By Rebecca Lenehan
Transcript
We start off down the Bohereen Bocht or ‘Boring Bocht’ as my children name it. A high stone wall to our left, potted with footholds to scramble up and, in a glance, my son is walking, running, along the top of the wall. Hands by his side, he races along, arms spanning at times to steady himself, but not for long – he doesn’t like to slow the pace.
Beyond the wall are patches of high thistles and nettles heavy with flower, then, low-grazed grass where the cattle have cropped it short. We pass a kissing gate, the name makes the younger ones giggle and give exaggerated air kisses.
If we had time, we could pick our way along the path, avoiding the cow pats as we go, cross the stream and so reach the cloister walls of Hoare Abbey, kneeling in supplication at the foot of the Rock. Another unofficial way leads from the Camas Road, worn by feet drawn to the ruins that rise up against the dark trees where the crows roost.
There is a view here that many photographers have discovered, an outline of an arched window which frames the Rock. They share these photographs taken in moonlight, vivid sunset, frost and snow, and post them online alongside red hearts of approval.
We read the story of how in the thirteenth century the Archbishop of Cashel evicted the Benedictines from the Abbey after a dream they tried to murder him. He then endowed the Abbey to the Cistercians, with land, mills and other benefices previously belonging to the town.
We could glance off here and spend an hour playing hide-and-seek behind the old altar or the tumbledown walls, where teenagers like to gather at times to mitch off school, but we carry on, past the rundown farmhouse where a man sits in the conservatory, his dog at the gate, and waves to us as we pass.
A car arrives and we tuck into the hedge to let it pass and we’re on our way again, spreading out, arms swinging in unison, some unspoken conversation of limbs. My youngest out in front, always eager to be first, checks back to see he’s still ahead. We have run out of walls to climb now and he makes do with kicking a stone ahead of him as he goes.
Passing houses at either side we reach a tunnel of trees and dive into the darkness. Small black flies hover and make a nuisance of themselves so we bat them away with great exaggerated swipes, careful not to open our mouths and eat them as we walk. Blinking, we grow accustomed to the gloom and then, all of a sudden, we are in the light again.
My son points to a crowd of trees that make the shape of a dinosaur and we all remark that it really does look exactly like one.
We reach the gate on the corner, the road continuing on to the right, the path to the left, but we head straight by a convoluted way towards the river where we pick reeds for my daughter to make a St Bridgit’s Cross, even though it is months to wait.
A reed bed to our left shuffles in the breeze, the river below us, of unknown depth, the weed flowing like strands of hair. Again, my son runs the way between the river and the reeds and we call out for him to wait. He turns and runs back instead, fearless of the flowing weeds and the deep and cold water.