Letter From Ireland (circa 1979)

December 29
Dear Carol, Matt and Erin,

Greetings from Ireland. We write from the id, the dance of primitive love. Bird music in early morning reinforces the magical, idealistic quality of the island. The images are real enough, it’s just how we choose to let them influence and persuade us in living out one existence. Do we shatter our mirrors?

Do I ever think of coming back to the states? Yes and no ambiguous answer but the die seems to have been cast here, emotionally I can’t see it other than to see friends and renew relationships, talk about experiences, but I am resigned to knowing my life has evolved into the reality being ‘on the road’ and I am content although I also realize the responsibility and sacrifice with this decision.

On your Irish map you will find a town called Donegal, and west another place called Killybegs and then another miniscule location called Carrick, population 200.

The Glen River winds past the deserted youth hostel, through a valley in Slieve League shadow, the tallest sheer cliff in Europe at 1972 feet.

I hitched there last week, arrived in a snowstorm and enjoyed a marvelous Christmas week tramping through fields, rivers, highlands, along sea, miles of green moss covered sloping seas in hard and beautiful wild desolate country.

The first morning I met a young boy near the cemetery who told me how to make money. He is a mummer, dresses up in a cloak and hat, visiting people’s homes at night where he recites a song-riddle. When finished, he says the person must sing a song or give him money. He sings his game to me, I sing him a Christmas song and we part company.

A small store provides provisions for the week; a dozen eggs, four onions, 1/2 pound of butter, matches, tea, fruit, Whiz fire lighter sticks, Dubbin waterproofing wax and a pair of Wellington rubber boots, a Christmas present to myself for tramping fields and glen meadows. All for £11.

Dropped food off at hostel, helped Frank replace gas canisters and visited Slieve League, the oldest pub in Carrick for a drink. Met Eddie from Killybegs, his mother, Marian her daughter and brother, a missionary in the Philippines. I asked them about the abandoned hotel near the church up the street. They said it was owned by landed English gentry and destroyed by rebels in 1916. One can see the countryside through it’s empty windows.

In the afternoon I put on new boots and walked three miles toward the Tillin pier near the sea under clear sky along the Glen River which crashes, falls over boulders and meets the Owenee River near a stone bridge. Down the road keeping pace with the Rustkin inlet. Sheep in fields, brown and white snow patches, thatched cottages, Slieve League snow mountain, sky, rivers, remnants of stone homes, gurgling streams in ditches, opening river wide mud flats the home of seagulls; those on land, others practicing aerial dynamics in wind. Fishing boats drawn up to dock, resting above mud flats, the sweep and curve of foothills leading back to Carrick.

A climb through muddy fields approaching sunset, past abandoned buildings then a final assault through brown hills. The top offered a fantastic view as the ocean opens up along sheer slate cliffs. The sun pours into horizon’s gray clouds, distant island covered in gray mist with a crescent moon in blue sky as birds arch and a wing above waves.

Drinking, singing, dancing in one of six small home style pubs tucked along deserted streets during a cold season devoid of summer’s warmth and swarms of insect tourists, those strange creatures that come out of the woodwork haunting local populations with vengeance and propensity for laying waste to the land masses which already suffer from erosion.

Writing in the hostel with a coal fire burning bright on cold nights while desperate rain and wind slash openings in the mind.

Next day I walked to Malin Moor. Rivers rocketed down from higher ground, bleak peat bogs earth factories, sunlight skies, quick rising rain storms, endless vista horizons, twisted glens of lush green streams bounding through hills alive with a magical sense of history’s rampant birth.

Sheep by the hundreds wild and roaming white wool warmth waiting for summer’s looming sheering, horns curling back and forth, then to take a turn and wander down into lush glens and the sprawling sea smashing cliffs high and dramatic below green soft turf and endless country leading along cliffs extending for miles with sunlight burning through clouds seeing miles out to sea along cliffs etched in nature’s artistic pattern.

Old slate gray green stone houses, made from field rocks long ago, thatched reed roofs held by ropes tied together, others falling into past tense lying fallow next to newer homes with slate roofs, smoke curling from chimneys.

Men with tractors out in fields collecting peat. Long gashed ditches excavated for turning. Piles of drying brown peat bricks dot the land. I drink cold delicious water from a stream and move toward the sea passing marshes, glens and small groups of homes facing the sun. A lone man comes over a hill carrying a wicker basket full of peat trailing his dog. We wave and move on.

A woman pointed out Mollin Beg two miles away but I take a high path to have a higher perspective, reach the top and rest.

Two men below me drive a flock of sheep up an incline and across light green turf as blue waves sparkle. I walk down and meet them. The first sensation is the soft comfortable footing, soft and spongy across an immense area leading to cliffs.

With the men and young sheepdog we herd them across small ravines into a concrete pen. They receive a solution to prevent vermin and itches, a measure done twice a year. Shearing happens in June. I head toward cliffs on quiet green turf contrasting with the wild violent and naturally destructive force of water smashing land.

Slate cliffs, jumbled boulders, slices of land, crashing waves, deep gorges and open sea. I ford streams splashing about, peering into crevices along the cliff as the sun sinks orange.

Collected a sheep’s head, black feather and shells. One day and 10 miles.

On Christmas Eve in the pub I met Ray, his girlfriend Cindy and his daughter Moira. They invited me to join them at friends on St. Steven’s day after Christmas. Ray, 46, and Cindy, 32, originally met in Mendocino, California and he works in Carrick as a bartender. He has white hair and beard, friendly and apparently is known in the states or his parents came from around here. He’s been a year living in a caravan on 1/2 acre of land purchased for £2500.

