North Atlantic Skyline - - Photographs from the west of Ireland (Galway, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Roscommon and even Leitrim)

The Unicorn

I used to have a Despair.com poster in my office of an eagle soaring over a mountain range. The tagline : Leaders are like eagles; we don’t have either of them here.

Soon, we might be able to solve the eagle problem. There has already a small number of golden eagles introduced into Donegal, and soon, sea eagles will be introduced to Killarney National Park. Norwegian eagles will provide the breeding stock. Eagles became extinct about a century ago in Ireland, though place names give a clue. There’s Sliabh an Iolair (Mount Eagle) on the Dingle peninsula, which I climbed many moons ago while down in An Ghaeltacht, and even among the relatively low-lying Burren hills, there is a point called Eagle’s Rock along the cliff face of Sliabh Carron, overlooking the hazel scrub that now hides the remains of St. Mac Duach’s Well and Church. As for the leader problem, that might take a bit longer…

I had planned to walk along Sliabh Carron on Sunday, but the weather didn’t agree. Strong wind, driving rain and low cloud meant that I couldn’t see it, even while standing on Turloughmore hill a few hundred yards away (the weather is even worse now – I’m writing this to a soundtrack of shrieking winds and heavy rain splattering against the window). I had to be contented with a walk to Oughtmama, up by the holy well (Tobar Cholmáin) and on up to the cairn at Turloughmore, where we sheltered for lunch. Though the hill seemed empty, we had plenty of company. Fat, placid cattle sheltered behind walls from the rain – staring curiously at us as we walked past. Cattle here live much the same life as cattle have done over the centuries on the mountain (except they don’t have to worry about being carried off by the villagers from the next parish on a raiding party). We spooked a couple of hares, plenty of snipe, and even a flock of golden plovers. On the way back down, we stumbled across a unicorn, which doesn’t happen too often. Ok, it wasn’t really a unicorn, but something nearly as magical – a feral goat sheltering under a blackthorn. One of its horns was twisted sideways so the remaining horn looked as if it was growing from the centre of its head. Usually, the goats keep their distance, so it was unusual for this one to let us get close to it. Alas, the mystery was solved when it got up and began to painfully limp away into the mist. A goat without its leap doesn’t have much of a future. The rest of the herd were hiding further downhill –they never let us get too near. [There is now a group - the Burren Feral Goat Preservation Society - in Clare dedicated to preserving the pure breeds of wild goats living in the Burren ]

And eagles may fly over the Burren again soon too. The people running the Aillwee Cave have applied to open a falconry. Bad news for the little furry things already prey from the kestrels nesting along the ravines on Turloughmore.

Posted by Monasette at January 8, 2007 11:12 PM