Pat Lynch. The man of the land between the sea and the mountains.

This day, Monday, I had booked a tour of Skellig Michael, a weird rocky island where Star Wars did some filming, which made it very famous. My tour was $150 and included the boat trip out there and several hours of self-guided walking around the island, and back. Two weeks before we left, there was a rock fall and the island was closed. I was already nervous enough about this excursion for some reason, and this just exacerbated that — especially after having been in Yellowstone four days before it was closed due to flooding and landslides. Lucky for me, the tour was cancelled due to weather! Not a word about the rock fall…. 

Photo credit to Wikipedia

Photo credit to Lucas Films

Our guests left right after breakfast — driving down the driveway just like they came in, as if it were just a drop-in — and went off to Cork for a few final nights. 

I dropped Fred off at a Bahaghs Workhouse, a poorhouse where his ancestors most likely lived and worked. SUPER sad in appearance, reminding me of Auschwitz.  He then walked a half mile up to the Srugrena Burial Grounds. Most of his people were too poor for engraved headstones, so looking for names wasn’t really part of the drill here for him.

Here's some info I found here  https://www.workhouses.org.uk/Cahirciveen/

Excerpted here. (I couldn't copy and paste the text, hence the static screengrabs.)

When I got home, I Zoom-chatted with my folks, after which there was a knock on the door. Instead of hiding in a closet, which I wanted to do, utterly PETRIFIED, I reminded myself that crime is very rare here, and people don’t have guns like they do at home. I was greeted at the door by the most gracious couple, Pat and Mary Lynch, Brian’s parents. Pat is the unofficial historian of all things Kells Bay — even having written a book (one of several) about all the families who once lived here. He’s been super helpful to Fred. They stopped by to say hello and that they’d be in touch soon to show us around the fields and lots that were once inhabited by Lynches. (I originally wrote "owned" by Lynches, but realized they were all forced out of their homes and forced to rent from their landlords... the English.... who pillaged the land in the name of greed.) The Irish, incidentally, are very good to refugees fleeing from places like Ukraine, not surprisingly, as many of their own have been in their shoes. 

Pat's book. Fred had access only to a PDF until Pat gave him this own copy. The limited run of 350 ran out the night of his book launch party years ago.

When Fred was ready, I picked him up and took photos of him drawing at the cemetery. 

On the way home, we ran into Pat walking by the beach at Kells Bay. (We later learned he and Mary own one of the trailers at this beach, so they can visit whenever they want — having moved to Kildare 57 years ago.) We came to not be at all surprised to run into any one of the handful of folks we knew here because, well, there are only a handful of folks here.

We decided Pat would pick us up in a half hour and so began our first Pat Lynch experience. There is not one square foot of land he doesn’t know all about. Who lived where, when and how they died, when and why they left the area, first names, last names, nicknames. He’s about 6’4” and 82 years old and walked these lumpy, rocky, slippery, rainy fields like the teenager he once was here in these very fields. 

We had to climb over several of these, for which Pat had gotten permission from the property owners.  Check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quH2cdrPh4c

Fred had noticed a memorial plaque near his lot for which, of course, Pat was responsible. Fred has since posted this to his Iveragh Peninsula Facebook page to which tons of people responded with thanks to Pat for going to this effort. It means a lot to so many. 

Pat’s family, like Fred’s, is full of educators. Pat was a school teacher and later principal, as was Fred’s father. Fred, of course, is an educator and our son Henry is getting his masters to teach, too.  True to his calling, Pat educated us about so much — including some Irish words that he repeated for us— and made us repeat back to make sure they stuck. Fred’s favorite was capaill bhána the word for “white caps” which translates to “white horses.” We will never see a white cap the same.  The accent over the "a" means that "a" is strongly emphasized. (It's pronounced something like "cappeelBANa." Another is the word for these little walls that sprung up all over the mountainside, built to provide shelter from the rain to the harvested chunks of turf they would later heat their homes with. The rocks on the tops of these clocháns (prounounced like "cluckONs") all slant to allow the rain to fall off the other way. (Same accent over the "a.")

A clochán is there on the left.

Here's how they cut away the earth to dry out and literally burn the roots. There's a movement afoot to ban the burning of turf for obvious environmental reasons, but people with three years' worth of it stored up will be hard pressed to follow this new law.

It poured so hard at one point that we turned back to one of the ruined houses and hid in a protected corner for a bit. Then headed back.  We said our goodbyes and decided to see him again tomorrow to walk the Mass Path.

Fred and I went back to Glenbeigh and had dinner at the bar of another place called The Towers. People tend to only drink at the bar, then eat at a table, then come back to bar if having another drink. We stay put at the bar, which is allowed but not necessarily typical.