Showing posts with label Uillin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Uillin. Show all posts

Sunday, May 3, 2020

A Half-day Tour in West Cork? Now we can dream. Baltimore Beacon, Coffee Shop at Uillinn, Leap Waterfall

Half-day Tour in West Cork? Now we can dream a little.
Baltimore Beacon, Coffee Shop at Uillinn, Leap Waterfall

Actual Trip: 6th March 2020
The Beacon and, right, Sherkin Island

It’s a Friday and we’re heading west for a night, long booked at a bargain rate, in the Celtic Ross Hotel. The weather is dry and often bright so we leave a little early and eventually decide on a trip to the famous Beacon of Baltimore.

Plan was to arrive in Skibbereen around lunch-time with a visit to the Coffee Shop at Uillinn (which houses the West Cork Arts Centre and is popularly known as the Rust Bucket). I know that Jessie and Billy, who previously ran the operation in Union Hall, have transferred here.
Gubbeen sandwich and, left, a lovely Frittata
No bother finding parking in the town, indeed there are a few spaces available in the very central lot where the Saturday morning market is held and it’s free. We can see the “rusty” sides of the high-ish Uillinn from here and take an easy stroll over.


Frittata
It is a small café with a good sized outdoor space for the better days. And there were a few hardy souls outside. But we headed in and Jessie, who told us they are edging towards their first anniversary here, filled us in on what was available. It is a small enough space, no kitchen area as such, but they make the best of some excellent local produce.

There are a few eye-catching light fittings around, including one colourful globe by the window that reflects some of the buildings across the way. But the most eye-filling piece of all is a large painting of the local Reen Pier area by artist John Kelly. In a few months this will be auctioned at Sotheby’s with the proceeds going to CUH and West Cork Rapid Response.

There is quite a choice: Sandwiches, Salads, Toasties, Frittata, Quiches, and more are on the menu, much of it chalked up on boards. Our order soon arrives. I am delighted with a toasted sandwich featuring Gubbeen ham and cheese and the delicious salad that comes with it. Much the same salad is with the well-made Frittata (CL’s choice). And we each enjoy a bottle of lovely Attyflin Estate Apple Juice. We did a bit of sharing and we agreed that the sandwich was one of the best of its kind that we’ve come across in recent years.

Back to the road then and into Baltimore. Fairly used to seeing it in summertime but I’ve never seen it as quiet. We don’t drive all the way to the Beacon and give ourselves a short walk. There’s a fair bit of mud and water at the start of the climb but we do stretch ourselves a bit to make it to the plateau!
At work. Lights on! 


The white painted signal tower at the entrance to the harbour is Baltimore's famous landmark. Jokingly, it is sometimes also called Lot's Wife by the locals, an allusion to the bible, where Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt.  It was built sometime in the 19th century. Various dates are mentioned but there seems to be some consensus that, in its present form, it dates from 1849 or thereabouts!

The views are well worth the climb, cliffs and sea to the left and right,the ocean and  Sherkin island ahead (a bit to the right) and the town and harbour behind.  We do find an easier way down but there’s still the odd slip or two and one of us gets a muddy behind!


Back to the harbour car park then. In the toilets, we see the first of those yellow Covid-19 safety signs - we would see them again in the hotel later on. A stroll around the village is next and we take a peek at the Customs House where work is going on inside in preparation for “a new concept” with an opening on March 19th (three days a week for Michelin chef Ahmed Dede and his team for a start). But that opening was knocked out (temporarily) by Covid19 but they did get going with a very popular takeaway service. Better days ahead!
The Beacon, from a previous visit
Lamp in the Coffee Shop

We skirt around Skibbereen on the way back and soon find ourselves in Leap. I spot the sign for the local waterfall. We’ve never seen it, so we park up on the street and head in the few yards. No charge but you are asked, via a notice, for a donation. After the recent rains, the water was flowing quickly down the narrow channel but the whole thing is on the small side. 

According to Wikipedia, the town’s full Irish name means "O'Donovan's Leap" and is derived from the story of a chieftain called O'Donovan, who was pursued by English soldiers, but escaped them by jumping across a ravine and its waterfall. A local website says “an O’Donovan leaped on horseback while being pursued by British soldiers”. Check it out here.  
Dunsead Castle
in Baltimore




After that, it's an easy drive back to Rosscarbery and to the Celtic Ross, our marvellous base for the night where we had a five star dinner. Read all about it here.

