Just a few sights.
Back roads. Go slow!
Someone is getting a new roof. Just outside of Burncourt.
Further down the road I stumbled upon the ruins of Burncourt Castle.
Which is in these people’s backyard.
Laundry day. Royals, and/or their descendants, need to air their (no longer) dirty laundry.
just discovered this link with a very short history of Burncourt and why it is named as it is. Well done, Lady Catherine Everard. She was a fierce and loyal Irish woman
http://www.abandonedireland.com/Burncourt_Castle.html
Love that name. Skeheenarinky-do
Tea and scone in Rathcormack. The proprietrss shared some personal stories with me. I now know about her divorce, her three children, and her bad, bad experience dating “a pig of a fooking man”. The scone was excellent.
A very old, traditionally dressed, kindly woman with no teeth, then struck up a chat. She told me I must visit the Holy Well. “Almost as powerful as Lourdes”, she promised me. So I did.
After driving hither and yon down roads with no signposts (and only backtracking once, mind you!) I found it.
I stumbled around through the brush until I found the edge of the natural grotto
Then waded through knee high grass and thistles until I finally discovered the well itself. Long unvisited by the looks of the approach.
That’s the water reflecting back the trees. There were two small brown trout darting about.
I dipped my hands in, bathed my sweaty face, then cooled my neck with the water. I’ll let you know if Our Lady answers my prayers.
After that I went searching for the sight of the Battle of Gurtroe, also known as the Tithes Massacre, which actually took place in the Parish of Bartelemy, a few kilometers away
Bartelemy today. It is still a poor parish.
The massacre happened in 1843 when a small group of unarmed tenant farmers refused to pay the exhorbitant land tithes charged to them by the British Crown under the auspices of the Protestant Church, a religion none of them practiced.
This involuntary “tithe”, which was really a tax, amounted to one tenth of their harvest. In what had been a bad year, paying it was a real hardship.
A group of villagers stood together near the Bartelemy Cross, blocking the road so that the English Soldiers couldn’t pass.
The soldiers were on their way to collect four pounds from the Widow Ryan, four pounds she didn’t have (and had asked forgiveness for, only to be denied). The villagers knew they were coming, which is why they assembled.
The soldiers opened fire on the unarmed men who tried to fight back with rocks and scythes. 66 shots were fired in total, at the end of which nine men lay dead. Many more were wounded. None of the soldiers were injured.
The news of this spread fast. Word got back to England. Fearing riots or worse, the Crown ordered a cessation of all future harvest tithes from Ireland. So it was a pretty big thing that these men died for, with an impact felt all across the land.
As I turned away from the Parish wall I noticed this loose shingle solution
Clearly keeps them from blowing off.
And then I continued on my way, off the back roads of Ireland’s history, and onto the M8, headed for The Friar’s Lodge in Kinsale.
As I entered this pretty little seaside town in County Cork, known among other things for its yachting society, I passed a rock star walking his dog along the quay. I think it was Rod Stewart.
Now that is what I call a reality check.
More from Kinsale later