Down on the farm.

I haven't had a blog post in a while, mostly due to the fact that the weather hasn't been conducive here to getting out and about with a camera. We've been plagued with grey skies and floods of rain. The other reason i have been neglecting my blog is the fact that i like to crawl back into my shell from time to time, i get the hump with social media and the way it sucks you in. Time is precious but i have crawled out of my shell to give you this, I hope you like it.

Something happened a few years ago and if i had a shell at the time i would definitely have crawled into it. I needed to go to the A.I.B bank in Cobh to lodge money for a member of my family. It was  before lodgement machines became part of the furniture in the banks and the queue was nearly out to the door.

I was checking out who was in the queue, as you do, and my eyes were drawn to the woman in front of me. She had long black curly hair and she was wearing a long black coat, nearly down to her ankles. I recognised her immediately as the White Witch of Cobh. Absentmindedly i was looking her up and down and when i looked down I noticed that the end of her coat and her shoes were covered in mud. I was thinking to myself Jaysus 'you'd think she would make an effort' when I suddenly checked myself. Crikey I thought, 'this is the White Witch, she's going to know what I am thinking". Frantically i started looking around for distractions, anything to take my mind off the woman in front of me.

Too late. She turned around slowly to face me, a big smile on her face. I smiled nervously back. " I was on a farm yesterday" she said. She pointed down at her shoes and her coat and said "As you can see, I got destroyed". I was trying to pretend that i hadn't noticed but i was only blabbering like a fool. She kept chatting to me telling me about some of her predictions but i was in a strange place because of my stupidity and her voice was was like an echo in another room.

I'm very careful now when i see her, i have nothing but nice thoughts about her. My photos for this blog are all farm related. They are taken in Donegal, Galway, Ring Co. Waterford and Gougane Barra, West Cork. Ireland.

Little Bullock, taken on The Connigear, Ring, Co. Waterford

 A Farmer with a sense of humour, Oranmore, Co. Galway

'Show me the way to go home', The Connigear, Ring, Co. Waterford

 'In a leafy Glade', Gouganne Barra, West Cork

 'Three little maids', the Connigear, Ring, Co. Waterford

 ' A cow with a sense of humour', Mullinasole, Co. Donegal

 'Old Homestead', Mullinasole, Co. Donegal

 'A load of Bull', Mullinasole, Co. Donegal

'Discussing the meaning of life', Ring, Co. Watrford

'Stranded', The Connigear, Ring, Co. Waterford

'Itchy back', Ring, Co. Waterford

'A knowing look', Collie, sheepdog, Ring, Co. Waterford

 'Farming in Heaven', Ring, Co. Waterford

All these images were taken with a Canon, 70 D.

A haunting we will go.....

I loved this poem as a child, I could visualise the scene  and every time I photograph a ruin it comes to mind. I find old houses and ruins enchanting.

The Listeners

BY WALTER DE LA MARE

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,   

   Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses   

   Of the forest’s ferny floor:

And a bird flew up out of the turret,   

   Above the Traveller’s head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;   

   ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;   

   No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,   

   Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners   

   That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight   

   To that voice from the world of men:..................

    When my parents married in the mid 1950's they moved in with my Grandmother, my father's widowed mother. She lived in a rambling old house on Wises Hill in Sunday's Well in Cork City.

    There had been a tragic death in the house some years before my grandparents bought the place. A young RIC man(Royal Irish Constabulary, who policed Ireland 1814-1922 before An Garda Síochána took over the Irish Free State)was found hanging under the stairwell. My mother said he was the son of a Butcher.

    Mam told us about several occasions when she was alone in the house and she 'd hear footsteps coming to the closed sitting room door. She would be expecting my father to walk in but nobody would be there. Or she would hear footsteps coming down the stairs and the door of the room would open but again nobody would enter the room.

    I was a home birth which wasn't unusual in Ireland then.  Women didn't give the graphic accounts of their childbirths in those days. My mother said the doctor brought me in his bag. Apparently I destroyed his notes. Serves him right for carrying a bloodied baby in his bag. It could have been worse, my brother was found under a head of cabbage, but I digress.

    Mam told us she never felt alone in the house. She said she was never afraid when she was on her own but always sensed a presence. 

    Older family members  had similar experiences and also remember lights switching on by themselves.

   Any member of our family old enough to remember is convinced that the house was haunted. 

   As I was born in the house I feel a bit of a connection with him. I feel that we must have met somewhere in the in-between before i entered the Real World. Who knows!

   My photographs on this theme were taken in 3 locations, some in Cobh, Co. Cork and some in Galway and 1 in Ring Co Waterford. 

Glenmore Cobh

 Camera Settings, Camera-Canon 70D, Lens Canon 70-300mm@80mm, exp 1/80sec, f11, ISO 160

Renville, Galway

Camera Settings, Camera- Canon 70D, Lens Canon 18-135mm@67mm, exp 1/200sec, f10, ISO100 

 Belgrove House, Walterstown, Cobh

Camera Settings, Camera- Canon 70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm@11mm, exp 1/400, f22, ISO 100

 Mageen's House, Ring Co. Waterford

Camera Settings, Camera Canon 70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm@16mm, exp 0.8sec, f16, ISO 100, tripod

 Mageen's House, Ring, Co. Waterford

Camera Settings, Camera - Canon 70D, lens Canon 18-135mm@18mm, exp 1/100sec, f7.1, ISO 160

Valley Road, Cobh

Camera Settings, Camera-Canon 70D, Lens Canon 18-135mm@18mm, exp 1/60sec, f11, ISO 100

 Fota Cottages, workers houses, Fota Road, Cobh, Co. Cork

Camera Settings, Camera Canon 70D, Lens 18-135mm@18mm, exp 1/50sec, f20, ISO200

 Camera Settings, Camera - Canon 70D, Lens Canon 18-135mm@18mm, exp 1/80sec, f11, ISO 200

I'll always be an Over the Bridger

The Island of Cobh,  Co. Cork Ireland where I live is joined to the main land by a bridge known as Belvelly bridge. If you weren't fortunate enough to have been born on the island and moved in from the other side you will always be known as an Over the Bridger.
I came from the Northside of Cork City over 30 years ago to marry a Cobh man so I am a Norrie and an Over the Bridger.
My mother in law Peg Kidney, from the Gaeltacht in Ring Co Waterford married a Cobh man and lived all her married life on the island and died in her 70's, an over the bridger.
These island folk should be counting their lucky stars that we ventured over the bridge to marry them.     They would be very strange folk only for us.

The ruin of Belvelly Castle stands  at the entrance to Cobh. This historic 15th Century Castle, once inhabited by Sir Walter Raleigh is on the market for €275,000.

This series of photographs are of Belvelly Castle and  Bridge.

Camera Settings, Camera - Olympus, Exp 1/320sec, f5.6, ISO 80

Camera Settings, Camera- Canon 70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm@17mm, exp 1/125sec, f7.1, ISO 100

Camera Settings, Camera- Canon  70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm@14mm, exp 1/60sec, f7.1, ISO 100

Camera Settings, Camera- Canon 70D, LensTamron 10-24mm@14mm, exp 1/80sec, f9, ISO 100

Camera Settings, Camera- Camera 70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm@13mm, exp 1/800sec, f11, ISO 100

 Camera Settings, Camera Canon 70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm@10mm, exp 1/25sec, f14, ISO 100

Camera Settings, Camera- Canon 70D, Lens Tamron 10-24mm@10mm, exp 1/25sec, f14, ISO 100