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Extract from
Kintyre - The Hidden Past
The
Western
Shore
‘The Eenans’ – The name’s plural
probably acknowledges the twin townships there, long abandoned and now
ruinous. Innean Mór is on the Atlantic-facing slope of Cnoc Maighe, south of
Eenans Glen. Innean Beag is on the Northern shoulder of the Glen. Its
remains are sparser and less defined than those of its neighbour, and when
the virulent bracken has risen chest-high the scattered ruins are hidden.
Near each township stands a massive fank, or fold, raised with the
coming of sheep, and stone-plundering from the ruins almost certainly
occurred. Confronted with such massive material requirements, the labourers
who built these fanks – now themselves disused and entering a ruinous future
– would likely have utilised without sentiment the dry stone shells of the
townships.
An innean in Kintyre
‘generally appears to comprise a grassy area on the coast bounded steep rock
strewn slopes in the form of an amphitheatre. But such definitions seldom
satisfy the imagination, and to see the Eenans is, perhaps, to realise why
it is the Eenans. It is quite simply the finest of the few bays which indent
the high coast between Machrihanish and the Mull of Kintyre. Much of its
charm is, no doubt, the charm of the singular, for it is without comparison
on that coast which raises itself, as it were, against the unrestrained
violence of the
Atlantic
, lifting
in unchecked between the islands Rathlin and
Islay
.
One’s first sight on Eenans, from no matter which direction one
approaches, is invested with a kind of awe which seems never to diminish, as
though time were suspended in that clear landward drift of the Atlantic air.
One of my own favourite approaches is from Ballygroggan, a hill farm above
Machrihanish. The walk is a slow moderate one across uneven moor land,
sectioned here and there with the shaded hollows of old peat workings,
marking the toil of unremembered people.
Leaving the moor land – and leaving, too, the backward vista of the
plain of Laggan, the sanded bow of Machrihanish bay which is it’s westerly
margin, and the northerly rising hills of Kintyre – the descent into the bay
begins. Eenans Glen is moulded by the step, stony shoulders Cnoc Maighe, in
the south, and Beinn ne Faire (The Watch Hill) in the north. A peaty burn
falls down between. Keeping to the course of the old road to Innean Beag,
well above that burn, the prospect is of the wall of rising to the south,
and, right ahead, the neat V of the glen’s extremity, with the sea’s blue
caught in the notch, like water in the bottom of a glass. And then the first
glimpse of the bay itself…the sudden revelation of the whiteness of sand.
The bay is level and grassy right to the walls of the glen. Visible
from a height above the bay, in the subdued light or early morning or
evening, are broad rigs, aligned vertically from the shore, and transversing
the length of the bay. The sandy, sparse earth has since been undermined by
the innumerable rabbits which now thrive there.
Wherever man goes he leaves, in some form or other, an expression of
himself to the place, unlike his fellow creatures which offer, in the end,
only their poor mortality to the haunts which they knew with an intimacy and
vibrancy of spirit which we fugitives from our natural being dare not now
contemplate.
These expressions may be material – dwellings, fortifications, burial
sites, artefacts and so on – or the may be marks on his landscape –
cultivations, drains, peat-banks. They may even, be their very absence,
testify to his past presence – forests felled and marshes drained to yield
him crops. In the remotest of places may be found his mute expressions
across the span of transient cultures.
Or he may leave vestiges of his language in the names which he put,
with intimate sureness, on the places which filled his landscape, his
visible world. The process is unending. As a culture and it’s language break
down, the ascendant culture will hoist itself on to the wreckage and
rebuild, fusing new materials with the hold. That renewal goes on.
If one but thinks the process through, unsentimentally, there is at
the end of it, a kind of justice. On a summer night in 1981, an
archaeologist friend, Norman Newton, was seated with me in the Eenans,
beside a blazing driftwood fire. We had eaten before darkness came, and were
sipping whisky in the glare of the fire. I spoke to him, in a mood of
regret, of the Gaelic people of the place who had gone with their culture;
but he reminded me of the pre-Gaelic sites we had visited that day, and
asked: ‘What of these people, and what of their culture?’
The Gaelic place-names of the Eenans have mostly gone, leaving, as one would
have expected, only those attached to major features of the landscape. Cnoc
Maighe and Beinn na Faire have already been mentioned; Innean Mór and Innean
Beag, too, and there are few names to add to these. An Cirean – the Crest or
Ridge – arches the skyline to the sea on the south side of the bay. Allt
Dubh – Black Burn, for the gully down which it runs is shaded constantly –
comes of Cnoc Maighe and enters the fuller Eenans Burn before merging with
the sea. An Círean and Allt Dubh properly belong to the six-inch Ordnance
Survey maps on which they are recorded, and I have heard them only from
those acquainted with these maps. Effectively, the names are as dead as the
people who propagated them.
But the need to name and to comprehend by names is persistent, and a
useful, if very meagre, crop of compensatory names has grown up. All are
English, and all are of fairly recent origin, having appeared perhaps within
the last century. Their existence is owed to the successive generations of
men – mainly miners from the
village
of
Drumlemble
– whose
liking for the Eenans and the style of living which they evolved for
themselves in its remoteness, will form the heart of this chapter.
