Gort: Easy to Miss, Hard to Leave

July 9, 2000

Gort: Easy to Miss, Hard to Leave

By DAN BARRY

This quiet town in Galway is surrounded by ancient monastic ruins, dramatic landscapes and countryside that inspired Yeats
CERTAIN town in the west of Ireland seems at first to offer no reason to linger beyond the time it takes to refuel your car. It has no shop selling Celtic knickknacks, no pub with performances of ditties on the half-hour. Even its name lacks the lyricism found in those of more famous Irish destinations. It is, simply, Gort.

Jonathan Player for The New York Times

Cattle at the ruins of Kilmacduagh monastery, near Gort.

But this town of 1,200 in County Galway is also where my mother spent her childhood -- on the outskirts, on a farm -- and where family members still live. All my life, my answer to the inevitable "Where are your people from?" has been devoid of poetry but ringing with pride: Gort. Others may think of it as a blur of gray-stone storefronts on the road from Shannon Airport to glamorous Galway City, 22 miles to the north; I remember it as Ireland.

A recent return confirmed my sense that no familial link is needed to appreciate what the town offers. Within a 10-mile radius you can find Coole Park, once Lady Gregory's sanctuary for the leaders of the Irish literary revival; Thoor Ballylee, the tower of inspiration for William Butler Yeats; Kilmacduagh, a sacred site with some of the finest monastic remnants in Ireland; Kinvara, an inviting fishing village; and the Burren, the dramatic limestone landscape sloping westward into the Atlantic.
Then, of course, there are the people and places of Gort proper. True, the town is a little grimy, a little reluctant to exploit its history. The grounds of the Gort workhouse, once crammed to overflowing with the Great Famine's dying, are now used to store highway equipment. But those who pay attention will see life in the Irish west as it is, not as it might be imagined.
My wife, Mary, and I, with our 2-year-old daughter, Nora, visited for 10 days, staying most nights with relatives in a nearby farming hamlet with the singular name of Loughtyshaughnessy. But the area offers plenty of bed-and-breakfasts, the venerable Sullivan's Hotel and the Lady Gregory, a new hotel whose luxurious interior has won the grudging respect of the locals. We spent one night there and found the rooms comfortable and the staff accommodating.
We went first to Coole, less than three miles from town. A century ago, Lady Augusta Gregory, the regally beautiful folklorist and a founder of the Abbey Theatre, began to offer her estate as a haven to Yeats, Sean O'Casey, John Millington Synge and other Irish artists. Although Coole House was demolished in the early 1940's -- a shortsighted act that Irish preservationists bemoan to this day -- the government has worked to preserve the pastoral beauty of the setting and to recall the poetic brilliance that once fed off of its air.
The grounds are now a national park and preserve of manicured gardens and paths beneath majestic yews. Down one path is Coole Lake, where Yeats encountered the "nine and fifty swans" of his poem, "The Wild Swans at Coole." Elsewhere stands the famous copper beech with the carved initials of Yeats, O'Casey and others who paused from artistic pursuits for a moment of whimsy. Coole also has an inviting tearoom in one of the restored buildings.
Along a narrow road some three miles away stands Thoor Ballylee, a Norman tower that Yeats bought cheap in 1917 and restored as a summer home. The tower and its surroundings inspired several of his poems; it was a "blessed place," he once wrote -- a place where he grappled with love, civil war and death. Now a museum, the tower remains remote. Outside, only a small parking lot interrupts the pastoral surroundings of cow pasture and stream, and only a plaque on the ancient structure's face tells of what once was:

I, the poet William Yeats
With old millboards and sea-green slates
And smithy work from the Gort forge
Restored this tower for my wife George;
And may these characters remain
When all is ruin once again.

My family and I dawdled in Gort, spending time with an aunt and uncle who have retired from farming. Now they feed a stove's fire with sticks from the field, fix tea every 35 minutes or so, and tell stories -- about the dear price of land during the country's current economic boom, about the sure signs of a good jar of poteen (or moonshine), about the foibles and triumphs of neighbors and clergy. The television was usually off and the radio usually on, tuned to a station that would follow a traditional reel with a greatest hit of the Doors. No matter; it was all background music to "Do you know the house up the boreen?" and "More tea?"
When wanderlust struck, we knew that any outing we took, in any direction, would be memorable. One evening we planned to eat at either the Blackthorn or O'Grady's -- two recommended pubs in Gort -- but our daughter fell asleep as soon as we exited the farmhouse gate. So, in an act approaching sacrilege, Mary and I bought cheeseburgers and french fries at Supermac's -- the McDonald's of Gort -- and drove three miles at twilight to the ruins of Kilmacduagh.

Jonathan Player for The New York Times

Thoor Ballylee, the stone tower where Yeats lived.

