In a crueller irony, it was the teachings of the solitude-loving St. Kevin that would see the solitude of Glendalough shattered. Kevin was one of Ireland’s most accomplished and well-travelled Christian scholars (even journeying to Rome and back). As recorded in Bethada Náem nÉrenn:
Great is the pilgrimage of Coemgen (as Kevin was then known),
If men should perform it aright;
To go seven times to his fair is the same
As to go once to Rome.
To claim that seven visits to this valley in the Wicklow Mountains was the spiritual equal to a pilgrimage to the centre of Western Christendom was a bold idea for the time. But it soon took root. And so St. Kevin’s teachings spawned a monastic tradition that turned Glendalough into one of the centres of Christian teaching in Ireland in the centuries after his death. A monastery flourished here, complete with its own cathedral and round tower to safeguard monks and their treasures from the Vikings that raided their way up and down the east coast.
It wasn’t just the divine that enticed settlers to Glendalough, but also the prosaic. The tectonic churning that raised the Wicklow Mountains forged at their heart seams of lead, silver and other ores that drew a mining community to the valley. By the middle of the 1800s they’d become well established, tunnelling deep into the mountain slopes in pursuit of wealth. At the height of the mining boom over two thousand people lived here. The scale of their operations soon outmatched the mules and other draught animals used to haul chunks of ore to processing, and so a railway had to be introduced to take up the load.
Hunger for wealth drove further development along the valley. New seams were cut open and worked to their roots. The miners’ labour beneath the mountains took them so far from the comforts of the Wicklow coast that one mine was even named Van Diemen’s Land in tribute to the island (present day Tasmania) on the other side of the globe, where many Irish convicts of the day were shipped, and from where very few returned. Buildings sprung up in the miners’ village on the valley floor, including a water-powered crusher to pulverise the ore peeled from the mountains. This was mainly operated by the women of the village as their husbands and sons toiled by torchlight underground.
Outside, centuries of development had wrought a heavy price on the once pristine wilds of Glendalough. Very little of the ancient forest that once carpeted the valley remains today, with much of the greenery to be found now dating from just the nineteenth century or later.
By the late 1800s the mining community had begun to suffer. More and more of its members took their expertise overseas, where they used it to develop the extraction industries that would fuel manufacturing booms in Britain and the United States. Increased demand for lead during the First World War would see a temporary flowering of mining fortunes, but once the Treaty of Versailles had been signed the mines of Glendalough sunk into decline again. By the late 1950s they were abandoned altogether.
Both the monks and the miners, the pious and the enterprising, left their mark on Glendalough. The round tower, now restored, still stands proud, keeping company with a smattering of other monastic buildings. More solitary, the church of St. Saviour, now haunted by nearby nesting goosanders, lies in ruins, though the Romanesque curves of its arches and blotches of lichen crawling across its stonework still lend it colour and grace.
The miners’ legacy is somewhat less striking. You can still find the rusting remains of the crusher, lying otherwise much as it was when working. Among the other remnants they left behind are piles of excavated stone dumped on the valley floor. During childhood visits with my family, I can remember climbing among them, the miner in me looking for the crystal that would make my fortune. And there were indeed crystals to be found on the slag heaps, encrusted onto stone like icing on a cake. But the generations that came before had left no great mineral treasure in Glendalough. Far from twinkling with every caress of the sun, the crystals I unearthed were murky, like frosted glass; hardly the stuff of wedding rings.
Today, the most striking living legacies of human habitation in Glendalough are the feral goats that still patrol the valley. These are not native, but were introduced to provide meat, milk and labour to bygone settlers before escaping (or simply outlasting) their masters, who would desert the valley. Now, they can be seen grazing out in the rushes on the valley floor, or picking their way with delicate care up the scree-strewn slopes of the mountainsides. Crowned with great ridged horns and curtained by flowing coats of grey and black hair, they remain as a visceral reminder of the shifting fortunes of this valley.
Even in boyhood, when its history had not made such an impact on me, Glendalough left a strong impression. This was especially true of the upper lake, its shoreline of flattened, silvery stone blurring into a vast dark abyss. It was like a black hole at the heart of the valley towards which trees marched and mountains descended to their doom. Chinos rolled up above my knees, I’d splash through the shallows, never fearing I’d snag my foot on a sharp rock, for the stones that made up the lake floor had long since surrendered their hooks and corners to the perpetual caress of gentle waves.
Looking back now, I can understand why pious folk found peace on its shores. Rarely stirring to a swell, the lake exudes tranquillity, and an ethereal quality. I imagined that peace would come undone at any moment. My boyhood self hoped this would come in the form of a monster surging up from the depths, for in my head I compared the upper lake to Loch Ness, and used it as the setting for my own fruitless monster hunts. Though no unknown beasts ever greeted me at their end, childhood vignettes in Glendalough helped awaken my yearning for nature. And hikes up its slopes exposed me to the sheer beauty buried in Wicklow’s mountainous heart.
The waters of the lake might be too shallow (and devoid of prey) to sustain a hidden monster. But the goosanders find all the food they need in the two lakes (lower and upper) that give Glendalough its name (Gleann dá Locha, the glen of the two lakes) and the streams that feed into them. Clear, shallow waters suit them down to the ground. Seeing them here amid the drumming of the great spotted woodpecker (another recent colonist) adds a whole new dimension to Glendalough for me. It feels like a potent commitment by the natural world to restock this space with wild denizens, among them a new cast of characters to augment the fauna of the Wicklow Mountains.
Otters and minks might provide some competition, but not enough to threaten the goosanders. The biggest danger they face comes in the form of another mustelid (weasel) and, ironically, another species that every effort is being made to preserve: the pine marten. Wicklow is one of the strongholds of the pine marten resurgence in Ireland. And while this arboreal sharpshooter is the ideal tonic to the feral population of grey squirrels now rampant throughout the county, it certainly won’t refuse the succulent eggs and chicks of goosanders. Nesting in trees puts these ducks at risk of pine marten predation. That’s why many of the trees bearing goosander nest boxes are enclosed with sheaths of metal on their trunks; the marten’s claws can get no purchase on the metal, and their designs on the goosander’s brood can be thwarted.
…
As can happen, the end goal can be found back where you started. Having staked out the riverside for over an hour, we make our way back to the car, content with the fleeting view of fleeing goosanders.
On our way, we approach a bridge fording the same river. That’s when we see her. Right on the riverbank, perched on a rock, almost completely obscured by the overgrown grass, is the female. As with almost all ducks, her livery pales in comparison to the male. But in the shaft of sunlight breaking through the canopy, she’s still stunning: her head a rich copper, her back silver cut through by the outline of her feathers. Slowly, like a ballerina in motion, she extends her neck, perhaps forcing a stubborn fish down her throat.
We’re much closer than before. And yet she shows no signs of panic, even though she can
