Hello to you all and firstly, let me thank you for subscribing to Smart Traveller 365.
We strive to give you as many facts as we possibly can about the areas to visit in
Ireland. Our website database contains 1000s of places to sleep, eat at and
visit.These newsletters will give you some extra suggestions and snippets from our latest,
as yet unpublished guides. So pour a coffee and enjoy a read!This month takes us to Drimoleague and Dunmanway and also the history of The Potato and the
Spade….
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The Heart of West Cork’ is how you are greeted when
approaching Drimoleague, just 12km from Bantry, Dunmanway and
Skibbereen. It is certainly a haven for walkers, and is also known as ‘The
Walker’s Junction of West Cork’. Here the acclaimed Sheep’s Head Way converges
with the five Drimoleague Heritage Walkways, and then continues northwards to
Kealkill. You are invited to walk the 34km St Finbarr’s Pilgrim Way from Top of
the Rock, Drimoleague to St Finbarr’s hermitage at Gougane Barra in August each
year. To find this year’s dates and book a place contact David Ross on 086
1735134.The children’s playground is modern and well maintained and
there is an immaculate Pitch and Putt course.
There are Tennis courts which can be used for free. The village of Drimoleague is at the basin of the River
Ilen, which flows down to Skibbereen and out to sea. In the 1880s, there were
no fewer than three stations here and it was a thriving village with the
junctions of the Skibbereen and Bantry branches of the West Cork Railway
converging here.With an interesting history, dating back to the 6th
century, there is rich folklore and a real warm friendliness to the village.
With unspoiled flora and fauna, a lovely riverbank and woodlands amongst
undulating farmland and mountains.
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Dunmanway is just a 45 minute drive from Killarney
and Cork city. A traditional market town with a central ‘square’, it has a
diverse choice of things to do and see, with a large indoor swimming pool just
outside the town. The best restaurant/coffee shop I have eaten in, and I try to
visit it often, Wild Garlic is right at the centre of the town with the chef
having once received a Michelin Star in a previous kitchen. As ‘The Gateway to the Mountains’, it is ideal for hill
walking, cycling and horse-riding. With a fun Adventureland for kayaking down
upper Bandon river. There are community gardens, a round tower and nearby
Ballinacarriga Castle.With original & beautifully handcrafted gifts and Fine art
made by local artists and craftmakers at Le Chéile Arts. There are also the
Hummingbird gallery, Mirabelle restaurant, the Teapot café and a Chinese
restaurant. The newly rebranded Costcutters supermarket, which stocks
everything you need is also right in the middle of town. Sam Maguire, from Dunmanway, is best known for the GAA cup
named after him. He was an Irish patriot who worked in the Post Office in
London as an undercover spy for Michael Collins, as he devoted his life to
establishing Ireland as an independent state. In 2017, 90 years after his
death, a set of 8 church bells were installed in his memory at St Mary’s
Church, where he is buried. At time of print, you could obtain the Sam Maguire
passport, which can then be stamped at 7 different locations on the Sam Maguire
trail.Take a short, scenic and beautiful drive to the home of Sam
Maguire in Mallabracka. It was in this location where Sam grew up and lived for
20 years. Mallabracka is just five kilometres outside of the town centre, the
house and surrounding lands are well worth a visit.
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The Potato and the Spade The use of the traditional Irish spade (rámhainn
or sleán in the Irish language) became common in the 18th and early 19th
centuries as the cultivation of the potato became widespread in Ireland. As
Ireland’s population soared in the early 19th century an increasing proportion
of land was given over to potato cultivation, reaching over 2 million acres by
the 1840s. Poorer marginal land in the more rugged areas of the west of
Ireland, including the islands, was pressed into service to produce
potatoes. Small-scale cultivation, which
most of this was, used the spade rather than the plough to turn the soil. The
Irish spade was developed and adapted to suit the nature of the ground, the
narrow sharp blade being particularly suited to stony ground. Specialization
and local need led to the growth of regional variations in the design of the
spade In West Cork, and elsewhere in Ireland, potatoes were grown in ‘ridges’. A ridge
for potatoes was between four and five feet wide and was made by cutting a sod,
two to two and a half feet in length, on three sides with the spade and turning
it over on its length. A similar sod would be cut on the opposite side and
turned to meet the end of the first sod, completely covering the grass
underneath. This process was continued until a ridge of the required length had
been created. Often a layer of well-rotted dung was spread along the length of
the ridge before the sods were turned to cover it. In planting the potato seed on the ridge the blade of the spade was pushed through
the overturned sod, and the spade was pushed forward to create the slot into
which the potato seed was dropped. Later, when the young foliage of the potato
plants had broken through the surface the ridge was ‘earthed’ – the trench or
furrow between the ridges was deepened and the earth thrown up on the ridge
around the emerging plants. This process was repeated a number of times during
the growing season resulting in high, well-drained ridges separated by deep
trenches. When the potatoes were mature the spade was again used to dig the
crop.Abandoned grass-covered ridges, sometimes called ‘lazy beds’, survive in the landscape,
especially on West Cork’s offshore islands and in more isolated parts of its
western peninsulas. In many cases these were last cultivated before the Great
Famine of the mid-1840s, after which that land was abandoned as the people who
tilled it died or emigrated
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I hope you enjoyed this and will look
forward to our April one!Have a great month, and let’s hope the sun will
shine for us all!Smart Traveller 365 Team
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