Founded by St. Colman Mac Duach early in the seventh century, the monastery has been host to prayer and plunder. Vikings raided its treasures in the 9th and 10th centuries, as did various clans in later centuries, but it remained the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop until the 16th century. Now, preserved in the midst of farmland, there are fine remnants of churches and a cathedral as well as a 110-foot-tall round tower that once provided refuge for monks in times of attack. On adjacent land is an ancient cemetery, a place where St. Colman was buried nearly 1,400 years ago, where Celtic crosses angle awkwardly toward the sky.
With our child sleeping and the radio playing wistful music, Mary and I watched the round tower slowly become a silhouette against the night sky. We imagined the secrets it had beheld, and the generations of farmers who looked up from their chores and miseries and drew strength from finding it still standing.
About the only long-distance excursion we made was some 30 miles southwest to the Cliffs of Moher, the spectacular formations of County Clare that signal the abrupt western end of Ireland. With photographs taken and faces stung by the snapping wind, we headed back toward Gort, meandering along the coast road north through the Burren -- a long stretch of limestone-exposed hills sloping toward the sea.
Late that afternoon we stopped nine miles short of Gort in the seaport village of Kinvara, where we spent the night at a pleasant, relatively new hotel called the Merriman. Kinvara was fairly quiet. We walked its narrow streets, past pubs and the occasional shop catering to visitors; one sold ceramic "Irish frogs," another specialized in the packing and shipping of Atlantic Irish salmon. It seemed to us that the village had struck a wonderful balance between tourism and a dedication to preserving its beauty.
Kinvara also provided one of those serene moments destined to linger in memory: sitting at a window seat of the Pier Head restaurant, drinking stout, eating smoked salmon and watching the boats bob in Kinvara Bay.
After a full Irish breakfast at the Merriman the next morning, it was back to bustling Gort, my personal reference point to Irish history. Guaire, the legendary King of Connacht, built a castle here in the seventh century. By the middle of the 19th century, it was a prosperous market town, with the spires of two churches dedicated to St. Colman -- one Catholic, one Protestant -- piercing the sky.
But the famine devastated the counties of Galway and Clare -- and the town of Gort. An English visitor in 1850 described seeing hundreds of women and children shivering in and around the grounds of the Gort workhouse. "What dress they had seemed to be the rags of the red petticoat of the country from below the waist, rags of some black stuff above it," he wrote. "Some of the infants were nearly naked, and very evidently in a most filthy state."
The community slowly recovered, and by the early 20th century was playing a role in the revolution and subsequent civil war. Two miles from town, in the Shanaglish cemetery where my grandfather is buried, is a memorial to Patrick and Henry Loughnane, two brothers who were tortured and dragged to their deaths by British agents in 1920. Eighty years later, every schoolchild in town knows the story of the Loughnanes.

Jonathan Player for The New York Times

Pubs along the main street in Gort.

Today, Gort is like so many other Irish communities, striving to be modern while respecting its past. That Protestant church is now a library. The door to the very old Glynn's Hotel bears a handwritten sign informing Supermac's customers that yes, thank you, the hamburger shop has its own bathroom. And across from J. J. Coen's, the tiny clothing store that has dressed farmers for generations, there is a shop selling cellular phones.
Late one Sunday night we went to the Archway, a pub that faces the center square. The men drank stout at the bar while the women sipped drinks at small round tables; their conversations blanketed the room in murmurs. Near the front of the room, a farmer from nearby Peterswell removed an accordion from its heavy case. Beside him was a man holding a flute, and another with a guitar.
As if on cue, men and women, my aunt included, wandered onto the worn wooden floor to take their places. A burst of ceili music shook the room, and they began to dance. Some closed their eyes as they whirled about; others stomped the hardwood in defiant joy. I sat there, watching my daughter clap her hands and my wife tap her feet, and I knew only this: I did not want to leave.

If you go

Accommodations
There are many guest houses and bed-and-breakfasts in and around Gort, as well as Sullivan's Hotel, (353-91) 631257, fax (353-91) 631916, in the town square. Doubles: $54 (at $1.21 to a punt), including breakfast.
A luxurious addition is the 48-room Lady Gregory Hotel on the Ennis-Galway Road; (353-91) 632333, fax (353-91) 632332. Rates are $42 to $59.50 a person with full breakfast. E-mail ladygregoryhotel@tinet.ie, www.ladygregoryhotel.com on the Web.
Nearby in Kinvara is the 32-room Merriman Hotel, on the Kinvara Road. From June 1 to Sept. 30, a single room is $66 and a double is $96, with full breakfast; (353-91) 638222, fax (353-91) 637686.
Sightseeing

Jonathan Player for The New York Times

The famous copper beech at Coole Park.

The grounds of Coole Park are open year-round. The interpretative center and tearoom are open Tuesday to Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Easter to mid-June, daily 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. mid-June through August, and daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in September.
Thoor Ballylee, (353-91) 631436, the castle owned by William Butler Yeats, is open daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Easter through September. Admission is $4.20; children 12 and older, $1.21.; under 12, 90 cents.
The Kiltartan Gregory Museum, (353-91) 632346, at Kiltartan Cross in Gort, is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 1 to Oct. 1. It is largely devoted to the works of Lady Augusta Gregory. Admission: $1.80, children 60 cents.
In Kinvara, Dunguaire Castle, (353-91) 637108, which has loomed over Kinvarra Bay for more than 400 years and is now open to visitors, decorated with furnishings from the various periods when it was occupied. It is open May through October; admission is $3.50, students $2.42. A four-course medieval dinner ($36) is presented, with period entertainment.

There is no fee to visit the ruins at Kilmacduagh.

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