Walking on Eire

Our first day's walk, in Connemara, started off pretty flat. We strolled down a gravel road through a forest, moving past closely set trees covered with hanging moss, which the ancient Celts, I learned, used as toilet paper. This is one of those useless facts that will clutter my mind until the day I die.

After a mere five miles we came out onto a road where the van was waiting for anyone who didn't want to continue. As it happened, everyone wanted to go on, because now we were on a proper Irish lane, a rocky path interspersed with numerous streams where horned, black-faced sheep grazed among the purple heather and green grasses.

I walked for a time with the Hildebrand family, from Haworth, New Jersey. Julie and Dave were strong walkers, and their 23-year-old daughter, Ellen, was something of an athlete. They wanted to take a family vacation, and Ellen had suggested "something active." So walking it was, and even in the rain, they were enjoying themselves immensely. It was a soft old day.

At one point Ellen froze. She was staring at a sheep that was, in turn, staring at her. Ellen grew up in New Jersey and went to college at Northwestern, near Chicago, where she now worked. She had no experience with farm animals. "That thing's got horns," she said.

And I felt the blarney rise in my soul. "Yes," I said, "and they have great fangs and talons to hold to the hillside against the wind. Vicious beasts. They'll rip you to shreds, they will."

Ellen edged her way past the vicious sheep.

The path we were on, Gerry told me, was a "Famine road," a path built as a make-work project during the Great Famine of 1845 to 1849. You cannot go anywhere in the Irish countryside and not hear the Famine mentioned at least once a day. It devastated rural Ireland, and County Mayo has still not recovered. In 1841 there were 388,887 people in the county. By 1851 the population—depleted by starvation, epidemic, and emigration—fell 29 percent, to 274,830. By 1971 the numbers had dwindled to 109,525. Today the figure for County Mayo is 117,446 and rising, as the Celtic Tiger economy has boomed. People are moving back to rural Ireland these days.

The path dropped down to a road where Gerry's van was waiting for us. We'd walked eight miles in the rain, and we stopped at the nearest pub—it wasn't very far away (one never is)—where I had a hot Powers: Irish whiskey with sugar, clove, lemon, and hot water.

I chatted with Frauka, 43, and Martina, 28, the two German women on the trip. Martina taught school and was painfully shy. Frauka was a different story: she was, to confound the stereotype, a very jolly German who was inordinately fond of jokes. She'd been to Ireland three times and was working on her already quite proficient English by collecting idioms that would likely not be found in her grammar books.

"Bite me," I suggested, and Frauka wrote that down in her notes. She was a musician and made her living playing and teaching the flute. I noticed her talking a lot to Ellen, who had the best collection of expressions young people say.

Gerry was something of a master meteorologist. He studied the weather and picked each day's destination with a mind to sunny walking. Indeed, it never rained on us again, and the next day, as Gerry said, was "a peach." We left from the house, drove several minutes to a set of docks near Westport, and took half an hour or so to cross the waters of Clew Bay in a covered boat—a "half-decker" ferry—which dropped us at Clare Island. As we strolled the sunny lanes, Gerry informed us that in the early 1500s the island was one of the strongholds of the pirate queen, Grace O'Malley, who had commanded three galleons and 200 men. Legend holds she once fought a battle while pregnant and killed her opponent. Other sources say she'd given birth at sea and was still nursing her newborn at the time. Whatever happened, no one disputes the fact that Grace was in a delicate condition when she killed a man in battle and saved the day.

We trekked toward one of the highest points on the island, ambling through narrow rock-walled lanes and eating the ripe blackberries that covered the stonework in absurd profusion. Eventually we reached a decommissioned lighthouse, where we sat in the sun and enjoyed a supplied lunch of turkey-and-cucumber sandwiches. I found some sheep droppings in the grass and asked Ellen if she'd ever eaten one of these delicious Irish ground raisins. Ellen laughed. "I may be gullible," she said, "but I'm not stupid."

We had separated into two groups now, those who liked to walk fast and those who preferred to stroll. Linnea and Karen Lancaster, who was one of the owners of the Cross Country International tours, brought up the rear, taking photos and chatting with local folks. Gerry had enlisted another guide, John Kajda, a Polish gent of 75, to shepherd the amblers. John could outwalk most people, whatever their ages. His Irish friends called him the Walking Pole.

I felt privileged to walk over this remote land, far from any crowd, madding or not.

Dinner that night at Gerry's was bacon loin and cabbage, which is the way it is made in Ireland. No corned beef. The food at Gerry's was very good indeed. On another night we had grilled salmon and new potatoes; on another, roast loin of pork with applesauce made from the apples that fell from Gerry's own trees. Oh, and potatoes. There was one free day in the itinerary and everyone ate in Westport, where pub food—Irish stew, Guinness-and-beef casserole, fish and chips—was genuinely surprising, which is to say it was, for the most part, really good.

Most of us went to bed early the third night. We'd do the Reek the next day. The rooms in Gerry's B & B were small and neat, with polished wooden floors and their own bathrooms. I slept comfortably and woke early, ready to reek 'n' roll.

The mountain stands alone, distinctive, a cone of quartzite rock commanding Clew Bay and its environs. It is a holy mountain, and Gerry thinks people have climbed it for the better part of 5,000 years. At the base of the mountain, lest anyone forget, a sculpture was erected to commemorate the Famine. It is a three-masted ship cast in bronze, with a dozen or more skeletons on the deck and in the rigging. "They were called coffin ships," Gerry said. "The vessels were meant to carry eight men, but back in 1847, they set sail for America carrying 100 people or more. Thousands died."