His daughter, Moira, 13, recently joined them, said she likes the national school system and plans to stay. On Christmas Eve we attended the crowded midnight mass full of choirs, singing under the direction of Father O’Dyer who is well know throughout the country. Cindy invited me over the next day for a meal and Moira made me a map.

In the morning I walked through Carrick in the direction of Killybegs turned near a garage up a long black road past a technical school and open fields. Passed a family run Donegal weaver shop further down the hill - large loom, tweeds, sweaters £24.50, scarfs £4.50, hats, and socks £2.50; they only ship directly to states - along rutted dirt road winding through brush and trees. Downhill to a bluff overlooking the inlet, river flanked by brown hills facing Slieve League.

Passed two cottages, a crumbling thatched one full of hay. The other was long and low set into the hill above the valley. I went around the side, greeted hunting dogs, knocked and entered a small room. Ray and Moira were there. Cindy introduced me to Adrian, the man of the house, his common law wife Francis and two year old son, Paddy. The small room had a staircase leading to an attic on the right, music player on a shelf, another door leading to a room, windows, decorated tree in the corner, bookshelves, sofa.

The decorated table in the middle of the room held candles, plates, glasses, party favors and silverware on a blue table cloth. The large fireplace under a mantle had an iron crook beam with sliding pieces so the kettle and pots could hang over the fire.

I felt awkward at first, being a stranger in the house, but Cindy explained how we’d met and she considered me in a destitute condition so she’d invited me. Adrian, 31, tall, slender, gray black beard, glasses, short hair, melancholy spirit. Drinks a lot, inclined to sit by fire, writing. Francis, real delight and funny, mid-30’s, 5’6” kept her childhood dreams of being an acrobat and still practices outside in good weather.

Francis was busy preparing food, Adrian pulled stout out and we settled into talk.

Such a meal; turkey, peas, sprouts, three dressings, bread, gravy, wine and conversation. We cleaned up and settled back talking about movies, books, poetry, enjoying sweet pies, cakes, minced delights.

I asked about the cottage.

“There was a man named Kit Marshall, this was some years back,” Adrian said, “and he got tired of modern civilization and bought a one way ticket to Killybegs. He hiked into the area and bought 14 acres and the cottage from a boot maker for £170. He lived on making, actually inventing a peat sculpture and existed on bread and jam living out his life here.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, he passed the place to my mother and she gave it to me. Francis and I lived in London for ten years and moved here three years ago. I used to hunt some and still fish the Glen for trout and salmon. I write poems and stories, raise Paddy and live off the dole.”

Afternoon slipped into night. Blackness surrounded the warm peaceful cottage made for solitude, a creative muse’s habitat. I stepped out and climbed a small bluff to receive cold winds from the sea-mountain. A silver river of moon in low tide along brown flats with dark hill shapes past earth peat boundaries.

Stayed on for awhile playing with Paddy “the accident” Francis said in jest, as Adrian ignored the child. Paddy, beautiful, with short brown angelic like hair, twirling, picking him up tickling, loving the child. Paid my respects and took our leave.

The next day while walking along the road Cindy and Ray drove by, I jumped in and we drove toward Malin Beg. Ray pointed out dolmens in the fields and we reached a silver strand of beach where we could see a series of deserted English rock towers built to warn of French invaders by lighting bonfires on top. During W.W.II German U-boats used Malin Beg for shelter before moving into sea lanes for strikes.

We passed old empty school houses up for sale.
“I know jewelers and potters who would love to set up shop here,” Ray said. “But the area is economically depressed so there’s not much chance.”

We took the road to Glencomkille around Rossen Point where the land rose 1000 feet from the sea. Father O’Dyer’s effort to bring people back to Ireland created the village with a hotel, tourist cottages renting out for £80 a week, 5-6 craft buildings, an athletic sportswear manufacturing plant, two pubs and archaeological sites.

A young donkey on the road was sad because their owner doesn't’t thin their hooves and, as they grow longer, resemble grotesque turned-up tubes which eventually become infected, a disease called thrush rots the hoofs away and the donkey will die.

On the last day in Carrick I climbed to Bunglass, a high ocean perch near the Eagle’s Nest where the world opened like love.

Distant Sligo land, Tawney Bay, miles of water, sunlight through clouds, clamoring over granite cliffs watching rain clouds skim ocean’s surface as heavy gray mass with white tops in blue moved in wind.

Watched a storm bear down along the cliffs building up force, pelting me with wind, rain and white hail.

It passed, sunshine danced from open sea, a rainbow appeared at the base of the cliffs meeting water, extended up the sheer face, arching over the top into sky. Sunlight filtering through moisture then disappeared as fast as it materialized. Pure magic, symbolizing divine promise, peace between heaven and earth.

Coming down I saw a heron - a symbol of the morning, generation of life and favorable significance - land near low tide mud flats keeping it’s distance from seagulls. It rose near the gulls and they took flight. The heron’s wide brown wings propelled it above the world’s surface out toward the mouth of the river where spilling mountains rushed into turning sea, then it banked returning to land on a rock.

I saw a relationship between the heron and myself - a solitary seer being which mystifies, disturbs yet teaches other creatures of the same species. Avoiding the garbage of others, the heron moves their young to a new habitat.

Chewing a piece of weed, I walked on playing with a broken stick watching pink clouds on a blue background chase white ones under a half moon.