Burren Country

by Paul Clements

  The Burren is an internationally important example of a glaciokarst terrain attracting geologists and wannabe-geologists. The Karst Working Group, made up of representatives of the Geological Survey of Ireland, the Geotechnical Survey of Ireland, the International Association of Hydrogeologists, and the Irish Association for Economic Geology, has produced an illuminating booklet, The Karst of Ireland, focusing largely on the Burren. Groups such as the Revue de Geographie de Lyon have explored and investigated the distinctive features of the limestone for their report: Un région Karstique d’Irlande: Le Burren.

  In wetsuits, wellingtons and waterproofs, experts in vegetation, eminent scientists, and distinguished archaeologists come in thirst of knowledge. Experiments have been carried out to try to work out why there is such a unique mixture of plants. A professor from University College Dublin, Dr Bruce Osborne, has carried out work showing that plants have unusual reactions to water. His three-year study (2002–05) looked at the role of water availability and its effect on the plant community in the Burren. The study was funded to the tune of €220,000 by Enterprise Ireland along with money from the Environmental Protection Agency. The main species under consideration was wood sage, a sour herb that thrives where drought conditions are worst. At this stage photosynthesis is reduced and pores in the leaves, known as stomata, begin to close. The stomata are regarded as being crucial for plant survival because they open to allow in carbon dioxide for photosynthesis and they regulate water.

  The ecological diversity of the place is astonishing. Scientists have frequently debated topics for weekends and weeks on end, teasing out the issues of the day. Groups of leading bryologists, whose interests cover mosses and liverworts, have met several times here for a knees-down. In July 1994, during a week of climbing the bluffs of the hills, searching little-visited limestone valleys, and exploring hazel scrub and rock crevices, the British Bryological Society recorded a staggering 195 mosses and 77 liverworts. The days of these obsessives are happily spent bryologising areas rich in epiphytes, finding Neckera crispa in abundance and discovering hepatics – notably in the Glen of Clab near Poulavallan, and south of Mullaghmore at Watts’ Lough (named in honour of Professor W. A. Watts of Trinity College Dublin, who carried out palynological research in the area).

  Plant ecologists have had many happy hunting days in the Burren. They come to probe the pattern of grassland and heath communities carrying out reviews of the distribution of the suites of rare plant species. In the words of the author David Jeffrey: ‘A testable hypothesis is developed that explains the relationship between parent materials and vegetation distribution in terms of community dynamics’. Consultant ecologist Dr Grace O’Donovan first came to the Burren to carry out her doctorate at Mullaghmore on plant nutrient dynamics and has been visiting regularly ever since.

  Environmental scientists have buried deep into the ground at Mullaghmore and Slieve Rua to investigate the legacy of the glacial soil. The appropriately named Professor Richard Moles has spent many years untangling a complex web of historic geological events. On Knockanes Hill, north of Mullaghmore, he found pieces of unweathered charcoal 2m below ground level dating from the mid-Bronze Age.

  The Burren attracts people on highly focused quests. The celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay visited Ballyvaughan in 2008 to dive for edible sea urchins at a secret location in the bay. European arboreal experts (otherwise known as self-confessed tree nuts) and mycologists have come to study a rare fungus – the glue fungus (Hymenochaete corrugata) on hazel trees in Keelhilla wood in the Burren National Park. It is found in only a few locations elsewhere in Europe. Their fascination with it is because it glues dead hazel twigs to living branches in the canopy, thus preventing them from falling to the ground where they would be available to other fungi to decompose. In turn, hazel trees have themselves come under much scrutiny. Research fellows have studied land-use change looking at the effects of the cessation of grazing and the spread of hazel on biodiversity.

  Archaeological digs at early medieval settlements and other locations throw up curious ancient treasures. The first decade of this century has produced more than its share of significant finds. Remains found in large quantities in scores of the Burren’s caves have included those of a wild cat, which, until it was discovered, was not known to have existed in Europe. The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has funded excavation at Glencurran cave in the Burren National Park. The work, led by the Sligo Institute of Technology, took place during part of 2004–05 and 2008–09. The crouched trowellers uncovered almost 40,000 animal bones and bronze fragments, more than 500 artefacts and 100 human bones. In 2010 the archaeological team at Glencurran dug up a 1,500-year-old Viking necklace, the largest ever found in Ireland. The archaeologists believe it may have been traded between Vikings in Limerick and Gaelic chieftains in the Burren. It was described by the leader of the dig, Dr Marion Dowd, as ‘stunning’.

