Do you know how to find a diamond down by Kerry Head? Simplicity itself! "You descend by ye scragginess of ye rock some 20 or 30 feet down a very dreadful precipice, before you come to ye first very considerable vein of Chrystall."
These somewhat vague instructions were left by Samuel Molyneux, who acquired his expertise on a tour of Kerry during 1709. Samuel was the son of William Molyneux who has figured frequently in Weather Eye as Ireland's first scientific weather observer, having set up a variety of instruments in Trinity College in 1684. Indeed, young Sam himself made observations of the weather for several months in the year before he undertook his trip to Kerry, but unfortunately his records for 1708 have never been unearthed.
The "Kerry diamonds" as they were called, the stones described by Samuel, seem to have been a variety of amethyst that was found in abundance in the vicinity of Kerry Head in times gone by. They were described by Sir Richard Cox, a visitor in 1687, as "Amethysts of various Collors and Tinctures, said to be ye best in Europe, Topases very rich, Agmarines or Sea Greens, all found in ye Great Rocks of ye Mountain Call'd Kerry Head."
As recently as 1837, people still considered it worth their while to go to dangerous lengths to obtain the stones, hanging by ropes from the cliff and using hammers to extract them from the crevices. Today, alas, it seems that Kerry diamonds are few and far between.
These gems - of information as distinct from precious stones - are to be found in a delightful book called The Story of Ballyheigue by Bryan MacMahon. This Mr MacMahon is not he whom we might call "the real Bryan MacMahon", the novelist, but a cousin of almost equal erudition. The latter kindly sent me a copy of his book when he read in Weather Eye about the "guns" of Meenogahane. These, if you remember, seem to be a Kerry version of the "Barisal guns", the name given to mysterious booming sounds, rather like the detonation of a distant cannon, heard near the sea or other areas of water in many parts of the world from time to time.
Mr MacMahon points out that Sir Richard Cox, quoted above in the context of the Kerry diamonds, also makes mention of the Meenogahane guns, saying that at a place in the vicinity known as Powlaglugger - Poll a' Glugair or "the Gurgle-hole" - "such a noise is made by the sea before a storme as could be heard 60 miles off".