EUGENE DALY continues his series on various aspects of Irish folklore and customs

 

In the old days, before Columbus sailed and discovered America, Ireland stood out alone on the uttermost edge of the known world. Even in very ancient times there had been comings and goings to Britain, to mainland Europe and places beyond. Soldiers, merchants and sea captains, missionaries, minstrels, pirates and pilgrims sailed across the seas and brought news of the lands that lay towards the rising sun.

But to the west there was nothing except the boundless ocean and the people who lived along the Atlantic coast were full of wonder as to what might lie below the horizon. Storytellers’ imagination gave wonderful accounts of magic lands and of cities sunken under the waves.

These tales were not entirely imaginary. Hardy seafarers had sailed out into the sea and some had returned. Foremost among them were the early monks and hermits seeking solitude, and the rocky islands along our west coast, from Sceilg Mhichíl to Tory, still hold the remains of their cells and oratories.

We know that some of them reached the Faroe islands, and Iceland, and they may have been the first Europeans to visit Greenland and north-eastern America. And if these serious and holy men could tell of marvels such as whales and walruses, volcanoes and icebergs, why should stories about sea serpents, floating islands and underwater fields and marvels not be believed too?

The popular imagination of the people was fired too by the mirages which may still be seen at times from the western coast, and described by scholarly people. The well-known scholar and antiquary Thomas J. Westrop who saw it three times and described it: “It was a clear evening, with a fine golden sunset, when just as the sun went down, a dark island suddenly appeared far out to sea, but not on the horizon. It has two hills, one wooded; between these, from a low plain, rose towers and curls of smoke. My mother, brother and several friends saw it at the same time.”

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own