CAREY CONRAD IS A GLORIOUSLY EXTROVERTED blow-in (with distinctly introvert tendencies too, but she keeps these under wraps) who brought great energy and insight to our lives on Beara. And Carey’s voice is not one that goes unnoticed in the librarylike quietude of the Internet store across the square from MacCarthy’s Bar in Castletownbere. Invariably there’s a somnolent silence in here. The owner whispers into his phone behind the counter (either conducting complex counterintelligence campaigns or plotting nefarious number-crunching business schemes—we never knew which, although his tales encompassed both possibilities). And users of the dozen or so computers gaze raptly at their screens, mesmerized by their scrolling downloads.
But then this buoyant ball of energy rolls in, her blond hair piled up into a loose bun, her long coat flapping around her ankles like a hyperactive bat, and her face flushed with her perpetual aura of vivacious enthusiasm.
“Hi…,” she calls out, oblivious to the owner’s intense phone conversation, and then, as heads stir and lift from flickering screens around the room, she issues another, more generally collective “Hi!” to the huddled customers. There’s a kind of grunty mumbling of responses, which seems enough to keep Carey’s smile bright and buoyant. Then she spots the two of us snuggled together in a corner, crouched over a computer and trying to frantically compose e-mails to resolve a number of issues that need to be dealt with urgently back at our home in New York.
Why is it that traumas always seem to occur there when we’re not? At home, that is. In the USA. Why is it, for example, that our refrigerator has chosen this particular week, after over sixteen loyal years of uninterrupted service, to suddenly die and spill its lifeblood of minilakes of de-iced water and less savory fluids all over the kitchen floor. Fortunately our dear friend Celia, guardian of our domestic affairs and just about everything else during our absences, was around to do the mopping up and to add a few more unwelcome but, alas, necessary warnings about our gas stove (“I think there’s a bit of a leak there somewhere…”), our deck (“It may be just me, but I think it’s starting to look a little lopsided…”), and our car (“I tried starting it up, but it didn’t seem to want to cooperate…”). Poor Celia. She hates giving out bad news and she knows how helpless we feel three thousand miles out here in the Atlantic with normally not a care in the world and no decisions of any import to be made except which pub to grace with our lunchtime presences.
“I know who you two are!” cried this woman as she pointed to us with the certainty of a witness at a criminal suspect lineup. We were right in the middle of deciding which domestic trauma we should attend to first, and suddenly, here was this strident lady, obviously very American in attitude and ambience, rushing toward us with an outstretched finger, determined to tell us and everyone else in the room exactly who we were and what we were doing here on Beara.
And the odd thing was that she got most of it right. I suppose we could have done the British thing and become all huffy and puffy about such an unexpected invasion of our privacy. But she was obviously the kind of individual who wouldn’t even notice such an Anglophilic rebuff. So we laughed instead, invited her to sit down and tell us how she had managed to accumulate her remarkably accurate data.
And that was the beginning of a most entertaining and valued friendship. Carey’s long love of Beara, her second home now for over sixteen years, and her extensive knowledge of the people here was intriguing, particularly when it encompassed reclusive celebrities who sought safe havens in and around Beara.
Later on in our relationship she even tried to arrange interviews for us with such notable “locals” as Maureen O’Hara (star of The Quiet Man, that classic Irish film with John Wayne), who still lives up in Glengarriff; Julia Roberts; the filmmaker Neil Jordan; and a little farther beyond Bantry, Jeremy Irons in his ancient castle, which on some odd whim he painted a joyous pink. In the end, and for a bizarre range of reasons, none of the interviews materialized, but Carey’s other bulwarks of knowledge of local history, folklore, and all the rest of the Celtic-Gaelic-Gothic fantasy world here provided a sound foundation for a mutually enduring relationship.
A couple of days after our first meeting at the Internet center, she invited us to her seashore home in Adrigole, a few miles from Beara’s infamous Hungry Hill. Over tea and homemade cookies, she regaled us with tales of how she and a friend had created this enticingly intimate and richly handcrafted retreat. Carey’s talents and enthusiasm seemed boundless. She was particularly enamored by “our wonderful local characters here—Old Peg at the store, and Jim, the shoemaker. Real Beara people.” And then she set about telling us her life story. It certainly seemed that our new friend had enjoyed a vividly kaleidoscopic kind of existence encompassing a multiself array of interests, from real estate and property refurbishment, ceramics, jewelry making, and art, to Buddhist meditation (yes, the Dzogchen Center again), spiritual healing, architectural design, and occasional bouts of “amateurish” (her expression) writing.
