Hello, all,

It’s nearly the shortest day of the year now, and even on a clear day there isn’t much light. From the sitting room window you’re looking to the southeast, to the ridge line that runs above the river from Dooneen to the bay, and the sun now rises at Dooneen and barely stays clear of the ridge line before it sinks again just behind the bit of hill above the O’Halloran’s house. I think we’ll have snow today, and not just because the Met Service predicted it -- my barometer, which is more dependable than the Met Service, fell below 30 inches yesterday and is falling still, and with the gale blowing now from the east, that a sure sign that we’ll have a wet day, though it’s bright at the moment.

The town has the look of Christmas, and it started a few weeks ago when President Mary McAleese paid us a visit and lit the tree in the square. There’s a bookstore now on Main Street, opened just in time for the season; it’s been a number of years since Clifden had a bookstore. The Boy Scouts went out to the forestry at Ballynahinch and cut trees, which were all sold in a matter of days. A few days ago I was in to Mary Joyce’s shop and saw Barbara Mannion, and to her embarrassment and everyone else’s amusement I reminded her of how we’d been out drinking a few weeks before. Now, before this story reaches you, I’d better explain it.

I’m in a parish Renew group that’s been meeting on Wednesday nights. We decided that after our last meeting for the year, on November 12th, we’d do the stations at St. Caillin’s well. I remember telling you about going there last year at Easter, but the feast of St. Caillin is on November 13th, and the custom is to begin the stations late on the eve, so as to finish after midnight and the beginning of the feast day itself. On the feast day there’s a mass, and people come from Carna and Cashel and all over Connemara throughout the day. There were already people there when we arrived, and more came later. Everyone was recalling that it’s always wet for St. Caillin’s Day, no one could remember a night such as this.

The moon had just come full that night, and was well up over the sea and clear of the clouds - there was a loom of their bulk over the sea, a squadron lying to in the still air of the night, bound for some other shore. You could see the flash of the light at Slyne Head a few miles west coming over the track to the well, but you didn’t need any light to find your way - there was a silvery grey glow all around you, the moon, and its light reflected from the grey cloud, and the rounded grey white rock showing through the bog all around, and even a pair of curious but reserved grey Connemara ponies who were, I suppose, so well acquainted with Caillin, being locals, that they felt no need of joining us. Then, leaving the track to cross the rock and bog and down the hill to the sea and the well, you lost the Slyne Head light, but were guided by the light from the Arans, away out to the southwest.

The stations are done barefooted, but there are only two of them so we finished in less than an hour. On our way back Catherine Lowry invited us to stop at her house -- you remember it, on the Ballyconneely Road at Ballinaboy -- six of us came with her; myself, Barbara Mannion, Tina and Donal O’Scanaill, Ber Kirby, and Margaret Welsh -- you’d know her and her husband Pat from Connemara Community Radio. Catherine had made sandwiches -- four different kinds -- and mulled wine. The calm and quiet beauty of that evening had made it seem as if heaven and earth had paused to pay respect to St. Caillin, and of course you would celebrate afterwards -- we were at Catherine’s from half twelve until half three. And by full morning the cloud squadron had won west out of sight over sea.

From Tullyvoheen, good night and God bless you.