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ADVENTURE OF THE MONTH — JUNE, 2004 — PAGE 2

THE ADVENTURE—FINDING THE GRAVES OF THE LEINSTERMEN:
        Today, as in the Dark Ages of 1,000 years ago, few people and fewer roads are to be found on Tountinna, highest of the Arra Mountains. There are still some tailings from the old slate mines, and patches of pastureland cover the few reasonably flat portions of the hillside. There are a few stands of trees—perhaps fewer than a millennium ago—and they tend to be on the lower slopes of Tountinna. Most of the mountain is covered with gorse and bracken, the same tough rough that makes Irish golf doubly challenging. When the gorse is in flower, as it is in May and June, Tountinna takes on some of the aspects of a patchwork quilt, with the large gorse patches a surprising bright yellow even when thick clouds obscure the sun.
        A poorly marked mountain road—barely one car wide, and sometimes just two gravel strips on either side of a grass median—climbs steeply from just south of Portroe village and again from Ballina, 4-5 miles to the south along Lough Derg. As the road climbs from either end point, it follows the gullies and contours native to the mountain, and is intersected by several other minor roads at oblique angles and without markings. All these twists and turns and intersections ensure that the Graves of the Leinstermen are difficult to find. But they are there, just uphill 25 yards from the road at its apex, like a small campsite in a clearing surrounded by gorse and bracken. Bisecting the gravesite is the foot trail leading to the summit of Tountinna, still 500 feet above, and marked prominently with an Eiffel Tower of a microwave relay antenna.
        At the right spot along the road, there are pull-offs—"lay-bys" in the Irish vernacular—on either side. Park your car here, and look for the little trail on the up slope that leads to the graves, which, disappointingly, anthropologists tell us are a burial place, but probably from Neolithic times, some more millennia older than Brian Boru and his Amazon queen.
        But, never mind. It’s finding the stones, you see, that is the adventure here. And then, turning, cross to the downhill side of the road and see what you have discovered that is truly grand about Central Ireland.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY:
        Discover a truth that finding the Graves of the Leinstermen shares with treasure hunts and maybe life in general—it’s not the treasure, it’s the hunt; it’s not reaching the grave, but the journey. Life, you see, is much poorer without appreciating the travel required to reach your goals. Even grand goals, like Ireland.

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HOW TO TRAVEL TO CENTRAL IRELAND (AND FIND THE GRAVES OF THE LEINSTERMEN)