Riding the Wild part 1
Touring the Myth Sites of Ireland and the Wild Atlantic Way
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On the Wild Atlantic Way (on my trusty Triumph Legend 900TT), Summer 2015. K. Manwaring
In a poem written by WB Yeats during his time running the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, he expressed his exasperation with life’s complexities, while simultaneously encapsulating what has defined him: ‘The fascination of what’s difficult/Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent/Spontaneous joy and natural content/Out of my heart.’ He uses the pegasus as the symbol of creative inspiration, but ‘There’s something ails our colt’. The difficulties of creative (and nationalist) endeavour make it seem to: ‘Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt/As though it dragged road metal.’ Yeats vows to emancipate it in the final line: ‘I’ll find the stable and pull out the bolt’. And yet, despite this defiant affirmation Yeats spent much of his adult life in the thrall of the ‘difficult’, in obscure esoterica and the complex magical systems and rituals of the Golden Dawn and his own occult order, but chiefly in the form of Maud Gonne, the nationalist figurehead whose unrequited love possessed him for decades. Even her name suggests an alluring evanescence, an inattainability. She was his ‘glimmering girl’, which he searched for like wandering Aengus, in the eponymous poem:
‘Though I am old with wandering,
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone…’
In August 2015 I headed into the west, to Ireland to search for the littoral. I wanted to ride the Wild Atlantic Way (WAW), which stretches from Old Head, Kinsale, south of Cork, to Malin Head in Donegal. At 2500km/1553 miles it is the longest continuous coastal route in the world, so the marketing claims. I had been meaning to tour Ireland on my Triumph Legend 900cc motorbike for sometime, and this new route, created in 2013, was the thing that clinched it. I set off with my partner, Chantelle Smith, an archaeologist and folksinger. We were keen to visit prehistoric sites, as well as literary and musical hotspots. We booked off two weeks’ holiday and camped along the way. We were to experience the littoral in many ways over the next fortnight: physically, mentally, and metaphysically – the ‘shores’ of our comfort and consciousness.
Initially it was literally in the crossing from Wales to Ireland – from the prosaic ferry terminal of Pembroke Dock, waiting in the queue to board the ferry at 2 o’clock in the morning, rain glistening on the cold tarmac; to arriving at Rosslare at dawn in the clean sunlight.
Once on the N-4, roaring west, the mundane world of the entreport was soon left behind as we headed to our first destination – Blarney, where we had booked a campsite which would be our base for the next three days’ as we worked our way along the southern stretch of the Wild Atlantic Way. My partner insisted we did the tourist thing and kiss the blarney stone. Even this corniest of Irish clichés had an element of the ‘littoral’ – hanging upside down, 100 feet in the air. The moment proved elusive to capture on camera, so I ended up doing it three times. So, according to the folklore, I should be blessed with especial eloquence!
Part 2 tomorrow!
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View from the Cave of the Cat, which inspired the setting of our show, The Hallows, K Manwaring 2015
See the show inspired by our trip!
‘The Hallows’ performed by Bríghíd’s Flame (Kevan Manwaring & Chantelle Smith).
When the world ends what stories will you tell around the fire?
The land is a wasteland – a kingdom of crows. B, a raggedy young survivor on the run, is tired, hungry and cold, and it is getting dark. Then she hears an eerie singing …
Irish mythology meets Post-Apocalyptic Myth-Punk!
Storytelling, Song, Poetry, & Music (Harp, Guitar, Shruti Box, Bodhran, Bones).
31 Jan: Glastonbury Assembly Rooms http://www.assemblyrooms.org.uk/event/brighids-flame/?instance_id=323
10 Feb: Enchanted Market http://theenchantedmarket.com/
1 Mar: Rondo Theatre, Bath http://rondotheatre.co.uk/whats-on/
