Pol an Ionán, or Doolin Cave
There’s a cave in Clare now called Doolin Cave, the entrance to which is and was in a field once owned by Paddy Woods. I say that because the entrance has been moved. The cave used to be known as Paddy Woods’ Hole by an American friend of mine noted for his acidic wit, who enjoyed his private jokes at the expense of those less travelled than he, in this instance those who had not heard of the Woods’ Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, Massachusets, generally referred to without offence as Woods Hole.
Not being native of these parts, he was somewhat insensitive to the lesser joke inadvertently played on Paddy Woods, who is in all respects a decent chap who drinks an odd pint and bothers no-one, leaving all his listeners bemused as to why the yank should insult Paddy Woods. Or his hole either. All of which proves that wit doesn’t cross water very well. Pol is the Irish word for cave, also pluais which nobody uses.
The cave was better, more widely and indisputably more accurately known as Pol an Ionán, and so it appears on maps.
Funny word, bemused. Does it have an antithesis? Amused is not the opposite of bemused. Another funny word like that is ‘disgruntled’. Now, if it had an antithesis, it would be gruntled, would it not? And that is easy to define. Imagine a troupe of marauding Vikings, sailing up the Shannon to maraud Ireland yet again. They see a religious institution – they pounce, drive off the cattle, drink all the liquor and so on. As you do. Now, if it turns out to be a monastery, they’re disgruntled. But… if it turns out to be a convent, it follows logically that they’d be gruntled, would they not? Back to the ship, lads. Better luck next time. 'Nother fuckin' monastery. We're all feeling disgruntled. Could be worse. If it was priests or christian brothers, we'd be buggered entirely. There might be another convent around the next bend in the river.
Back to the cave. In this cave hangs an enormous stalagtite. It has been known for many years that it was there, since 1952 in fact, but only a few truly brave and motivated people ever got to see it. Fewer still managed the considerable feat of photographing it. One was a deceased friend of mine, who put his Leica R5 camera in an ammunition box and pulled it behind him with a string, crawling three hundred feet through a tight passage with a stream rushing through it. It matters not whether it was in his face, because he came back out the same way, which was the only way, but it was in his face going in. Imagine crawling into a river, a few hundred feet underground. With a treasured camera, if nothing else. And a flash, and lights, and all the rest. My late friend took dozens of wonderful photographs like this, which appears on the website of a nearby guesthouse.
(Note: I don’t know who took this fine picture, happy to publish and give the considerable credit due etc., please use the comment facility if you know)
Paddy Woods sold the field to people who have now dug through hundreds of feet of limestone and ten solid years of bureaucracy to open the cave to the paying public. They were obliged by the experts to dig a vertical shaft some distance from the stalactite. They dug it with a mini-digger, round and round in circles through solid limestone. They lined it with pre-cast concrete things, like the London Underground. They more or less made a circle of the concrete things in the field, and dug under them until they dropped.Then they placed another circle of concrete things on the first, and dug again until they dropped. And so on. For years, until they got down to the level of a cave passage leading to the stalactite. It cost millions.
Now a digression. Where the fuck would you find an expert on digging tunnels vertically to see the biggest free-hanging stalactite in the Northern Hemisphere when you needed one? Answer: Your local Council Offices. They have experts on everything, waiting to be asked. They advertise and recruit them. Clare County Council – Wanted, Large Free-hanging Stalactite Expert, experience of vertical tunnelling in the Burren with a mini-digger desirable, salary commensurate with experience, Clean license essential, Bit of Gaeilge great too for dealing with cranky fuckers, Dutch or Swedish accent best of all, good prospects of promotion to Senior Executive Free-hanging Stalactite Expert for the truly asinine. Clare County Council is an equal opportunities employer. So if your name is Joyce and the word Bay appears in your address followed by a number, or alternatively care of a post office somewhere, and you are a blind deaf dyslexic black paraplegic with a peanut allergy and are in receipt of a lone parents allowance ( evidence must be produced) come on and join a vibrant team of dynamic dunderheads bent on destroying dolmens and whatever the fuck else. You know the type of thing.
