We cruised last night and all morning off the west coast of Ireland bound for Sheephaven Bay, a small village in County Donegal in the extreme northwest of the island. Brent Houston, our expert on marine birds, spotted a range of species including Atlantic puffin, manx shearwater, gannet and fulmars. With the Derryveagh Mountains as a backdrop much of the countryside surrounding Sheephaven is a patchwork of small parcels of poor marginal land demarcated by granite drystone walls. Following lunch the Zodiacs were dropped and after reaching the harbour we were taken by our local guides, Liz and Ralph Sheppard, to Glenveagh National Park.
Glenveagh is one of six national parks in Ireland, a manifestation of a growing awareness in this island of the value of our natural heritage. The park, covering an area of almost 25,000 acres, consists of a number of glaciated valleys, which were sculpted by rivers of ice during the last glaciation. Known as the Midlandian phase of the Ice Age it derives its name from the fact that the southernmost edge of a gigantic ice sheet extended across the midland area of Ireland some 70,000 years ago. This period of Arctic conditions came to an end approximately 11,000 years ago and opened up the way for the settlement of the island by groups of Mesolithic or middle stone age hunter-gatherers who first came here ca. 7500 BC. These people had a nomadic lifestyle, moving around the countryside exploiting various foodstuffs as they appeared seasonally. Known from shell middens, temporary campsites and flint implements, these were passive exploiters of their environment.
Our visit included a tour of Glenveagh Castle which was built by John Adair, a powerful landlord, in 1870. He gained notoriety after forcibly clearing his estates of 300 tenant farmers in the years after the Great Famine of 1845- 48. Such evictions scenes were common place during this period with large numbers of people having to seek refuge in work houses.
The park abounds in a variety of wildlife. Probably the most unusual is the Arctic char, a survivor of the Ice Age. This species is now found in countries far to the north. Our photograph shows one of the many ice scoured lakes in which this legacy of a much colder past is found.
While guests enjoyed the sights and sounds of the park, I had the opportunity to slip into the placid waters of Sheephaven Bay. This common spider crab (Maja squinado) was caught in the act of attaching seaweed and algae to its carapace in order to camouflage itself in its kelp forest niche. Crabs, being second only to shrimp as the most popular edible shellfish, represent a resource of great economic importance. The Bureau of Commercial fisheries predicts that Americans will be consuming almost two and a half pounds per person on average in a year. In most cases they were served after boiling, turning them red in coloration. One interesting English recipe dating back to the fifteenth century was for a seasoning called “verjuice” which consisted of the juice of crabs and sour apples mixed together.
