Curiosity may have killed the cat – but it is the best thing you can bring with you travelling around the country, according to writer Michael Fewer.
It’s this very trait which has led to his new book, the perfect companion to any staycation adventure this summer.
Ireland’s Curious Places shines a light on 100 quirky treasures to discover in all of the four provinces – from the obelisk that stretches 30m into the sky in Rostrevor in memory of a man involved in setting fire to the White House in 1814, to Fionn MacCumhaill’s sliotar in Wicklow or a tall stone cairn grave high in the Knockmealdown mountains.
Waterford native Fewer, who has 26 nature and travel books to his name, takes the reader on a journey off the beaten track, through rural landscapes with forgotten traditions and stories, revealing a rich tapestry of Ireland’s history.
Ireland’s Curious Places invites you to explore every corner of the country and seek out unusual places from remote ruins and sacred places to forgotten villages and shipwrecks.
The front cover of Ireland's Curious Places by Michael Fewer features Dromana Gate, a Hindu-Gothic gate lodge near Villierstown, Co Waterford. /David C. Lynch
This latest tome arose from Michael – a masterful storyteller during our chat – seeing things along his journeys around Ireland for another earlier book, Irish Long Distance Walks, which is about the waymarked trails countrywide.
“Up until then, apart from my home county of Waterford and Dublin, where I lived most of my life, I travelled little in Ireland up to the early 1990s. Then I began the research on that book; I travelled all over the country working on that and subsequent books.
“Inevitably, these were all through rural areas and off the beaten track, and they gave me, for the very first time, a very intimate view of my homeland, its villages, its ever-changing landscape, and, in particular, the rich variety of people who live there.
“I came across many very curious and quirky places that weren’t necessarily relevant to the work I was doing, but I took note of them and took pictures. I also heard great stories from the local people I met, and I made sure to record those as well.”
When Michael realised how much material he had collected over the years, he decided there was a book in it and the time had come to bring it to fruition.
“I’m totally curious. I have never stopped being curious,” he says when asked about what he enjoys most about his travel journeys. “In fact, it’s the thing I love most about myself,” he adds, chuckling loudly.
“It leads me into all kinds of interesting situations and intriguing and wonderful places,” Michael adds. Doubtless, it is a quality that lent itself to this particular publication, which, he admits, may have a sequel.
Writing took over
After working for over 30 years as an architect, Michael moved into academia before writing took over. He has now been contributing to magazines, papers and books for 15 years, joking that he can’t believe people actually pay him for it.
Asked for some of his favourite discoveries, Michael immediately mentions Foulksrath Castle in Jenkinstown, Co Kilkenny where Godwin Meade Swifte – a relative of author Jonathan Swift – invented and patented an “aerial chariot or an apparatus for navigating the air” in 1866. This was decades before the Wright Brothers took their first flight in 1903.
Foulksrath Castle, Jenkinstown Co Kilkenny has a special place in aviation history. /Michael Fewer.
“He built it in his dining room, but unfortunately, he had to knock down a wall to get it out,” Michael continues. “He decided his test flight was going to be off the top of his 30m high castle.”
Meanwhile, his brother, who lived in Rathfarnham in Dublin, held a garden party expecting Godwin to land on the lawn. However, when the moment of truth came, Godwin decided he didn’t have a head for heights after all, and his butler was persuaded to take to the air.
“The machine was catapulted off the top of the castle and plummeted straight to the ground,” continues Michael. “The butler survived alright, with a number of broken bones.”
Another place that captured his imagination was Dursey Island in Cork, the home of Ireland’s only cable car. Michael recalls the first time he was on it many years ago – there was a hole in the floor, a holy water bottle and a sign saying it could hold four sheep and one person or five people.
Stone age DNA in Clare
A better-known entry in the book is Poulnabrone Dolmen in Co Clare, which features on many iconic postcards or images depicting Ireland. Sheltering under it during bad weather many years ago, Michael didn’t realise that he was sitting on top of the remains of a few dozen people.
“When they excavated it a number of years ago, they found – under a thin layer of soil – axes, arrowheads, beads, pottery shards, and the remains of adults and children.
