Country Diary: The Burren, Ireland

Up we went, the first 15 minutes of our climb being the most difficult - it seemed almost vertical to me! We were walking up Gleninagh, the mountain between Cappanawalla and Mount Elva. Behind us lay Caher river valley. There was little foliage, the small fields separated by single stone walls, grass turning from green to soft brown the higher we climbed. We reached Caher an Aird Rois (Cashel of the High Rose) where there is the remains of a mass house. People gathered here for mass before Catholic emancipation in 1829. Isolated places had to be chosen since celebration of mass was forbidden, and lookouts were well posted to warn the congregation.

Beside the mass house lie the ruins of a shebeen, the name for an illegal drinking place. Here poteen, an outlawed spirit, was sold. It was a lot cheaper than the legal kind and popular. Many makers of poteen were caught because the revenue raided whenever they saw smoke in places off the beaten track. The use of smokeless gas made discovery more difficult. Poteen was regarded as a cure for all chest complaints. Bottles of it were secreted beside the bottle of holy water in the bottoms of wardrobes. I was regaled by a true, local story that poteen was used mistakenly for holy water by a priest when administering the last rites. The dying person recovered!

We walked on until we reached the summit. Below us was the valley of the Rathborney river and behind us lay the Caher valley. The mountain sides were colour-rich, gold flushed through every shade, while the two valleys snuggled green and vivid beneath. As we clattered down, a huge hare ran across our path. We reached the valley just as "shadows touched the mountain slopes" (Virgil), turning them to a plum-like bloom.