Like the history of the town and the nature that surrounds us, travel has proved a popular topic throughout the Gazette’s publication. We’ve always shared our family vacations with readers, annually summarizing them. Our trip to Ireland, however, couldn’t be covered in one month, so we spread our experiences there over four issues, and while we’ve always received positive responses to articles on everyone’s travels, none has ever met such enthusiasm as Ireland, with many townspeople telling us they looked forward to the next chapter. We can’t explain this reaction, though there are quite a lot of people who have traveled to Ireland, and there are even more who would like to. Despite all this coverage, I would feel remiss if I didn’t dedicate a column to the plants there, as I have for others throughout the country, describing the colonial gardens of Williamsburg and the wildflowers of Texas, the allees from California’s palms to Savannah’s live oaks.
The value of the soil to the Irish is, of course, legendary, and evidenced everywhere, in the acres of pastures where grazing sheep are more plentiful than people, in the Burren’s tradition of winterage resulting in a blanket of wildflowers across the limestone, in the protected peat bogs that supply the fuel for hearths, permeating the air with a distinct scent. We learned of the relevance of their crop cultivation in history class when we studied the Potato Famine and its impact on immigration; and the cultural lessons of our generation included the inherent philosophy expressed by the Irish patriarch in “Gone with the Wind” with the line, “Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin’ for, worth fightin’ for, worth dyin’ for, because it’s the only thing that lasts” nearly as famous as “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” I can only account for my affinity for the soil from the cultures I’ve inherited.
It’s called the Emerald Isle for a reason. The everywhere green of the commonage acres sets the stage for the brushstrokes of gardens, and validates the claim that green is the calming color, the color of peace. It’s not limited to views of the pastureland. We’re enveloped in green from branches crossing over narrow roads rimmed with ferns, moss frosted rocks, hedgerows and tapestry hedges. The variety of green finds a near parallel here only in spring, when the earth and the buds burst forth with shades of jade and sage and chartreuse, emerald and kelly green, celery and olive and lime, mint and moss. These are the colors of the patchwork squares which cover the Irish landscape.
Flowers are omnipresent, spilling from stonewalls and from window sills, pastel and jewel colors painting gray rocks. Gardens spread across yards and in strips separating village streets. Wildflowers sprinkle themselves in pastures and dust the strands, sweep along fiords and rivers, soften the mountains and the cliffs overlooking the ocean, while formal displays cascade from bridges and decorate the religious grottos discovered on lawns and in the wilderness. Visiting in June, we saw many of the same flowers we left in Connecticut – dame’s rocket, roses, cranesbills, peonies, and lupine – in hues I’ve never seen, butter yellow, plum purple, cherry red. Wildflowers grow in profusion – daisies, magenta foxgloves, ruby, ivory, and rose centranthus, white umbels of valerian and heliotrope, angelica and cow parsley, towering thistles and mulleins, and carpets of buttercups and clovers the color of crushed strawberries. Some of our cultivated flowers grow wild in Ireland, compliments of a temperate climate and the infamous and incessant rains; fuschia grows along the roads, and rhododendron dots the landscape nearly as abundantly as sheep.
The third distinguishing characteristic of Ireland’s landscapes—rocks — and lessons on utilizing them. Stones comprise the ancient relics of pagan rituals and monastic settlements, old dwellings and chapels, castles and towers, bee hive huts and white-washed stone cottages. They delineate gardens and yards, border roads and form bridges, and compose one of Ireland’s most charming aspects – the stonewalls criss-crossing the countryside. The irony of the threat “Hell or Connaught”, the Cromwellian “choice” given to the Irish of death or exile to an unforgiving land, is found in the flora that flourishes there, the result of winterage, the seasonal grazing of cattle explained to us in a pub in the Burren where I remarked on the most beautiful bouquets I’ve ever seen. With rain draining rapidly on the limestone, collecting in calcium-rich pools, and the earth retaining its warmth, the cows consume the grass and contribute the fertilizer that creates a carpet of rare wildflowers, the farmers capitalizing on their resources centuries prior to scientific explanation. Irish roots are anchored in soil that is thoroughly respected, and entwined with grit.
Perhaps the interest in Ireland is due to the many residents of Irish descent. When we polled Hamptonites on their heritage, Irish was named more than any other culture, so many seeds scattered across the world after the Great Hunger. Of course, you don’t have to be Irish to visit Ireland, but if you are, you must. And having gone, you’ll want to return. One neighbor said it’s that Ireland is not so much a place as a feeling. I’d forgotten. I remembered the beauty, but I’d forgotten. Forgotten how rooted you become — listening to the roar of the ocean from the cliffs, witnessing the rise of the stone-stitched pastures, discovering the deeply spiritual places which appear in clearings with the dissipating mist – how rooted in your understanding of their reverence for this piece of earth, and their grief in leaving it. We returned to all of the places my mother visited – the Ring of Kerry, Cashel, Connemara, Glendalough, Achill Island – and she was in every one of them, as were my ancestors, who let me place my feet on the soil for a while in very meaningful ways.
Merry Christmas everyone. May the spirit of those who were once part of your celebration be with you still, may you gather with family and friends somewhere that invites return, and in the new year –
May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.