The problem with writing about the Burren is that there’s no consensus about where it is. Different people have different ideas. On my first trip there, I plaintively asked a girl in a café in Kilfenora, whose heyday was probably the 11th century (Kilfenora, that is, not the café) where the Burren was and she jerked her thumb towards the door. ‘Out there,’ she said. And so I made my way down the road to the nearest field to contemplate the celebrated flora. With beginner’s luck, I saw, for the first and last time, a curious little red frog. A few minutes later I came across the wild orchids for which the place is famous — as luck would have it, I was there in June, the best time for flowers. But then I found out that for geologists, Kilfenora isn’t strictly the Burren at all.
Just make for north Clare. If you head up from Corofin and stop at Ballyvaughan, where Steven Spielberg eats cheesecake in the tearooms, or go west to Doolin and stop at the Atlantic, you’re there. But the where is less important than the why. Why go? Well, it depends what you’re after. There are at least half a dozen facets of the place which make it worth a visit.
For geologists it’s the extraordinary rock formation — Burren means in Irish a place of rocks — ‘sculptured into flat, bare terraces, criss-crossed by joints, each terrace abruptly separated from the next by a cliff, so that the whole landscape looks like a fantastic series of stairs’, according to one environmentalist. Then there’s the famous flora, an extraordinary assortment of plants that would normally be described as arctic, alpine or Mediterranean, flourishing in a single unlikely terrain. For archaeologists, there are more wedge-shaped tombs than you can handle; in Neolithic times, this was plainly where the action was. For medievalists, it’s a happy hunting ground for small, ruined churches in the middle of nowhere, with little blank faces carved over the gateways. There are the holy wells, still occasional places of pilgrimage. Then again, some people just come for the view.
The first thing you should do if you’re planning a visit is buy The Book of the Burren (eds J.W. O’Connell and A. Korff) online or locally: a splendid collection of essays on a dozen different aspects of the place. Then you need a map, by which I mean the one for the Burren produced by Tim Robinson, a cartographer of genius, with all the things you might need marked in the way of wells for curing bad eyes, portal tombs, high crosses, St Bridget’s chair, the Caves of the Wild Horses, the lot. And for good measure, buy the companion maps for Kilfenora and Ballyvaughan. By the way, Kilfenora is unique in that the bishop of this ruined ecclesiastical site is the Pope of Rome; were I Pope Francis, I’d go.
Notwithstanding the excellence of the maps, I seem to spend an awful lot of time in the Burren in the middle of a field with a map in one hand, looking plaintively for churches or tombs or wells or cave entrances that ought to be there but somehow aren’t. If I’m really unlucky, it’ll be a field with cows in. Fortunately, the friend I go there with is a saint, and puts up with me. After a long hike to find the Well of Seven Streams, with my children complaining all the way, I ended up ducking under an electric fence in a field to search in vain in the hazel copses for anything resembling a well. But it was lovely all the same. Mind you, some portal tombs are practically on the road and even I can’t miss them. Whatever the charms of travelling hopefully, the visitor could do with about twice as many signposts as there are at present and the same goes for those terse notices from the Office of Public Works announcing the existence of a national monument.
Perhaps it’s the interplay of man and nature, the imprint of people on the landscape, that is the most haunting thing about the Burren. Without people, there wouldn’t be the stories and the evocative names attached to wild places; without the rugged backdrop, the monasteries and churches and tombs wouldn’t have the context and drama. The Cistercian ruin I mentioned earlier, Corcomroe Abbey, whose other title is Sancta Maria de Petra Fertilis — St Mary of the Fertile Rock — is all about the spiritual overlay on the physical landscape. The succession of three little churches at Oughtmama — I never found them all — is all the more captivating for being almost impossible to come at. One of the most spectacular ringforts, Cathair Chomáin, is on the edge of a steep ravine.
And where to stay? I came across Gregans Castle Hotel on Corkscrew Hill by chance and was enchanted by the sense of a retreat, a bower, in the wilderness. After a long day getting lost, there’s nothing like tea there, followed by a walk through the fine garden. I can’t say I’ve ever stayed there, though J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis both did, but I’m open to bribes.
Naturally, the beauty of the Burren is a fragile thing and if too many people go there, it’ll be ruined. So let me point out that quite a lot of the time you may well be looking at some of the beauties of the place through a mist of rain. This is Ireland, and the west of Ireland moreover, where you get four seasons in the one day. There’s no time of year when you’re guaranteed fine weather; take it from me. And it has a curious magic; I’ve been back every year since I first went there. Be warned.
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