Day 1. Castles and dirt-tracks and legends, oh my!
It's August. It's my time. This summer I've done something radically different. For the last umpteen years I've focused my summer on those few weeks when you 'get away'. This year, through a combination of committments (PhD completion and viva) I've ended up staying at home. Initially that was a little disappointing - who doesn't like going on holiday? - but I'm going to turn it into something positive, a month of solid creativity, and see what projects end up percolating to the surface as a consequence...I've written about the link I've discovered between creativity and happiness here; this month is an effort to plug into that connection and to analyse what results.
And so to Day 1 of 30 Creative Days. Well, today I set out for Carraigogunnell, part of my half-dreamt project on Irish Folk Gothic/Being Gothic, where I'm setting out to visually document and write about in the hope that it will unleash a flood of academic and creative responses. The first impressions of Carraigogunnell are breathtaking. You swing around a right-angled bend, and there it is, capping the hill-top with an imperious presence. This 13th century castle is (allegedly) where the Hag or Witch used to lure travellers to their death with a flickering candle. Having tramped through the rough terrain, that's not too hard to imagine. TJ Westropp records the legend in his The Antiques of Limerick and Its Neighbourhood (1916). According to him, the Witch was put paid to by Fionn MacCumhail; other later, versions attribute her vanquishment to St. Patrick.
All in all, a wonderful start to 30 Creative Days.
Then I went home and finished my short story 'Something Nasty in the Woodshed' and sent it in (JUST making the deadline) for an unnamed horror collection by Onyx Neon Shorts.
And then? Drank a celebratory ginger beer and went to bed. Tired? Yes. Happy? Oh yes!
