Totem

evening all,

 i am aware that this is considered something of a cliched shot in photography circles, however there are loads of this scattered about all the beaches and rocky outcrops around this bit of Ireland.

I know that Inuit culture, stone figures are used to mark waypoint, food caches or where someone died so there may be a similar position in Gaellic culture.(apologies for my heathen ignorance, have now worked it out.)

We went to the beach at Derrynane, climbed a high hill to see a ruined abbey at Derrynane graveyard, which is beautiful and can only be accessed at low tide, to hear mysterious chips, hammering and pickaxing coming from the graveyard....

I had made the assumption that because it was a tourist attraction, because it featured a ruined abbey, because it was only accessible at certain times of the day and because it is marked on every guidebook and website as being a place to visit, that it would be abandoned, deconsecrated, derilict.

Imagine my surprise when i turned a corner and found the gravediggers hacking out at a grave and backfilling to get ready for a burial the next day.

Didn't feel right to stay there after that, watching them work in the hot sun whilst i had me sandwiches and me lid of tea,  looking across the Atlantic in full tourist mode.

So i left them and the occupants of the graveyard to themselves.

From here they can see forever.

night all




Rush