Explorer Ted Ready to Go, At Least to the Bigstone

By Ted Crowley

Gladly, I’d have explored Africa with Burton and Speke; seeking the source of the Nile. Later, when I got to the Mountains of the Moon, women with babies in buggies were there, taking the air and enjoying the scenery. I could have helped John Steinbeck and the Joads on Route 66; had I been born then. 

I’d have taken the dogwatches for Saint Brendan on the stormy North Atlantic, while he searched for America. I can’t imagine him as a young man, not needing help. Had we found land, we’d have been its first two Irish illegal immigrants. Alas, instead, I’m left to my own modest explorations, a wandering Corkman on the wild frontiers of counties Wicklow, Carlow and Kildare, making the most of my tiny, six-foot-four, leprechaun destiny, as an Explorer.

Intrepidly – that’s the word they invariably use to describe explorers — from Greystones we headed south to Laragh, westwards over the Wicklow Gap, through Hollywood and south again to Baltinglass, while the rain came bucketing down. Finally, going south and west for a short distance on narrow country roads, we reached Bigstone. (Ordnance Survey of Ireland, Discovery Series, Map 61 – top right hand corner). 

Incidentally, the pint of Guinness in Tutty’s bar in Hollywood matches the down- the-hatch pouring fluidity and the flavor of similar measures of Murphy’s and Beamish in the Deep South; Cork to be precise. Small and soaked wet though our little Hollywood is, odds are that they pull a better pint in Tutty’s than in any establishment in that more famous, new-fangled Hollywood of Oscar fame.

At Bigstone — there’s a big stone on the side of the road with "Bigstone" boldly engraved into it — we realized that we’d gone too far. For the "Explorer" in high heels, Bigstone is so close to where the counties Wicklow, Carlow and Kildare meet that there’s no sense in ruining nice shoes traipsing through muddy fields. Once you’ve got to Bigstone, you may truthfully text the folks back home and proclaim to the world that the eagle has landed. The village of Bigstone comprises of one neat dwelling house, a crow in a field, the cross of three roads and the big stone. 

Otherwise, if you’re like me, this time of year, you’ll need Wellington boots or, better still, up-to-the-hips waders, proofed against torrents of water, sticky mud and cow-dung. 

At Bigstone, we retraced our tires, passed over Miller’s Bridge, took a right at Carrigeen Cross Roads and, within 50 or so yards, on the right hand side of the road, we found a field gate and a farmer’s pathway through herds of cows; patiently awaiting milking. That gate is the closest point on the road to where the three counties meet.

At the gate and at the cows, Anne kissed me goodbye and I strode, manfully, but all alone through the fields towards a tiny spot where a tiny, unnamed stream joins the Graney River, which is no more than a tiny stream itself, even on rainy days. 

When I noticed the watery sun glinting on the brass ring in a bull’s nose, I smiled to him. One needs nerves of steel when faced with glinting brass in the nose of a bull, but such is the true nature of the true Explorer. Still, from long ago, I know my bulls. He was an elderly, lumbering, white-faced Hereford, a docile animal. He allowed me to pass; ungored.

Through the fields I walked downhill and found the Graney River and the tiny stream that joins it, and I stood on the boundary between counties Wicklow, Carlow and Kildare. Where the streams mingle, as the Blue Nile mingles with the White Nile at Khartoum, I saw a tiny spit of gravel at mid-stream and I noticed a pebble, the size of a sparrow’s egg, at the center of the gravel spit. 

I estimated that one third of that pebble lay in Co. Kildare, another third was in Co. Carlow and, befitting the Garden of Ireland, its prettiest third lay in Co. Wicklow.

When I got back to the road, the cows were gone and the bull stood all alone awaiting their return. Doubtless, he’d seen Anne waiting for me and I swear to God, this time round, he smiled to me.
 
 

Ted Crowley lives in Co. Wicklow. He can be reached at crowleyted@eircom.net