The Gloan Field

For the past month, I have been living in a mountain hut, on the west coast of Ireland. In the mornings, I'd sit on the front step, having my breakfast in sun, or cloud. Through the front windows you could see the steel Atlantic, three islands and waves popping against them - through the other windows: rock, bracken, mountain, field, pond and streams. The streams run down two gunnels on either side of a huge slant of rock to form one rush of water in the shape of a huge dowsing rod.

I had occasional visitors - a herd of sheeny cows, a flock of bouldering sheep, a ram (that kept me company most of the time I was there), three horses, and semi-wild mountain goats which trailed down behind the hut. All the animals were great climbers and chewers: constantly on the move, up and down between mountain and sea, walking between fields through fallen stone walls, getting separated in the fog and calling all day to their mothers. There were few fathers. The goats had one male, the cows two bull calfs, the sheep one ram and a few ram lambs.

As well as the livestock, there was a grey heron, a pair of bats, hares, two wrens, goldfinches, stonechats, a family of four choughs, wheatears, hooded crows, swallows and white wagtails that danced around the cows and spring up and down on their poo like popping corn

Each afternoon, I'd walk down to Trá an Phéarla (Pearl Strand), for a 5pm swim with local artists, musicians, homeopaths, geologists, guilders, gardeners, framers and farmer's daughters... One of the islets has a gulp of cormorants. From swimming level, you see all their profiles - their wings held out to the sun. This crucifixion shape gives them one of their other names - Christ bird.  From up on the mountain, I could see the whole peninsula. For the first two weeks the waves became more and more swollen with each passing day and the ocean grew unrestful, frothing and twisting itself up. But for the last fortnight, it was glass and mirror. The jellyfish got plumper and more plentiful each afternoon though - in all their colours of purple, pink, tattoo blue - Compasses, Common Moons, Blues and Barrels. There were grey triggerfish too that would take a nip, so entering the water became more of a slalom than a swim.

I love staying in huts: they are half out-of-doors already. Sometimes, when I'm staying in them I think of the painter, Emily Carr and her little wagon and boat. How she'd kayak off into the Canadian wilderness, then sit with the forest or seascape, not lifting a brush until she knew what the landscape wanted to tell her. This kind of listening reminds me of Thoreau. I picture him rowing Emerson downstream on his boat at dusk, or floating around on Walden Pond then returning to his house at its' edge. One of my favourite of Goethe's poems, Wanderer's Nightsong, was written in a hut on the Kickelhahn mountain. He wrote it straight onto the wall, on the night of September 6, 1780.  

Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.

I have brought to the hut, a little collection of art postcards - by German artist, Casper David Friedrich, Emily Carr, Nikolai Alstrup and Maxfield Parrish. They were a chance selection, but somehow I see in sky, mountain and sea the same scenes that are depicted in them. I look from them to the window and back again and the view seems to me to be an invocation.

The stay was part of residency with Beara Arts Festival.

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