Sea girt

A promontory fort is a fortified coastal headland or sea-girt promontory of land. The seaward sides are naturally defended by a cliff while one or more straight or curved ramparts of earth or stone, with accompanying ditches, protect the landward side. The main purpose in using a headland for fortification was to take advantage of the natural defense provided by a vertical cliff face. The location of these forts predicated engagement with the sea and maritime activity for their occupants. Many of them incorporate the Irish word dun (fort) in their name. Over 350 promontory forts have been identified on the Irish coast of which just nine have been the subject of archaeological excavation.


And this beauty is in Gouladoo townland which is very close to Dun Oir which could mean Fort of the Gold. The cliffs are high and imposing, jutting out into Bantry Bay (look very closely and the little white specks are nestling gulls). Beneath them is a natural arch and today the sea, going out, was a delicious deep turquoise. The extra shows the more conventional view- the fort proper actually beyond that greensward - access via a skinny natural footbridge onto a sea girt bit of land - that's such a good expression! You would have been well protected here but buffeted by the elements.


A friend had alerted me that the holy well, also in the main field, has now got a sign and a stile accessing it. I came to investigate on a grey but clear day, light bouncing off the mountains on the Beara. Friend just happened to be passing as I arrived and we went down to examine it together. It has been tidied up, the statue of the BVM snug behind perspex!  Always good to ponder on a bit of Horace too. Her chap, the friend's not the BVM's, had just made a fiendishly good chocolate torte and I was invited to sit on their outside bench and partake, which I did whilst admiring their sublime views. Meanwhile Himself, having been dropped off on the northside was walking home over the mountain to the southside.
Other than that I have been pretty lazy, reading the papers, and generally being Sundayish - nice.