Stepping it out all along the Táin Way from Glenmore to Carlingford

I suppose it’s because I worked in the Mournes and have sheep on Loughin More that I never walked on Slieve Foy - I had enough hill walking as it was, carrying theodolites and such up the mountains and going to ‘have a look at sheep’.

In the 1950s work commenced in Ireland, North and South on a ‘retriangulation’. I knew the men who built the Ordnance Survey pillars and these donkeys knew the donkeys that helped them. Many of the points observed in the original triangulation of the early 1800s was incorporated in the new scheme. Triangulation stations in the form of the familiar concrete pillars seen on many hill tops were erected. One of the problems was transporting heavy equipment up to some of the highest mountain tops and donkeys with creels helped.

If that seems a bit far fetched; when I observed from these pillars in the 1960s our means of communicating was to have a car battery and a light; and flash Morse code. A friend of mine who walks in the Mournes and the Cooley mountains often talks to me about the ‘Tain Way’ from Glenmore to Carlingford, Stasia and I decided to ‘step it out’. First (in the heel of the evening) we took a run down to have a look at the start. Glenmore has houses and gardens that would not be out of place in Belfast’s Malone or Dublin’s Ballsbridge.

I stopped a big jeep to ask about the pillar on the mountain. A real off road vehicle that only got washed when it splashed water on itself. Understandably sheep men had little interest in the pillar but a bit of banter and their protests that there was little money in farming, moved me to tell an old story about our breadman ‘Pity the boaster, because the grumbler has plenty’--- he’d say –--they laughed. Then I met a man who made a football field, I could only think -- Kevin Costner made a film about a man like that, ‘Field of Dreams’. The next morning we went back to the sign for the Tain Way and started our walk. The weather was perfect, we had a slight wind in our back.

Already the view of Dundalk Bay, in the distance Ireland's Eye, and over the ditch a couple of big fields of ewes (well clipped) and good lambs.

Out on the mountain the clearest of streams, ewes again clipped and well marked and a herd of ponies. A dozen or so coloured horses, I expected wigwams and an Indian camp. It’s a very gentle walk of good dry footing with wonderful views, a much greater expanse of rough pasture than I had expected. Constantly I looked to the pillar on Slieve Foy and reminded myself that while it was of great fascination for me it meant nothing to the local farmers and little to anyone else.

It’s just a slab of concrete in a fortress of rocks. But I see it as an altar that I can put my hand on and communicate with all the other triangulated pillars, buried blocks, church spires and indeed lighthouses in every bailiwick in Ireland.

Warrenpoint’s Michael George Crawford in his wonderful book of Legendary Stories tells us ‘Cooley may be called the birthplace of Irish literature.

Here the scene is laid for the oldest and grandest epic poem in the ancient language of Ireland, the famous “Tain Bo Cuailgne” and at the saddle (Bearna-Meave) beneath Slieve Foy -- take a few steps forward -- Carlingford and the North is in front of you, a few steps back and there’s Dundalk and all to the South. Sitting here in the sunshine we spoke to a man who had walked to the ridge from the Carlingford side.

He told me there was two pillars one over by the Cross and the one he was going to on Slieve Foy. All the way back along the Tain Way we had him in our sights. A figure ‘speeling’ up the rocks, his knowledge and fitness on the craigs making light of what I knew to be a difficult climb. We met others on the walk and back at base camp a couple of men and a little dog got out of a car.

I was intrigued to see one of them add a boron to his rucksack. He told me he was a Shaman. Went up into the mountains and played his music. His friend spoke of the rhythms healing qualities. What a way to end our venture. Meeting one of a long line of mystics to have drummed and contemplated and interacted with the spirit world - up here in the Slieves of Cooley - on Slieve Foy.