Rather than put her vivid life story into my own words, it’s possibly best merely to offer a partial transcript of the tape that we made of her colorful summary:
“I was born in Ashland, Wisconsin. And I was born rear end first…I always felt that was significant, as I seem to like to look at the ending of books first and then start reading from the beginning. My mom saw her dead father the moment I was born. Must have been the drugs…Leaping ahead, I graduated from Sun Prairie High School in 1969. I decided to become an X-ray technician and studied at the University of Wisconsin and practiced at the University Hospital in Madison. I learned quickly how to deal with death, and how to live with it.
“My husband and I got married like my mother and father did. During a war period—Vietnam—in a hurry and without really knowing one another. We were friends originally. We would have been better off if we’d stayed friends too. But then again, that’s not really true because my beautiful daughter, Melissa Marie, came from that union. She I would never give back.
“After Brian and I got divorced, I moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I went to hock my wedding ring when I met this jeweler who was selling his store and had an inventory to get rid of. I told him that maybe we could do some business together. So that’s when I started selling jewelry in bars. I’d hit nine bars a night, and soon the word spread and women would gather around me when I came into a place to see what new jewelry I had out. It was the 1980s and everyone loved flash and sparkle and bling! Lots of ba-roque ’n’ roll stuff. They called me ‘The Jewelry Lady from the East Side,’ and my following grew. An article in the Milwaukee Journal about me brought some notoriety, and soon I had a line of people waiting to see me in a little office I was renting. Word of mouth is great in Milwaukee, and a couple who acted as agents booking major acts into the city started hiring me to make jewelry thank-you gifts for the visiting stars. I was commissioned to make Eric Clapton a tiny guitar that had strings you could pluck. Also Sammy Hagar, Mario Andretti, Paul Newman, Air Supply, the Moody Blues, Cher, Gladys Knight, Lou Rawls, even Liberace, and especially Tom Jones, who I kissed onstage. I made for him a little charm of a bra-and-panties tie tack.
“It was a great time. I met Ladysmith Black Mambazo with Paul Simon after they’d made their fabulous album Graceland. I made a pendant that symbolized how their music had spanned the globe, bringing awareness of the horrors of apartheid.
“Then things changed. My mother died in 1991 of ovarian cancer. Immediately afterward I got a phone call from a friend. She’d moved to Ireland but was returning to the States and asked me to come and help her pack. I needed a break, so I flew into Dublin in midwinter for a two-week stay. When I got there I found out that my friend could not get off work for longer than three days. So we worked hard together packing all her stuff, and after she left I decided to just drive wherever I felt like driving. I took my map and just set off. And as I worked my way down the coast, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the land. Finally I drove into Bantry, and there was a market going on. I bought some old lace and some jewelry and heard a voice in my head saying, You could live here. So I decided to explore the Beara Peninsula, and as I drove, it just got more and more beautiful. I stopped for toothpaste in Glengarriff at the drugstore and saw a sign that said HARRINGTON’S PUB AND AUCTIONEERS. I knew ‘auctioneers’ meant real estate over here, so it suddenly hit me to go in and ask how much oceanfront property was going for in those days.
“Bernard Harrington was behind the bar, and I asked him, ‘Is this a real estate office or a pub?’ ‘A little bit o’ both’ was his answer. And when I asked about oceanfront property for sale, he took me out to one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. A valley carved out of the side of a mountain with lovely green fields and the ocean crashing in on huge rocks. I took one look and knew I was gonna change my life and live there.
“It was one of the best decisions I ever made. And I quickly learned so much about healing in this place where there are so many wonderful healers who’ve come to this enchanted land. And I needed them. My body was a bit of a mess. I feel in my heart it’s because the land is so ancient and untouched in so many places. There’s still a pure energy here that’s not compromised by industry or overpopulation. The light, the rain, the rainbows, and the quick wit of the people embrace me here. I’ve discovered so many beautiful places at the end of small dirt roads. The sea was so close to me that every day I looked out of my window to see seals, birds, and swans. It was, and still is, a place of incredible beauty. And I’ve known a happiness here that I don’t think could be replicated anywhere else in the world.”