With that thought firmly in mind, I started up the Reek, the mountain that Saint Patrick had climbed in the year 441 and on whose summit he fasted and meditated for 40 days. What had once been a pagan ritual became a Christian pilgrimage. Patrick said, "All those who worship the sun go in misery and sore punishment. We, on the other hand, worship the true Son, who will never perish, nor will anyone who does His will." On the last Sunday of July thousands of pilgrims still climb the mountain, some of them barefoot.

But on any given day hundreds of people will climb part or all of the Reek. Gerry's done it innumerable times. "I want my ashes scattered up there," he said. "The last time I go up the Reek, they'll carry me." I made a bit of a mistake here. I'm from Montana, and a 2,500-foot mountain isn't heavy lifting for me, so I blazed up the slopes. John, the Walking Pole, manned a turnoff point at 1,750 feet, but no one wanted to quit. I reached the summit in one hour flat, which, I later realized, was a mistake. The way to do it is to walk slow and easy, so you can chat with people. It's a social affair, and there is much to learn.

Linnea and Karen did it the right way. They talked with people all the way up the mountain. There was, for instance, a grandfather and his six-year-old granddaughter. The man wore a suit, as if dressed for work. The little blond girl might have been taken bodily off a poster advertising the charms of Ireland. The two walked hand in hand and intended to go only a little way.

Another man, a Mr. Anthony Cahill of County Roscommon, leaned heavily on a stick as he negotiated the rocky trail barefoot. I was to meet him only later, and was honored to shake his hand. I felt one Cahill observing painful penance on the Reek was certainly enough for one day. Karen, who'd ask anybody anything, wondered aloud if he was atoning for any sin in particular.

"No, no," he said. "It just seemed the right way to do it."

"Adultery?"

"No." Mr. Cahill laughed. "Just tradition, you know."

I sat and waited for the others as the clouds scudded by overhead. Clew Bay lay far below, and all its 365 or so islands were lit in sunshine and in shadow. Presently Mr. Cahill limped to the summit as the clouds closed in on us and obscured the view. My wife and Karen were the last of our party to the top. They were walking with the properly dressed grandfather and his angelic granddaughter, who'd both decided to go more than just a little way. I hugged my wife and Julie and Dave and Gerry: everyone. Frauka offered her cheek for a kiss and said, "Bite me." We were deep in the belly of the cloud now, and a chill wind had risen. Still, there was something unmistakably mystical about the mountain, and people have known it in their souls since the first human laid eyes upon it.

Another day we walked off-trail, over the high fields of Ireland's largest island, Achill, which lies west of County Mayo on the northern shores of Clew Bay. It is connected to the mainland by a short bridge and is about an hour-and-a-half drive from Gerry's house. The island trek was one of our guide's secret rambles, and there was no one else walking along the ridgeline on this day. The west of Ireland is oft visited, but mostly by people on a three-day bus tour originating in Dublin. People on these coach tours are imprisoned behind glass, seldom meet local people, never hear bird song or see foxes or even step into a genuine bog. I felt privileged to walk over this remote land, far from any crowd, madding or not.

We splashed through bogs and around heather, then lunched, out of the wind, in the rocks near a high point over the sea. One hundred and fifty feet below, waves exploded against rock and the waters near the shore churned white while the shallower waters beyond were the same turquoise color one recalls from the Caribbean. We dropped down into a deserted village, one that had been abandoned in the Famine. There were dozens upon dozens of meticulously constructed rock homes, still standing but roofless. The houses would have been covered in thatch back before the Famine. There would have been the sounds of music and dancing and voices calling across the fields. Now, there was only the low moan of the wind. It was a sad and sobering sight.

As you walk in western Ireland you are reminded, almost constantly, of the great hunger. I recall, in particular, one walk on an old Famine road along the shores of Killary Harbour. We stopped that day at a small pub in Leenane, which is situated at the head of the harbor. This was, Gerry said, a somewhat famous place, and he told us that several scenes in the filmThe Field, starring Richard Harris, had been shot there. It had all the authenticity anyone could want. Farmers were taking a break from work, and there were several men playing music at 3 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon. This is what is called a session, and you see it in pubs all over Ireland. The musicians are playing for themselves, learning new jigs and reels, different fiddle-bowing techniques, or drumming rhythms. The other patrons don't seem to be listening, but if you look, you'll see folks tapping their feet. This is what is called "riding the boot."

After half an hour two of the men with instruments left. They were professionals and had to play a gig in a town 50 miles away that night. There was one musician left, and Karen asked if he'd sing us a song. He was a big, hearty older man with a full head of white hair, and you'd know he was Irish if you met him anywhere on earth. The man behind the bar tapped a spoon against a glass and, in any Irish pub, that ringing sound means someone is about to sing and that people should stop their conversations for a moment and listen.

The white-haired gentleman closed his eyes and began singing in a rich, perfect tenor that filled the room. People stopped their conversations and there was dead silence while the man sang of how his heart was heavy because he had to leave "my green and pleasant valleys for far Americ-cay." It was a song of the Famine. I felt something rise in my chest, and there were tears in my eyes. I knew then, without conscious thought, something I'd wondered about for more than 50 years. I knew why my family had come to America.

Tim Cahill is the author of nine books, including Lost in My Own Backyard and Hold the Enlightenment.