Lecture and Hike

This weekend I attended a lecture sponsored by the BurrenBeo Trust.   This organization is dedicated to the preservation, sustainability, and education related to the Burren.  They run numerous programs "in education, conservation, information provision, research, and advocacy to ensure involvement of Burren enthusiasts both locally and globally."  Their website is burrenbeo.com.

The title of the walk and lecture was "In-laws and Outlaws in the High Burren".  The guide and lecturer was Robert Cassidy.  His family has been farming the Burren since the 1790's.  He currently runs Cassidy's pub in Carron, Ireland, the location of the hike.  His building is significant in that it was the old regional R.I.C. station.  R.I.C stands for the Royal Irish Constabulary who were the British backed police force that controlled Ireland from the early 1800's through the early 1900's.  According to Robert, the Burren was a hot bed for revolutionary action, so this station was an important post.

Robert Cassidy Lecturing

Robert shared an interesting fact concerning the construction of castles.  This particular structure is the remains of a local chieftain family named O'Brien and dates back to the 16th century.  There is an old saying in Ireland that the left hand is the devil's hand.  Catholic schools, in the not so distant past, even forced left-handed students to change to their right hand.  He explained this grew out of the fact that left-handed soldiers were considered unlucky because of how stairs were constructed in castles.  Any castle's stairs in Ireland were designed to be defended by right-handed swordsman from the top down.  So if you were left-handed and part of the attacking army, you would have probably been one of the first selected to enter during the siege.  The design limited right-handed swordsman to attack efficiently up the stairs.  Needless to say the mortality rate was pretty high with the first ones in thus making left-handed swordsman unlucky.

Herdsman House

This photograph is the ruins of a Herdsman House.  During British rule, land in Ireland was owned by landlords who were appointed by the English government. Irish farmers had to lease the land from these landlords with a herdsman getting a particularly bad deal.  They would be given 7 acres of the most undesirable land and three cows to live on for a fee.  The structures were not very large and typically a large number of children were part of the family.  One of the landlords during the 18th century in Carran was particularly cruel in that if he caught you with a sick animal that was not inside your house he would throw you off your land.  The idea was that if the animal was in the house then it couldn't spread disease to other animals in the area.  It must not have been very comfortable to have a cow in your kitchen but the other outcome was much worse.  He was known to have thrown out a number of families in the area.

Ancient Cooking Ring

This was perhaps the most interesting point of the lecture.  It's an area that would be very easy to walk by and not even notice.  The Burren and Western Ireland is known for a particular indigenous phenomenon called a Turlough.  A Turlough is a disappearing lake and the Carran area has one of the largest in Ireland.  The lake grows during the rainy season and dries out during the summer.  It was an important source of water in both ancient and medieval times.  If you look closely at the photograph you will see raised rocks underneath the grass.  This is the site of an ancient cooking pit when Ireland was made up of nomadic tribes.  Rocks were stacked to form a ring with the center dug out so water from the Turlough could fill the pit.  Stones were heated in a bonfire next to the ring and then dropped into the water to heat it.  The result was people could cook their meat in the water.  Robert also stated that it wasn't uncommon for people after the meal to bath in the greasy water.