Rising from the grassy level at the north end of the bay is the Needle Rock,
a stack distinctively formed, if of unimpressive height. Behind it rises the
bluff seaward brow of Beinn na Faire, the base of which is know as the
Singing Rock. That name though explained to me by individuals long
acquainted with the Eenans, remained essentially a wonder until, one night
after sunset I wandered with a companion across the shore.
It was he who, unaware though he was of the tradition and the name
embedded in it, drew my attention to the sound. It was difficult to
describe, as I later noted in my journal, and I am content to reproduce here
what I noted at the time: ‘A continual muted roar, which sounds as though it
is coming from within the rock.’ It induced in us both, listening intently
in the dark, a sense of awe and unease. The theories on the cause of the
‘singing’ vary between reverberation of the breaking sea and the resounding
of the wind, but the likelier explanation is the wind.
Horseshoe bay – A rocky indentation south of the Eenans – completes the
stratum of English names, but for the Sailor’s Grave.
I'm afraid you will have to buy the book to hear about
the Sailor's Grave and many other interesting stories. |
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Extract from
Meanders in South Kintyre
This extract describes the Gauldrons,
starting from the Bun an Uisge.
This area was and still is popular with the locals for camping and picnics.
Near the waterfall could be seen pretty little ferns and the rather uncommon
Grass of Parnassus. This little stream is called “Bun an Uisge”
(Boon-an-Uisk) – Bun –Foot, an – of the, uisge – water. The foot of the
water – Waterfoot. We now enter the south end of what is known as the
Gauldrons or Gauldrons Bay, a large amphitheatre of great interest. The
beach consists of sand, shingle and massive tumbledown rocks from the cliffs
above, backed by a grassy bank reaching to the foot of the cliffs.
Here in the scree, grow great quantities of a large rhubarb-leaved looking
plant – the butterbur – from which the name “Gauldrons” is derived and has
mistakenly been applied to the bay. (see photo below)
It
seems that the original name of the bay was “Innean nan Gailleann” (Innean
or Bay of Storms) and this name fits it perfectly in formation and
character. Innean is an amphitheatre-shaped bay and there are several of
them along this coast. The Gauldrons extends from the headland at Bun an
Uisge to the South Skerry at Fionnport and has been formed by the sea
wearing away the foot of the softer aqueous rocks till the upper part of the
cliff fell, leaving the debris still to be seen on the beach. As the Kintyre
land is gradually riding above sea level, this action has long since ceased
and any downfalls are now due to weathering.
The towering cliffs, forming the background, are unique to the student as
they show Igneous, Aqueous and Metamorphic rocks in close formation, making
a perfect illustration for a text book on geology. We find at the base, a
foundation platform of Mica-schist in sea or in land. Deep down in the crust
of the earth these ancient rocks have been so altered by heat and pressure
that they no longer look like the simple aqueous rocks they were at first,
so are called Metamorphic (changed in structure form) – like slate.
Resting on them we have the formation known as Upper Old Red Sandstones (Red
because stained with haematite, meaning red oxide or iron) of which layers
or strata can be clearly seen. They are aqueous rocks laid down layer by
layer in water – conglomerates, reddish sandstones, coloured or grey
sandstones, with whitish calciferous sandstones at the top. The last layer
is called cornstone and is 50% silica sand and 50% calcite. It may be noted
that the building at the top is an old lime kiln where they used to burn the
cornstone to get lime for their fields.
Above the calciferous sandstones we find a thick layer of Basalt lava and
this introduces us to the next geological formation – the carboniferous or
coal – bearing formation is faulted up against the older Schist's, which
shows that the sandstones were laid down in a basin-shaped hollow in the
schist's and the faulting point took place at the lip or rim of the basin.
We
also see that an intrusion of Markle Basalt, from 12 to 15 feet thick, has
been driven through the strata, like a wedge or wall, at the south end of
the series and another intrusion of Dolerite (Diorite) has been forced up at
the north end.
Parts of these intrusions are to be seen lying on the beach at the water’s
edge, showing that they are probably dykes, and how far then cliff has been
eaten back since their fall.
Most of the rocks and reefs from here to the black basalt rocks below the
first tee at the golf course are the weathered remains of lava flows, so
there must have been considerable volcanic activity hereabout during the
carboniferous age.
There is no doubt of the wonderful attraction and charm the Gauldrons has
for the summer visitors, who never tire of going there during the long warms
days – Painters, poets, students, bathers, campers and picnic parties.
Though easy of access, there is, in addition to the beauty of its
surroundings, a sense of remoteness and restful seclusion that is soothing
and pleasant. Making one feel in tune with nature – truly a real “Faerie
Place.”
If
we risk visiting it on a stormy winter day however, we shall see why it was
called “Innean an Gailleann” – Bay of Storms. Giant waves, tipped with
flying spray, and driven by a fierce “North-Wester” crashed in thunder on
the beach, hurling sand and shingle before them, to form a mound 6 to 8 feet
high.
Then receding waves then dragged back a stream of gravel, the rolling stones
rubbing and grinding each other, with a deafening roar and rattle, in the
round and polished shapes we find on the beach.
In
the bygone days of sail and wooden ships, hapless was the plight of any
vessel caught on the “Skervore” in such weather. Next morning the bay,
littered with wreckage, showed why the old Gaelic-Speaking folk gave it its
name – “Innean an Gailleann”
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