  During the summer of 2009 archaeologists were, in the words of Graham Hull who was quoted in the press, ‘jumping up and down at the discovery of a stone arrowhead’ at Caherconnell stone fort. It was believed to date to approximately 2500 BC and could be the Burren’s oldest habitation site. At the same location in 2007 a ten-day excavation unearthed an Edward I silver halfpenny dating from 1300 AD to 1310 AD. During a dig at Kilcorney, near Kilfenora, in April 2003 the bones of a prehistoric woman and her baby were recovered. In 2000, the Irish Stone Axe Project (ISAP) uncovered near Doolin a pale green stone axe which suggested a link between Neolithic people in Ireland and Britain. Petrological analysis showed that it was of a type of stone known as ‘tuff’ which is typical of tools produced in Cumbria.

  As a mere scribbler I do not pretend to understand much of the impenetrable scientific terminology written by experts in their field. The tone of some of it is stiff in manner, the language cold, and it has a narrow focus specialising in hard facts. It can be difficult navigating the labyrinth of the complex and stodgy prose. Reading some of the archaeological reports makes me aware of a timescale that strains the imagination. This is not in any way to belittle the formidable battery of scientific knowledge and academic exactness, as well as the usefulness of the work in illuminating the subject for future scholars.

  The purpose of the foregoing pages is to show a flavour of the remarkable breadth of research – largely unknown to any but the most dedicated groups. It represents only a small amount of the type of work being carried out and does not even begin to scratch the surface. But it is a reflection of the infinitely fascinating surroundings and of how the Burren can profoundly affect and entrap those on specific missions. I never lose my sense of wonder at their enthusiasm, their undisguised pleasure in their subject, their passion, bordering on fanaticism, and their dogged ability to produce new material and conjure up new facts at which, like watching the journey of a beetle across a rock, all we ordinary mortals can do is marvel at the extraordinariness of it.

  When I discovered the long, unforgettable Latin binomials (the two-part names that denote a species) for the wild flowers I was immediately captivated. Who could resist Geranium sanguineum, Dryas octopetala, Gentiana verna, Orchis masula, Neotinea maculata, Dactylorhiza fuchsii, Minuartia verna, Armeria maritima, Lotus corniculatus, Rosa pimpinellifolia and dozens of others? There is a seemingly endless variety of flowering species. Once you have mastered their names the next challenge is their pronunciation. As a long-time insomniac, instead of counting sheep, I have found it a relaxing exercise to run through an incantation of them under the duvet. I usually fall asleep before I have reached one of the longest of all, the 26-lettered Tripleurosepermum maritimum or the 25-lettered rhyming Chrysanthemum leucanthemum with their evocative reduplicated endings.

  There is colour in the flowers, but also a magical colour in these botanical names. I have often wondered about their provenance. How did they come about and who were the taxonomists who dreamt them up? The famous biologist Carl Linnaeus started the ball rolling when he publi
shed the definitive edition of his Systema Naturae in 1737. To this day biologists rely on his rules to identify the living things around them. Taxonomists are the experts who have named and described nearly one and half million of the planet’s living and extinct creatures and plants. The names at first seem a confusing jumble, more reminiscent of the look and the length of places in Gwynedd in Wales. Part of the fun of each visit is remembering them and relating these to the more well-known English versions. Little wonder an elderly man that I once met walking along the Flaggy Shore told me that the flowers ‘all have outrageous names’.

  Tourists on shoreline at Black Head © Marty Johnston

  3

  The Pool of Sorrows

  The bones of this land are not speechless.

  So first he should learn their language,

  He whose soul, in its time-narrowed passage,

  Must mirror this place.

