Comeragh Mountains Magic

The Boolas Pater Noster/Ribbon Lakes from the Comeragh Plateau A Special Comeragh Place – The Boolas There is no doubt that we humans have special places that affect us in indefinable ways. As Nicholas Crane puts it in his book “The making of the British Landscape” - “We have a predisposition to invest locations with attachments”. Why do we become attached to certain places? Now there`s a sixty-four-thousand-dollar question! Do these places fire our imagination or lift our spirit? Do they help us accept if not understand our place in the cosmos? Howsoever it works, we seem to have a need as humans to switch off from the treadmill of modern life and visit our special places to experience the tranquility and pleasure they give us. It is not surprising to my mind that many of these special places are found in mountains . Mountains have a sense of timelessness and permanence about them that make us all too aware of our own mortality. They seem to speak to our souls and draw us back t...

 Crotty the Robber Rapparees T he word “ropaire” in Irish has come to mean robber but in the late 17th century the term “ropairí” (the verb “ropaim” means I tear) referred to short pike wielding guerrilla fighters who fought on the side of the Jacobites against the Williamites and who continued to harass the forces of the law well into the 18th century. They came to be known as rapparees and loosely they equated to the highwaymen of English tradition of that period. The rapparee was often regarded as a type of social bandit, officially an outlaw but not seen as a criminal by his own community. In fact, many rapparees were admired by the Irish peasants. They were seen as brave opponents of the oppressive colonial system. They were often lauded in verse, think of the song “Brennan on the moor”, praising the deeds of Willie Brennan around the Kilworth mountains. They would often show up at fairs and funerals, sometimes sharing their spoils with members of their community. Were they a...

Comeragh Glacial Features  Outside of Kerry and Wicklow, the Comeraghs is one of the most spectacularly glaciated areas in Ireland. The nine square kilometre area of the Central Comeragh Plateau is encircled by no less than nine coums. Surely this makes it one of the most glaciated pieces of real estate in Ireland! Here is some information on some of the glacial features to be found on our local mountains. Dramatic View down to Coumduala from Knockanaffrin Ridge What is a “coum”?  A Coum (“com” in Irish, “corrie” or “coire” in Scots` Gaelic, “cirque” in French and “cwm” in Welsh) is the birth place of a mountain glacier (a river of ice). How old are the Comeragh coums? Hard to be definitive but, according to Frank Mitchell, one of Ireland`s leading authorities on glaciation, most of the ice sculpting was done between about 300,000 and 130,000 years ago with some reshaping in more recent times. How many coums in the Comeraghs? Debatable but there are at least 14. Here go...

Geography, Geology, Geomorphology, Glaciation A Little Geography The Comeraghs stretch from the Suir Valley and Kilsheelan Woods in the north to the Mauma Road in the south, and from Ballymacarbry in the west to Mahon Bridge in the east, and cover an area of almost 200 square kilometres. They are visible from most corners of the county from Clonmel in the north west to Tramore in the south east. The mountains consist of two main ridges - the northern ridge called Knockanaffrin and the southern ridge sometimes called the Monavullagh - separated by the Central Plateau. There are some outlying hills such as Cruachán Déiseach in the south, Cruachán Paorach in the east and Lachtnafrankee in the north-west. The highest point is located on the Central Plateau a little west of Coumshingaun and is simply known as “792”. The range acts as a watershed for the surrounding catchment areas of the Suir Valley to the north and the Waterford coastal plains to the south, with the main streams being the ...

Above Coum Mahon How many coums on the Comeraghs? I mentioned the word “com” or “coum” in the last article. So, how many coums are there on the Comeraghs? Now, that`s a good question! Some people say 13, some say 14. In a recent book “Corries, Caves and Coast” by geologists Matthew Parks, Robert Meehan and Sophie Préteseille, the authors claim there are 18 or 19. There`s a big difference between 13 and 18. So which is it?  It all comes down to definition, I suppose. How do we define a coum? Many geography textbooks tell us that a coum is an armchair shaped hollow with steep back and side walls gouged into the mountainside by a glacier. It is in essence the birth place of a mountain glacier.  The defining characteristics of a bona fide, card carrying coum are: Vertical Cliff Walls: These are found at the back and sides and are created by plucking of the rocks by the ice as gravity encourages it to move downslope.  Marshy Hollow sometimes occupied by a lake: Nivation o...

The origin of the word Comeraghs Where does the name “Comeraghs” come from? When did it begin to be used widely as the placename for the mountains of north Waterford? Now there be two 64,000 dollar questions! Let`s look at the two main ideas out there as to the origin of the name. Com na Locha in the Nire The main language spoken in Ireland from late prehistoric times down to the late 19th century was Irish or Gaelic. This of course is a Celtic language and linguists tell us that the Celts were fond of naming places around them with words from the natural world. The word “com” in Irish means marshy hollow (often created by glaciers) and since there are at least fourteen marshy hollows hewn into the mountains of north Waterford, perhaps the name “Comeraghs” evolved from this Celtic/Gaelic root word. The Welsh (also Celtic) word for a glacial hollow is “cwm”, very similar to the Irish one. Given that many Déisi emigrated from Waterford to south Wales in the early centuries A.D., and th...