“The really outstanding thing about this, which should be of interest to anyone in rural Ireland, is that they were able to extract the DNA from some of the remains, and they did a scientific examination, and they found three children in the local primary schools had actually the Poulnabrone people’s DNA.
Poulnabrone Dolmen in Co Clare. /UTBP David C. Lynch Adobe Stock
“That means their families have probably lived in the same area for 5,000 years. Isn’t that amazing? You begin to think then that the Stone Age is not that long ago.”
In his home county, he regales Irish Country Living about the ‘The Metal Man’ guarding Tramore Bay – a very dangerous area for sailing ships in the 19th century.
“When ships were passing by Tramore Bay and there was a strong southerly gale, they were sometimes blown into the sands of Tramore, or sometimes they turned in because they thought it was the entrance to Waterford Harbour.”
“After a troopship ran aground in the early 19th century with the loss of over 360 men, women and children, it was decided some sort of warning was necessary.
“What were called ‘caution towers’ were built on three pillars at Great Newtown Head, and two others on Brownstown Head. Then a 12-foot-high cast iron figure of a sea man, or ‘The Metal Man’ was put up on a pillar pointing out to sea.
“When I was young, girls would hop around the pillar on one foot, hoping to be married in six months. They didn’t say anything about the boys,” Michael recalls, in a jokey tone.
Ever the adventurer, the Dublin resident says he is still finding “amazing new places” and advises people to travel the back roads or walk to find the most fascinating places. Country people, Michael insists, are always interested in talking to people passing by and curious about what you are doing in often remote spots.
Writer Michael Fewer.
While he has travelled abroad a lot in the past, Michael is no longer interested in long waits in airports and polluting the air. “I’ve seen enough [abroad] but I haven’t seen enough of Ireland yet.” With that in mind, he is looking forward to exploring west Cork and what he describes as the “neglected midlands”, which most people whizz by on the motorway but is actually full of “wonderments” that you can stop and look at for free.
Ireland’s
Curious Places by Michael
Fewer is published by Gill Books, €16.99.
Curiosity may have killed the cat – but it is the best thing you can bring with you travelling around the country, according to writer Michael Fewer.
It’s this very trait which has led to his new book, the perfect companion to any staycation adventure this summer.
Ireland’s Curious Places shines a light on 100 quirky treasures to discover in all of the four provinces – from the obelisk that stretches 30m into the sky in Rostrevor in memory of a man involved in setting fire to the White House in 1814, to Fionn MacCumhaill’s sliotar in Wicklow or a tall stone cairn grave high in the Knockmealdown mountains.
Waterford native Fewer, who has 26 nature and travel books to his name, takes the reader on a journey off the beaten track, through rural landscapes with forgotten traditions and stories, revealing a rich tapestry of Ireland’s history.
Ireland’s Curious Places invites you to explore every corner of the country and seek out unusual places from remote ruins and sacred places to forgotten villages and shipwrecks.
The front cover of Ireland's Curious Places by Michael Fewer features Dromana Gate, a Hindu-Gothic gate lodge near Villierstown, Co Waterford. /David C. Lynch
This latest tome arose from Michael – a masterful storyteller during our chat – seeing things along his journeys around Ireland for another earlier book, Irish Long Distance Walks, which is about the waymarked trails countrywide.
“Up until then, apart from my home county of Waterford and Dublin, where I lived most of my life, I travelled little in Ireland up to the early 1990s. Then I began the research on that book; I travelled all over the country working on that and subsequent books.
“Inevitably, these were all through rural areas and off the beaten track, and they gave me, for the very first time, a very intimate view of my homeland, its villages, its ever-changing landscape, and, in particular, the rich variety of people who live there.
“I came across many very curious and quirky places that weren’t necessarily relevant to the work I was doing, but I took note of them and took pictures. I also heard great stories from the local people I met, and I made sure to record those as well.”
When Michael realised how much material he had collected over the years, he decided there was a book in it and the time had come to bring it to fruition.
“I’m totally curious. I have never stopped being curious,” he says when asked about what he enjoys most about his travel journeys. “In fact, it’s the thing I love most about myself,” he adds, chuckling loudly.
