We're at Fall Equinox, so long past time to tell you how we spent Summer Solstice. We visited a circle, a tomb, and a galaxy far, far away.
Last summer, I wrote about how Summer Solstice is as melancholy as Winter Solstice is merry. This year was different. Maybe I've left melancholy Summer Solstices behind me.
Last year's Solstice started at dawn in a stone circle. Donegal has stone circles, but they are larger and fewer than the stone circles of Kerry and Cork. Most bronze-age monuments here are dolmens and court tombs. I'll show you a court tomb later.
This is a dolmen:
We aimed for Bocan Stone Circle in Inishowen. Nearby is a court tomb called Temple of Deen.
I say "aimed" because the directions in Sacred Ireland were shit. We don't expect certainty in Ireland, but come on. Where the turn off was supposed to be we found the "Bog Art Gallery," so we stopped in to pretend to admire bog art, and actually ask for directions to the circle.
I avoid bog art because it's always these five motifs:
Mary Doherty doesn't do any of those.
She works each piece as she finds it, smoothing the hard edges, and polishing with beeswax. I might go back someday to get one, but Artemis, who has has always liked blades, found a 6000 year old letter opener she likes.
Mary gave us directions to the circle, "Just turn left past the church house," which we did and drove a kilometer down a lane without finding a left turn. Shit.
Then we realized we hadn't seen the turnoff because a tractor was in it. We parked nearby and walked across a field toward the circle. The tractor was now being driven around the field by the farmer. We didn't pay attention until we noticed the tractor was rolling heavy cylinders over the slurry of manure that carpeted the pasture. Shit.
Whatever. We're here for the monument and wore boots. I picked up Pippin, and we approached the circle.
Better photos of the circle are here at Megalithic Ireland, Curious Ireland (photos before grazing and a map). Someone on Megalithomania thinks that this one is similar to the circle at Beltany, which we visited at Spring Equinox. Here's a drone flight over it at dusk, very nice. This flyover of the circle was taken with people standing in the path of the original stones which are now missing.
Bocan faces the west, toward the valley and bay in the center of Inishowen.
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| Bocan stone circle is marked in the lower right. The valley opens up to the north west, overlooking that bay. |
We walked to our next antiquity from Bocan stone circle. The lane passes several houses, and a little spaniel dog came out of one and followed us. He was so cute and friendly, we put Pippin down and he and the little dog scampered around all the way to Temple of Deen.
It's nice when Pippin finds a friend his own size.
It's nice when Pippin finds a friend his own size.
The Temple of Deen—also called "Druid's Altar"— is what's left of a 4000 year-old court tomb. Like many of these, the ring of stones that once formed its "court" is long gone. Court tombs are the oldest Bronze Age monuments in Ireland. People built these memorials to their loved ones around the time that Amazons were domesticating horses in Asia.
Artemis and I don't visit these places for the stones, we visit the places for where the stones are.
The tomb was built at the top of a low hill, surrounded by the mountains around the valley, looking northwest over the bay and the distant ocean. Bocan circle is visible on the hill to the east. It feels like a natural amphitheatre, a place where many hundreds of people could gather, under the sky, in sight of the sea. Land, Sea, Sky, the elements of Ireland.
I don't think I'm making this up. In the Irish Schools Folklore collection records a song called "Bonfire Night" which describes a ritual held here not long ago.
On every side, like fallen stars - how splendid 'tis to view!
They're coming up the glen in groups; I hear them laugh and cheer.
Tell Pat to start the fiddle, for the girls will soon be here,
And pile more wood upon the fire to keep it burning bright,
For our town never was behind, yet, on a Bonfire Night!
The song describes exactly what it would look like if you gathered at the Temple of Deen and could see the fires of every townland around the valley.
This drone movie shows a little bit of the landscape around the tomb:
This drone movie shows a little bit of the landscape around the tomb:
I was reminded of another tomb in West Donegal, on a hill set low under a ring of mountains, looking down a valley over a bay, with the sea to the northwest. The Old Church of Dunlewy (Church of Ireland) was built 160 years ago as a memorial to the local landlord whose body rests near the altar. The widow who built it never imagined that 100 years later there would be so few people of her religion that the church would be closed, and then opened: its roof removed, and the white and blue marble walls left to weather for the next 4000 years.