They’re not overworked, so whenever they get a guy willing to spend a few million improving County Clare and educating the masses, they spend ten years fucking him up if they can. When they feel like a break, Dúchas take up the cudgels in their place.
Anyway, I visited the cave last week. There’s nothing in Paddy Woods’s field only a bit of gravel and chippings to make a car park. There’s no gift shop. There’s no coffee shop. There’s no ticket office. Just two Clare fellas, one drives the minibus and the other fella has a flashlamp in his hand and he does the tours. In you go and he locks the gate because there’s nobody to keep out the wanderers, but he shows everybody inside where the key is, in case of crises. Like a fire in a cave. Simple, blunt but brilliant.
Clare fellas are great. There is a flinty honesty in their character. It is so bloody hard to belt a living out of bare rock and nice flowers, they leave screwing Dubs to the Kerry people. It’s just too easy for Clare people so they don’t bother. They’re all called T. J. or P. J. and they all have a few bullocks in a little field somewhere that they go and see every day. They all drink pints in the same pubs. Donoghue’s, the Roadside, the Hydro, d’Imperial, Monk’s, the Castle. Any castle at all will do, because you’re never very far from one in Clare. Next time you’re anywhere north of the Fergus, say ‘Hallo P.J., will you come for another pint in the castle?” to a total stranger and he’ll say “Well I’d love to but I’m only just after one and I have to check my few bullocks I think wan of ‘em has red water lucky if ‘tisn’t two and I have to go to a funeral in Enistymon later on a fella next door to the wife’s brother that’s dead I can’t know what’s this his name is again so I must go home and get washed up and put diesel in the car and there’s two funerals in Enistymon tonight so it’ll be busy maybe the next time?” while he’s figuring out who the fuck you are and where did he meet you.
These two guys running the Doolin Cave are typical Clare fellas.
The commentary is genuine, not scripted. Con, the Clare fella with the flashlamp,knows his stuff. He delivers it with a quiet passion. An ordinary decent Clare guy who bothered to learn it because he wanted to know it. He knows his rocks and he knows his cave. No bullshit names for the calcite formations. No bullshit bogus bear bones. No bullshit shaggy dog stories. No bullshit sound effects. No bullshit period.
His calm care and concern for visitor safety is uncontrived. He’s not thinking about claims. He just wants you to have a good experience.
I’ll say no more. Go and see Doolin Cave, Pol an Ionán, Paddy Woods’s Hole. Changing the name to something more marketable in an English-speaking world is a nothing.
Only one thing. Like the plot of the Titanic (ship sinks) you know you are going to see the great stalactite eventually. So at the appointed time the guide says ‘ye can all take a few photos now if ye like’ and whipped on a light and all the tourists whipped out their flip phones! Fuckin’ hilarious! Supposing he said ‘ye can all make a phone call now if ye like’ would they all whip out Hasselblads?
Go see it before they build a coffee shop and a gift shop selling socks with Guinness logos on them. Go see it before they put in a lift and too much coloured lighting. Go see it before they irreparably fuck it all up like is now happening at the Cliffs of Moher. Go and take a camera and a tripod, and a huge flash, and take a proper picture and say a prayer for my old friend who did it the hard way, because he was a Clare man.
These people are deservedly going to be multi millionaires in a few years, because they have a better mousetrap.
The website:
http://www.doolincave.ie
A few pics:
http://www.johnpotter.org/cave/DIT/images/CAVE.jpg
http://www.johnpotter.org/cave/DIT/images/Pol%20an%20Ionan%20entrance.jpg
Though a man build his house in the forest,
If he maketh a better mousetrap than his companions
The world will beat a path to his door.
Not being native of these parts, he was somewhat insensitive to the lesser joke inadvertently played on Paddy Woods, who is in all respects a decent chap who drinks an odd pint and bothers no-one, leaving all his listeners bemused as to why the yank should insult Paddy Woods. Or his hole either. All of which proves that wit doesn’t cross water very well. Pol is the Irish word for cave, also pluais which nobody uses.
