Category: History

Charles Fort People I

echoes across time

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After exploring Kinsale town and lunch Pam and I drove two miles, along the east side of the cove, to the ruins of Charles Fort, one of a pair of fortifications protecting Kinsale from seaward attack. The “New Fort,” Charles, faces the “Old Fort”, James, across the cove.

Built in the 17th century on the site of an older fortification, Ringcurran Castle, it is named for Charles II, the English monarch of the time. The fort was burned during by retreating anti-treaty forces in 1922 during the Irish Civil war. It lay derelict until today’s 1971 until now restoration.

Upon our arrival this young man was handling a hurley and sliotar beneath the fort wall, an incarnation of  Cúchulainn playing hurling at Emain Macha. From Wikipedia, “Hurling is older than the recorded history of Ireland. It is thought to predate Christianity, having come to Ireland with the Celts. The earliest written references to the sport in Brehon law date from the fifth century. Seamus King’s book A History of Hurling references oral history going back as far as 1200 BCE of the game being played in Tara, County Meath. The tale of the Táin Bó Cuailgne (drawing on earlier legends) describes the hero Cúchulainn playing hurling at Emain Macha.”

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References

“Hurling and Charles Fort” – wikipedia

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Diorama Country

Happy Thanksgiving (USA) 2022

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A diorama of the Museum of Natural History, New York City, features this north view, first viewed as a young teen on a school field trip — the duplicated sight was imprinted on my memory. Over the years I passed this spot repeatedly for trips to Long Island for family Thanksgiving celebrations. October 22nd, 2022, the field was planted with soybeans ready to harvest. The rounded hill, a drumlin, finishing the left side of the ridge, is the “star” of this photograph and the diorama.

A drumlin, from the Irish word droimnín (“littlest ridge”), first recorded in 1833, is an elongated hill in the shape of an inverted spoon or half-buried egg formed by glacial ice acting on underlying unconsolidated till or ground moraine.

Same exposure cropped to remove road and poles to perfect the image.

I am not sure the north/northwest view is an improvement, as seen in the following photograph.

Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Three Autumn Views

Driven Wells in Cortland County

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For this series I travelled a short distance south from where Palmer Road intersects with Virgil Road, crossing the border from Tompkins to Cortland County, closer to Carpenter Hill.

In the 19th Century driven wells (also called tube wells) were an innovation developed in Cortland County under the command of a Civil War era Colonel Nelson W. Green who sought for twenty-two years to impose royalties on use of driven wells. I.H. Palmer assisted John W. Sugget, both of Cortland County, in a seminal patent law case they won in U.S. Supreme Court seeking the release from royalty payments from thousands of driven well installations throughout the Eastern and Midwestern United States. Their successful argument was for two years before any patent application, in Cortland County, driven wells were in use. I cannot say Palmer Road has a connection to I.H. Palmer, though it is an interesting historical aside.

View east from Palmer Road across corn stubble. A feeder stream to Virgil Creek is marked by the nearest line of trees, beyond the land rises over the shoulder of Owego Hill.

View east/southeast from Palmer Road across corn stubble. A feeder stream to Virgil Creek flows through the first tree line on left with the creek itself in the far trees, center at the foot of Carpenter Hill. The green field at edge of corn stubble is the fallow field of the next photograph.

View east/southeast from the east edge of a fallow field along Palmer Road. Looking across Virgil Creek to the slope of Carpenter Hill. Cortland County, New York.

Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Thank You CCC

Remembered this All Saints Day

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Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Tree Army

The United States Civil Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp number SP 33, inaugurated May 1, 1934, Marathon New York, worked four years (1934-1938) to improve Fillmore Glen State Park.

Bridges Five (5) and Six (6)…..

We can see the work to maintain the CCC work continues today by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Look closely to see the cable flowing from the south gorge rim (to right) by which the limestone, out of sight along the gallery, was lowered for this project. There are building supplies at Bridge Five and Six, both left in these photographs.

…the gallery and Bridge Six (6)…..

Fillmore Glen, Cayuga County, Moravia. In the Finger Lakes Region of New York State

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Bridged

No Fracking Here!!

