Inishmurray & Donegal, Ireland
As a shaft of sunlight caresses the green hills above the sea in the late afternoon of a soft grey day, it is easy to believe in the magic of western Ireland. Tales have been told here for centuries of the little people who dwell in the underworld that is never far away from those sunlit fields, and of the selkies and mermaids that haunt the waters off the rocky headlands. Maybe it’s the inimitable quality of an Irish Guinness, perhaps it’s the magical, ever-changing light, or the warmth and welcome of the Gaelic people; for whatever reason, visitors to this beautiful island are quickly drawn into a feeling of living legends and inescapable enchantment.
This spell is cast below the waves as well. The world beneath the shores of western Ireland seems to be woven of many elements from other realms, stitched together into a new and very different fabric. It is a jumble of juxtapositions, remembrances and relations, sea-changed suggestions. Across a dark wall of basalt, constellations of bright stars are spangled on a firmament of red algae. A forest of soft trees grows above the stars, reaching toward the light; fish fly through the shadows of its sinuous, swirling branches. Strange monsters with ponderous claws lurk in patches of midnight below, guarding a treasure of corals as clear as crystal.
Perhaps it’s really a matter of being at the edge of things, Hibernia, the hinterland of Europe, the refuge of the wandering Celts. This is a boundary land, where the Atlantic begins and the green hills shine and then vanish into the mist, where history and myth are nearly inseparable. A powerful and persistent magic springs up here, where these opposites are entwined together. The magic of Ireland.
