We had our annual weekend in Galway June 12-15. On Friday the 13th things got a little spooky. It was a grey, off-and-on rainy day, but not too cold. We drove south-east from Galway to Ballyvaughan (Barry’s town), and then up into the Burren on the R480 to visit Poulnabrone Dolmen – a beautiful drive that contrasts cozy villages with steep, sweeping rocky hills.
Our leader, Barry Vaughan, as usual, gave us an excellent lecture at the dolmen and we studied the clints (flat parts) and grykes (grooves that define the flat parts) of the burren geology. Poulnabrone, in Irish, the “hole of sorrows”, is also known as one of the beds of Diarmuid and Grainne as they travelled Ireland fleeing the wrath of Finn McCool. 
We then drove to Kilfenora to visit the high cross in the ruined church next to the Burren Center. The cross is fab, but even better was the crafts shop where I found the most seriously adorbs little ceramic cottages –but I digress.
Leaving Kilfenora is when things started to get weird. We had about a 15 mile trip to get to the Cliffs of Moher, heading southwest towards the ocean. Almost immediately we were enclosed in a dense mist. Looking out the window near the front of the bus, right behind our driver Tom Kirwan, I could barely see 20 feet. I didn’t have a moments worry about our safety, as Tom is an excellent and highly experienced driver. It was nonetheless very odd to be able to see virtually nothing from the window. Other cars wouldn’t so much emerge from the mist as appear indistinctly momentarily and then vanish.
At the bus entrance to the Cliffs, confused car drivers were entering and then trying to back out, or turning around and driving toward us as Tom tried to drive in. Once parked, we could barely see the buses next to us, and people were manifesting and disappearing all around us.
It was literally marvelous. Before this Friday the 13th, I had never experienced a mist of such all-encompassing denseness. I felt like I was having an experience of the Other World, or at least of the misty confluence of our world and that other place.
So many Irish myths, legends, and folktales involve a mist from which appears someone important – or dangerous. One of my favorites is when the great bard Seanchan calls the warrior Fergus back from the land of the ever fair. The story of The Tain has been lost, and only Fergus can tell it whole. Here’s what I imagine Seanchan intoning at the dolmen that marks Fergus’ grave to summon him:
“Nobel Fergus, I call thee.
I call thee back from memory.
Your voice can set the story free.
Tell, tell again bold Maeve’s glory,
And of Cuchullain’s victory.”
Of course, Fergus appears, and according to legend it is his version of the story that we tell to this day. And now, when I tell that story, or any of a number of otherworldly Celtic tales, I will know exactly how that mist looks and feels. Even better, any time a mist was mentioned in the stories told by the students the following week, the Mighty Moher Mist was the image that came to mind for all of us.
On that day, however, our students were not thinking of the other world. They were very disappointed, since the Cliffs of Moher are one of the highlights of the trip. We crammed ourselves into the cafeteria, and then the gift shops, with the hundreds of other people who had come to see, but could not see, the sights. Tourists from around the world were snapping selfies and shots of each other in front of the 10'x10' color photo of the cliffs at the opening to the gift shop – a poor replacement for the real thing but evidently better than nothing.
Barry was tracking the weather on his phone and was very hopeful that we would be able to wait it out, but alas, no. Of course, 45 minutes later when we were back in Ballyvaughan to visit Dun Guaire Castle the sun was shining and we were too warm.
Galway born and bred Tom Kirwan, whose family is of one of the original 14 tribes of that city, told us that he had never seen anything like that mist in the many, many, dozens of times he had driven there.
Fortunately, the sun was shining the next day for our trip to Inis Mór, one of the Aran Islands. We all hiked up to Dun Aengus, the Iron-Age fort that is perched on cliffs that are not quite as high as the Cliffs of Moher, but of the same basic geology and drama. Truly, one of the most spectacular sights to see in this world.
Yep, that's the Mighty Moher Mist at the top of the post, followed by Poulnabrone Dolmen, and a clints and grykes crossroad. Finally, above is the view looking south from the top of Dun Aengus on Inis Mór.
Leave a Reply