Athenry
is the best example of a medieval walled town in Ireland
The
landscape is verdant and flat. Laying on a bed of limestone it is
wrinkled only by the winding vestige of the last ice age - the Esker
Riada.
Lime-fed grass puts strong bone into hunting horses and steeple chasers.
A hunting foray with the local foxhounds 'The Blazers' over unyielding
and over winding stone walls will test the fortitude of the most
intrepid rider. The more submissive peatlands to the East and North,
rich in heather and birch, is the winter haven of the curlew, woodcock
and snipe.
The town of Athenry is an open-air museum. Glimpse of a glorious yet
troubled past - may be caught through the slit windows of the Norman
Castle or re-echoes of sacred chant imagined in the nave and cloister of
the roofless Dominican Priory. The fourteenth century town walls enclose
all in a ribbon of stone.
For the natives the work-a-day is not at all unpleasent. Lively bars, a
feverish spate of building and restoration and the demands of a large
student population contribute to keeping the tempo upbeat.
Athenry's annual festival centred around 'Lady Day' (August 15th) is an
unforgettable mixture of piety and pleasure. Native sons and daughters
return from abroad for the event. Mass is offered at the Holy Well,
prayers are said, an ancient pilgrimage is completed. There fellows an
effortless transition to medieval pageantry, jousting, street theatre
and revelry.
Many have come to watch and have remained to live, such is the welcoming
ambience of the place. This is a place for all seasons where life may be
lived out at a leisurely pace and where ambitions, however off beat, may
be realised.
M.T. Kelly
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