Burren Insight 2011
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BURRENThe Burrenbeo Trust 2011 IssueINSIGHT 3 Members FREE/Non-members €6.00 The Power of the Burren - Sarah Poyntz Treasure Chest - the forgotten uses of plants - Vivienne Campbell People in Their Place - Michael Viney 12th Centuary Pilgrims - The Burren’s first tourists? - Peter Harbison Feral Goats in the Burren - Bryony Williams & Ruth Enright The Harvard-Irish Mission in Clare 1930-1934 - Anne Byrne Creating a Buzz in the Burren - Eugenie Regan Busy Burren Bees - Una Fitzpatrick book reviews poetry Burren map and much more..... CONTENTS The Power of the Burren Sarah Poyntz 3 People in Their Place Michael Viney 4 A New Chapter in Burren Farming Brendan Dunford 6 THE POWER OF THE BURREN Deep in our Burren soul Patrick McCormack 7 We are all searchers and often turning them to deep blue, violet, silver and gold, a light ever- Feral Goats in the Burren Bryony Williams & Ruth Enright 8 Building the skills of the volunteers Karin Funke 10 discoverers. If we are thoughtful we look changing just as the flowers change from season to season Striking a Balance Sharon Parr 12 Photo by Trevor Ferris for truth or beauty, preferably both and and wildlife and indeed our farmers have to adapt to wind, rain, The Burren & Cliffs of Moher Geopark Project Ronán Hennessy 14 almost always we wish for happiness. Sometimes we find them storm, floods and ice. We may feel awe in contemplating this Heritage Training for Adults Paula Flynn 16 Grazing for Biodiversity in the Burren Maria Long 18 seemingly by chance. It was in the early 1980s that I found truth, truth, this beauty but it is not the awe that diminishes us because Brehon Law: Life in a ringfort Michael Lynch 19 beauty and joy. I found them in this place called the Burren. it is within our human scale. Artists and writers come to the Creating a buzz in the Burren Eugenie Regan 20 Treasure Chest - the forgotten uses of plants Vivienne Campbell 22 I was brought up in the lush beauty of the Sister Rivers, the Burren and find in it the very core of their inspiration. Scientists Archaeological Excavations at Caherconnell Michelle Comber 25 Barrow, the Nore and the Suir so when I saw the Burren – it arrive and find the basis for their research. We live in it and Twelfth-Century Pilgrims - the Burren’s first tourists 27 Peter Harbison was the area around Ballyvaughan - I could scarcely take in somehow it changes us into poets and researchers although we Sarah Poyntz puts down her Country Diary pen Paul Clements 29 Walking Across The Tabernacle of Stone Tony Kirby 32 the reality. Here I was faced with a landscape stripped to bare may never write a line. And all the while our farmers work the Mapping the Burren Christine Grant, Olive Carey & Clare Heningar 33 reality, the bare reality of the earth on which we live and have land, maintaining the wild flowers of the valleys and fields, a The Harvard-Irish Mission in Clare 1930-1934 Anne Byrne 34 our being, that which shapes every region in the world even the perfect contrast to the bare and encircling hills. The Burren has Pol an Ionáin Brian Mooney 37 Cuimhneamh an Chláir - documenting the memories of Clare Tomás Mac Conmara 38 luxuriously lush, the prolifically fertile – stone. I observed the power, the power to transform us. Building the Burren’s Economy from the inside out Rory O’Shaughnessy 39 Burren’s limestone pavements, walls of stone, hills of rock and I Burren Birding John Murphy 40 found truth and beauty, the truth of the region’s hard reality, the Going Bats! Sinéad Biggane 42 By Sarah Poyntz Busy Burren Bees Úna Fitzpatrick 44 beauty of the light gliding over the bare hills and ancient ruins Former Guardian Country Diarist and Burren resident A walk with one of the Burren farmers Laura Read 47 The Burren as both a Playground and a Classroom Joanna McInerney 48 Burren Ecotourism Network Edel Hayes 50 Burrenbeo Trust pages Letter to Friends of the Burren Burrenbeo Conservation Volunteers 11 One theme that runs through this issue is the importance of Plants and animals also live in communities. Sharon Parr Young Burren Experts 15 community – not just one community, but the many communities discusses how to maintain a balance between hazel woods and Burrenbeo Trust Walks and Talks 46 which together comprise the Burren. Sarah Poyntz writes of the orchid rich grasslands. Vivienne Campbell is researching the power of the Burren to transform those human lives. Pat forgotten uses of Burren plants. Eugenie Regan states that Also includes McCormack links man to the symphony of nature and landscape. flowers get way too much attention in the Burren – then goes Burren map 30 on to tell us why. Reinforcing this message, Una Fitzpatrick Book reviews 51 Through mapping the evidence left by previous communities, depicts bees as our least appreciated workforce. The lapwing Disclaimer: All the articles in this magazine