CAREY’S CONTAGIOUS SPIRIT OF urgency and energy energized us, and when she started to plan a series of exploratory expeditions for us to her favorite “secret spots” around Beara, we found ourselves unable to resist and decided just to go with the flow. Her flow, of course.
And quite a flow—and show—she provided over subsequent weeks. She had a deeply empathetic understanding of the Irish instinct for the mysteries of religious faith, for the supernatural, and for the long storyteller epics combining real and mystical events, which still form such a vital part of the fabric of the national psyche here.
In typical American fashion, Carey quickly opened her heart and spirit. “I try to find a kind of balance—six months here on Beara and six months back in the USA. But the trouble is, it’s so hard to leave this place. I just love being here.”
We mentioned to her that we’d both been impressed by Julie Aldridge and her spiritual healing activities at Soul Ray. Carey laughed and clapped her hands. “Ah, yes—Julie! She’s the best! Her art therapy is amazing. You know, she teaches that at Cork University every week. Her approach seems so simple the way she describes it—she says, ‘Your soul will talk to you through your drawing, and if you have someone to work through the process with you—a kind of interpreter—you start to see what you’re trying to unravel in your life—patterns of hurt, abuse, whatever.’ She knew I’d been through some traumas earlier in my own life and she said, ‘Look at your family and you’ll see patterns that keep repeating themselves. It can be depression, early pregnancies, divorce, illnesses—all sorts of things. Emotional patterns, physical patterns—when you start recognizing and acknowledging the patterns, you can stop them from reemerging in your and your children’s lives. Otherwise you’ll just keep on continually repeating them.’”
“Yes,” said Anne. “And all this apparently can be revealed through art. That’s what she was explaining to David and me. We were up there with her last week, and we saw her studio in the old cow byre at the back of their cottage. She kept most of her own artwork there—big ethereal canvases of oceanscapes and cloudscapes. Beautiful glowing colors. Sometimes she used gold leaf to emphasize horizons and reflections.”
Carey nodded vigorously. “Yeah, wonderful pieces. So energetic and yet…peaceful too. I tell you—this whole peninsula is a real hotbed of artistry and healing. There’s a new generation of people here with amazing powers…I really feel blessed that I found this place. In some ways I think, well, like it kind of ‘saved’ me. I was a bit of a mess when I first came and a lot of stuff I’d heard sounded a bit too mumbo jumbo for my tastes—for my needs. But you know, as time went on and I met more people and got involved in handcrafting this house, things began to make much more sense. They lost that dodgy ‘New Age’ image and became…well, I guess you’d say…much more pragmatic…eminently sensible and focused.”
Then Carey suddenly stopped and chuckled. “I’m wondering…are you two open to a spot of eminently unsensible spontaneity? Right now?”
“Always,” we answered in unison.
“Well…why don’t we take a little drive into the mountains. There’s so much to see out there. We’ve got two hundred and fourteen official prehistoric sites on Beara and countless others that aren’t even on the formal record—stone circles, dolmens, souterrains, standing stones, the lot! And there are special places—really special. Julie helped me find my own ‘mother earth place’…I’d love to show it to you…”
You don’t turn down offers of this kind, and of course, even if you tried to, Carey would somehow carry you off anyway in a surge of effervescent energy.
Which is precisely what she did.
Looking back, I remember a magical jumble of images and stories as we drove on rough back roads deeper and deeper into the mountainous heart of this wild peninsula. The scale of the place is utterly confusing. From the map we knew that Beara at its widest point was barely eight miles across from Bantry Bay in the south to the Kenmare River and the hazy hills of the Ring of Kerry to the north. And yet it seemed with Carey as our guide that we wriggled and romped for hours and never appeared to get close to either coast. And it didn’t matter. We had no particular destination in mind, and we were happy just to bounce and float through this secret hinter-land, listening to Carey’s tales and seeing the landscape through her eyes. Eyes that brought the land to life as she pointed to a huge up-surge of broken strata that tore through the turf and towered a good thirty feet into the chill moorland air.
