Ancestral Stones

Bug Light Park

Though it was still very cold last weekend, I felt the hope of spring. Maybe it was the angle of the sun, the heat from which was melting snow and ice even when the air temperature was well below freezing. As I ran along the waterfront at Bug Light Park Sunday morning there was no activity in Portland Harbor. Only one ferry to Peaks Island was moving and that had docked by the time I began. There was a quiet I seldom perceive down there. Very few people were stirring, only a couple dog owners out for a walk. It was cold, but the air wasn’t moving and the sun felt warm on my face. That hope of spring is an ancient thing for people in northern climes.

Stone circle in County Cork

I just booked my fourth trip to Ireland, the land of my ancestors, which is amply sprinkled with prehistoric stone formations everywhere going back five millennia. No one knows for sure who built them but archaeologists are slowly piecing bits of evidence together which indicate that many if not most of the curious structures are oriented according to the solar calendar — to confirm that yes, the sun is getting higher each day and spring will indeed return. People around the world are familiar with Stonehenge, which is the largest of numerous other stone circles all over England, Scotland, Ireland, and the Atlantic coast of France.

Newgrange

Human remains, sometimes cremated, have also been found around these stones in Ireland. Some such formations are enormous like Newgrange in the Boyne River Valley which predates Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. We don’t know for sure who built Newgrange, but whoever those people were, they were skilled at working in stone. As with Stonehenge, they moved stone from many kilometers away to build and we don’t understand how they did so. Unlike Stonehenge, Newgrange (and two other huge mounds near it) was also a passage tomb built with corbeled stones and covered with still more stones to make a tumulus covering more than an acre. Like Stonehenge, it was oriented to sunrises on the solstices.

Newgrange

Other stones the size of automobiles are arranged all around Newgrange and inscribed with spirals and concentric circles the meanings of which no one knows. When I visited there I was told by officials on site that they were close to an understanding and a report would be issued within months. I’ve been waiting ten years and there’s been no report.

Isle of Doagh

There are similar concentric circle designs carved into stones on the Isle of Doagh on the Inishowen Peninsula in Donegal which is the northernmost part of Ireland. When I was there on my first trip, I wasn’t aware of those stones, but I’ll be spending several days on Inishowen again because it’s the land of the McLaughlins where my great-grandfather was born. I’ll be sure to look for them this time.

Another in County Cork (photo by John Banagan)

My great-grandfather, James whom I never knew, was born in a little village called Cloontagh but he emigrated to Boston from the nearby Isle of Doagh. My brother Paul and his girlfriend will be with us for a few days. He’s going to Scotland first and we’ll meet up in Donegal after he flies in from Edinburgh. It’s his first trip to Europe.

Enforced by the British in Ireland

After Paul flies back to the USA my wife and I will head south to County Cork where other branches of my family originated — the Sullivans and Mahoneys, also on my father’s side. I’ve discovered where and when some married and where and when some died, so if I have time maybe I can find their homes. Maybe not though, because they were Roman Catholic and, as such, they wouldn’t likely have inherited real property since it was illegal for a Catholic to own property in Ireland until 1792. They were born in the early 1800s.

On the way south from Donegal to Cork, I can pass through Limerick where John Fitzgerald, great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side was born July 4, 1836. That information should be specific enough to perhaps find data on his parents, Patrick and Catherine, about whom I know nothing but their names. The further back I go the more names there are, but records become harder to find, so perhaps I will reach dead ends during this trip. Knowing a few things about ancestors who lived and died there will help me feel connected to the land as I explore it.

The ancestors I’ve learned of so far were all poor. The McLaughlins couldn’t afford stones to mark their graves in Donegal and I may not find any for the Sullivans or Mahoneys in Cork either. However, I will see plenty of the standing stone circles erected five thousand years ago to mark passing seasons — and the graves of more distant ancestors. Those are everywhere.

Lighthouses

Bug Light

Not too long ago I promised myself I would avoid photographing lighthouses because everyone does that. Galleries in Portland, Maine’s Old Port district are loaded with paintings and photographs of lighthouses. When cruise ships tie up in Portland Harbor, local artisans set up their tables along Commercial Street selling all sorts of things, but what do you see the most of? Lighthouses. There are ceramic lighthouses, trivets with lighthouses, coffee cups with lighthouses, as well as paintings and photographs of lighthouses. Cruise ship passengers from around the world walk by and scoop them up.

