Corncrake

Sunday, July 03, 2016
Inishbofin, Connaught, Ireland
Not only does Apple want to exert control over when it's users are allowed to take photos at concerts, but it's adding to the endangerment of the corncrake by insisting on constantly correcting my spelling to "corn fake" or "corn rake". Poor ecological move, Apple...

--INTERLUDE TO EXPLAIN IRISH TEACHING STUPID STUFF--

So teachers in Ireland can add to their continual professional development (CPD) by doing week long courses in the summer . Even if school ends in mid-June you're only allowed start these courses on the first weekday in July. And you can do as many as you like, but the first one gives you 3 extra personal vacation (EPV) days during the school year. The second and third course you do each only give you 1 extra EPV day, and that's all there is. These days are often used by teachers for things like unexpected funerals, family events and the like. There is no substitute teacher provided for these days, so unless the teacher pays for one, or the school pays for one, the class is left to be divided between the other teachers. It's a way for the Department to discourage decent humanity amongst everyone connected (or even NOT connected) with a school.

--END INTERLUDE--

I kind of have to hang around Ireland for a while this summer due to stuff beyond my control, so on the recommendation of someone who did this course, I thought it would be a nice way to do a "staycation", and get my school CPD done too . This course comes under many primary school curriculum strands, like environmental awareness and care, local natural environment, history and the locality, nationality and just ALL sorts of things.

Inishbofin is an inhabited island off the coast of county Galway, and it's become a really popular tourist destination for wedding parties, divers, photographers and birdwatchers. I think this partly has to do with being an English speaking island, though all the promotional literature would have you believe it's simply because they've become really good at ecological awareness and environmental protection.

The name means "Island of the White Cow" which has simply loooads of origin stories, but basically this was probably a magical, lost, floating island until some fishermen landed here, lit a fire, and tethered it to the real world. The cow wasn't happy and turned into a stone. BOOM. ISLAND OF THE WHITE COW.

If you tell this story with enough solemnity and conviction to an American, they will probably believe you. Unless they're from New Orleans, because I think they make up more whackadoodle stories for tourists than any other American city I've ever visited.

To get here - from my house anyway - you drive through the lunar landscape of Connemara (which is a word I will never, ever, ever remember the spelling of) to the town of Clifden, which is a bit of a weird place in my mind . They're at the edge of the country, just through a massive Gaeltacht area, and pretty damn remote, but it's a very nice, clean, modern, English speaking town. You may also pass a horse fair in Maam Cross. I think horse fairs there just spring out of the earth, they're not planned in any way. I have literally driven one way through Maam Cross and a packed, busy horse fair, and on the way back, two hours later, everything and everyone is gone and it's just an abandoned crossroads again. Maybe it's fairies.

After Clifden, you drive north to Cleggan, park in some enterprising local's field, fight a bunch of hippy, cycling, self-catering families for queue space, and board a passenger ferry to the island.

I was nearly disappointed to see how close the island is to see from the mainland, but it's still a 40 minute ferry ride (and we had an almost perfect crossing, from my entirely uneducated seafaring point of view).

Because of the popularity of this course, and the island as a wedding destination, I was only JUST able to get a room until Wednesday night . I had to book a hostel dorm for the last night, because the wedding party is descending and taking over everything. I practically flew off the ferry and into the hotel taxi van for the 0.2km trip to the hotel. I'll be damned if I do any extra walking than I have to, right?! (Only joking...maybe)

Once we had settled that I was one of the "Ballygowan Brigade" - eh? Do teachers drink a lot of Ballygowan? - but not an obnoxious one, and that I had the added bonus of living near and knowing some expat-islanders, we were cool and I got my room.

I was starved and tired. I don't know why. I think it's a combination of sleep-deficit and stress-overload, and now that school is over I can barely move. I got a delicious pulled pork sandwich in the hotel, and started reading Stardust by Neil Gaiman on my kindle, because I own a kindle and I can do that sort of crazy crap. It also turns out that the hostel is right next door to the hotel, so I don't have to lug all my gear for miles on Thursday THANK GOODNESS. Bad enough having to sleep in a dorm. :(

I went for a walk then, and FINALLY the title of this entry makes sense. I heard a corncrake in a field. When I was a kid in school, and at home, the names of trees, plants, birds and animals must have been drilled into me, in English and Irish, because the names pop into my head before I even realise what I'm hearing or seeing sometimes . Anyway, the great thing is that there's wifi and 4G on the island and I was able to confirm with my "bird sounds" app that I was indeed hearing a corncrake.

There are also Arctic Terns flying around here, and I've confirmed that too, with Google images, because the bird sounds app scared the life out of me when I played Arctic Tern. It's really, really freaking loud. I was just writing about terns with my kids for the Nesting Lark event in Headford in June, so I'm pretty up to speed on my tern info anyway. Amazing little birds.

My walk brought me along Bofin Harbour, but I don't think I got that far before I got tired and I just sat on a big high sea wall looking at the waves. I wonder if it would be annoying to have the sea always making noise beside you? I get very angry with speeding cars, trucks and tractors that pass my house, because they make a percussive whoosh that nearly rattles the windows, and it's not safe to drive that fast through a town anyway, regardless of noise. But you don't get any break from the sea - excuse me, the Atlantic freaking OCEAN - bashing the rocks outside your door...

It kind of hypnotised me for a while anyway, and then I headed back to the hotel for a nap because I AM SO TIRED. The corncrake was still going in the field, and I think it actually followed me up the road a bit, because I could hear it outside my window before I nodded off .

When I woke, I had a desperate need for chocolate, which they stock in the hotel bar, fortunately. I also realised I didn't know where to meet for the start of the course tomorrow, but I found a sign by accident that said it was at the school. There is a two teacher primary school on the island, built in 1890 and renovated in 2004. I walked out to it with my chocolate bar, to make sure I'd find it in the morning. I passed a donkey and a robin on the way, and I think some of the hippie self-catering parents. I was also passed by an old man driving a car. He had one hand on the steering wheel, which he raised in an arthritic but friendly thumbs-up when I kept in for him. Cool.

I found the school, and now I want to google the 1927 Cleggan Disaster. Something to do with a thunderstorm and a boat and possibly drownings, if I infer correctly from the children's artwork. On the way back I saw a sheep that had very, very recently given birth to a gorgeous little lamb, who was just learning to stand . The mother sheep was cleaning him and had no time for the miracle of nature that was his wobbly little legs, or his innate sense to look for milk, but I was fairly entranced.

The donkey was giving me puppy-dog eyes (yes, that's possible) so I gave it some clover from outside the fence. I figured that's really what it wanted anyway. Donkeys can eat clover, right? There are donkeys called Clover, aren't there? Enid Blyton fans? Eh, if a dog can survive the amount of actual inedible stuff it eats, one bit of clover surely won't harm a donkey. I'll check it on the way to school tomorrow...

The corncrake is still going, and the sheer silence outside the window is intense. I'm glad there's general hotel noise too, or I might be a bit unnerved. It's also still very bright out, despite the cloud cover, so that's helpful. Can't wait for my second sleep now, yesssss...

Comments

Una
2016-07-10

A lovely introduction to the Island Mary!

2025-02-10

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