Galway Day 13: "IS THAT A FOX?!"
Today was a very
long, very grueling day. I have thorn scratches on my arms and pokes on my
legs, a sore hip and ankle, and a lot of aching muscles. But it was great to
see the product of so much work in the form of a beautiful rock wall that can
help the National Park Service of Ireland to redevelop grazing lands in the
Burren. And I can also better appreciate the amount of work it takes to cover
Ireland with so many rock walls! It is not easy work, that’s for sure. But the
end result is very fulfilling.
My day started
at 6:45AM, when I woke up to get breakfast. The bus did not leave until 9AM,
but I like to get up early when the breakfast area is not so full and bustling
with people. Once the departure time came around, we all piled on the bus to
head to the Burren. Our driver’s name today was also Joe, and would play a very
important role in explaining the various cities as we made our way around
Galway Bay to the Burren. This area of Co. Clare is what we saw from Nimmo’s
Pier the other day—the bay separates Galway city from the lands of the Burren,
which spans about ten different cities.
The area formed
long ago as a glacial pathway and is know for a “lunar landscape” full of huge
slabs of limestone. The rainwater and general fragility of the limestone made
deep crevices in the stone, which now are filled with grass or water. Today, it
is home to herds of cattle, sheep, and a variety of rare butterflies and
flowers. There have been many archeological sites there, including cairns,
dolmens, rubbish piles, and even ring forts. A private part of the land also
has a tower house that would have guarded a very fertile valley pasture back in
medieval times. Overall, the most important thing that we learned was that even
if the landscape looks barren, it definitely is not. And it is important to
consider this in terms of conservation, which is where we came in to help.
We worked with
the Burrenbeo Trust organization, which has a subdivision called the Burrenbeo
Conservation Volunteers. Today, we were part of that group. They brought us in
to help rebuild stone walls that had been knocked down by tourists, cattle, or
sheep over the years. Once these walls fall down, cattle can move to where
there are better grasses. This then becomes a problem, because the fields need
the help of the cattle to graze on the useless grasses covering the fields so
there becomes room for other plants to grow. Biodiversity is always good, and
our stone walls will help to finish closing in a National Parks field so that
cattle can begin to repopulate the field with flowers, green grasses, and other
plants. We also learned that the volunteers help with shrub clearing as part of
a butterfly nursery project, monitor Lesser Horseshoe Bat maternity habitats,
and work to clear plastic waste off of the Burren’s coastal areas. They also do
a lot of invasive species removal, which I am always ready to help with. I
really think this group is doing a lot for keeping this landscape as healthy as
it can be, and I appreciate their careful efforts in trying to leave the Burren
as naturally as it would have been without human or invasive interference.
The man who runs
the organization, called Richard, was the one to go up and help us build the
walls today. After a quick lunch in the small city of Corrofin, we piled back
into our coach and drove up to the site of our work. The bus let us off at a
short, rocky road covered up with grass over years of neglect. Richard told us
that this was a famine road—one of many in the area. It was not built for any
purpose, nor was it really even needed. It was simply a project used to give
hungry families a job so that they could earn money for food.
We had to make a
short climb up to the actual location of the fence, but it was really great to get
back out into nature and see this amazing landscape in person. Pictures really
cannot do it justice—the whole area really does look like another planet. It is
hard to believe that everyone thinks only of lush, green lands in Ireland, when
in reality, there is so much crazy diversity in both the look and feel of the
landscapes. The Burren looks like a crazy sort of gray Arizonian mountain, but
with more grassland in between. It was wild to climb through, as well, because
the limestone is slippery and jagged and generally uneven. Plus, what wasn’t
limestone was mud, which did not help the easiness of terrain.
But after about
fifteen minutes, we arrived at our field. The terrain suddenly opened up into a
wide space where cattle could graze if given the chance. We saw a couple up
higher on the hill, but nothing serious. The wall up there is almost done—as
Richard said, they only have about 100 more meters to go before they enclose
the field totally and can start grazing. This is a winterage field, though, so
they still have some time left to finish it. We did our best to help—almost two
hours of rock finding, transporting, and assembling into the actual fence. We
divided into three groups and started right off in collecting shapely stones.
The skinnier, flatter stones work much better to stand upright and create
“fence posts” that can then be filled in with smaller stones. I apparently have
a knack for arranging the rocks for the fence, because every time someone would
hand me a rock, I would just plop it down and then the whole thing would be
stable. I’ll take it! I really enjoyed doing that part of the work. Finding the
rocks was fun as well, but I feel like creating the fence and watching it
become more and more solidified was a great comfort. I know that my work was
doing something. It was incredibly satisfying. I am so thankful I got to do
that.
“Service
learning” projects often make me nervous, but this particular project will
definitely help the park get the field back into order. We saw some Spring
Gentions popping their little purple heads up just as we were about to leave,
and that just makes the whole day worth it. There were also frogs, slow worms
(snake-like lizards), mountain avens, blackthorn bushes just beginning to
flower, and violets. We even saw a couple beautiful purple orchids, despite it
being a little early for them! It started pouring as we began our decent down
the mountain when we were finished, so we all made a mad dash back to the bus
to find warmth and dry.
The bus then
took us over to the famous Poulnabrone stone dolmen. Dolmens are called portal
tombs and are present and prevalent all over Ireland. This one is probably the
most notable because of the scenic background. It was still raining when we got
to see it, but it didn’t make it any less impressive to see. The pictures turned
out really well, I think. We saw one more wedge tomb as we were driving away
toward Ballyvaughan, which is probably more famous because of its association
with a house where a solid gold necklace was found. They share the same name:
Gleninsheer.
Once we came up
through Ballyvaughan, our driver Joe took us a different way than the
professors had gone before to get back to Galway. We were making our way
through the small towns on the coast when, quite suddenly, our professor sits
up in his seat and says, “Is that a fox?!” He has never seen a fox in the wild
before, so many of us joke with him about seeing foxes or make jokes about
things that have foxes on them. He never laughs. He knows foxes are serious
business, as do I. Foxes are known to live in the Burren, so I had told him
earlier in the day that I would bring out my friends so they could say hello.
He, like usual, was not amused. But it all paid off as we drove through this
field in the middle of nowhere, Co. Clare, and saw a beautiful auburn fox with
a perfectly bushy tail and a serious expression. He crossed through the open
green grass and then turned to look when our entire bus erupted in cheers for
Joe’s First Fox. It was truly a beautiful fox, and he accompanied an even more
beautiful moment. I caught him in a picture as he was running away, so we will
have that memory forever. Even despite that, I know I will never forget that
moment. Joe named him Reynard. We like him.
The drive
continued on as normal from then on, though with many of us in slight
disbelief. The road opened up near Kinvarra to a hilltop ocean view of Galway
Bay shortly after the Fox Sighting, and it was gorgeous. The sun had come out
full force by then, even if it had been pouring only minutes ago. Ireland is
like that. It was a beautiful way to end a very exciting, very fulfilling day. Nothing
quite compares to making something with bare hands and sweat—especially something
like a rock wall. We picked out each stone. We placed each one. We made that
wall our own simply by agreeing to make it. There will forever be a little part
of Augustana on that hillside, and I am so glad I got the opportunity to be a
part of that. We might have been sore and a little weary for the rest of the
night, but it was well worth it.
♥
photo credit Diana Cleveland
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