“That’s Mass Rock—one of a number of places where the Catholics would gather to worship, away from the prying eyes and terrible punishments of the British Protestant overlords a couple of centuries back.”
She pointed to a nearby broken capstone of an enormous neolithic dolmen, two small stone circles half hidden in thick brush, one very prominent standing stone over ten feet high, and a host of shadowy lumps and bumps in the earth that she insisted were the remains of human settlements over three thousand years old.
Then we descended rapidly in a series of sudden twists and curls through a rumpus of tumbling hillocks down into a lush valley of alders, dwarf beech, green meadows, and remnants of ancient peat beds close to a winding stream.
“People around here still treasure their ‘turf rights.’ They’re written into the house and farm deeds and were once very jealously guarded. There’s not so much cutting going on nowadays—you can still see a couple of stacks up there.” Carey pointed up the valley, where a small waterfall tumbled lacelike off a rocky precipice. “But once it was your lifeblood for the winter. If you didn’t cut enough turf and dry it properly on the moor before carrying it back to your house in your wicker creel basket—some could weigh a hundred and fifty pounds when they were full—then woe betide your winter nights. It’s not so much ice and snow and the like. We never got much of that because of the Gulf Stream. It’s more the damp chill, which can eat into your bones like acid. And I know! I’ve got arthritis, which is why I usually go back to the States during the winter. I could hardly move about if I stayed here!”
At that very moment, as she conjured up the gray glop of winter, a shaft of brilliant light shot through the clouds and bathed the central part of the valley in a golden sheen. It was almost Edenic in its haloed intensity, reminding me of one of my favorite Dylan Thomas snippets: “And so it must have been after the birth of the simple light in that first spinning space…”
Carey seemed so delighted in our delight at her secret places that she may have been a little carried away at times. As, for example, when she described bizarre theories about a vast network of underground souterrain communities that once existed across these wild moors. She also told us of a tendency toward cat worship in ancient temples here, as reflected in stones carved with feline faces; the Celtic acknowledgment of “ancient feminine energies”; a theory that pre-Celtic settlers here were of Far Eastern origin; and a great national fear of fairies and their penchant for stealing babies and leaving behind nefarious “changelings,” which still persists today and explains the deposits of “little gifts” for the fairies, particularly around May Day and Halloween.
“You might well laugh,” said Carey (I was only smiling benevolently, I thought), “but there are still many places here that people are nervous about.” She stopped suddenly at the far edge of the valley with the peat beds. Ahead of us rose an enormous rampart of bare rock hundreds of feet high. A great gash filled with dense scrub split the hillside from top to bottom. “Y’see that place ahead of us?” asked Carey with a sinister tone in her voice. “That’s where the Witch of the Red Door lives. Y’see just to the right of that big split in the rock there’s an area that looks darker than the rest…sort of blood-red…”
We were a little unsure we could see anything red but nodded anyway.
“Well—it seems there was once a tribe living here in this valley, and they were starving. The crops had failed and people were dying, so the chief went high up into this cleft, and for three days he prayed to the gods for water and sustenance. And on the fourth day that area of rock—now called the Red Door—opened and out came this beautiful young woman carrying two enormous baskets of food. She walked down toward the people in the valley, and they cheered and grabbed the food from her baskets. And as fast as they grabbed and ate, the baskets would refill themselves. But when the chief saw what was happening he rushed down from the cleft. He was immediately jealous of the power of this woman but also doubted if she was indeed ‘a gift from the gods’ and declared her to be an evil presence. She smiled and approached him, but he turned his back. She approached again, but he cursed her and her ‘evil fairy ways,’ so she dropped the baskets on the ground, walked back into the hillside, and disappeared. And as she vanished, so did the baskets and all the food, and a sheen of red, like a huge spilling of blood, covered the place where she had vanished. And immediately the chief fell dead and all his tribe was left to starve horribly…”
Carey paused dramatically. “And they say this is still a cursed place and that you must never go anywhere near the Red Door over there…They say people have disappeared…”
I love the silence that follows an eerie fairy tale and the little tinges of terror, or certainly trepidation, that scamper up and down your spine.
“And if you like that tale, then I’ve got a real special place I want to take you…I’d like you to meet my favorite person on the whole peninsula…The Hag of Beara.”
