Mountain Mine

My very first visit to the beautiful, rugged landscape of Allihies in the Beara Peninsula, West Cork was back in June 2001.  That was a family holiday with hubby, our two boys and Sandy, our much loved golden labrador, who sadly is no longer with us.

Each trip into the village with the sight of Mountain Mine towering high above us filled me with a sense of dread as I imagined the men and boys working deep within its mine shafts.  Apart from the obvious dangers associated with this perilous work the thought of being buried so deep underground terrified me beyond belief.


Nine years later, hubby and I returned to the same holiday home, the boys by now having moved out and Sandy well settled in doggy Heaven.   (Posts relating to this return visit can be viewed on my other blog, JOURNEYS THROUGH TIME under the label, "Allihies"). This time, walking beneath that massive structure didn't conjure up the same terror for me as it had back in 2001.  In fact, I was so intrigued by its amazing history that I wanted to encounter it at closer quarters, so, in October 2010, hubby and I climbed the steep pathway that would eventually lead us to Allihies' most imposing landmark, the Man Engine House.  So deeply affected was I by the terrible loss of life, especially the boy who drowned in Caminches Mine that some days later I wrote this little piece.



Mountain Mine

Across West Cork's Allihies landscape
Turquoise nuggets peer out from their scattered burial grounds
Shining remnants from a dark industrial past

High above the grazing sheep and florid dwellings
Like the sentry keeping guard
Stands majestic Mountain Mine
The Man Engine House
Its skeletal frame with brick chimney stack
Looms tall against the evening sky

Wild winds carry the warning cries of long-dead miners
Not to venture further
One foot across its chain linked fence
And you've arrived
Where certain death awaits
Within the gaping mouths
Of hungry shafts

Before I leave this well-walked ground
I pray God's light may shine
On those four men and boy-child
Who perished deep within Caminches Mine
With inward gesture
I place a lighted grave lamp upon their silent tomb


© Ann Brien 2013


Above images at Mountain Mine, Allihies taken by hubby and I in October 2010


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Terraced Lives

Every so often, in fact, very often, I browse through the photographs I've taken over the years, and the ones that I linger over the most are those of my beloved hometown of Ringsend, Dublin.

This particular image I took of my avenue shortly before I left in the summer of 1969. As I stared intently at the houses facing onto one another, side by side in a straight row, they looked like dancers waiting for their musical cue to move forward. I believe houses hold memories. I tried to imagine how many family situations made their way through the wallpapered walls of the neighbouring houses, our neighbours on both sides were placid to the extreme.

As I'm fascinated by rooftops I'm so happy to have captured the avenue back at a time when huge TV aerials were essential if you wanted to view television channels from across the water, namely, the BBC and UTV. We didn't have one so made do with Radio Telefis Eireann, great programmes they were too!  Below are my few words of tribute to a time gone by.


Terraced Lives

Like stone-faced dancers
The houses face each other.
Conjoined bricks and mortar hold within them secrets of the dwellers
And, through faded creamy rosebud paper, sounds from distant rooms.
Like grotesque mosquitoes hung in time
Steel grey aerials stand tall against the darkened skyline,
Their rooftop vantage serving the human need to look beyond its own wretched life
Onto an imagined brighter landscape.


© Ann Brien 2012


Above image: Cambridge Avenue, Ringsend, Dublin taken by me in May 1969


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Song For The Innocents (Song)

Next month will mark the thirty seventh anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings. Like all moments in history that mark death, whether it be expected or untimely, or as in this case the callous, barbaric murder of thirty three innocent men, women and children (twenty six people in Dublin, seven in Monaghan) May 17, 2011 will not only be a painful reminder for us not directly affected (although my friend was injured and had to have immediate surgery on her hand), but for the people who lost loved ones on that dark day, it will undoubtedly only serve to reopen the wounds that have in most cases never healed.

I was so shocked and distraught following that horror that nine days later on Sunday morning, May 26, I wrote these words in my bedsit in Rathmines which would become my protest song against the use of killing machines of any kind.

Living Will Go On

(i)

They say that life's for living

We must live it every day.

Don't talk of hate for others

Be careful what you say.

For love is all around us

Share it each and everyone

Then when we love together

Living will go on.

(ii)

I met an old man yesterday

We walked beside a stream.

He told me how he longed to smile

How freedom was his dream.

So if we walk beside this man

Well, things they can't go wrong.

We'll all join hands together

And living will go on.

(iii)

Child of war lay down your gun

What right have you to kill?

You can't win what you're fighting for

You know you never will.

So forget about destruction

'Cause wars just can't be won,

Together let's try to find lost peace

Then living will go on.

© Ann Brien 2011


Above image: Me in 1971


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The Summerhouse

The summers of my childhood hold wonderful memories of Sunday afternoons when my mother and father would take me to visit uncles Bill and John in Lucan, a picturesque village about twelve miles outside Dublin.

The highlight of those trips was entering the house they lived in. It was a single storey, possibly thatched roof, creepy cottage set deep in a field surrounded by trees that shrouded the house like menacing tentacles. The main room with its open fireplace had one of those large wooden benches with the backs you see in period films but what I remember most about that room was the total lack of natural light mainly because the window was tiny. What more than made up for it though was the warm glow from the turf fire where black iron cooking pots hung from a black iron rail.

Outside the house was the huge field which had a gate lodge at its entrance. I got to know its occupants simply because they had a baby and of course wherever there was a baby to be held I was there.

Shortly before I'd leave uncle Bill would take me for a walk along a pathway behind the house which led to an old summerhouse. Uncle John, his brother, because of his poor eyesight would remain in the cottage for the duration smoking his pipe and chatting with my parents.

I keep promising myself to return there some day but I think what's preventing me from going is the fear that the strange little cottage, which incidentally reminds me of the little house in the Hansel and Gretal fairy tale, may have been demolished to make way for a housing estate. I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

In order to preserve my memory of those lovely times I've put together a few words of dedication to both the summerhouse and my long departed uncles. May they rest in peace.



The Summerhouse

Along the winding path we'd stroll
William pointing out a pretty flower here and there,
I'd ask its name, he'd tell, but the passing years have stolen its label.

This sanctuary with its soft earthy footing,
Framed on either side by trees with arms entwined like fragile ballerinas,
Fed the hunger of my fledgling imagination.
The gurgling unhurried weir sauntering alongside our footsteps,
The cooing wood pigeons pledging love across the treetops,
Both these sounds created for me a world momentarily devoid of suffering.

At the end of that magical pathway stood the summerhouse;
Its round frame enveloping me in its paint-flaked wooden arms
I'd dance, round and round, my own arms outstretched
Touching the vertical bars until I was dizzy, dizzy, dizzy!
Exhausted, I'd stretch along its circular seat amidst the bird feathers
And dead leaves from winters long past.

Outside, William, or Uncle Bill as he was to me, would wait with
Job's patience for my emergence.
Then, hand in hand, we'd make our way back to the little house
Between the trees.


© Ann Brien 2011


Above image via:   www.scenicreflections.com


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