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  Late at night as Billy continues to make shoes in preparation for the following day, they come here, soft-voiced and easy-going countrymen. They sit around on pieces of iron or lean against the walls, smoking and discussing horses and racing, the crops and the weather, the state of things generally in the farming world. Billy is not one for long-winded dialogue himself; he is content just to throw in a passing comment here and there as the conversation flows around him. If you pass in the gathering darkness it is a pleasant picture to see through the open doorway the orange outlines of the men illuminated by the dancing glow of the flames. But as the years go by the number of friends who visit is dwindling, as many have passed away.

  Anything that stands firm in the changing passage of time gives a stability and continuity to the flowing tide of life that surrounds it. So it was not surprising that the forge became a reference centre for visiting Americans wishing to trace their ancestral roots. If Billy himself was unable to remember who their relatives might have been, he would check it out. Whereas modern heritage centres record facts in computer memories, Billy searched for family history in local minds with legendary memories and sometimes they came up with interesting details not to be found in filing cabinets or data banks. Strangers looking for directions, too, are told to make the forge the starting point of their search. It stands like a lighthouse in the parish, the roads beaming from it into the heart of the countryside. Billy gives a welcome to all who call seeking his advice or attention. When he was Taoiseach Charles Haughey paid him a visit, accompanied by a clatter of television cameras; the cameras returned later that year when Billy shod Carty, the horse Tim Severin used in his journey retracing the path of the Crusades. Billy took all the publicity in his stride, regarding it as something not to be taken too seriously.

  Only when the big race meetings are on is the forge door closed, for horses have always been both the work and pastime of this family. Billy’s brother Paddy was a blacksmith in the Curragh and on retirement became our school bus-driver. He was the ideal man for the job. Patient and understanding from long years of handling horses, the children loved him. He became the bosom pal of my young daughter. One evening during her first year at school she was walking down the hill when a few of the older boys started to jostle each other below her. Afraid to pass by them she started to cry. Paddy, driving past in the bus, saw her problem and stopped to pick her up. It was the start of a firm friendship. When he died she got a mortuary card which had a photograph of Paddy on it, and it took pride of place on her bedroom wall between rows of pony posters. Paddy is in familiar company.

  Down through the years village children have gone to Billy with small wheelbarrows and broken bikes, and he welds them back together again. Older children waiting for the bus take shelter in the forge, and if they come late Billy flags down a reliable motorist to see that they get to school. When my young daughter and her friends used go to Dromkeen Wood on picnics I would tell them to tell Billy where they were, because I knew he would keep an eye on them.

  The horse is so much a part of Irish life that there will always be a need for shoeing facilities, but a forge such as Billy’s will not provide it. He is the last in a long line of blacksmiths, and his way of doing things will go with him. The glow from the fire of his forge is the last flicker in a way of life that is almost gone.

  MY PLACE

  WHEN I OPEN my eyes in the morning I can see through the bedside window, without having to lift my head off the pillow, the old tower at the end of the village. Some mornings it stands cold and grey against the dark woods, a sentinel on guard over the river. On other mornings it is a milky white ghost appearing and disappearing in the swirling river-mists, while the woods in the background are a soft shroud around its shoulders. But on summer mornings it salutes the dawn upright and arrogant, crows flying above its turrets, their demon blackness contrasting with the pale pinks of the morning sky. On such a morning, when the dawn curtains are drawn back on a glorious new day, I feel like dancing out of the house and into the woods.

  When I go down the stone steps into Shippool Wood I leave above and behind me the everyday world. It is almost like going down into a rabbit burrow; down there, under the quiet arms of the trees, I can walk in a pool of peace. The trees are set on a sloping hillside with the river washing their toes, and as I walk along the winding path the river glints occasionally through the dense greenery. Sometimes the sun filters down from above and the riverlight and sunlight fill the dark green wood with dancing patches of light and shade.

  Walking through the moist green semi-darkness I see ahead a bright inpouring of light at a clearing. There I can sit and watch the swans on the river. A river surrounded by woods is twice blessed, as the beauty on its banks is mirrored in its depths. The large white swans drift effortlessly along and as I resume my own journey I find paths cushioned by pine needles and years of fallen leaves. Mossy banks along the way offer comfortable seats. Feathery heather and drooping moist ferns kiss my ankles, and occasionally an overhanging branch touches my cheek with its soft green leaves.

  In the wood Mother Nature wraps her arms around you and makes you feel cherished and at home. Overhead the leaves sigh a welcome and beneath them an endless variety of tree-trunks salute you on your way: the young trees with their smooth expressionless faces, the more mature ones curved and furrowed, and the ancient tree-trunks with masses of delved hollows and humps recording the passage of decades. To rub your fingers over their mossy lichen cover is to feel at one with the passage of time in this peaceful wood.

  Here I can listen to a thousand rustling whispers in the undergrowth, but as I walk from deep green shadows into splashes of light I am aware that the river is my silent companion along the way. Where the path climbs steeply upwards tree roots protruding from the ground act as steps, and where the path slopes downwards their trunks are supporting handrails.

