Pagans and Christians in Gouganne Barra
You feel cream-thick green seep into your senses and smell the effervescence of a rising mountain as drops of sunlight filter down and make a sound of sighing trees. With a glance, your eyes taste the cool springs, like scent of pine. As you feel the grass, soft fleece beneath your fingers, you hear it -- the sound of a thousand rains opening for one brief moment. A person here is tiny beside the grand trees that are specks upon the breathing swell of the mountain.
You don’t have to be on a pilgrimage to be enchanted and transported by Gouganne Barra, located in the Southwest of Ireland, about an hour’s drive from Cork City. From the dizzying heights of the mountain peak, down the faery-filled trail to the intimately sacred chapel, Gouganne Barra lives up to its centuries-old reputation for being a holy place. For a quick day trip from Cork City, Gouganne Bara is a gem, allowing travelers to feel transported and in dialog with the spiritual seekers of a past not-too-long gone.
You don’t have to be on a pilgrimage to be enchanted and transported by Gouganne Barra, located in the Southwest of Ireland, about an hour’s drive from Cork City. From the dizzying heights of the mountain peak, down the faery-filled trail to the intimately sacred chapel, Gouganne Barra lives up to its centuries-old reputation for being a holy place. For a quick day trip from Cork City, Gouganne Bara is a gem, allowing travelers to feel transported and in dialog with the spiritual seekers of a past not-too-long gone.
History
Gouganne Barra forest was the home of St. Finnbarre, the patron saint of Cork, who set up his hermitage here in the seventh century C.E. Later, after his death, a chapel was built to commemorate the saint. In the days of the ancient Celts, before the site was claimed for Christian significance, the Holy well which now rests beside St. Finbarre’s chapel contained, allegedly, healing power. Appropriated by the Catholic Church, this site became a pilgrimage destination for devout Catholic worshippers seeking healing and religious transcendence. With Catholic ties and Holy Water, as well as the ancient pagan connections and tales of faeries and banshees haunting the ethereal woods, it was not hard to imagine either angels dwelling among the trees, stretching their magnificent fingers toward Heaven, or sprites flitting among the clover in the underbrush of the trees, tricking the ancient Irish pilgrims and tourists alike. As I walked along the first part of the path, the Irish people I met there were likely neither on a pilgrimage nor looking for faeries, but simply contemplating their tangibly green surroundings and being refreshed by the living energy of the mountain forest. Some were families with children riding their bicycles over the paved road, exclaiming to see the swells of grass, tree, and waterfall rise up in front of them. Others were casual walkers with their dogs, unleashed, perhaps still smelling out banshees to warn their owners of the cry for death. |
Sli Sleibhe, The Mountain Trail The crowd thinned to older fishermen and lone hikers, and I saw more fallen logs sighing their life out over the expanding River Lee. As I ascended into the thinning air, I could hear the trees spinning in near immortal song. I wondered who had built the bridges spanning the rock-strewn river beds. How much time had they to gaze up to the Heaven which smiles down its quiet blessing upon the place? Towards the top, the air became thinner, and the trees toed the line, beyond which only sturdy mountain goats and magic-drunk hikers would venture. On this day, St. Finbarre must have looked down with especial blessing to part the clouds and once more gaze upon his ancient home. |
Eternal Spirit
At the bottom of the mountain, the River Lee widens into a beautiful lake surrounding the chapel and holy sites. The day I went was particularly sad. A young man had died, and the funeral had just ended as I walked up to the chapel. The sorrow was palpable in the midst of all this beauty. One man remained in the pews, praying for the soul of his lost loved one as I crept through the wooden doors. His bowed head rose only slightly at my unintended disturbance. The occasion was a sad reminder that the monumental beauty of the forest could only exist through the cycle of birth and decay, and this sorrowful truth will eventually bring together the pilgrims, the trees, the druids, and these tourists here today. But it will be the end of time before the mountain, forest, and river of Gouganne Barra will cease to breathe the holy air and the dirt woven into the strange and mighty heights of trees. I am sad to leave the eternal mountain that will have no memory of me |