Bug Light

Now, however, I have dozens of lighthouse photos, hundreds maybe. Our South Portland, Maine house is five minutes from two of them and ten minutes from two more. Because I always have a camera with me and all four lighthouses are situated in places I visit often — beautiful public parks or on state-owned land by the sea — I’ve become captivated by the lighthouse mystique. Maybe it’s their simple, functional design. Maybe it’s because they’re safety beacons situated in places of both great natural beauty and also great danger. Whatever it is, I’ll likely be taking hundreds more images of them before I’m dead.

Bug Light

The Portland Breakwater Lighthouse, otherwise known as “Bug Light,” is five minutes away. Every morning before breakfast I jog past the lighthouse in Bug Light Park and my camera is always in my car parked two hundred feet from it. Sometimes the rising sun shines so beautifully upon it that I cannot resist snapping a picture, or two, or three. I can put the Portland skyline in the background or use the islands in Casco Bay as backdrops, including the solid-granite, Civil-War-era Fort Gorges that still sits across the shipping lane a few hundred yards offshore.

Spring Point Light

My wife and I will often go for a stroll around Bug Light Park after dinner in spring, summer, and fall. As all photographers know, the best shooting light is just after sunrise or just before sunset — at which time we sometimes see stunning cloud formations behind Bug Light. The sun sets over the City of Portland across the harbor and I’ve taken dozens of shots with the Portland skyline in the background. The late film director Jonathan Demme called it “the golden hour."

Portland Head Light

Bug Light is unique among lighthouses in that its design was inspired by the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates which was built next to the Athenian Acropolis in 335 BC. It’s a classic design often copied around the world, especially during America’s Greek Revival period in the mid-19th century when the lighthouse was built. It’s the smallest of all Maine lighthouses, and classically beautiful.

Portland Head Light

Within sight of Bug Light, and also a five-minute drive away, is Spring Point Ledge Light on the SMCC campus (Southern Maine Community College). I often go there first to watch the sunrise. From Spring Point Light one can see both Bug Light and Portland Head Light at Fort Williams in Cape Elizabeth. On mornings with particularly good light, I’ll visit all three before going home for breakfast. At that early hour, I have them all to myself.

Portland Head Light

Portland Head Light was commissioned by the US Government and completed in 1791 while George Washington was president, and after the federal government took over control of all US lighthouses. The United States at that time stretched only from Maine (part of Massachusetts then) to Georgia and almost the entire population lived between the Appalachians and the Atlantic.

Ram Island Light

From Portland Head Light one can see Ram Island Ledge Light across the shipping channel. It was completed in 1905 after several shipwrecks on that dangerous ledge, but then all lighthouses were constructed following maritime mishaps. Also visible from Portland Head Light are two more lighthouses to the south at a location appropriately called “Two Lights” in Cape Elizabeth. Those were first built in 1828. While I’ve taken no pictures of “Two Lights,” I have many of the rocky shore at the nearby “Two Lights State Park” which I try to visit every week.

Spring Point Light

Portland Head Light is perhaps the most photographed lighthouse in America according to Smithsonian Magazine. According to oyster.com, it’s one of the top ten most iconic lighthouses in the entire world. That means that my photos have lots of competition, but I have the advantage of close proximity during every season of the year. Being semi-retired, I also have the time.

Portland Head Light

Four lighthouse pictures hang in our South Portland house and two hang in Lovell, so far. There may be more. One winter lighthouse shot hangs in a local hospital and I wouldn’t be surprised if they should pick a few more when their budget allows.

Time For Tall Ships

Rounding Bug Light, Maine Historical Society

In South Portland, it’s nice to walk out my door in the morning and smell the sea. During summer, it’s a sweet fragrance. I hear the ferries sound their horns as they leave the pier in Portland and head to one of the islands, and I hear the deeper, base sound of tankers as they’re leaving the harbor — a longer blast, not unlike that of cruise ships that come and go in summer and fall.

Dawn at Portland Pipeline pier

Several tall ships came down the shipping channel last weekend and I watched them from a high point on the old Fort Prebie, now the campus of Southern Maine Community College. I could see down to Cape Elizabeth’s Fort Williams and Portland Head Light where they entered the channel and starting trimming sails to navigate the narrower passage under power. Some kept a few up though and the effect was stunning, mostly because I could imagine how it was for previous generations who stood and watched from where I was standing. Here was this huge ship, even taller than it was long, using wind and water to move along silently and elegantly. Would those long-dead people have been as enthralled as I was? More so?

