The pillars of Ireland

Granite is everywhere in the land of Ryan's Daughter, where, if you listen closely, you'll hear the history of west Ireland.

[Times photos: Bob Jenkins] The Poulnabrone Dolmen, or portal tomb, was erected about 4,500 years ago on the harsh limestone of the Burren and contained the cremated remains of 16 Stone Age people. The top slab weighs about 10 tons. spellings.

Directional signs in Ireland are often confusing. Signs for attractions may be painted the same color as those for B&Bs, distances change from miles to kilometers, and place names may — or may not — be given the Gaelic and English spellings. Photo gallery

DINGLE, Ireland - All five bar stools are occupied this spring afternoon in Dick Mack's, a pub of some acclaim in this village at the western edge of Ireland. Yet untouched on the bar are four pints of beer just served to new customers.

Two of the customers, women in their early 20s, ignore their beers and start to sing in fine voices Will You Go, Lassie, Go. The other three at the bar, all men, join in the song that mentions the heather that covers much ground with tiny purple blooms.

"Written by a Belfast man, that was," one of the men informs me and the others when they finish singing.

Without any signal, the young women begin a sweet version of Down In The River to Pray, a gospel hymn heard in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? The men quickly join this song, too.

Through Dick Mack's front window can be seen a statue of the Virgin Mary, just across the street. The statue, facing into the pub, has a slight smile.

After the gospel number, everyone finally reaches for a glass of beer. A couple more customers wander in, get their pints and go stand behind a low wooden counter that is parallel to the bar and a few feet away. Behind this counter are shelves and cubbyholes filled with cobbler's gear, boots, metal taps for shoes and a pair of "Wellies," the rubber boots every farmer owns.

Though Dick Mack's has been a pub a long while, it was also a leather worker's shop. "They stopped that about four years ago," a man at the bar tells me. "The stuff wasn't buyable. No one has leather soles on their shoes anymore."

Just then, a man in his 20s pulls a black flute from his jacket and starts playing a traditional Irish tune. As soon as he finishes, another man takes the flute, and he begins to play.

The flute's owner goes to the wall and takes down a bodhran, the hand-held drum that resembles a large tambourine. The man cannot find the traditional knobbed stick used to thump the bodhran, so he expertly uses his thumbs.

It is not quite 4 in the afternoon. The pints of beer largely are being ignored in favor of upholding the tradition of impromptu music in this pub.

Outside on the sidewalk, dark gray stars have been painted, a la the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The stars bear the names of celebrities who have stopped in at Dick Mack's: actors John Mills, Julia Roberts, Timothy Dalton, Robert Mitchum.

Also painted there are the names of some who might have led the singing: Dolly Parton and Paul Simon.

Though the pub/cobbler shop dates to 1899, the earliest settlers on the Dingle Peninsula arrived about 6,000 years earlier.

They probably had been sailing along the western edge of the European continent when they came ashore, because this peninsula juts 40 miles into the Atlantic from the southwestern edge of Ireland, and it is the end of Europe.

"The next parish is Boston," says Timothy Collins, repeating a common joke based in fact.

Collins was a policeman on the 8-mile-wide peninsula for 35 years, and he now leads archaeological tours. There were few tourists to guide until the last quarter of the 20th century.

It was in 1970 that master director David Lean's film Ryan's Daughter was released. It is about a romantic triangle complicated by World War I animosities, and it takes place on the peninsula.

Lean's film crew spent a year on the Dingle, constructing an authentic village from tons of newly quarried granite. Cinematography filled with spectacular landscapes began to draw tourists way out to the Dingle. Even now, many can recall the overhead shot of Sarah Miles on a stretch of vacant beach, a beach that Collins points out to the tourists piled into his minivan.

Though Dingle Harbor still receives ships returning with catches of herring, sole, cod, lobster and salmon, tourism has become more important to the economy. The town's year-round population of about 1,400 at least doubles during the summer.

"In 1970, we only had one hotel, no B&Bs, and the only visitors here were archaeologists," Collins recalls.

"Now we can only hope that Ryan doesn't have a granddaughter!"

Visitors don't need a guide to take the breathtaking coastal road, often high above the Atlantic, to view the settings of Ryan's Daughter and the 1992 Tom Cruise-Nicole Kidman film Far and Away. But visitors probably will want someone like Collins to explain some of the estimated 2,000 ancient stones and structures on the peninsula left by the earliest settlers.

Pieces of granite are everywhere.

In the towns and villages of west Ireland, they often were used to make walls that have since been covered with stucco and painted in a rainbow of rich colors.

Outside the villages, the stones are stacked in countless miles of knee-high fences that divide farmers' fields. Circles of granite remain as Bronze Age stone forts, dating 3,700 years.

Standing stones - upright pillars - were inscribed as far back as the fourth century A.D. with Ogham, a series of straight lines forming the letters of an alphabet now long-dead. In many places, huge slabs of stone were positioned upright to support a capstone, creating rudimentary tombs 5,000 years ago.

