Just move a little and perception shifts.
Stand by the smaller of the two stones at the western end of Cross beach and the great stone suddenly reveals itself as a bear staring up into the sky.
Bears once ranged across this land. Butchered bear bones found in the Alice and Gwendoline cave in Co Clare in the 1890s were carbon dated in recent years to around 10,600 to 10,800 BCE, putting the date of settlement in Ireland back a few millennia earlier than previously accepted. One Irish brown bear moved north during the ice age and became one of the mothers of polar bears: her DNA is found in all polar bears today.
But it’s thought that few bears were left here by two thousand years ago.
Passing through Louisburgh on the way back from Cross beach with bears on my mind, the markings on the strange stone standing by the river caught my eye and I climbed into the field to get a closer look. After discovering during the summer that the stones south of Westport were marked with constellations, no decorated stone was being left unexamined.
And like the stones on Cross beach, there’s something very bearish about this stone: at the top looks like something like a bear claw. Among the claw marks are four indentations that call to mind the heavenly shape of the little bear, Ursa Minor, known in the US as the Little Dipper.
The four indentations closely resemble the bottom line of the little bear, extending from Pherkad (Gamma Ursa Minoris) to Kochab (Beta Ursa Minoris) and 5 UMi and then kinking up to 4 UMi. This sequence of stars is visible to the naked eye.
The sequence, incidentally, is repeated in Ursa Minor, as it re-appears in the ‘handle’ of the constellation with Polaris on the left, then Delta Ursae Minoris and Epsilon Ursae Minoris. At the end at an upward angle is Zeta Ursae Minoris. But it’s the sequence of Kochab that matches best.
So far, so wild. But in the background, barely 20 metres away, the Bunowen river flows past. Until even a few decades back, it was a famous spot for salmon. It’s not hard to imagine bears scooping up salmon here. And indeed, on the eastern side of the stone, it gets weirder. Is that a face? From close to the river, the rounded top of the stone resembles a fish head. A salmon, even?
Three Stones: The Cross and the Circle will show at the Linenhall in Castlebar starting 21 December 2023.
More details at irieland.co.