There is a network of routes and towpaths around Ireland's lakes, and a rich history woven around them too. Cycling is the perfect way to encounter both, writes John Dunne
'You should write a book about all this!" remarked my friend as I recounted to him the results of my latest piece of research while we cycled along a small section of the towpath of the Royal Canal to return to the shore of Lough Ennell in Co Westmeath.
I mulled over this for many years, caught in the dilemma of whether to keep to myself the secret of the cycling trails along the shores of our lakes and the towpaths of our waterways or share them with others, thereby exposing them to the loss of exclusivity and tranquillity that I and my friends treasured so much. Eventually, I took up my friend's suggestion and found that the curious marriage of cycling and water inspired in me a passion for writing as well as cycling.
On my cycling tours around Ireland, I have often found myself stopping at a lakeshore for a well-earned respite from the ceaseless pushing of the pedals. As I gaze across the water, my thoughts drift towards the countless people who have stood in that same place over the thousands of years since Ireland's lakes were formed by the chiselling motion of thick glaciers during the last Ice Age. Some of these people were famous, others notorious, but the vast majority were ordinary people who had come to fish, to wash clothes, to swim or to fill their water-containers at a time when convenience shopping, electric washing machines and water on tap were yet to be conceived.
I might, for example, be standing in the footstep traces of Partholón, an invader who, according to the annals, came to Ireland, arriving here around 2,680 BC.
According to early portrayals of ancient Irish history, there were only three lakes on our island at the time of his arrival, in addition to nine rivers and a single plain. We have, in fact, more than 6,000 natural lakes in Ireland and we can only presume the physical description during the reign of the Partholonians was a form of poetic licence intended by early historians to convey an extremely ancient time.
Making my way around Irish lakeshores in recent years, I feel certain that I have trod the same paths used by many of our best-known saints. Lakes and rivers were the highways and byways along which people travelled long ago and it is quite understandable that so many of our best-known monastic settlements founded by these saints are sited on or near them. Some that come to mind are: Glendalough in Co Wicklow, where St Kevin made his home; Holy Island on Lough Derg, which is associated with both St Colum, who founded it in the sixth century, and St Caimin, who was the inspiration behind its fame as a centre of learning and prayer in the following century; and Errew Abbey, on the western shore of Lough Conn, where St Tiernan founded a monastery in the seventh century.
ONE OF THE more celebrated tales about St Kevin's time at Glendalough is a strange one for a saint to be involved in, as it hints at the cowardly killing of a woman. The deceased in question was a young lady called Kathleen who fell hopelessly in love with Kevin, whom she encountered while he was living as a hermit in a cave above the Upper Lake at Glendalough. The saint was reputed to have had a particular dislike for women, as he believed he needed to stay celibate if he was to hold true to his holy calling.
Despite active discouragement, Kathleen's amorous pursuit continued for some time and included bringing the saint food and tidying up his cave. One day, Kevin returned to his cave to find Kathleen ensconced there. He was furious and grabbed her, pushing her forcibly towards the entrance of the cave where she is said to have lost her footing, falling headlong into the lake. Unable to swim, she drowned. The legend of Kevin's killing of Kathleen was the subject of several compositions by notable literary figures in the 19th century, the best known of which is the melody, By That Lake Whose Gloomy Shore, by the poet Thomas Moore.
Jonathan Swift would leave his Dublin city centre congregation and regularly visit Lough Ennell in Co Westmeath, staying with the Rochfort family at Gaulstown House, which is not too far from another Rochfort residence, the better-known Belvedere House, sited directly on the lakeshore. It is said Swift was inspired to write about the little people of Lilliput who featured in Gulliver's Travels after noticing the size of people in the distance as he looked upon the broad expanse of the lake. An area on the southern shore of that lake is now called Lilliput in his honour.
When my travels take me to Lough Gill in Co Sligo I feel a closeness to William Butler Yeats, and sure that I have walked over ground on which he trod as he visited the sites immortalised in his poetry. The fame of Dooney Rock and Innisfree Island are celebrated worldwide and I feel privileged to have seen them at close quarters, and perhaps from the same perspective as the poet. While Innisfree Island claimed his heart, Yeats was also very taken with Trinity Island on Lough Key in Co Roscommon where once he planned to set up a community.
Often my encounters on the lakeshores are with the huge variety of wildlife that thrive there. During the winter months, on the shore of Upper Lough Erne, I meet up with visitors from more northerly territories. Every year without fail, large flocks of hooper swans take flight southwards to escape the harsh Icelandic winter for the reed-fringed Erne shoreline. It has been estimated that as many as 5 per cent of the world's hooper population winter here. They are the beneficiaries of a government scheme in Northern Ireland that encourages farmers in the area to allow them graze undisturbed. Farmers are paid to remove their cattle from lakeshore fields until April 1st, so the swans can graze without competition. In some fields they are present in such numbers that it appears from afar that the area is covered with a thin veil of snow.
ON MY LAKESHORE SORTIES, I have yet to see any of the strange creatures that from time to time have been reported lurking in the depths of our lakes, despite the fact that there exists a large store of lake-monster legends in Ireland which have been handed down the generations.
Long ago, it was a regular duty of saints to intervene when locals were visited by some fearsome beast, and the normal practice was to guide it to a lake and restrain it there through the medium of prayer. Unfortunately, prayers were insufficient to confine some water-monsters to the depths - these required more permanent disposal.
But while the large creature hovering in the depths of Lough Ree has received a lot of attention over the years for its rapacious appetite, leaving trails of bloodied carcases on the lakeshore, not all monsters have evil tendencies. My own favourite is the creature said to haunt the larger of the three Coumalocha corrie lakes set in a plateau in the centre of the Comeragh Mountains in Co Waterford. Normally, fishermen will avoid lakes reputed to contain a monster, but here they are encouraged by the actions of a kindly creature that has been given the name "the Dark Fisherman of Coumalocha".
When an angler has cast his line and the fish are not biting, the creature is said to quietly rise from the depths and attach a trout to the line before returning to its murky lair. Many local fishermen are said to have benefitted from the creature's largesse. As Lady Gregory once remarked, "For there are queer things in lakes."
John Dunne's Lakeshore Loops: Exploring Ireland's Lakes is published by Liberties Press