Actual Trip: 6th March 2020

Monday, September 3, 2018

Coming Home. Art and the Great Hunger

John Coll's Famine Funeral

Art and the Great Hunger is an exhibition of the world’s largest collection of famine related art and is being shown for the first time in Ireland. The collection, from Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, constitutes a direct link to the past of almost 6.5 million Irish, and 40 million Irish-American people. The exhibition may be viewed at Uillinn, West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen until 13 October 2018 (Monday to Saturday: 10.00 am to 4.45 pm) and will be in Derry after Christmas.

The exhibition website: The death and dispersion of 2 million people, followed by a further 2 million emigrations to the end of the century, makes the exhibition an important gesture of cultural reconnection. The Irish diaspora defines Ireland’s place in the world today. The impact of the Famine is still with its descendants—both at home and abroad.

This major undertaking aims to strengthen the deep cultural connection between Ireland and its diaspora by showcasing the world’s largest collection of Great Hunger-related art never before exhibited on Irish soil. Please join with us in making this powerful artistic, cultural and educational endeavor a memorable one.


Walk in here to the Uillinn and you will cry, silently perhaps, but you will weep for the individual losses and the communal loss that dealt a close to knockout blow to the Irish nation, a blow that still reverberates. Who knows how this country would now stand if the four million needlessly lost to us through death and emigration had remained fed and healthy.

One poor soul has reached the end of the hungry road in John Coll's Famine Funeral (above), the corpse carried by a quartet who themselves are on their last legs, each wondering who will remain to carry him. And will there be someone there to identify him and make sure he is buried in consecrated ground? Many weren't given that privilege, vagrants and new-born babies among them.

The exhibition features works that focus on the time of the famine and its aftermath. Paintings dominate but the handful of sculptures, most of them modern, make powerful statements just like Famine Funeral. Many escaped the famine by boat only to die on arrival in New York and they are honoured by Rowan Gillespie's Statistic 1 & 11.
Detail from Rowan Gillespie's Statistic 1
There are paintings by well-known artists such as Jack B. Yeats and Paul Henry. Many paintings tell of emigration, a living death as most of those about to board ship were never to return. Gorta, a stark and powerful work, tinged in blue, by Lillian Lucy Davidson, depicts a poorly attended funeral. A child is being buried. The few relations have nothing and face a future of nothingness. One fingers a rosary beads.  Eli Eli lama sabachthani? (My God why hast thou forsaken me?).
Accompanied by a rich and diverse programme of performances, talks, lectures and events at Uillinn, and off-site in other locations in West Cork, Coming Home is a unique opportunity for the people of Cork and visitors to the region alike to experience artworks by major Irish and Irish American artists of the past 170 years such as Jack B. Yeats, Daniel MacDonald, Paul Henry, William Crozier, Hughie O'Donoghue, Dorothy Cross and Alanna O'Kelly. See it in Derry( January-March 2019).

The Uillinn
Associated Events (some now completed):

Explore the West Cork schools programme; a series of artist residencies in association with the Crawford Art Gallery and University College Cork; a unique performance by acclaimed Irish artist Alanna O'Kelly for Schull Workhouse, Anáil na Beatha; a reading by Jeremy Irons of The Cummins Letter – a letter written by a local JP, in 1848, to Wellington describing conditions on Reen and appealing for help, taking place at Reen Farm Sculpture Garden, where internationally renowned artist John Jelly lives with his family; a celebration of the legacy of young women who emigrated to Australia after the Famine called 110 Skibbereen GirlsChronicles of The Great Irish Famine concert with Declan O’Rourke and guests. There are the Famine Stories Walking Tours, garden trails at Reen Farm Sculpture Garden, an artists talk in the gallery with Robert Ballagh, the world premiere of Rua Breathnach’s Welcome To The Stranger at Skibbereen Town Hall, the Canon Goodman Concert with LúnasaPoint Of Departure: A Lament film screening and drama workshops for children, a poetry reading by Cherry Smyth of her long form poem Famished as well as day long field trips, family friendly Discovery Boxes and numerous Heritage Centre Talks.
Coming Home: Art and the Great Hunger is a major historical, cultural and educational event, spreading throughout West Cork and over 3 months, that should not be missed.
Visitors to A Taste of West Cork, take note!
See it in Derry( January-March 2019).