The cave was better, more widely and indisputably more accurately known as Pol an Ionán, and so it appears on maps.
Funny word, bemused. Does it have an antithesis? Amused is not the opposite of bemused. Another funny word like that is ‘disgruntled’. Now, if it had an antithesis, it would be gruntled, would it not? And that is easy to define. Imagine a troupe of marauding Vikings, sailing up the Shannon to maraud Ireland yet again. They see a religious institution – they pounce, drive off the cattle, drink all the liquor and so on. As you do. Now, if it turns out to be a monastery, they’re disgruntled. But… if it turns out to be a convent, it follows logically that they’d be gruntled, would they not? Back to the ship, lads. Better luck next time. 'Nother fuckin' monastery. We're all feeling disgruntled. Could be worse. If it was priests or christian brothers, we'd be buggered entirely. There might be another convent around the next bend in the river.
Back to the cave. In this cave hangs an enormous stalagtite. It has been known for many years that it was there, since 1952 in fact, but only a few truly brave and motivated people ever got to see it. Fewer still managed the considerable feat of photographing it. One was a deceased friend of mine, who put his Leica R5 camera in an ammunition box and pulled it behind him with a string, crawling three hundred feet through a tight passage with a stream rushing through it. It matters not whether it was in his face, because he came back out the same way, which was the only way, but it was in his face going in. Imagine crawling into a river, a few hundred feet underground. With a treasured camera, if nothing else. And a flash, and lights, and all the rest. My late friend took dozens of wonderful photographs like this, which appears on the website of a nearby guesthouse.
(Note: I don’t know who took this fine picture, happy to publish and give the considerable credit due etc., please use the comment facility if you know)
Paddy Woods sold the field to people who have now dug through hundreds of feet of limestone and ten solid years of bureaucracy to open the cave to the paying public. They were obliged by the experts to dig a vertical shaft some distance from the stalactite. They dug it with a mini-digger, round and round in circles through solid limestone. They lined it with pre-cast concrete things, like the London Underground. They more or less made a circle of the concrete things in the field, and dug under them until they dropped.Then they placed another circle of concrete things on the first, and dug again until they dropped. And so on. For years, until they got down to the level of a cave passage leading to the stalactite. It cost millions.
Now a digression. Where the fuck would you find an expert on digging tunnels vertically to see the biggest free-hanging stalactite in the Northern Hemisphere when you needed one? Answer: Your local Council Offices. They have experts on everything, waiting to be asked. They advertise and recruit them. Clare County Council – Wanted, Large Free-hanging Stalactite Expert, experience of vertical tunnelling in the Burren with a mini-digger desirable, salary commensurate with experience, Clean license essential, Bit of Gaeilge great too for dealing with cranky fuckers, Dutch or Swedish accent best of all, good prospects of promotion to Senior Executive Free-hanging Stalactite Expert for the truly asinine. Clare County Council is an equal opportunities employer. So if your name is Joyce and the word Bay appears in your address followed by a number, or alternatively care of a post office somewhere, and you are a blind deaf dyslexic black paraplegic with a peanut allergy and are in receipt of a lone parents allowance ( evidence must be produced) come on and join a vibrant team of dynamic dunderheads bent on destroying dolmens and whatever the fuck else. You know the type of thing.
They’re not overworked, so whenever they get a guy willing to spend a few million improving County Clare and educating the masses, they spend ten years fucking him up if they can. When they feel like a break, Dúchas take up the cudgels in their place.
Anyway, I visited the cave last week. There’s nothing in Paddy Woods’s field only a bit of gravel and chippings to make a car park. There’s no gift shop. There’s no coffee shop. There’s no ticket office. Just two Clare fellas, one drives the minibus and the other fella has a flashlamp in his hand and he does the tours. In you go and he locks the gate because there’s nobody to keep out the wanderers, but he shows everybody inside where the key is, in case of crises. Like a fire in a cave. Simple, blunt but brilliant.
