A Busman’s Holiday
Recently, I spent some time in West Cork in Ireland. My family are Irish and I have been there more times than I’ve been to a newsagent. We have a house on the Sheep’s Head Peninsular, a tiny strip of land that juts out into the Atlantic, surrounded by mountains and streams. It’s pretty secluded. The real hook though, the thing that draws me back again and again (other than the craic, music, stout etc) is the seemingly bottomless pit of archaelogical sites lying around: ancient tombs, dating from the bronze age hidden in the gorse, megalithic stone circles in fields, underground creep holes and standing stones, derelict castles, cashels, ring forts and burial grounds.
On go the boots, a thorn-proof jacket and I always bring a long stick with me. And of course my brother, who although being rather eccentric, also likes to scrabble around in the undergrowth trawling up 3000 year old copper mines or crawling into a hidden underground series of chambers built by the early Christians. They are not always easy to find, and I remember days where we found nothing, trying to pinpoint a standing stone or ancient creep hole and returning home covered in cow dung. Still, there is certainly not just a small measure of excitement in finding something almost as old as the pyramids, hidden from view in a thicket next to a field of cows.
West Cork is where I go to unwind, and I always go there after a long and tiring expedition in Africa. For me, discovering these ancient sites around West Cork is fun and the very essence of an afternoon’s adventure.
My brother and I thought we’d film a few of our experiences and share them with you. By no means any kind of a polished production, these short clips are just to give you a flavour and to show that you don’t have to go half way around the world to have a bit of an adventure.
We’ve rather cunningly called it An Extremely Casual Guide to the Ancient Sites of West Cork, because that’s what it is. Except it’s not very fact filled, and most often than not it’s two goons with a video camera on their time off. Episode One is on Dunmanus Castle which is a 15th century derelict castle that overlooks The Sheep’s Head, or Mhuintir Bháire, from the Mizen.
