The true heart of Ireland on show

WE’RE fast heading to the business end of summer and that period when the country really ups its game to deliver the optimum cuts of cultural distractions. To many, that list of ‘must dos’ will probably include major gatherings like Michael Bublé, Shania Twain, the Galway Arts Festival and Electric Picnic.

But there is another Ireland out there, a hidden world well off the main roads where the best of our national identity continues to be expressed in a timeless tune of community spirit. I passed through one such gem last weekend – the Glencar Cattle Show, held the last Sunday of June since time immemorial.

In the heart of south Kerry and a world away from the relentless rumble of tourist buses on the Ring, this local gathering of livestock and laughter dates back over 100 years – and little changed in the scope of its offerings. Held in the local sports field, its events included the fancy dress parade, sheep dog trials, the best ewe lambs, pony show, sheaf tossing and a ladies tug of war.

“Our show is important to us, it’s part of our identity,” one lady informed me as we licked our cones in the afternoon sun. “It’s the way we try to keep our rural and mountain farming traditions alive.”

And if this major event in the annual Glencar calendar has withstood the test of a turbulent century, what a scenic and picturesque valley it has to express these parochial pleasures.

When Seamus Heaney spoke about the “poetry of Irish place names”, he surely meant the evocative nomenclature of rural idylls such as this. Gortdirragh, Treangarriv, Curraflugh, Tooreenanaoscach, Machanamoinge, Cappeentseanabhaile are the tonguetwisting townlands of Glencar, secret corners of a valley that takes the stranger off the beaten track into overgrown hedges drooping with fuschia, highland sheep with horns the width of dinner tables, and country faces who bid a kindly salute to every passing car.

Even the language reflects this other Ireland in a place where ‘purties’ are toys, ‘petting’ is the wail of a disgruntled child, ‘quare’ can be good or bad – usually the weather – and ‘a mineral’ is the preferred way to slake a thirst.

As the sweltering afternoon wore down to the cool glow of evening, six brawny men took to the field for the sheep-shearing contest, and here accomplished with a hand shears in one of the great forgotten skills of traditional Irish farming.

Backs bent low to hold the animal secure as the shears clipped topknot wool with the tempo and dexterity of a heart surgeon, the men’s sweat-drenched brows focused on a task as timeless as the hills that surrounded them. “Ya gotta come see this, Nancy,” said an awe-struck female visitor somewhere in the hushed crowd. “This is, like, real men.”

You better believe it, ma’am – working a kind of ageless magic you’ll never find on the sidewalks of Manhattan or Melbourne.