3 Weekend Walks nothing startling but some beautiful “lost” places

This weekend I have a collection  of 3 walks, the first is the Errigal Train In Glenullin ( http://www.walkni.com/Walk.aspx?ID=144 ) which is a marvellous short 3 mile walk through a remnant of the ancient Irish deciduous woodland beside the River Agivey a little known and very well maintained gem in the North of Ireland and well worth a visit. The walk is easy and can be completed by even novice walkers.

The Second walk was thru Somerset Forest trail and Christie Park In Coleraine, a walk I can do from and to my front door.

The Third was a walk across Dumore hill from Largentea Car Park following the Curly Burn down to Bolea road, a bit of a detour down to Lady O’Cahan’s bridge, Sweathouse and Mass Stone. The Mass Stone is a place where during the Penal Laws when the Protestant Monarchs and Gov of Britain made the act of saying mass illegal. As a result the local catholic priest would sanctify a place usually with a large altar like rock where his congregation could celebrate mass in secret. It also has to be said that most local protestant landlords turned a blind eye to this practise. Ireland both north and south is peppered with “Mass Rocks” the mass rock from Bolea has been moved and is now in St Mary’s Chapel Limavady.

The town land of Largentea and the valleys in the high bog have been lived in since the stone age and it used to be a thriving community even within living menory, but now it is reduced to a few modern farms. In conversation with some of the locals it was pointed out to me that the track down to Lady O’Cahan’s bridge (Which is all but gone and overgrown) is surrounded my numerous low stone walls that were until the early 1900’s houses, fields and gardens of 20 or 30 families now long gone and overgrown with hawthorn and birch and beech trees.

The locals created a sweat house beside the curly burn, a low stone beehive structure lined with moss and peat. In the center of the sweathouse a fire would be built and you would sit inside and sweat, much like a sauna, once you had had enough you would go plunge in a pool in the Curly Burn (it’s about 6 foot deep even when the burn is low)

It is sort of sad that we have lost these communities and their old fashioned ways of doing things. It must have not been that much fun, but I would really quite like to have seen and experienced it first hand.

C’est la vie is suppose

Here is a picture from the walk, it is the shady glen where the mass rock once stood, now all that is left is a small stone circle and the rock on which the orginal stone cross sat. Even without the religious mumbo-jumbo you can see why they choose it.

Click on the image to go to the face book gallery and the rest of the pictures