Last October we visited a few of Ireland's famine graveyards. The first wasin the town of Dingle. Our host encouraged us to visit the town's famine graveyard, Cnoc a' Cairn (Carin Hill). It's one of several such cemeteries in the country. A million to a million and a half people died in Ireland between 1845 and 1852 during what I grew up hearing was the Great Potato Famine. I have since learned it wasn't the loss of the potato crops that killed them. It was England's colonial indifference and greed.
Even in a small town like Dingle, so many people died in a day that there was no time or room to make coffins or dig individual graves. Over 3,000 men, women, and children are buried on Cnoc a' Cairn. There are no tombstones, no names—bodies were laid one on top of another in long trenches and covered with dirt. Only an occasional unmarked stone stands watch along the way. It is an incredibly lonely place.
That evening I wrote a poem about the place. It was published, with little editing, in Dingle's hometown magazine, the West & Mid Kerry Live(pg. 24).
For years I stuck to a timeline, ever running to keep up with the present but that is changing. Perhaps traveling has helped move me off the stuck point. The past is ever with us, not only in memory and dream but effect and also quite physically. But enough rhapsodizing.
Me, Swami, and Juan Carlos
Staigue, Kerry, Ireland
Straigue stone fort in Co. Kerry Ireland was built during the late Iron Age making it about 1,700 years old. No adhesive of any kind has held it together for the last almost 2000 years. It still stands because it was built right and no hotshot developer has come in with a bulldozer to clear the land for yet another soulless shopping center, condo project, freeway etc.
We came upon this spectacular work by Caravaggio in Dublin. Of course my photo in no way conveys its perfection. I leave this here as a note in the sand. Should you find yourself in Dublin, see it.
The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio
National Gallery of Ireland
After five days in Dublin, known in medieval times as The Pale, we rented a car and began this crazy, month long drive beyond The Pale.
Tiny Ireland is barely the size of the US state of Indiana
photo source: bleemo.com
I fell immediately under the spell of the emerald isle.
One of Ireland's 10 gazillion
such enchanted passageways
Our first base was south, in Kilkenny. It's about an hour and a half from Dublin on the main road but it took us all day . . .
because we drove the single lane back roads . . .
and stopped a lot along the way.
Centre for Peace and Reconciliation,
Glencree, Co. Wicklow, Ireland
Swami & Juan Carlos
loved the dark wood.
Graveyard in Glendalough
dating back to the 10th century
Grove in Glendalough
Medieval chapel in Glendalough
We also listened to a lot of music along the way including "I Dream a Highway" by Gillian Welch which proved to be almost too much.
Later M. Lee mentioned that during the drive he'd never felt so depressed in his entire life.