  Frances Bellerby, ‘Artist in Cornwall’

  New York has its Statue of Liberty, Moscow its Kremlin, Pisa its Leaning Tower, London its Big Ben, and China its Great Wall, but the image that represents the Burren is a megalithic monument tucked away inland. Baffling yet strangely familiar, the Poulnabrone portal dolmen is a lodestone that has spawned a million photographs. From the black and white days of the heavy whole-plate camera and box brownie, through the Vest Pocket Kodak (VPK) years of the 1940s and 1950s, to the digital colour exponents of the twenty-first century, scores of trigger-happy Nikon visitors have felt the call to capture this arrestingly visual image and click their photographic stuff.

  They are now photoshopped and equipped with tripods, ultra wide-angle long lenses, metres, filters, lights, imagestabilisers, reflectors, diffusers, polarisers and fast exposures, taking pictures at a resolution of about seven million pixels and agonising over shutter speeds. The dolmen has been photographed from every possible angle in every possible light, in every possible season with every possible camera, at all hours and in all colours: radiant and burning, frozen, grey, lunar, red, white, yellow. Looming up dramatically with its enormous roof slab, or capstone, it is a conspicuous structure that possesses a characteristic brilliance, startling casual passing motorists. Driving past, even for those with only the slightest smidgeon of curiosity, is not an option. Marooned on an acre or more of flat and open pavement, the setting of Carboniferous limestone gives it character and liveliness.

  In the literature and cultural heritage of the Burren, it is a leitmotif. It corresponds to everyone’s idea of the traditional dolmen – a stone table resting on pillars. Leafing through guidebooks and breathless tourist promotional fliers throws up many superlatives: dramatic, breathtaking, magnificent, spectacular, astonishing, mighty, majestic and awesome are just a few applied to it. Whichever single adjective is used, Poulnabrone has entered the collective imagination as a potent part of the fabric of the landscape and a globally recognised name. Its silhouetted outline is to be seen everywhere: on postcards (artistic, humorous and mythical) calendars and t-shirts, on magnets, menus, mugs and mouse mats, and on the walls of pubs, hotels, B&Bs and cafes. Everywhere, it cuts a recognisable and sometimes Celtic-twilight figure, often with swirling multi-coloured energy patterns above it. You will find its image exoticised as a logo all over Ireland: in tourist information offices, gift shops, pitch-black on glossy book covers (Irish, spiritual, and touristic, often with dramatic clouds moving across the sky), framed pictures, holiday brochures, walking guides, soft-focus on CD and DVD covers, and gracing countless Irish travel articles as well as advertising features in newspapers and magazines. The ‘Kodachrome dolmen’ has unknowingly won more prizes and ribbons in camera club competitions than any other outdoor feature of the Irish landscape.

  As an emblematic flag, it has featured in poetry and music, as well as on an Irish postal service stamp and once made an appearance on the Irish Oatmeal biscuits box. The craft workers at Mullingar Pewter have cast a fine grade replica of it (€350 for a large and chunky version, €69.95 for the smaller one). In autumn 2010 as part of a public art initiative, an American artist, Jim Ricks, created an inflatable version called the ‘Poulnabrone bouncy dolmen’, twice the size of the original. He wanted to produce a soft playful symbol of post-Celtic tiger Ireland and for him bouncy castles represented an icon of contemporary society as much as Poulnabrone was an icon of ancient Ireland. Using a high-powered fan, the dolmen inflates in minutes and is designed for all age groups. The purpose of it is to engage creatively with communities in the Slieve Aughty Mountains, an area east of the Burren, and a place bereft of dolmens.

  Despite the inflated hyperbole and the fact that it is the most photographed, sketched, painted, talked and sung about megalithic tomb in Ireland, it still manages to possess a magical quality at whatever time of day and whatever time of year. Even on the coldest winter’s day a few cars are generally parked beside it while the occupants meditate on this megastar amongst dolmens. It is a short walk to reach it across the pavement and visitors gravitate towards it by a magnetic pull. For many it is simply a tourist curio that they have read about and feel they must see, paying homage with a cursory ten-minute wonder and wander amidst its archaeological past and a thirty-second camera pan.

