A walk on the wildside
I began Easter Sunday a few years ago in the company of a large crowd, on the top of Ardpatrick Hill in County Limerick for the traditional dawn Mass at 6.30am. The morning was fine but overcast, as the light stole slowly over the land, the lush, green pastures unfolded before us, a rich tapestry that stretched away to the Galtees in the far distance.
The late Father Brown was prayed for at the Mass, he was the parish priest of Ardpatrick, a wonderful pastor for his flock, a very kind and considerate man. I was not the only person from Fermoy to make the journey to Ardpatrick that morning as I discovered at the Sign of Peace.
On the hill of Ardpatrick stands a very old graveyard, a very conspicuous land mark for many miles around. Saint Patrick founded a monastery here which had links with Armagh, it was burned down by Viking raiders in 1114. There is a tradition that the bells of the monastery were hidden by the monks and also a belief that at Easter and Christmas five bells ring out over the surrounding countryside. On his retreat and forced march to Country Leitrim, in the bitter Winter of January of 1603, O’Sullivan Beare and his ragged army spent the night on the hill of Ardpatrick. The following morning as he resumed his epic march, little did he know that of the thousand that started out with him, when he reached County Leitrim on January 14th, 1603 only 35 remained, 16 armed men, 18 non-combatants and one woman, the wife of O’Sullivan Beare’s uncle, Dermot O’Sullivan.
As we left the graveyard to make our way down the hill to the village, the Pascal flame was still burning, a reminder of Saint Patrick lighting the Flame on the Hill of Slane. It was still only 7.30 in the morning, so I struck off in the car for a place where I love to walk, Crow Hill in County Tipperary.
On a clear day the view from the top of this hill is breath-taking, the valley through which the Araglen River winds its way to meet the Blackwater at Ballydron can be traced. There is a cairn of stones on the top of Crow Hill, I followed my usual custom of placing a coin under one of the stones, ensuring that the one I put there last year was still there. One of the most striking things about remote places such as Crow Hill is the silence and the sense of solitude, even though the nearest village may be only a few miles away. It was the first time on the Hill that I did not hear the soaring song of the Skylark, the wondrous bird that the poet, Shelly addressed as Hail to thee blithe spirit, is it any wonder that the collective name for a group of Skylarks is an Exaltation.
There are two places in County Waterford that take their names from the Irish word for Skylark, Cloichin na Fuisoge (Little Rock of the Skylark) and Cnochan Fuisoge (Hill of the Lark). The only bird I saw that morning on the Hill was a Snipe that I startled from a clump of heather, his bleating call of alarm rebuking me for invading his territory. There is a place here where turf is still cut, a place so apparently barren, that local people poetically call it the Moon, in the early Summer Bog Cotton grows here in profusion.
It was late in the afternoon before I arrived at Saint Michael’s Well also known as Tobair na Hulla that is situated on a scenic spot where the parishes of Kilworth and Ballyduff meet. Here there is a Holy Well that was once a place of pilgrimage, a very fitting place to end my Easter Sunday ramble, a few years back now, but a place and a time to remember.