We got the traditional mini-croissants and fruit in the lobby of the inn and made a pot of tea. I had hot ginger drink since I’m still not drinking tea or coffee. We had to hurry a bit to head to Caherconnell. When we got there I got a contraband decaf latte and one for Beth.
We were a bit late to the start of the sheepdog demonstration so we didn’t get the best view. The shepherd demonstrated how each dog had her own whistle for each command: right, left, move, lie down. Then he demonstrated how he could whistle two dogs simultaneously and each would follow its own command, which was impressive. Then he had the dogs herd three sheep to one location and return the others to their pen. The sheep made constant demonstrations of defiance but it appeared to be all for show; when I asked the shepherd afterward whether they ever inflicted damage on the dogs, he said the dogs generally nipped them first.
Afterward he showed us the different kinds of sheep and let people pose with the dogs. Even when the shepherd was just standing around with the sheep, the dogs had their eyes on them constantly, almost obsessively. He said they breed and train the dogs themselves. All the working dogs need to be 80 lbs or less or they’ll cut their feet on the rocks. All in all, he said, they’re pretty ideal workmates.
“They won’t have a hangover Monday morning and they won’t talk back to you,” he said.
One dog, Jess, was skittish; she got cornered by some kids in a school group on a previous visit. She ran away a couple of times but always came back on command.
After the sheepdogs we toured the ringfort. Our guide introduced himself as Sean Davoren, which immediately caught my attention. I read a lot about Irish medieval law a while ago, the Brehon Laws, and the Davorens were a major Brehon Law family; they had a law school and many generations of the family were lawyers. It was kind of exciting to meet a descendant of a real Brehon dynasty.
Ringforts sound a little more impressive than they are. They’re just rings of stone, or more often dirt, within which people typically had their house and some outbuildings. People lived in them in early medieval Ireland; one recent theory holds that they were all built in the relatively short period from 600 to 900 AD, and that their main purpose was to guard the cattle from raids.. It is thought that there were at least 50,000 of them—quite a lot for a small island!
Sean talked about how the ringfort had always been on the land, but in recent years the family had decided they needed to either make some revenue out of it or get rid of it. Thankfully they decided to make it into an attraction. Every summer, archeologists carry out digs to further understand the history and uses of the site. He explained that part of every archeological dig has to be left undisturbed so that when future technologies are developed they can be used on ground that hasn’t been tampered with. Therefore there’s a bit of a tussle among the scientists over exactly what will be excavated every year.
Sean said 25 people lived inside the ringfort and 25, who would have been slaves or indentured laborers, lived outside. He explained that the ringfort continued to be used into the early 17th century, long after most such settlements had been abandoned. He showed us an old burial site that was also used well into the time when you would expect the family to be sending bodies to a churchyard, and suggested that perhaps the family clung a bit stubbornly to the old culture rather than fully embracing the Catholicization of Ireland.
He showed us some metal objects that had been dug up on the site—but not The Oldest Known Pen in Great Britain, which had been found there and is now being studied somewhere. We looked at the entryway, which had two doors: the outer doors opened into a narrow passage and inner doors opened outwards. If a knight came in with a sword, they couldn’t use it because they had no room to swing their weapon.
Afterward we did a bit of shopping in the gift shop and I peppered Sean with questions about his ancestors. We asked about walks and he recommended a couple of seaside areas nearby. So we piled in the car and headed out to find lunch and a walk.
The pubs were all closed for Good Friday but we found a cafe open in Kilfenora — possibly the Parlour Restaurant? “What is that man having?” Cathy asked the waitress. It was cabbage and bacon, and we all ordered it. It was delicious: a slab of ham with a white parsley sauce; cabbage, mashed potatoes and a little pile of diced turnips and carrots. Before going to the restaurant we had displayed great dedication to the touristic mission by looking around the famous Kilfenora Cathedral. Now it was midafternoon and we were hungry.
After lunch we headed to the beach at Lahinch. It was a surprisingly long and sandy beach and the water was boiling with surfers. Many of them, judging by their skill level, were students at the surf school. We walked down the beach a ways and then headed onward to the swimming hole at Clahane. This was a much more familiar rocky beach. Beth guided the car expertly down the teeny-tiny road to the parking lot. Cathy wanted to swim but it didn’t look terribly swimmable: there were some shallow rock pools near the edge, but the surf beyond them looked menacing. Cathy readily agreed not to venture beyond the rocks but Beth and I held our breath till she was safely back on shore.
On our way back to Doolin we hit a mini traffic jam and decided to take a side road. As luck would have it, this carried us right by the gorgeous tower we’d been eyeing from a distance all week. The warm afternoon sun was slanting over the hills and the place looked enchanting. There was a wedding going on which made the narrow roads challenging. We stopped all the oncoming cars to tell them there was a wedding ahead; I’m not quite sure why we did, except that we were excited.
There was still daylight left when we got back to the hotel so we decided to walk down to the other ruin we’d been looking at from afar—a square tower we passed every time we went downtown. We walked along some little back streets, checking out land and houses for sale. We couldn’t go right up to the tower because it’s on private land, but we got a nice look at it from the end of the road.
All the restaurants were packed but we managed to get in at the Doolin Inn. We all had soup and I ordered a local whiskey by JJ Corry that was unremarkable. And off we went to bed.
Kopi Susu 2 