Frustrating and satisfying in equal measure - that's a new book on Killarney's national park. Satisfying, because the book is packed with information and beautiful photographs. Frustrating, because having read the book and gazed longingly at the images, I'm itching to revisit the place to walk the Old Kenmare Road, to see the eerie-green moss and yew wood, to investigate the old mine sites... But it is all out of bounds for the moment on account of the foot-and-mouth restrictions.
Since we cannot visit Killarney National Park, 'tis just as well we now have this fine book, appropriately titled A Place to Treasure (The Collins Press). Buy it, and you will also be helping to clear the invasive rhododendron from Killarney's precious woodlands, for all the royalties go to supporting conservation projects in the park.
Expert eyes
Apart from itchy feet, what will you get for your £25? The wisdom of a dozen specialists, generously shared, lyrically and passionately written, which will enable you to see the park through their expert eyes.
The archaeologist William O'Brien, for example, has investigated Killarney's prehistoric copper mines. It seems Killarney wasn't always a beauty spot: up until about 1820, the town was probably better known as an industrial mine site.
Thanks to Dr O'Brien and his colleagues, we now know that Ross Island, by the shore of Lough Leane, has a 4,500-year-old copper mine, probably the oldest in northwest Europe, and certainly the first place where metal was made in these islands. The prehistoric mines are small, cave-like openings in the rock. They were made by Neolithic miners, who first lit a fire against the wall; then they splashed cold water on the hot rock to crack it, after which the rock could easily be shattered using simple hammers made of cobblestones. At Ross Island the archaeologists have found thousands of discarded tools, hut foundations, spoil heaps, pits where metal was smelted - even the remains of prehistoric miners' meals. Ross Island copper contains some arsenic and, thanks to this unique chemical "fingerprint", the archaeologists have identified Bronze Age objects in Britain that were made from the Kerry metal.
Killarney's mineral wealth has been mined at various sites on and off over the millennia. Industrial activity reached its peak in the late 1700s and early 1800s, when 500 people were working at Ross Island mine alone. Techniques had changed considerably since the prehistoric days, and now there was open-cast mining and deep underground mine-shafts.
Draining lakes
Unfortunately, being so close to the lakeshore, the shafts frequently flooded. After one disaster in 1756, there was even talk of draining Killarney's lovely lakes. In the end, however, no one pulled the plug, and the lakes were let stay. Instead, a large limestone dam or "coffer" was built around the mine shafts, and huge steam engines were used to pump the enclosures dry.
In 1829, the mining finally gave out, after 4,500 years, and tourism took over. The steam engines were shut down, the ore-crushers silenced, the shafts were allowed to flood, and the spoil heaps were landscaped - so successfully that you'd hardly know this was a post-industrial site, though you can still see the remains of the limestone dam, and several flooded mine-shafts, one of which is the Blue Pool.
How did all this mineral wealth come to be in Killarney? For that you need to read the essay by Pete Coxon and Richard Thorn on Killarney's geological history. Their story goes back not 4,000 years, but 400 million years, and tells how the landscape was formed by the action of fire, water and ice.
Richard Bradshaw, Bill Quirke and Daniel Kelly write about Killarney's woodlands, which are rightly famous. They discuss the arbutus or strawberry tree, a mystical yew wood at Reenadinna that is prehistoric, and the oak woods, now sadly choked with rhododendron, which are a relic of the great forests that once covered most of Ireland. Killarney, by the way, probably boasts Ireland's oldest living thing - a yew tree at Muckross Abbey which was reputedly planted in the mid1400s.
Human history
There are chapters too on the mountains and bogs, on the lakes and rivers, and on Killarney's human history, including the people who lived in the glens in the days before this was a national park, and the folk who worked below stairs in the big house of Muckross Estate.
Bill Quirke, who edited the book and took many of the evocative photographs, also discusses the conservation issues, not least those raised by encouraging visitors to a national park - access paths, for example, and the increasing use of water-buses on the lakes.
All in all, a thought-provoking and informative volume. And when restrictions are lifted, hopefully soon, you will be able to see again the places described in the book, and visit the abandoned Ross Island mine site, where William O'Brien has prepared a self-guiding tour.