Colm O'Regan: Why does summer solstice always remind me of goddess Anu's breasts?
Comedian and broadcaster Colm O'Regan ruminates on time, childhood memories and our Neolithic ancestors
Look, I don’t want to be calling anyone out or anything. I realise that it’s probably too hard to change the tilt of the earth’s axis at this late stage. But still.
The longest day happens early in the year. It’s coming up on us too soon. Before you know it, it’s happened and then someone is muttering about the evenings drawing in.
Obviously, I’m not suggesting they move it yet, but I think they’re going to have to give more warning in May. “Please note: There is only one month of increased stretching left. Please begin planning your complicated summer evening projects — such as the impossibly time-consuming sanding of an old gate — now, before you start to lose momentum.”
I guess what I’m saying is: Is it the longest day ALREADY? Yes, it is. Tomorrow. It’s tomorrow this year anyway. Although in two years' time the longest day will be today, the 20th. This is due to the year taking slightly more than 365 days to go around the sun. You’d think they’d have sorted that by now.
The solstice will of course lead to an explosion of photographs of sunsets and sunrises among your friends on social media. You must praise them all even if they’re blurry, badly-framed and you think you could do way better. I think special credit is due to those to photograph the sunrise though. That takes a bit of getting up. You see all these fair-weather friends in December taking photos of sunrises at quarter to nine thinking they’re the bee’s knees.
But at least sunset photos don’t have that inbuilt disappointment that photos of the moon do. It’s only when I look back at how bad the photos I've taken of the moon are that I realise how amazing a normal human eye-and-brain-combo is. Dada liked watching the sunset on a mountain on the longest day. A couple of times he brought us to Shehy Mountain in West Cork.
Shehy Mountain means Hill of the Animal Hides, which is ironic. Because one time we went to climb it and our dog chased after the car demanding to be let in. We let her in and then as the roads got rough, she got travel-sick all over herself — and on everyone else’s hides. That part of the world is a great place for solsticing though. It’s just so fecking Neolithic around there. Holy wells, stone circles, wedge tombs, fulachtaí fia. All over West Cork and the Kerry border. It’s as if a load of wealthy Neolithics retired to West Cork and built mansions for both this life and the next, unencumbered by planning permission.
I wonder did Shehy draw my father to it. It’s the highest mountain he could see from the farm in Dripsey. You stare at it from the long field and it doesn’t take long to start wondering what it would be like to watch the sunset there on the longest day. From Shehy you can see the most evocative mountains in Ireland. The Paps of Anu. The twin rounded hills in Kerry are named after the breasts of the ancient Irish goddess Anu. There’s even a little cairn on each one. Talk about attention to detail.
I won’t have time to organise a solstice-y trip to the top of a mountain laden with pre-Christian symbolism this year but I can feel happening soon. The children are nearing the age when they will be brought on such an excursion — whether they like it or not. I know it will be memorable.
Also if you’re worried the solstice has snuck up on you — some good news. The longest day is not the day with the latest sunset. That’s June 24th or possibly even 25th. You have a few extra days to organise your climb.
