Walk of the week: Savouring delights of Loch Clochar

UNION HALL AND LOCH CLOCHAR

THE quay, Keelbeg Pier, is colourful with fishing gear and its fleet of commercial fishing boats sometimes moored alongside. There is a fisherman’s cooperative and Glenmar Shellfish Ltd. exports fish and shellfish to Spain, Italy, France and elsewhere. We walk back into the colourful little village and through it, taking the road inland, climbing gently to the RC church. The old name was Ballincolla. The present name derives from a large house called The Hall, built by one Col William Limrick who married Margaret Somerville, of the local landowning family, in 1790. After the Act of Union, 1801, he called it Union Hall.

We turn left around the church, with a Marian Shrine opposite, and pass the national school. We are now on a country road. Ignoring the right turn for Reen Pier, we follow the signpost for Carrigillihy. After passing boggy land with tall reedmace (bulrushes) on our left we come to Loch Clochar, the surface of which is entirely colonised by robust water lilies, some white, some gold. Water hens may be seen daintily stepping across them, small black birds with white tails feathers and red beaks with yellow tips. Their feet are not webbed, but like broad feathers, distributing their weight so that they can walk on floating plants. When I walked past, I saw, gathered on the opposite bank, a tableau of cygnets, all downy and grey, supervised by their gleaming white parent swans, with a gauche-looking cormorant sunning itself standing nearby.