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Happy Halloween (USA)

A faint organic whiff of Paleozoic Era generations follows hikers enjoying the Gorge Trail, an odor luring contemporary treasure seekers thankfully spurned by the December 2014 New York State fracking ban. Thanks to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s leadership, the ban protects public health, drinking water, the environment, local economies based on agriculture, tourism and small businesses. The ban on fracking sets the New York State apart for its climate leadership by leaving fossil fuels in the ground while the state simultaneously leads the nation in expanding renewable energy.

A plentitude of waterfalls…..

…bridge number 5…..

Fillmore Glen, Cayuga County, Moravia. In the Finger Lakes Region of New York State

Copyright 2022 All Right Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Torr Head Stories VI

Down and Down

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Weathered masonry at the height of Torr Head was there to serve the custom house and as support for a spotting station where ships transiting the Strait of Moyle (Irish Sruth na Maoile), the 12 miles of water to the Mull of Kintyre.

Lloyd’s of London, vitally interested in the appearance of ships’ progress crossing the oceans, had notice of passage via semaphore (and, later, Marconi’s “wireless”). Destination ports were copied in.

SONY DSC
Rickety Descent

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The same stairs, looking up
Another view
Time to move on……to “The Causeway.”

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Copyright 2022 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Torr Head Stories V

The Way South –

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Scottish influences touched the landscape covered by yesterday’s post, today we continue on this subject with these south facing views from Torr Head. The far ridge of Torrcor marks Loughan Bay.

A townland on the other side of Torrcor hill (and townland) has an eponymous ruin, Altagore Cashel. Mores the pity we did not visit this site, a thick drystone enclosing wall from the 5th century (you can see photographs from another site at this link). Cashel is from the Irish Caiseal, a circular, defensive fort (“ring fort”).

Books such as “Antrim and Argyll: Some Aspects of the Connections” tell of connections over the millennia, clan associations between the islands and ring forts such as Altagore Cashel.

Argylshire Scotland across the North Channel from Torr Head

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Torr Head Stories IV

Salmon Run

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Late spring and summer, weekdays, a net is stretched across the bay to catch salmon nosing up the coast, searching for their home spawning stream, here called Altmore Burn. “Burn” is a Scottish term for a fresh water source, evidence of the influence 12 miles across the north channel.

The small harbor seen here from Torr Head is for the salmon fishery. Small boats will seek shelter here from the wind and tides strong enough to roar in passing the Head, like a fast flowing river.

Portaleen Bay from Torr Head
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Torr Head Stories III

Neolithic Passage Tomb

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Taking in a flower meadow, foreground, coaster sheep pastures, the photograph, below, looks north from Torr Head. The high hill, midground, is Greenanmore, notable for a the largest passage tomb of the Antrim Glens. Locally known as “Barrach’s Tomb,” for the Red Branch knight of the 1st Century AD fort on Torr Head, tree ring research of the mid-20th Century dates these tombs in the neolithic The hilltop passage tomb was an ancient relic when the mortar of Barrach’s Torr Head fort was drying.

When I enlarge the original photograph, visible on the ridge is a decommissioned Cold War listening post, the tomb is near that. The distant land across the North Channel water is Rathlin Island.

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Very Old, Very New

Lima is home to 10 million Peruvians and over 1000 historical sites.

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View of Clinica Delgado (hospital) from Lima Peru’s Elias Aguirre (street), Huaca Pucllana filling the foreground. Huacas are commonly located in nearly all regions of Peru outside the deepest parts of the Amazon basin in correlation with the regions populated by the pre-Inca and Inca early civilizations. They can be found in downtown Lima today in almost every district, the city having been built around them. Huaca Pucllana, located in Miraflores district, is an adobe and clay pyramid built from seven staggered platforms. It served as an important ceremonial and administrative center for the advancement of the Lima Culture, a society which developed in the Peruvian Central Coast between the years of 200 AD and 700 AD. 

This is the New York Times article that inspired me to remember visiting Huaca Pucllana during our February 2016 tour of Lima, Peru. “3,000 Years of History Are Literally Just Beneath Our Feet.”

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