It’s almost exactly 50 years since I had the great privilege of studying the geology of Slieve Bloom as a postgraduate student in Trinity College. For over 4 years after that my job was to reach into every corner of the mountains where rock might have poked through to the surface, and then bring together the clues these pieces, of the jigsaw that told the story of the formation and subsequent history of the mountains, to form a more or less coherent picture.
But I soon began to understand two things. First of all, that in looking at the rocks I was seeing less than half of the story; even if I included the flora and fauna they supported. The other half was the human story. Slieve Bloom is what its people have made it down all the centuries, and a parallel investigation is required to assemble all the pieces of this jigsaw together into a coherent story, and then place it over the first jigsaw. And then you begin to see how they are really two sides of the same coin.
And then, at the end of the four years, as some of you will know, I wrote a book about it.
So I began to understand two things. And here’s the second thing I began to understand early on. You can’t fit the whole story of all the different places in Slieve Bloom into one book. Each place requires its own book in order to give the colour and flavour that only a more detailed telling can achieve.
And that’s part of the background of how this book came about, and if deadlines such as funding and the length of the individual human life had not been a constraining factor it might have grown into a book many times its present modest length.
But as for why THIS place: the Silver River, its landscape, its catchment and its people, out of the dozen other rivers and valleys that radiate from Slieve Bloom, mainly because it was here for me that I first REALLY came to understand a deeper meaning of geology, a meaning behind the FACT that the rocks exposed here in the river bring the past of hundreds of millions of years ago into the present, opening a door here and now into that ancient world, confronting you with the shocking realization of what that means for how we must think of this world we live in and of our place in it …
As for what my hopes for the book.
First and foremost that you will read it, bits of it anyway, and that, as those of you who live in the shadow of the Silver River flick through the pages, you may come on something new, something that helps you to appreciate this special place that bit more.
Then, on top of that, I hope it will be read by those who can help in restoring ACCESS. One of the biggest changes that have taken place over the last 150 years in the catchment of the Silver River has been the gradual and scarcely noticed restriction of ACCESS.
It never ceases to amaze me when I look carefully at the detailed six-inch maps of the Ordnance Survey how OPEN the river once was for nearly all of its course between Hugh O’Neill’s Well where it rises at the head of Glenletter and its confluence with the Brosna.
With that restriction of access there is a loosening of the connectedness with the natural world the river represents for those who live close to it or come to visit.
We hear a lot of talk these days about the importance of digital tools to increase our ‘connectedness’. But along with that artificial connectedness comes the danger of a profound disconnect with the real world, of which we are part, body and soul: and the psychological and spiritual impoverishment the ever-growing restriction of time spent engaging with the real world brings.
Let me read a sentence written by the Nobel prizewinner René Dubos:
Human beings need primeval nature to re-establish contact now and then with their biological origins; a sense of continuity with the past and with the rest of creation is probably essential to the long-range sanity of the human species.
So I hope the book will help to give new determination to improving physical ACCESS, so that we can all again share in the experience of walking its banks in safety and comfort, a little better informed I hope about all the things we might expect to see – or not expect to see – on our encounters with it.
And the book doesn’t stand on its own with this ambition. It is supported by the improved physical access to the river provided by the Outdoor Recreational Scheme and the Slieve Bloom Walking Group, and the ongoing initiatives of the County Council and other bodies.
I referred on page 52 in the book an incident from the life of Ignatius Loyola: where on one occasion he sat down to rest on the bank of a river to rest, his eyes fixed on the running water; and as he sat there he experienced an intense and sudden enlightenment: for which, forever after, he could never find words to describe, except to say that all things seemed to have been made new, and that what he understood in that moment exceeded everything that he had learned during his whole life.
I hope the book can help you to find something in your Silver River you never knew was there or expected to find, a colour or an echo that leads you where it led St Ignatius, somewhere you too may find yourself unable to find the right words for what it means to you.
The list of people I have to thank runs to several pages: too many to mention now, though I hope I have remembered to acknowledge them in the book: People I have to thank for the help and hospitality over the last few years, during which I was gathering my thoughts and retracing my younger footsteps in Glenletter and Barlahan, and along the reaches of the river further down through Ballyboy and Kilcormac and Drinagh: but also back 50 years, when I was first finding my way.
One big difference between the experience of putting this book together now, and writing my earlier book in the late 1970s is how much printing techniques have advanced in the interval, and it’s possible now to produce books that are vastly more attractive with their wealth of colour, much of which in this instance is due to the contribution other people have made to the book, among them the paintings of Brigid Birney (who I am delighted to say has come all the way from Lovely Leitrim to be with us), and the photographs of John Gill, who hasn’t had to travel quite as far; as well as Lynne Hoare’s painting for the frontispiece which captured more than she realised when she painted it.
– I should however particularly thank the County Council and the Heritage Council for their financial support;
– and Dimma Print Services for the attractiveness of the book, which makes you want to pick it up and flick through the pages even if you never read a word.
– The book owes an outstanding debt to our Heritage Officer, Amanda Pedlow, without whom there would be no book, such has been her close involvement and support from the very beginning;
– And a very heartfelt thank you to Ella McSweeney, for bringing her enthusiasm and informed optimism to us here on the banks of the Silver River, whose charm I hope will entice her to take a closer look when the weather picks up!
– If there would be no book without Amanda, there would certainly be no book without Róisín, who made it possible for me to come back from Africa to undertake my study of Slieve Bloom all of 50 years ago.
– Thanks to Linda, Hannah and everybody on the team here in KDA. If this is an indication of the interest in and concern for the Silver River, then there is real hope for the future.
– Finally, my sincere thanks to each and every one of you for being with us this evening. You are, after all, at the end of the day, the reason for writing the book, and I will be happy if in reading it you get even a fraction of the pleasure it gave me in writing it.
Ella McSweeney launched the book and in the course of her address noted:
The Silver River has always been more than water and rock. It has come to define and shape us too. John traces the human thread alongside the natural one. From its older name, “Mountain River,” to its 19th-century designation as the“Silver River,”. Mills at Cadamstown, Ballyboy, and Kilcormac harnessed its energy for industry, and communal wells and monastic sites remind us of its role in daily life and spirituality – all of it nourishing that intangible part of what it is means to live a meaningful life, what it means to be connected.
Through photographs (John Gill, dairy farmer), beautiful art by Jock Nichols and stories, Feehan captures a landscape where human endeavour and natural forces converge. We see the river as a partner in community, shaping identity, and memory – a connector across generations.
Reconstructed settlement at Barnascart by Philip Armstrong (p. 139).
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