Blog Sun june 2
Started out after 8.30.
It felt good to be back on the road again. I had stayed the night in Skelleys pub and
B&B in Ballymahon. The faced looked
quite unloved and when I walked in the door, I found myself in and off-licence
that was also a basic grocery shop. Through the door I could see the bar. At this stage I was a bit wary wondering what
the accommodation would be like. We were
led through a couple of doors and upstairs to the room where I would spend the
night. This part had been recently
built. The room was fine and the bed
comfortable, but the light in the bathroom did not work, the toilet seat was
not attached to the toilet, and Mary Ann noticed that some spiders had made
their home in the skylight. In spite of
that I slept very well. Next morning
when I went to pay for my board he gave me back 15 euros for Ndi Moyo hospice.
In any case as I said it was good to be back on the road
again. A little bit out of the town I came to a bridge where the Royal Canal
crossed the road. There was a walk and a
cycle path along the bank. I did not
know that the Royal Canal went all the way to Ballymahon from Dublin. It probably connects with the Shannon river. I walked on through rich farmland with lots
of cattle and a few sheep. It was a warm
morning, a sleepy Sunday morning with few people about and not much traffic and
the cattle looked very content in their fields of plentiful grass. After a few miles there were lots of large
spreading trees standing in the middle of the fields, sycamore, beech and
chestnuts decked with creamy ice-cream-like cones of blossom. Vestiges I thought of the Landed gentry who
were gifted these lands by conquering England and laid much of it out like
parkland.
The first village I came to was Keenagh. I was hoping to get a cup of coffee and rest
for a while but the only café was closed in spite of having an Open sign in the
window. There is a monument in the
centre of Keenagh. It is a stone clock
tower topped with a weather vane. The
inscription on it reads
Erected by the tenants and friends of the Honorable Lairence
Harman-king-Harman who died Oct 1875. In
grateful memory of a good landlord and an upright man. Justum et tenacem probisiri virum. I wonder how many other such memorials there
are in Ireland to good and upright landlords!
My brother Jim came to meet me just as I was going into
Longford with a packed lunch – hot soup, a beer and sandwiches. We spent an hour together. It was a welcome break for my feet. I passed a vintage rally in Longford. Some of the cars had passed me during the
day. Jim and I thought that it might be
a good idea if some of our young people were to start a vintage fair to show
off their old relatives. There would be
different categories for different age groups.
They could get us all groomed properly and have prizes for the best
presented old person in the various categories. As I was leaving Longford there
was an inscription on a wall about a Dominican Abbey that had once stood there
and had been destroyed by Cromwell’s army.
Two brothers had been martyred.
The stones from the Abbey had been used to build the local jail and when
that was closed some of them were used to build the local school – St
Christophers. Just outside Longford a
man pulled in beside me in a car and gave me 10 Euros. A little further, a man turning into his
driveway stopped to talk and gave what change he had in his pocket. A couple of miles further on a young man came
out to his gateway to talk to me. Soon his
wife joined him and she went back into the house to find money to give me. They were Mark and Imelda.
I plodded on towards Drumlish but feet were complaining so I
phoned my host for the night, Margaret McManus and she picked me up a couple of
miles south of Drumlish. Margaret
brought me to her home farm near Granard, a lovely quiet retreat where she
spoiled me with good food and good craic.
Margaret lives in Armagh but also spends time in her childhood home.
Blog June 3 Mon.
Started out again at about 8.30 a couple of miles south of
Drumlish. From Drumlish I had planned to
take a small country road to Ballinamore going through Cloone. The village was deserted. Later I discovered
it was a bank holiday. I took the road
signed Ballinamore. I met an old lady hurrying up the street and asked her if I
followed this road would I come to a sign for Cloone. She said I might but she was not sure but she
wanted to know if she was late for Mass.
I said I didn’t know, so she rushed off again saying she would in any
case say a prayer for me. So I walked on
out the road and saw nobody until I had gone a mile and a half and a cyclist
stopped to talk. He told me I would have
to go back into town and go out another road that would bring me to the road to
Cloone. So back I went. That was an extra 3 miles and my feet did not
approve. I did find the road and there
was little traffic on it. On both sides
of the road were turf bogs and bushes.
Later there were fields where rushes ruled and often a sea of
buttercups. I have never seen so many
buttercups, field after field.
Wordsworth made such a big fuss of the little patch of daffodils he
chanced on
beside the lake, beneath the trees,
fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
But his little patch of daffodils was nothing compared to
the fields and fields of buttercups in Leitrim, and along the ditches lots of
cows’ parsley shoulder high. I even saw
a ditch with lots of wild strawberry blossom.
It brought back memories of walking home form Tullysarran school,
pulling wild strawberries and threading them on to cocksfoot stems of grass to
bring home. Then there was the odd
patch of sweet red clover that we used to pull and suck the bottom of each of
the red bits. All the natural richness
of the ditches and the land on each side and the lovely smell of summer growth
remind me of Hopkins poem about Spring “ all that juice and all that joy and
that inner freshness deep down things” I
often think that those words sum up the essence of life - keeping ourselves always fresh, always being
surprised by joy and wonder of all the life that is pulsing around us.
Jim met me again this time in Cloone, where we had a picnic
beside the graveyard. Then walked on and
got as far as Ballinamore, further than I had thought I would. I’ve been stopping every few hours to air dry
and treat my feet. This time round they
take high priority. I was waiting at the
outskirts of Ballinamore for Lourda to pick me up when a car stopped and four
young lads got out and came over to talk to me.
They were from Cavan and wanted to know all about my walk. They asked for a photo and I gave them Mary
Ann’s email so that they could send it to her to include in the blog.
Lourda brought me to Mohill where she lives and we went to
her sister’s and her husband’s house for our evening meal. We had a great meal and great craic. The hospitality has been amazing. Tomorrow is another day.
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