An Fheamainn Dhearg
‘The Red Seaweed’ – a glimpse of the daily working routine of a Connemara Pony in earlier times. This originally appeared in 2000 in Volume Two of ‘An Capaillín’.
Classes such as Working Hunter and Combined Training come to mind nowadays when one thinks of performance. These are relatively new disciplines, which provide the pony with contrived obstacles in what is essentially a sporting and leisurly environment.
There was nothing leisurely, however, about the environment in which the forebears of our present performenrs went about their daily lives. The ponies along the Connemara seaboard in the early decades of this century lived a tough life in a frugal, unvorgiving, environment where their contribution to subsistence farming and the self-sufficient lifestyles of their owners could mean the difference between harsh poverty and, at best, meagre comfort.
The pony in those years was presented with a very varied and demanding work schedule. It worked in the bogs bringing the turf in baskets to the roadside, before carting it home. many carried the turf in well packed carts, weekly, to towns like Clifden, Oughterard, and Galway. Twenty miles journeys over untarred, rough roads were common so that most of the ponies were constantly well muscled and fit. They worked bringing the hay in from the meadow, transporting families to towns, railway stations and Mass on sidecars and traps and gerally did every type of farm work imaginable. And nameless scores of them provided the draught power that built the Galway-Clifden railway.
The harvesting of seaweed is perhaps the most colourful and evocative chore associated with the Connemara Pony. Robert O’Flaherty portrays it vividly in his pioneering documentary “Man of Aran”. Generations of school children are acquainted with the hauntingly beautiful scenes described by the Inis Mór poet Máirtín Ó Direáin in “An tEarrach Thiar” (Spring in the West). Liam Ó Flaithearta, the Aran novelist and short story writer, sets the story Teangabháil
The soil in South Connemara is poor and acidic but the wherewithal for its enrichment is close at hand. At easter, traditionally, the shore yielded its harvest of limpets and periwinkles. August brought bountiful shoals of mackerel and winter provided a plentiful supply of seaweed – rich in vital minerals. But it was not easily harvested.
Ó Direáin’s romantic scene of glistening weed, beautiful petticoated women, strong young basket-carrying men, fishladen currachs and golden setting suns contrast sharply with the more elemental primitive portrayal of poverty in Daoine Bochta – another disturbingly harsh story by Ó Flaithearta. Here the child is dying, the mother/wife starving, and yet Pádraic, the husband/father, is off to the shore before daybreak to claim the only bouty which gives him any hope. Having harvested the rich, soil enhancing weed on an empty stomach all day, he returns to find keening women in his house. Life is hard. Life goes on.
The reality lay somewhere between those two extremes. Feamainn dhearg, (Red Seaweed) was first spread on the land immediately before and after Christmans. When this had partially rotted and killed the vegetation, making digging much easier, the potatoes were planted and the second application of seaweed – Black Seaweed (Feamainn Rua) – was added. The net result was rich, balanced and fertile ground. A good crop of potatoes, and not an unwanted weed in sight.
If one didn’t wait for a winter storm to bring in a crop of weed, it would have to be cut at the roots and gathered in heaps to be filled later in baskets and brought to dry on the dúirling, either by man power or pony power. It was later brought by the pony to wherever the potatoes were to be planted and this could be a few hundred yards or just a few yards away. At low tide the weed was piled high, perhaps as far as a mile from the shore. This pile, called a climín, was carefully built, tied with ropes, and brought in by the currachs when the tide turned to float it in. A climín could weigh many tons and demanded careful manoeuvering by the light currachs. “Comh trom le climín” it was said. The ponies took over when the climín landed and brough the seaweed to its final destination to fertilise the potatoe crop.
There are, of course, very many varieties of seaweed – almost a thousand identified so far. They are immensely rich in vitamins, minerals, nutrients and trace elements. You name it, the seaweed has it.
Scores of words litter the Connemara vocabulary denoting the various weeds. Testimony to the knowledge and discernment once common along the coast. Duileasc (Dulse), Dúlamán (Blather Wrack), Glasán (Sea Lettuce), Coirleach (Oarweed), and many more. many of the weeds are edible. Carraigín (Carrageen – Chondrus Crispus) is universally appreciated and valued as a health food. It has always been a delicay along the coast. Edible weed was a treat given by coastal families to their inland friends and relatives.
Iodine is a seaweed extract. Weeds are used in animal fodder, cosmetics and countless processed foods like salad dressing and even ice cream. Chances are, you’ve had a bit of weed and liked it very much indeed!
In a sense, those living on the seashore had a four dimensional farm. First the inland hills and bog. The land which was poor and needed constant husbandry. the seashore which was rich and diverse in its offerings, from fertiliser to shellfish. And the Atlantic – yielding a constant harvest of mackerel, pollock, herring, and many other fish.
The pony played a valued and integral part on this farm, pulling and carrying as required in the year long struggle to provide a comfortable living for it’s owners family and neighbours.
If the clock were turned back and today’s dressage stars and Working Hunters champions were asked to emulate their predecessors – would they do so? They very likely would, after a difficult period of acclimatisation. Though baskets of dripping, ice cold seaweed on their precious backs in January would provide something of a culture shock!
