Cois Móire review: Episode two of Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil's Blackwater travels
Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil on the Blackwater for Cois Móire on TG4.
More than 60 years ago, Annraoi Ó Liatháin, civil servant, fisherman, Irish speaker and writer, walked the entire course of the 169km Blackwater River from its source in the mountains of northeast Kerry to where it enters the sea at Youghal.
TG4’s documentary, Cois Móire, sees presenter Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil follow the same route, primarily by canoe, though for a brief interlude in episode two by train.
In the second episode of the four-part series, I’m immediately struck by a sense of panorama. Not just the vast sweep of the Blackwater as it flows through the varied landscapes surrounding Mallow and Fermoy, but of a wide sweep of history as the focus zooms in and out of centuries from the 13th to the present.
Using Ó Liatháin’s book, Cois Móire, as travel guide, Ó Drisceoil steps off the river as its course brings him to towns and villages, old towers and great houses. He moves with ease from ancient to current — so in one sequence we’re in Banteer’s Childcare and Education Centre where Máire Ní Mhurchú has 220 playing, chatting, singing children under her care.
And then we’re in Clonmeen Graveyard, where 17th century soldier Alasdair Mac Colla Chiotaigh Mac Domhnaill — “a great name and a great character” — is buried, brought across the Blackwater after he died at the battle of Knocknanuss by the O’Callaghan chiefs who honoured him by placing him in their own burial tomb.
In Lombardstown, Dónal Ó Súilleabháin relates how marriage rates rose after the 1890-founding of the creamery, which provided accommodation for women coming to work as dairy and butter maids.
At Carrigacunna Castle — “perfect example of a medieval tower house” — US-born John Lundy lives in the adjoining (1864-built) house. His grandmother was born in Kerry, along the Blackwater. His three New York-based sons call him Lord Blackwater.
Síle Ní Chaoimh shows a Sheelanagig fertility symbol carved into the wall of Blackwater Castle. Intending to write a history of the castle, she instead wrote a children’s book with Sheelanagig as principal character.
On his Blackwater travels, Ó Drisceoil gets a fishing lesson, drops into Mallow Racecourse and puts a bet on a horse, eats apples in Longueville House orchard and throws rings in the Ballyhooly pub where Ó Liatháin had a pint 60 plus years ago.
But what makes this 50 minutes of sublime TV is the Blackwater itself. We see it from high up and close up — sweeping views of its course through the pastoral landscapes of North Cork, and tiny details as the camera zooms in: water passing over rocks, a robin on a bush. The river is rendered in all its splendour.
- Cois Móire is on TG4, Wednesday, 9.30pm, and is available on the TG4 Player
