Hello all,
We're getting a lot of wind and rain here lately, but
not so much that I can't get out on my bike most days. Yesterday I rode
out the Bog Road and saw the whole range of the Bens, from Diamond Hill
to Derryclare, covered in snow gleaming in the morning sun, and the sun
was warm on the bog despite the snow in the mountains. I rode out about
four miles, to the bit of high ground where I could look out over the bog.
You know trout season begins in three months, and I was making my plans
about fishing these lakes not much visited; they're well out from town
and for some you have to cross a good bit of bog to reach them. I had my
Ordinance Survey map with me, the new, more detailed one. I noticed a lake
I've never fished but have passed on my way over the bog to another lake--I
noticed it because on this map, but not on the old Ordinance Survey map,
nor on Tim Robinson's map, this particular lake is given a name: Loch Nambrackmore,
which, if you put English on it, is The Lake of the Big Trout! That afternoon
I talked to John Stanley, who knows all about the fishing here. He wondered,
with me, where the Ordinance Survey lads got that name--was a local having
a bit of a game with them-- and allowed that to his knowledge there were
no big trout in it. But in the lake I fished near it I caught a strong
wild three-quarter pounder and missed bigger. So I decided that in the
spring I'll begin to systematically fish that lake--not just with my fly
rod, as the big trout may not rise to a fly--and see if it can live up
to it's possibly spurious or fanciful name. I'll keep you informed, so
watch this space.
One morning last week a 10 year old girl, Helen, from
Lettergesh, was walking along the beach near Renvyle. She found a bottle
on the strand, and in it a map of Newfoundland and a note from--an 11 year
old girl, Holly, who had put the bottle in the sea six months before. Helen
brought it to school and the teacher contacted Connemara Community Radio;
staff there were able to get Telecom Eireann to find Holly's phone number
in her town in Newfoundland and sponsor a phone call to Holly from Helen,
which was broadcast on the radio that evening.
Monday evening, the 18th, I went to a concert at the Church of Ireland.
It was a raw night, with cold heavy rain driven by a Force 8 gale from
the northeast. A program of baroque music, you heard a Scarlatti sonata
on a delicate harpsichord, the wind booming a continuo as it roared around
the native stone church on the hill above the town, sometimes overpowering
the music. I found Gavin and Ralph there, from the Lavelle Art Gallery,
and Debbie, who supervises the pottery-making at Kylemore Abbey, and after
the concert we went to Guy's Pub and sat around the fire, hot whiskey for
Debbie and pints for the others. By the fire, safe from the rain and gale,
the Scarlatti sonata and the bottle from the sea came together in my mind.
I saw us here on the edge of the Atlantic, the uttermost west of the western
world, but not part of the New World or the Old World, but of an Older
World, or an Other World between them, hearing the news six months old
from the one and two hundred and fifty years old from the other; marveling
to hear this good news from far places and times, of hope filled children
growing and beautiful music never dying.
From Tullyvoheen, good night and God bless you.
e-mail
|
