Read Online The Attack of the Killer Rhododendrons by Glen Chilton - Free Book Online
Authors: Glen Chilton
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sheep. Stone houses, stone bridges, and stone walls were constructed from pickings of the stony soil. I needed a break, and pulled over at a wayside rest stop populated by an elderly gentleman who offered to take my picture with his donkey. I declined, and stared out over the hills, which were decorated in a thousand shades of green, punctuated by periodic flashes of blinding golden-yellow gorse bushes.
The donkey, his handler, and I were soon joined by two tour buses, which disgorged their passengers to share the view with us. The visitors were all from New Jersey, and I indulged in my hobby of offering to take their photos with their cameras. Over the next ten minutes, the photo groups got bigger and bigger, and I had to step further and further back to get everyone in. I bumped into the donkey.
Highway officials in Ireland are an optimistic lot. They seem to have no reservations about posting 100 kilometre per hour speed-limit signs in spots where that kind of velocity existed onlyin dreams. I had trouble averaging 50. White lines had been neatly applied to the road, but wherever it became too narrow for two lanes of traffic, the lines simply trailed off into the adjacent field. It didn’t help that touring cyclists lurked around every corner, and where no footpath existed, trail walkers tromped the middle of the road.
I got my first good look at rhododendrons as I approached the community of Waterville (An Coireán), toward the far western reaches of the Ring of Kerry. Waterville knows full well that it is a resort town, and has no pretence about being anything else. It is the sort of place that you might want to visit for a week during the worst weather of the off-season. You could walk the whole town in your first two hours, confident in the knowledge that you had absolutely nothing else to do for the remainder of your stay but rest.
I was particularly keen to see palm trees and fuchsia plants promised by my guidebook. Both were introduced to Ireland, and both were beneficiaries of the Gulf Stream’s warming influence. I found a few palm trees, but a lot more palm bushes, mainly in front of the Butler Arms Hotel. After two hours of walking up and through and around Waterville, I had seen not a single fuchsia.
I searched for famine victims in the churchyard of St. Michael’s and All Angels, but found none. I did, however, find a lot of Huggards, some of whom had survived the potato blight, including
Elizabeth, wife of Richard, died Dec 21 1904, aged 80;
Martin, son of Thos, died 17 Sept 1896, aged 88;
Mary, died 23 Sept 1896, aged 86;
and Rebecca, died 9 December 1879, aged 40.
Only then did it occur to me why I was likely having such trouble finding the headstones of anyone who had died in the famine. So rapid was the crop damage brought on by the blight, and so reliant was the populace on potatoes, that people in this part of Ireland died so quickly that the survivors were unable to keep up with the niceties of formal burials and fancy headstones. There were probably theremains of a lot of famine victims in mass graves. After giving thanks for my life of abundance, I sat on a stone wall and ate my grocery-store lunch of French apple lattices, individually wrapped cheeses from Denmark and Holland, and apples from Brazil.
Rhododendrons became more common as I drove further around the Ring. At Sneem (An Snaidhm), I found them growing in abundance, first as roadside hedges, and then in bunches at a newly constructed Garden of the Senses. Away from this bit of tranquility, the south half of the Ring of Kerry was so rugged that almost every precious chunk of dry flat land had been snatched up for houses. Homes that hadn’t made a reservation early enough were left clinging to rocky slopes.
Before leaving Canada, a colleague with Irish roots had insisted that I visit Staigue Fort. The fort is four kilometres up a single-cart track, at the top of a deep gorge, next to a sweet spring. Dating from the early
The donkey, his handler, and I were soon joined by two tour buses, which disgorged their passengers to share the view with us. The visitors were all from New Jersey, and I indulged in my hobby of offering to take their photos with their cameras. Over the next ten minutes, the photo groups got bigger and bigger, and I had to step further and further back to get everyone in. I bumped into the donkey.
Highway officials in Ireland are an optimistic lot. They seem to have no reservations about posting 100 kilometre per hour speed-limit signs in spots where that kind of velocity existed onlyin dreams. I had trouble averaging 50. White lines had been neatly applied to the road, but wherever it became too narrow for two lanes of traffic, the lines simply trailed off into the adjacent field. It didn’t help that touring cyclists lurked around every corner, and where no footpath existed, trail walkers tromped the middle of the road.
I got my first good look at rhododendrons as I approached the community of Waterville (An Coireán), toward the far western reaches of the Ring of Kerry. Waterville knows full well that it is a resort town, and has no pretence about being anything else. It is the sort of place that you might want to visit for a week during the worst weather of the off-season. You could walk the whole town in your first two hours, confident in the knowledge that you had absolutely nothing else to do for the remainder of your stay but rest.
I was particularly keen to see palm trees and fuchsia plants promised by my guidebook. Both were introduced to Ireland, and both were beneficiaries of the Gulf Stream’s warming influence. I found a few palm trees, but a lot more palm bushes, mainly in front of the Butler Arms Hotel. After two hours of walking up and through and around Waterville, I had seen not a single fuchsia.
I searched for famine victims in the churchyard of St. Michael’s and All Angels, but found none. I did, however, find a lot of Huggards, some of whom had survived the potato blight, including
Elizabeth, wife of Richard, died Dec 21 1904, aged 80;
Martin, son of Thos, died 17 Sept 1896, aged 88;
Mary, died 23 Sept 1896, aged 86;
and Rebecca, died 9 December 1879, aged 40.
Only then did it occur to me why I was likely having such trouble finding the headstones of anyone who had died in the famine. So rapid was the crop damage brought on by the blight, and so reliant was the populace on potatoes, that people in this part of Ireland died so quickly that the survivors were unable to keep up with the niceties of formal burials and fancy headstones. There were probably theremains of a lot of famine victims in mass graves. After giving thanks for my life of abundance, I sat on a stone wall and ate my grocery-store lunch of French apple lattices, individually wrapped cheeses from Denmark and Holland, and apples from Brazil.
Rhododendrons became more common as I drove further around the Ring. At Sneem (An Snaidhm), I found them growing in abundance, first as roadside hedges, and then in bunches at a newly constructed Garden of the Senses. Away from this bit of tranquility, the south half of the Ring of Kerry was so rugged that almost every precious chunk of dry flat land had been snatched up for houses. Homes that hadn’t made a reservation early enough were left clinging to rocky slopes.
Before leaving Canada, a colleague with Irish roots had insisted that I visit Staigue Fort. The fort is four kilometres up a single-cart track, at the top of a deep gorge, next to a sweet spring. Dating from the early
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