  At the bottom of the incline the path runs along the river-bank and here you can sit and look across to the little quayside village of Kilmacsimon. The village and the small boats tied up along the quay are reflected in the deep water. This is the centre-point of a walk through Shippool Wood; I could sit here for hours listening to the tidal water lapping against the bank as it changes direction. Late in the evening the sunset can be seen through the branches of an old tree that clings to the river-bank by its roots, its long arms stretched out above the water and reflected in its depths. Then the crows return like black messengers across the sky to the wood on the other side, and once they arrive they fill the air with their chatter like old friends exchanging gossip after a day out.

  While this wood in summer is a green wonderland, in autumn it takes on a russet glow. To walk through Shippool Wood then is to have a golden carpet spread beneath your feet. All around is the rustle of falling leaves, breathing their last as they glide earthward. A soft breeze sends the branches creaking and more leaves drift down. This is the world of the autumn wood. At Christmas time the holly trees celebrate the festive season with trailing dark-green branches of red berries.

  Leaving the riverside the climb is steep, but the roots of the trees criss-crossing the way provide a firm foothold. This path leads back to the road high above the Bandon river and Shippool Castle. Up along the wooded valley the village of Innishannon lies in the distance. The road to the right here leads to Kinsale; on the way at a turn you can stand on the ditch and look down over the river broadening out as it heads for the harbour, and see the wide countryside spread out before you like a patchwork quilt.

  But the road to the left leads home to Innishannon. Past Shippool Castle the river accompanies you along the way, until you part with it at the “Found Out”. In earlier days this was a shebeen where late night drinkers and smugglers celebrated, and sometimes they were “found out” on the premises by raiding constabulary. When you come to the hill leading down into the village you are standing at the top of The Rock. Below you Innishannon lies between the trees.

  Shippool is
the wood for summer and autumn, but Dromkeen Wood, which looks over the village from the hill across the river, is the winter and spring-time wood. During the bleak winter months trees sleep beneath a dull blanket of grey and brown, their trunks reaching down into the cold black river in the valley below. They wear tattered coats before the sharp winter winds whip them naked. Their stark beauty revealed, they stretch their gaunt limbs heavenward like crucifixion figures. On hard frosty nights you can see from the village the trees on the hilltop standing with their black arms outlined against the cold blue sky, like figures waiting for the resurrection of spring.

  With the coming of spring a tinge of green can be seen in the evening light, and after a few weeks the bluebells carpet the hill. Beside the high pathway they run in waves of billowing blue as far as the eye can see. From here you can look down over the village and in a special little corner see the river disappear beyond the bridge into another wood in the distance. By late September that same view has turned into an interwoven tapestry of scarlet, browns and yellows.

  In Innishannon we are surrounded by woods on both sides of the river and to drive along the road in the autumn from Bandon to Innishannon and on to Kinsale must surely be one of the most glorious journeys in the country. The long expanse of wood stretches before you, and when you think that there can be nothing more beautiful than the trees at Dundaniel Castle you come to the view at Innishannon Bridge, then to Shippool Castle, and on to Kinsale. The trees are multi-coloured, a glorious profusion of golden browns. They create a soft, voluptuous panorama and give the illusion that one could sink into their softness.

  Sometimes I like to leave the village behind and walk up along the quiet roads around Upton, especially on a warm evening when the ditches are draped with summer flowers and yellow woodbine intoxicates your senses with its wild smell. As I walk by the scented ditches I can listen to the cows chewing tufts of grass or stand at rusty gates along the way and watch noble horses graze together or canter in high spirits around the field. Passing through the grounds of St Patrick’s, flowers lie like a rosary around the monastery, and I can call in to the little chapel for a soothing prayer.

  Coming down the road from Upton back into the village the tall, elegant steeple of our hillside church salutes one through the trees. On a moonlit night the stars cluster above its dark bulk and the moon sometimes rests on its back, sheltering in the angle between the ridged roof and steeple.

  I fell in love with Innishannon the first time I saw it, and my life here has been a continuing love affair with this very special village, which I now think of as my place.w

  Also by Alice Taylor

  Memoirs

  To School Through the Fields

  Quench the Lamp

  The Parish

  Country Days

  The Night Before Christmas

  Poetry

  The Way We Are

  Close to the Earth

  Going to the Well

  Fiction

  The Woman of the House

  Across the River

  House of Memories

  Essays

  A Country Miscellany

  Diary

  An Irish Country Diary

  Children’s

  The Secrets of the Oak

  Copyright

  This eBook edition first published 2014

  by Brandon, an imprint of

  The O’Brien Press Ltd,

  12 Terenure Road East, Rathgar,

  Dublin 6, Ireland.

  Tel: +353 1 4923333;

  Fax: +353 1 4922777

  E-mail: [email protected].

  Website: www.obrien.ie

  First published 1992 by Brandon

  eBook ISBN: 978–1–84717–595–3

  Copyright © Alice Taylor 1992

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