And just a few centuries ago, more pieces of granite were stacked to become farmhouses and barns, workers' humbles cottages and nobles' castles.

All the stones have stories to tell.

What they say depends upon who is listening and who is interpreting.

So guides and researchers such as Collins discuss the rise and fall of ancient people, their religions and their writing forms. The narrative often winds to modern day.

Halting the minivan, Collins gathers his passengers by two upright stalks of reddish sandstone to discuss their Ogham carvings.

Various standing stones might have told stories of a chieftain or served as directional posts. Now, however, he wryly observes, "they are mainly cow-scratchers," against which wandering cattle rub themselves.

Farther on his tour, Collins points to the pastures delineated by stone fences. "No two fields are the same size or shape, because each was tilled by a different farmer.

"At one time, there were about 40,000 people living on the peninsula. Then came the (potato) famine starting in 1845, and people left to find work and food. Now we have about 10,000 residents."

Off to his left, at the very edge of the land, Collins points out Dunbeg Fort, dated variously to the fifth or eighth century. Inside the earthern walls are stone walls, a stone building, stone-walled tunnels and a beehive hut.

The hut is one of 400 or so tiny dwellings still existing on the peninsula that were made of stone and shaped with downward sloping walls that shed the rain. There is a dispute about who owns the land beneath the fort, so a fee is charged to visit it; many farmers charge a modest fee to those who want to park and look at "their" beehive huts.

The coastal road, designated R559, is a scenic drive even without the stone artifacts. It winds through crossroad villages, past a few two-room schoolhouses built in the early 1900s. These schools usually have "20 or 25 children and two teachers," Collins says.

On the inland side of the road are the gentle slopes of 1,600-foot Mount Eagle, dotted with beehive huts, the occasional graveyard, grazing sheep. Farther along, to the north, is imposing Brandon Mountain, 2,950 feet tall.

Parking lots at the southwestern point, one named Slea Head and one at the Dunquin Pier to the north, offer views of the Blasket Islands. Some of the seven Blaskets were inhabited by farmers and fishermen until 1953, when the Irish government decreed that they should be vacated.

The minivan passes familiar highway signs, except that the wording is in Gaelic. Tag Bog E, which is pronounced "toe-g boe-g eh," literally means "Take it easy," the casual Irish version of "Please slow down."

Western Ireland is the stronghold for Gaeltacht, "gwail tawkt," spoken and written Irish. Schools here are conducted entirely in Gaelic; elsewhere in the Irish Republic, Gaelic is offered as a language course. But in shops and pubs here, and on the radio stations, people often interject English words or names into conversations spoken in Gaelic.

Collins follows a Gaelic sign pointing up a one-lane road and parks the minivan. He leads his students through a narrow hole (to keep out the sheep) in a circular stone fence. Inside it are shapes outlined by low stone walls. This is Reask, which dates to the seventh or eighth century.

The area was excavated starting in the 1950s, when work on the road came to a standing stone. Now, visitors see the stone outlines of what had been a small monastery and two beehive huts. A hole at the base of the outer wall is thought to have been an airway for firing bellows.

Reask is one of 23 monastic settlements uncovered on the peninsula, but perhaps the area's prime attraction from the early Christian era is the Gallarus Oratory.

Dating between the seventh and ninth centuries, this is a perfect example of the corbel, or dry-stone, construction: Relatively flat rocks were placed atop each other in the shape of an inverted boat, so rainfall followed the slanted rocks down and away from the building. The interior of the tiny church is dry, despite an average rainfall on the Dingle of 80 inches.

The Oratory is usually the last stop on Collins' tour. But the peninsula offers dozens of other sites easily located with a good map.

Throughout the west of Ireland, numerous ruins of fortified homes and towers stand neglected in fields. Though visible from the roads, they seldom have signs identifying them or directions for inspecting them.

But occasionally a castle has been restored and opened to the public. One of the most popular is the landmark for a medieval theme park, the Bunratty Folk Park. It is about 110 miles from Dingle, 11 miles from bustling Limerick.

Though some artifacts serve historians, this one serves tourists.

The main building, dubbed the castle, is an accurate recreation of the main tower of a castle built in the 1400s. Beyond it is a series of real and authentically recreated buildings that portray late 19th century village and farm life.

The castle is furnished with pieces from the 15th and 16th centuries, but the reason most people pay the admission fee is to attend the medieval banquets held twice a night during the summer.

From among the 145 or so customers, a man and woman are selected to play the lord and lady of the manor. Talented locals act as the butler - the master of ceremonies - and as the serving wenches. A harpist and a violinist provide music, as background for the eight-wench chorus and as fine solos.

The only utensil for the diners during the courses of soup, meat and vegetables is a knife. The meal itself would move along swiftly except that, between the servings, the butler makes jovial announcements, the chorus sings and musicians play.

Most of the music would have been heard in these halls when they were new. But one familiar, newer, song caused one of the young singers to wipe away tears the night I attended: the lament sung by parent to son, the Londonderry Air, or Danny Boy.

And so my trip to Ireland had begun with song and ended with song. Between, I heard the stones talking.

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