“A hag?! You mean an old woman—a witch?” asked Anne, slightly bemused.
Carey chuckled. “Well—in essence, yes. A very ancient woman…a mythical figure…the Cailleach Bhearra. You’ve always got to be careful when you visit…You should take a gift—flowers, ribbons, coins, or something shiny—and when you leave, you have to give a bit of yourself as a sign of respect. The locals usually spit on the ground, like they do when they enter cemeteries. They spit and say, ‘God bless all of you.’ Or you can cut off a bit of hair—anything to acknowledge her and the fact you’re pleased to visit her and meet her.”
“Sounds fascinating,” said Anne. “Is she close by?”
“Not far—just out of Eyeries on the Kenmare road. Past that very ancient Ballycrovane ogham stone marked with a unique script that looks like knife cuts. One of the world’s earliest written languages, so they say. Up past Kilcatherine church—or what’s left of it. She’s high on a hillside looking out across Inishfarnard island to Kenmare Bay and the Skelligs.”
“Sounds a great spot. Let’s go, and you can tell us the tale on the way,” I said.
“Oh God, no! That’s an ancient terror of a tale. Dozens of different tellings…dozens of different names for her.”
“Yes, but from what I understand, she’s such a vital part of not just Beara folklore, but also the whole of Ireland,” I suggested.
There was a pause. I knew Carey wanted to tell the tale. She was a natural seanachai, but something was holding her back, and it wasn’t coyness or modesty. I wondered if it was the old bardic fear that, if a tale was told inaccurately or any of the subtle nuances were missing, dire consequences could befall the unfortunate tale teller.
Eventually she capitulated. “Okay—but mind you, I know various versions based on all kinds of different tales. They’re not gospel or anything. Lots of people will tell you different stories. But this one is about as simple a way as I can tell it—it’s based on Julie’s version of the legend. Some say the Hag’s real name is Boi—wife of Lugh, the Celtic god of light, and one of the original great land goddesses. Y’know, the Great Mother—Magna Mater, source of all fertility, female power, corn goddess, protector of wild nature, symbol of enduring longevity, and all that kind of thing. And she lived on Innes Boi at the tip of Beara. We call it Dursey Island today—a focal point of Ireland’s ‘other world’ of the dead and mysterious beings. There’s a great poem-lament about her written, so they say, around AD 900. She’s the mythical, some think sinister, ‘old woman’ of so many Irish legends. I’m not sure if I can remember all of it, but it goes something like this:
‘The old woman of Beara am I
Who once was beautiful
Now all I know is how to die
I do it well
‘Look at my skin
Stretched taught across my bones
Where kings have placed their lips
Ah the pain, the pain
‘I do not hate men
Who swore truth rested in their lies
But one thing I do hate
Is woman’s eyes
‘I drank the great wine with kings
They rested their loving eyes on my hair
Now among stinking old hags
I chew the cud of prayer
‘Time was broad as the sea
And brought kings like slaves to me
But now I fear the face of God
And crabs crawl through my blood
‘The sea—ah the sea—grows distant now
Away, away it goes
And I lie here when the foam dries
On this deserted land
Dry as my shrunken limbs
As the tongue that presses my lips
As the veins that break through my hands’”
There was silence. Carey seemed to be trying to remember more, but then she smiled. “I think that’s where it ends…”
“Fantastic—well done!” said Anne, patting her shoulder. “Amazing images—kings as slaves, hating women’s eyes, crabs crawling in her blood, veins breaking through her hands…”
“Yeah,” nodded Carey. “Wild stuff, eh? They could really write in the ninth and tenth centuries.”
“Yes, they could but…I hesitate to ask. What does it all mean?”
“Well—once again, it depends who’s telling it. She’s been a key part of Celtic-Gaelic tales for so long. You also find talk of her in Scottish legends…but she shape-shifts, depending on the age of the story and the source. The earliest one shows her as the corn goddess, possessor of all the secrets of seed sowing and harvesting, destroyer of male reapers who fail to equal her reaping prowess. Then she becomes kind of a legend for longevity who seemed to live ‘the seven ages of womanhood,’ constantly and simultaneously breeding ‘all peoples and all races.’ And I suppose she was a giantess, because tales of her footprints all over Beara and Dursey Island are well known.”