Clare fellas are great. There is a flinty honesty in their character. It is so bloody hard to belt a living out of bare rock and nice flowers, they leave screwing Dubs to the Kerry people. It’s just too easy for Clare people so they don’t bother. They’re all called T. J. or P. J. and they all have a few bullocks in a little field somewhere that they go and see every day. They all drink pints in the same pubs. Donoghue’s, the Roadside, the Hydro, d’Imperial, Monk’s, the Castle. Any castle at all will do, because you’re never very far from one in Clare. Next time you’re anywhere north of the Fergus, say ‘Hallo P.J., will you come for another pint in the castle?” to a total stranger and he’ll say “Well I’d love to but I’m only just after one and I have to check my few bullocks I think wan of ‘em has red water lucky if ‘tisn’t two and I have to go to a funeral in Enistymon later on a fella next door to the wife’s brother that’s dead I can’t know what’s this his name is again so I must go home and get washed up and put diesel in the car and there’s two funerals in Enistymon tonight so it’ll be busy maybe the next time?” while he’s figuring out who the fuck you are and where did he meet you.
These two guys running the Doolin Cave are typical Clare fellas.
The commentary is genuine, not scripted. Con, the Clare fella with the flashlamp,knows his stuff. He delivers it with a quiet passion. An ordinary decent Clare guy who bothered to learn it because he wanted to know it. He knows his rocks and he knows his cave. No bullshit names for the calcite formations. No bullshit bogus bear bones. No bullshit shaggy dog stories. No bullshit sound effects. No bullshit period.
His calm care and concern for visitor safety is uncontrived. He’s not thinking about claims. He just wants you to have a good experience.
I’ll say no more. Go and see Doolin Cave, Pol an Ionán, Paddy Woods’s Hole. Changing the name to something more marketable in an English-speaking world is a nothing.
Only one thing. Like the plot of the Titanic (ship sinks) you know you are going to see the great stalactite eventually. So at the appointed time the guide says ‘ye can all take a few photos now if ye like’ and whipped on a light and all the tourists whipped out their flip phones! Fuckin’ hilarious! Supposing he said ‘ye can all make a phone call now if ye like’ would they all whip out Hasselblads?
Go see it before they build a coffee shop and a gift shop selling socks with Guinness logos on them. Go see it before they put in a lift and too much coloured lighting. Go see it before they irreparably fuck it all up like is now happening at the Cliffs of Moher. Go and take a camera and a tripod, and a huge flash, and take a proper picture and say a prayer for my old friend who did it the hard way, because he was a Clare man.
These people are deservedly going to be multi millionaires in a few years, because they have a better mousetrap.
The website:
http://www.doolincave.ie
A few pics:
http://www.johnpotter.org/cave/DIT/images/CAVE.jpg
http://www.johnpotter.org/cave/DIT/images/Pol%20an%20Ionan%20entrance.jpg
Though a man build his house in the forest,
If he maketh a better mousetrap than his companions
The world will beat a path to his door.
posted by The Bolted Nut | 9:23 PM
2 Comments:
Wow, impressive picture. Never heard of this place before.
Well, Nut, I was going to make some casual and somewhat superficial contribution regarding your gruntled / disgruntled observations.
However, I came across the following little piece and I think this fellow does it a lot better than I would.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
How I met my wife
by Jack Winter
Published 25 July 1994 in the New Yorker
It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate.
I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way.
I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I’d have to make bones about it since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn’t be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do.
Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or a sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion.
So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads and tails of.
I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and it nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen. Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt capacitated—as if this were something I was great shakes at—and forgot that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number of times. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings.
Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. Wanting to make only called-for remarks, I started talking about the hors d’oeuvres, trying to abuse her of the notion that I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a few myths about myself.
She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. “What a perfect nomer,” I said, advertently. The conversation became more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.
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