Riding the Wild part 3
Touring the Wild Atlantic Way and the Mythic Sites of Ireland
After the first couple of epic days – when we averaged 200 miles of touring, arriving home about 10pm, exhausted and famished – we quickly learned to curtail our ambitions and faithfulness to every little nook and cranny. Following the coast north, we would pick and choose our itinerary according to our interest and energy levels. Nevertheless, we spent most of two weeks riding up the coast. Our days settled into a rhythm of stillness and motion, sea and land, sunshine and rain, night and day, camping, packing, moving, camping. On the long rides I would slip into a non-verbal space – one where thoughts would drift in and out of my head without trying to think about anything in particular. It became a meditation in serenity – in focus and surrender (Carr-Gomm, 2015). To stay alive on the motorbike requires absolute focus – you have to fully present. But, at the same time, because much of driving is about muscle memory and ‘motor functions’ one can slip into a rather Zen-like state of mind. One had to learn to trust in the Way – (I rarely use sat-nav on the bike, preferring to work it out on the atlas in advance). It’s a dream-like experience, not quite knowing where you are … between somewhere and … somewhere. That sense of being ‘meaningfully lost’ is delicious. There’s no rush to get anywhere in particular. No deadlines. So it doesn’t matter if one wanders a little, takes the long way round, improvising a route as one goes along. There is a sense of being self-created, like a character in a Creation Myth, forging the land before them. And it was to this mythic level we soon found ourselves becoming immersed in…
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Emain Macha, K. Manwaring, 2015
We visited a lot of prehistoric sites – all interesting in their own way, but the ones that really captivated me had mythic associations, chiefly connected to The Tain (Táin Bó Cúailnge). It was thrilling to visit sites connected with this early oral epic – an Irish Dreamtime sequence, mythologizing the landscape – Cruachan; Emain Macha; Tara; the Cooley Peninsula. The most jaw-dropping was Knocknarea, site of Medb’s Cairn (an impressive mound of stones situated on a hill overlooking Sligo’s coast and surrounded by equally stunning sites – the megalithic cemeteries of Carrowkeel and Carrowmore to name two). Even though it is unlikely Queen Medb is buried there, if she ever existed, it seems the fitting monument to such a mighty queen. WB Yeats, whose childhood family home was situated in county Sligo, waxed lyrical about her, perhaps projecting his own idealised warrior queen, Maud Gonne, into her shoes. In such places, where the mythic and historical overlap, literature and archaeology, the past and the present, I feel an electrifying frisson. They are charge-points for poets like me, where I feel plugged into the grid of creativity.
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Medb’s Cairn, Knocknarea, K. Manwaring, 2015
And it was visiting places like these that my pillion passenger and I vowed to create a ballad and tale show that would weave them together somehow. It would take us a couple of years but we did do just that: with our ‘MythPunk’ show, The Hallows, rebranding ourselves Bríghíd’s Flame in honour of the mighty Irish goddess of poetry, smithcraft and healing, and her saintly sister, St Brigid, whose holy site we visited at Kildare. There a sacred flame was kept perpetually burning by the nuns, and we vowed to do the same, symbolically, with our bardic craft.
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St Brigid’s Chapel, Kildare, K. Manwaring 2015
Part 4 tomorrow!
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/
