In Coole demesne
Our last stop in Ireland was Gort. Not a lovely sounding word in English, but it's Irish for "the field." It's a market town, with a square, and a fair amount of hustle and bustle, and it's on the main route from Galway to Shannon. That was convenient, because we traveled by bus this trip--and I must say we enjoyed every minute of not having to drive ourselves. Bus Eireann does a great job!
The main reason we stopped in Gort was that it is only about 3 kilometers from Coole Park, home to Lady Gregory, patroness of W.B. Yeats and other Irish greats, and co-founder of the Abbey Theater and the Irish Literary Revival.
We walked there on a day that moved between sun, cloud, and showers--a typical Irish day according to BD, and we had company.
This little guy joined us while we were still on the main road and seemed very happy to do what a dog does--run in front, lag behind, stop to sniff (and mark) everything. HH says it's not a guy, but a girl, but because of the wild white hair, BD and I dubbed the pup Willy.
Willy wasn't very romantic, though.
Coole Park is, well, cool. Very cool.
This path leads down to the turlough (a seasonal lake) that inspired Yeat's "Wild Swans at Coole."
It had been dry, so when we were there, this is what it looked like
. There's still a spirit to the place, though.
"Here, traveller, scholar, poet, take your stand/ When all those rooms and passages are gone," Yeats wrote in "Coole Park and Ballylee." That's what we can do, because the house is indeed gone, although a stone-rimmed foundation marks its site:
.
The "autograph tree" still stands, though. A magnificent copper beech with such thick branches that it offers shelter from a shower as we found out.
The autographs tell you so much about their makers. George Bernard Shaw's is by far the largest, and it's vertical:
Yeats' is much more difficult to make out:
It's number 10, and if you look closely you can see the W and the B, the Y is in the fold.
I think I'll leave you with this--a place to sit and contemplate in the stillness of Coole Park. Slainte, friends!
