A walk on the wildside THE CASTLE ON THE MOUNTAIN
On the side of the Nagle Mountains, overlooking the River Blackwater, there stands a cairn of stones. Once it was clearly visible, standing out against the skyline, like a sentinel on guard over the valley.
Due to the growth of the forestry trees which now abound on the hill, the cairn can no longer be seen. The only way to see it now is to walk the forestry path to within a hundred yards of it. You will then have to beat your way through intense undergrowth to reach it, and with a number of stalwart Ballyhooly men, that is what I did on a fine Spring day last year.
We finally found the cairn with the assistance of an ordnance survey map and through the orienteering skills of Pat Nash. It’s sad to say that time and the elements have taken their toll on the cairn of stones, much of it has tumbled to the ground and the wonderful view of Bridgetown Abbey and the Old Viaduct over the River Awbeg can no longer be seen. But, it is still a wonderful place to sit in the peace of the hills and reflect on the man who erected the cairn of stones there almost a hundred years ago.
The story of Eoin Buckley is now part of Ballyhooly history. Eoin was born and reared in Castleblagh in the parish of Ballyhooly. When the First World War broke out in 1914, like many other Irishmen, he felt he had to answer the call to arms and to fight in the war that was to end all wars. He joined the British Army, but before he left Ballyhooly he felt the urge to do something. He was convinced that he would never again come back to his native Castleblagh, and so, he built a cairn of stones on the side of the bare hill. He thought to himself, even if I do not return, when people see this cairn, they will think of Eoin Buckley and say a little prayer for him. But, for four years, while state’s men and generals blundered and soldiers fought each other in a morass of mud and blood and the cream of a generation died, Eoin Buckley survived and came home to live out his life in Ballyhooly.
It became a tradition that people would add a stone to the cairn each time they visited it, and over the years, it grew to a height of about ten feet. It is strange to reflect that while only part of the cairn now stands, that it has outlived many of the mansions of those for whom Eoin Buckley fought.
Eoin served with the Leicester Regiment and also with the Durham Light Infantry, among his medals were the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. I have very happy memories of days spent on the Nagle Mountains shooting grouse in the heather that grew near where the cairn now stands, of September days when a friend and I would walk to the pond which stood between two peaks, only to find the ducks we were looking for were long gone.
On one never to be forgotten day, we were on top of one of the peaks when a blanket of fog suddenly descended on us, it was so bad that we could not see three feet in front of us. We managed to find a path and stay on it, but when the fog lifted, we found ourselves on the opposite side of the mountain, about ten miles from where we left the car, we will always be grateful to the man who drove us back to our car that night.