represent views of the author and not necessarily those of the Burrenbeo Trust. Christine Grant and co are able to gain an insight into how they announces John Murphy’s passion for birds, whilst Sinead farmed and travelled in prehistoric times. This is supported by Biggane goes batting. How far do goats walk? Bryony Williams Michelle Comber’s findings in Caherconnell. Michael Lynch & Ruth Enright have the answer. provides information on what it would be like to live in a ringfort Patrons Directors Editors based on Brehon law. As long ago as the 12th century, Peter Joanne McInerney, Paula Flynn and Laura Read present the Tom Arnold Sean Braiden Brigid Barry David Bellamy Risteard Crimmins Stephen Ward Harbison depicts pilgrims as the first tourists to the Burren. Burren as both playground and classroom. On a visit to the Olive Braiden Martin Hawkes Doolin stalactite, Brian Mooney heard a little girl exclaim in Gordon D’Arcy Richard Morrison Design by Anne Byrne brings the recent past to life through letters from astonishment, prompting him to set down his thoughts. Michael Davoren Stephen Ward www.truesign.ie Mary Hawkes Greene the Harvard Mission to Clare, whilst Tomas Mac Conmara Seamus Heaney Treasurer Photographs by and Eugene Lambe carry this tradition into the present day And the Burrenbeo Trust has made it to the Lonely Planet guide Michael Houlihan Tom Kelly Brendan Dunford by recording the memories of the living. Then there is the as ‘dedicated to promoting the natural beauty of the Burren and Carleton Jones unless otherwise stated Mary Angela Keane current move to reconnect emigrant communities, as Rory increasing awareness’. One always begins too late, but it Trust Secretary Michael Longley O’Shaughnessey reaches out to the Irish diaspora. is never too late to begin. If you have not joined us yet then Ann Madden le Brocquy Brendan Dunford Cover photo by Patrick McCormack Brendan Dunford please do – we appreciate your support. Ann O’Connor Trust Coordinator Michael Viney salutes the bridging of the gap between specialists Michael Viney Brigid Barry and practitioners brought about by BurrenLIFE and its successor Bishop William Walsh Cafébeo Manager Burren Farming for Conservation; Brendan Dunford describes Brigid Barry and Stephen Ward Agnieszka Radzewicz this new chapter which is unfolding in farming. Editors Photo by: Iwona Solarz This issue of Burren Insight is dedicated to the memory of Brigid Hynes, Croughville, Carron. 2 BURRENINSIGHT 2011 BURRENINSIGHT 2011 3 after another. Responsibility for the region’s development is now fragmented into many different agencies with different objectives, lacking any structure for local participation. People Such concerns are more than regional. In December 2010, the Heritage Council called yet again for a Landscape Act. Its new manifesto, Proposals for Ireland’s Landscapes, *** argues in Their Place for pulling together all the facets of landscape management – economic, social, environmental – in a joined-up oversight of land- By Michael Viney use. A decade after Ireland signed up, nominally, to the European Landscape Convention, the Heritage Council echoes its emphasis on community involvement and “ownership” of place – getting agreement on what actions people want and then enabling them to My first immersion in the wilder landscape of the Burren came twenty carry them through under the framework and charters of the national years ago when David Cabot and I were making a documentary film Act. The Council’s document cites the BurrenLIFE project and the about its gifted cartographer, Tim Robinson. “Folding Landscapes”, successor Burren Farming for Conservation programme as offering shown on RTE and BBC, was a celebration of solitary genius – key principles for “a new approach to managing our countryside”, not that Tim, tramping doggedly over the grikes in mist or pouring recognising the central role of the farmer but also bringing farmers rain and cycling from one chilly, out-of-season, B&B to another, to together with ecologists, agronomists and economists. compose his “graphic expression of a sense of place” can always have found himself in celebratory mood. Even as this major advisory document was published, the Heritage Council’s budget from the Department of the Environment As we re-enacted his meticulous mapping of contours and lost was slashed by almost 50%, undermining its hopes for a new monuments in the mossy, Lilliputian jungle of the hazel scrub, or on Landscape Observatory to support and help implement the the bleak and clattering heights of the hills, or tracked the squeak workings of a Landscape Act. But while national funding for almost of his old bicycle along deserted boreens, it was, indeed, the anything new is vanishing by the day, there is nothing to stop a strangeness and intensity of his lonely enterprise we were wanting new government from improving structures and opening them up to to convey.