“Y’know—Julie told us a long complex tale about her great leaps,” I said. “There was one in particular where she’d soared from a rock near Eyeries across Coulagh Bay to Kilcatherine, leaving behind two huge indentations, which we could actually see in the rock and touch—definitely a size twenty-four in boots, she was!”
“Well, that sounds like a mixed-up version of another tale where the Hag punished a woman near Hungry Hill for stealing butter. She transformed her into a giant cock, and it left footprints all over Cuaileach and other parts around here. But there’s all kinds of versions, from Yeatsian reverie to gothic horror! Some say she changed herself into a rock on that hillside to guard Ireland’s shores and await the return of her husband, Mannan, Lord of the Sea. Others say that the Hag—as Mother Earth—got into a fight with Mannan. She became so angry that she turned into molten lava and Mannan overwhelmed her. And, as happens to lava when it hits the ocean, she became a solid lump of rock. And—ironically—that rock is claimed to be the only piece of lava on the whole of our peninsula! Another says that this is the form she took in perpetual humility to God when she rejected her pagan origins and became a Christianized nun. A fourth suggests pretty much the opposite—that she transformed herself—or was transformed—into stone because of her hatred of the Christianizing impact on ancient pagan gods. A lesser theme was her being turned into stone by an angry priest from whom she’d stolen a Mass book.”
“What an incredible kaleidoscope of epics!” said Anne.
“Ah boy, yes—endless! Some call her ‘Our Irish Mary Magdalene.’ Others see her as being symbolic of the Irish and European purge of female witches. Some of the old gods like Dna, the mother of Irish gods, became St. Brigid, whose annual festival celebrates the beginning of spring. In some ways they could have been forgotten as the Catholic church became supreme, but there seems to be a new level of interest in these ancient, powerful, and pagan forces today. Maybe we see great wisdom in their awareness of the interconnectedness of all things and the balancing of male and female forces. Things we’re still trying to work out ourselves right now!”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “The old values resonating once again in all our current chaos of global decimation and disaster!”
“Story of life really, isn’t it?” said Carey. “In the tough times, we dig back to the simpler, clearer beliefs. Yesterday I heard of a woman in town…someone called her ‘as ancient as the Cailleach Bhearra.’ She’s still a feared—but also very respected—Hag. In fact her code for a healthy life is still listened to today:
‘I never let the top of my head see the air
I never let the sole of my foot ever touch the ground
I never ate food but when I was hungry
I never went to sleep but when I would be sleepy
I never throw out dirty water until I’ve taken in the clean.’”
“So the spirit of the Hag is still alive and well,” I suggested.
Carey laughed. “Sometimes a bit more alive than seems sensible or safe! You talk to some of those folks who come over all the way from Belgium or Germany to visit The Hag rock and leave gifts and whatnot and you worry a bit about where their heads are at!”
I worried about our heads too. But we steadfastly decided to honor the required rituals, and all in all, it was a unique and pleasant experience.
We left the car at the roadside and entered the moor by a small gate. The sun was bright, and a refreshing briny breeze scampered up the hillside from the small bay below us. A mussel farm and a couple of modest fishing boats (the old kind—nothing like the mega-monsters now in Casteltownbere harbor) occupied the landward side of the bay. In the hazy distance, purpled and jaggedly mysterious, were the two Skelligs, so strangely similar in profile, like enormous schooners on the horizon.
A narrow, muddy path led us around the flank of the hill. For some bizarre reason, rather than avoiding all the bogs and peaty patches, it seemed to delight in taking us straight through them and soaking us up to our calves.
“What is this—some kind of endurance test?” I asked, annoyed to see my new hiking boots obliterated in thick black mud.
Carey gave me a warning frown and whispered (she actually whispered), “Best to be quiet now. We’re almost there. She’s just around the bend…”
And Carey as usual was correct. As we shuffled in soggy single file along the path, an oddly shaped rock rose up just ahead. Compared to all the bulky “standing stones” and stone circles on Beara this was a very modest-sized rock, barely five feet high. But it did possess a definite animate presence. In silhouette it was like a large figure sitting on the ground wrapped in a broad blanket with a small head perched on wide shoulders. And, as we got closer, we realized that, just as we’d been told, the rock was covered with and surrounded by the most bizarre types of “personal gifts”—buttons, coins, cheap rings, bracelets, necklaces, and even pens, ribbons, and a number of those popular rubber wristbands proclaiming support for worthy causes.