“It leads me into all kinds of interesting situations and intriguing and wonderful places,” Michael adds. Doubtless, it is a quality that lent itself to this particular publication, which, he admits, may have a sequel.
Writing took over
After working for over 30 years as an architect, Michael moved into academia before writing took over. He has now been contributing to magazines, papers and books for 15 years, joking that he can’t believe people actually pay him for it.
Asked for some of his favourite discoveries, Michael immediately mentions Foulksrath Castle in Jenkinstown, Co Kilkenny where Godwin Meade Swifte – a relative of author Jonathan Swift – invented and patented an “aerial chariot or an apparatus for navigating the air” in 1866. This was decades before the Wright Brothers took their first flight in 1903.
Foulksrath Castle, Jenkinstown Co Kilkenny has a special place in aviation history. /Michael Fewer.
“He built it in his dining room, but unfortunately, he had to knock down a wall to get it out,” Michael continues. “He decided his test flight was going to be off the top of his 30m high castle.”
Meanwhile, his brother, who lived in Rathfarnham in Dublin, held a garden party expecting Godwin to land on the lawn. However, when the moment of truth came, Godwin decided he didn’t have a head for heights after all, and his butler was persuaded to take to the air.
“The machine was catapulted off the top of the castle and plummeted straight to the ground,” continues Michael. “The butler survived alright, with a number of broken bones.”
Another place that captured his imagination was Dursey Island in Cork, the home of Ireland’s only cable car. Michael recalls the first time he was on it many years ago – there was a hole in the floor, a holy water bottle and a sign saying it could hold four sheep and one person or five people.
Stone age DNA in Clare
A better-known entry in the book is Poulnabrone Dolmen in Co Clare, which features on many iconic postcards or images depicting Ireland. Sheltering under it during bad weather many years ago, Michael didn’t realise that he was sitting on top of the remains of a few dozen people.
“When they excavated it a number of years ago, they found – under a thin layer of soil – axes, arrowheads, beads, pottery shards, and the remains of adults and children.
“The really outstanding thing about this, which should be of interest to anyone in rural Ireland, is that they were able to extract the DNA from some of the remains, and they did a scientific examination, and they found three children in the local primary schools had actually the Poulnabrone people’s DNA.
Poulnabrone Dolmen in Co Clare. /UTBP David C. Lynch Adobe Stock
“That means their families have probably lived in the same area for 5,000 years. Isn’t that amazing? You begin to think then that the Stone Age is not that long ago.”
In his home county, he regales Irish Country Living about the ‘The Metal Man’ guarding Tramore Bay – a very dangerous area for sailing ships in the 19th century.
“When ships were passing by Tramore Bay and there was a strong southerly gale, they were sometimes blown into the sands of Tramore, or sometimes they turned in because they thought it was the entrance to Waterford Harbour.”
“After a troopship ran aground in the early 19th century with the loss of over 360 men, women and children, it was decided some sort of warning was necessary.
“What were called ‘caution towers’ were built on three pillars at Great Newtown Head, and two others on Brownstown Head. Then a 12-foot-high cast iron figure of a sea man, or ‘The Metal Man’ was put up on a pillar pointing out to sea.
“When I was young, girls would hop around the pillar on one foot, hoping to be married in six months. They didn’t say anything about the boys,” Michael recalls, in a jokey tone.
Ever the adventurer, the Dublin resident says he is still finding “amazing new places” and advises people to travel the back roads or walk to find the most fascinating places. Country people, Michael insists, are always interested in talking to people passing by and curious about what you are doing in often remote spots.
Writer Michael Fewer.
While he has travelled abroad a lot in the past, Michael is no longer interested in long waits in airports and polluting the air. “I’ve seen enough [abroad] but I haven’t seen enough of Ireland yet.” With that in mind, he is looking forward to exploring west Cork and what he describes as the “neglected midlands”, which most people whizz by on the motorway but is actually full of “wonderments” that you can stop and look at for free.
Ireland’s
Curious Places by Michael
Fewer is published by Gill Books, €16.99.
This is a subscriber-only article
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