  Others arrive with a thirst that needs quenching. To them it is a source of mystery and reverence. They frown and poke their way around it with a look of bemusement or bafflement as they try to fathom what it is and tease out some of its meaning. Promises and engagements have been made at this place of assignation – a mystical spot to seal a future life together. But mostly it is a staging post for tourists on an Irish whistle stop (frequently more whistle than stop as a tour leader once told me) must-see heritage hit list that includes the nearby Cliffs of Moher, the Blarney Stone, Yeats’ grave, Newgrange megalith tomb, and the Giant’s Causeway. In 2009 Failte Ireland used its image for the cover of ‘The Seven Wonders of Ireland’, a brochure selling it as one of the most spectacular places to visit with free admission. A tourism visitor survey showed that during the summer, 2,000 people a day visit the site; the average length of time spent there is ten minutes. Tourist board estimates put the number of people viewing it each year at more than 100,000. This means that in the past twenty years, potentially, 2 million people have stopped at the site.

  I have watched visitors arrive with cameras slung around them, bouncing on their oversized bellies, hell-bent on sightseeing. They fiddle with lenses and focusing, posing, loitering for a few minutes, waiting for a shift in the light, checking their filters, worrying about focal length measurements, surveying the hugeness of the sky, hoping for the rain to stop, the sun to reappear, or for a crescent moon, or pacing around to secure the sunset’s image sharpness for the ‘decisive moment’. A quote from the seventeenth-century Cardinal de Retz: Il n’y a rien dans ce monde qui n’ait un moment decisif, ‘There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment’, and a concept associated with Henri Cartier-Bresson.

  Solitary botanists wander around it in a private communion with some rare arctic or alpine species. On numerous visits I have noted burnet rose, vetch, twayblade, wild thyme, lady’s mantle, tormentil, milkwort, daises and primroses. Other visitors circumnavigate it, shivering in their fleeces, staring underneath as their eyes travel up and down, listening attentively to their guides, then asking: What is it about?

  So what is it they have come to see? What is the appeal of this neatly arranged tableau of stones? The name Poulnabrone, poll na mbron, which is sometimes spelt Poolnabrone, is said to mean ‘the pool, or pit, of sorrows’. But in Burren Journey George Cunningham suggests it means ‘the hole of the querns’ since ‘brone’ comes from the Irish word ‘bro’ meaning quern. Other interpretations say it means ‘The Hollow of the Millstone’. The dolmen itself is a simple form of chambered tomb made up of slender stones supporting the elongated, steeply-tilted roofed capstone measuring 3m by 2m. It was built 5,800 years ago. The term portal dolmen is believed to be a derivative of court tombs. Most cont
ain only a single chamber while others have two. The grave goods associated with them are similar to those linked with court tombs. Down the years it has suffered weathering wear and tear and at the hands of graffiti artists.

  In 1985 a visitor spotted a spiral crack in the eastern portal stone which worsened through time and meant that urgent conservation work had to be carried out. During 1986 and in 1988 archaeologists excavated the chamber. Professor Ann Lynch, who carried out the work, noted that the excavation of the chamber showed much about the form and structure of the tomb. The sill-stone at the entrance was sitting in an east–west gryke, forming a natural socket. She found that some soil was incorporated in the cairn matrix and several large stones had been placed on edge in grykes to help stabilise the structure.

  During the excavation, fragments of human bone were recovered from throughout the chamber deposit. Thirty-three bodies – seventeen adults and sixteen children, male and female – were found along with their grave goods which included ornamental beads, two quartz crystals, a miniature polished stone axe, pottery and a triangular piece of bone perforated by eleven circular holes. The artefacts recovered also included the tip of a flint or chert arrowhead found embedded in the hip bone of what was thought to be a man. It is believed they were buried at the site between 3800 BC and 3200 BC. Professor Lynch concluded that the majority of the adults died before reaching thirty while only one lived past forty. It was found that the eastern portal stone was cracked beyond repair and was replaced with a stone cut from the pavement. The experts also decided that since the weight of the capstone was being supported by just three stones, an extra support was necessary on the western side of the chamber to spread the load more evenly. A new modern replacement stone was inserted in the gap between the two eastern chamber stones.