We stood in silence for a while. Maybe even a little awe crept in. It was obvious that scores of people had made their way here over the months, trekking through the peaty glop, to pay their respects and sit or stand silently in The Hag’s presence. She seemed to induce that kind of respect. Stupid really that a bit of odd-shaped boulder set on a lonely hillside in a very remote part of Ireland should engender so much veneration. And who knows, maybe even a little fear too. Hags to many people are obviously not harmless. Especially Hags that may be tangible links to the greatest female goddesses of all—the ones with the real powers for earthly fertility and life-continuity.
Eventually Carey broke the silence and said quietly. “This is my favorite place—here with her. When you think of all those prayers and wishes and all those people over the ages who’ve left imprints of energy here, it kind of cloaks you in a mystery when you touch her. After all, she is Mother Nature in solid form. And across this small bay here is that giant ogham stone—a huge masculine symbol of energy. The two of them facing each other, watching one another, seeking to maintain balance and harmony…makes me just want to sit and be a little part of all that…”
I reached out and stroked The Hag. The rock was rough with dry lichen and felt pretty much as a rock normally feels. But as I moved my fingers slowly across its surfaces I sensed two odd sensations—a distinct warmth in the rock despite the fact it was a rather gray and chilly day, and sudden faint tingles of energy, like low-voltage electricity that radiated up my arm…
OVER THE MONTHS WE returned to The Hag a number of times, bearing our small gifts and leaving our spit as gestures of respectful farewells. Invariably we brought our American friends with us—Robby, Celia, Danny, Theo, Lizbeth, Kathleen, and others, and in every instance, each one sensed the power and impact of this strange, beguiling entity. I can’t say we actually came to love The Hag, but we were certainly proud she was here with us on Beara. And—in an odd way—I guess this book is a kind of homage not only to this magnificent peninsula but also to the earth-nurturing spirit that resides here, centered on places like this wild hillside.
And while I’m in this homage mode, I’ll also acknowledge other friends of ours—the magnificent O’Reilly family. Two of them, James and Sean, creators of the Travelers’ Tales publishing company in San Francisco, came over for an enormous family reunion near Killarney (forty plus children and grandchildren reflecting a “fine Catholic family!”). While we never managed to lure them over Moll’s Gap to Beara, we visited them and were treated to a personal tour of an enormous ruined castle they’d recently purchased. It was a most impressive if very broken pile, set high on a wooden hilltop overlooking the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks range. And they had absolutely no idea what to do with it. We suggested that a visit to our powerful Hag and a few questing prayers might help resolve the matter…
IT WAS FASCINATING TO watch the different impacts Beara had upon our friends. Each one had gone to a considerable amount of trouble to reach our tiny wild corner of southwest Ireland. Some had landed in Dublin, some in Shannon, and all had to fight the horrors of the rental car rip-off when they realized that Ireland was one of only three nations on earth not recognized by USA insurance and credit card policies (the others being Israel and Jamaica!).
But finally they arrived, each one bearing lurid tales of crazy drivers, horrendously narrow roads, gorgeous little rainbow-colored villages, the oddly brain-numbing porridgy impact of a céilí hang-over, the gargantuan breakfasts particularly following a night of craic and overconsumption…(“How can anyone start the morning with one of those cholesterol-dripping platters of bacon, sausage, black pudding, white pudding, fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, fried bread, eggs, and baked beans and still hope to stay upright for the rest of the day?!”) Others less inclined to the juice of the barley thought they were some of the best breakfasts they’d every eaten.
We sympathized, empathized, and finally itemized for our poor overburdened guests, all the joys of Beara and beyond. And they—god bless ’em, each and every one—smiled and sank into receptive mode for the rest of their visits. And, of course, respectful trips to The Hag helped consolidate their fun and good fortune.
So thanks once again, Cailleach Bhearra—and Carey too, for first introducing us to her and to so many other delights in this wild and spirit-nurturing place.