One to turn heads in seventh heaven

BUTLERSTOWN-SHANAGH (Seven Heads Walk, West Cork)

FROM Narry’s Cross, we look across a broad, green landscape dotted with scattered farms. We set off downhill on this section of the waymarked Seven Heads Walk. We can see our route, straight ahead, downhill towards the open Atlantic, two miles away.

The fields are rich and rolling. Close to the sea it was once Poor Law land. Old ruins and stone-walled fields attest the then bitter struggle for mere subsistence. Times have changed. Land is ‘improved’ mechanically by the ‘strong’ Barryroe farmers, but nature still rules. The stunted “sceacs” (blackthorns) grow like bonsai out of the low stone walls, sculpted by the south-westerlies sweeping in from the coast in winter storms.