that most of the country speaks and almost 100% of the tourists.
It is a barren desolate place, the area stretches from near Westport to just about Galway and it is just a ribbon of land between the mountains and the sea, the kind of place that God forgot to make fertile. The only thing that can survive is sheep and a few cows, and this is where the middle classes send their kids to brush up on their Irish and be bored to tears.
It was good to get back to Dublin.
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The Land that God Forgot to make Fertile
Sun, salmon pink, roars in brilliant silence
striving out of the mouth
of the bay;
it flays the distant limestone rock
with purple sheen of heather bloom,
And the land sings joy! Screams
into breeze that
God forgot to make it fertile.
This is the sea of Niamh’s white horse,
the thundering galloping Atlantic wave,
the simpering soft of hollow cave -
It sings in praise and dances brave
that God forgot to make it fertile.
These are the lakes of the falling girl,
the princess dead of river’s name,
and as she drowns she smiles to think
that God forgot to make her Fertile.
This is the shore of coral beach,
where seals do nightly humans wed,
and walk amongst the seaweed rocks
in the land that God forgot to make fertile.
This is the acid, barren soil,
that holds the remains of a million years,
that saw the mighty elk there roam,
and nurtures wise man’s sacred oak.
This is the earth that burns in fires,
and claims your life with ankle grip,
that laughed to be declared Empire,
when God forgot to make it fertile.
This is the land of the Pirate Queen,
Who sailed the Thames to keep her own,
the island lakes and fathomless fjord,
That God forgot to make fertile.
This is the tongue of the time-worn Gael,
who blessed the rock and sea and sand,
with titles that proclaimed them proud,
Made meaningless for foreign ears.
This is where the lark will cry
when men like you are dead and gone,
when Dublin rots into the ground
and bogland swallows up its bones,
Atlantic wind looks sad at streets,
whose desolation runs as deep,
as any acid boghole pit,
In depth of Connamara’s womb.
And sickly pallor turns our heads
From dying rotting Dublin town,
A fertile place if ever there was,
and softening now like fruit too ripe,
The barren west keeps lips tight shut,
and gently turns its face away,
From sickly Northside Soutside spikes
from streets unblessed with names like ‘Chatham.’
Silently we’ll sing the praise
that no one built their outpost here,
and cradle barren lifeless days,
with joy, and thanks, and sweet revery,
That forever on the days will reel
in the land God forgot to make fertile.
by Tim Mac an Airchinnigh, 25 August, 2009
The change of language in the roadsigns displays some of the diversity to be found in the country. I’d look upon it as an attraction to tourists rather than a hindrance. It might actually get people talking to the locals if in doubt. No tourist buses have got lost on their way to An Daingean or An Spidéal yet.