When we had taken in all the Temple of Deen could offer, we turned around to see that Pippin was—to use the phrase I heard in California— "banging the shit" out of the little spaniel. There was nothing sexual about it, just friendship.
Next we headed toward
the most northerly point in Ireland, to experience the longest day possible.
That most northerly point is known as "Malin Head," but we all know it most recently as the planet Ahch-To, final home of Luke Skywalker.
The road to Malin Head carried our little car along that coastline--something like Pescadero, but closer to the water and the road about as wide as my outstretched arms. After a few kilometers of sheep and cows, we saw a sign for "The Curiosity Shop," and like everyone would, we stopped.
We also met Peter, the Curiosity Shop owner.
Peter pointed out his door and said, "Rey ran across the rocks right there. And while Rey ran across the rocks, Daisy herself was inside buying presents with her dad." She traveled all that way to Malin head and wasn't allowed to perform her own stunts. Peter and I shook our heads.
Shooting the movie closed the road to his business for two months. After the film came out, he said he saw it twice in one day, at the screenings arranged for everyone inconvenienced. I asked how he liked the film, and he said it was great to be invited to see it.
Artemis found this mug for me, which turned out to be perfect for a hot port.
Peter pointed out his door and said, "Rey ran across the rocks right there. And while Rey ran across the rocks, Daisy herself was inside buying presents with her dad." She traveled all that way to Malin head and wasn't allowed to perform her own stunts. Peter and I shook our heads.
Shooting the movie closed the road to his business for two months. After the film came out, he said he saw it twice in one day, at the screenings arranged for everyone inconvenienced. I asked how he liked the film, and he said it was great to be invited to see it.
Just as we left, he reminded me that the tourist motto for Donegal is "Up here, we're different." The movie may bring more tourists who want to visit the shooting locations, but I hope that they stay long enough to come to understand what that motto means.
The video above shows all the locations, including Peter's Curiosity Shop. You can see it just as the music changes from Irish Music (heroic) to Irish Music (Whimsy). The "80 Eire" is a relic from WWII, intended for pilots, distinguishing Ireland from Britain. Ireland was neutral during that war as it had recently liberated itself from Britain. The square tower is a relic from Britain's war with France 200 years ago, built to prevent France from helping Ireland liberate itself from Britain.
Speaking of relics, remember that Catholic tradition of selling the dirt from under a saint's grave? The man in this video is bringing that tradition to a new demographic.
We ended the day at one of my favorite beaches, one without sand. Instead there are tiny stones at the low-tide mark, and cantaloupe-sized boulders at high tide.
Besides the little rocks, I like this very large one shown below because of the perfect grassy meadow on top of it. You can look out to the north and the open sea, or back to the south to the beach, the chapel ruin, and the "Wee House of Malin."
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| Ruined chapel and Wee House at Malin, which is that dark patch in the cliff. |
This is the view from that at the edge of the sea, facing north. There are islands north of Malin Head, but no one lives on them anymore. The video is just a moment of zen.
Under that meadow is something that is probably more than history records.
At Malin Head there is a well called Malin Well, in which there is a cure and this well is in the tide and it has always fresh water. Here there is a wee house in the rocks called the Wee House of Malin.
There is also the remains of a chapel here. Convenient to the well stands a large rock known as the wishing chair, a chair is cut out of the rock and an opening on each side of the rock.
Here in penal days a saint was killed at this rock and his blood which was spilt on the rock can be plainly seen until this day.
Whatever you wish for in this chair will be granted.
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| Wishing Chair |
The tide was low so I crawled over the beach wrack to sit on the chair and make a wish. Above me, the stone looks like this:
Does this remind you of blood? 
We went home to Dunfanaghy, with the sun still high in the sky on a day that never seemed to end. I took this photo around 11 pm.
So ended our second Summer Solstice in Ireland. No melancholy. Today at Autumn Equinox, the trees are turning. Mushrooms bursting everywhere. I look forward to winter.