Trimming sails in the channel

For them it would have been routine, not so special to see stately sailing ships passing by but I’m not used to it. I’m accustomed to what sailors call “stinkpots” — motorized vessels. I even own one that I keep on Kezar Lake in Lovell. Motor boats are not what anyone would call beautiful compared to sailing ships. Nonetheless, I like to watch the big tankers come and go from the various tie-ups of the Portland Pipeline Company on the South Portland side of the harbor. Tugboats help them get around tight corners and then turn around back to port and the tankers head for open sea.

From the Maine Historical Society

Perhaps though, those 19th century Mainers appreciated the scene even more than I did. Their world wasn’t as rushed as ours. They were accustomed to waiting for things and didn’t try to jam too much into a day as we do. Perhaps their unhurried life put them in a better state of mind, more able to appreciate the classic lines of a sailing ship — or several of them — all up and down the channel.

Crowded channel

At least 10,000 people watched the tall ships last weekend, but the big ships were surrounded by smaller, motorized pleasure boats and that made it difficult to imagine myself back in the 19th century. Browsing the Maine Historical Society’s picture collection last winter, I studied many images of Portland Harbor in the days of sail. Some tall schooners in those pictures were tended by motorized tug boats but other, smaller vessels visible were sailboats too. On the South Portland side of the harbor, down the street from where my house is, were shipyards with enormous schooners under construction.

My grandson Riley at wreck of Harold W. Middleton

The bones of a schooner that wrecked over on nearby Higgins Beach in Scarborough are another reminder of those days. They’re all that remain of the schooner Harold W. Middleton that was carrying coal from Virginia and hit ledges offshore. It finally came to rest on the sand near the outlet of the Sprurwink River. Locals made off with the coal and the insurance company salvaged what it wanted, then left the rest in place. Storms storms have covered and uncovered the wreck in the century since.

As a boy in elementary school I loved drawing square-rigged sailing ships. It gave me pleasure to sketch the sweeping lines of the hull and bowsprit, the straight masts and rectangular sails that weren’t perfectly rectangular as they billowed in the wind. I’d draw waves breaking against the bow and imagine how they might appear from high up on one of the masts. Sometimes I’d draw triangular sails on schooners but I liked the square rigs better and I’d always include a flag atop the tallest mast.

Sunrise at Bug Light South Portland

Though I’m semi-retired, I still have a compulsion to keep busy, to accomplish something every day. Plagued by this lingering need to be productive, I seldom give myself enough time off to just walk around, think, feel the breeze, smell the air — stop and appreciate beauty in whatever form it should present itself. Gotta change that. Though I had writing to do last Saturday, I went over to SMCC and waited with thousands of others for the tall ships to appear over the horizon. 18th and 19th century Mainers waited there for loved ones to return from long voyages and became anxious if they were overdue. The local cemetery I walk through contains many headstones declaring someone “lost at sea,” telling me it wasn’t all tranquility and elegance to go “down to the sea in ships.”

It's Not Easy Being Green

Portland Harbor from South Portland February 2015

Portland Harbor froze over for the first time in thirty-five years. That presents a dilemma for people around the southern Maine area for several reasons. Ice breakers are necessary to keep shipping lanes open. Ferries to the islands get more difficult too, but the hardest thing is explaining how this could happen when you and your fellow greenies — the dominant species around the greater Portland area — have been wailing about the dangers of global warming for decades. The polar ice cap was supposed to have disappeared by now, but locals are looking over their shoulders this winter for fear that ice cap may creep south and take over our state the way it did four times before — and melting the last time only 12,000 years ago. This month will go down at the coldest February on record. 

Poor Adam (From Portland Press Herald)

Adam Souza’s car was destroyed in Portland last weekend when huge ice chunks fell on it from a five-story building. “They told me my insurance doesn’t cover an act of nature,” he said. I have to wonder: what if the car had been submerged by rising ocean waters the greenies predicted? Would he be able to sue oil companies? Would he have been able to insist it was human-caused, and not an act of nature? Other Portland residents are reminded they have to shovel snow off sidewalks in front of their houses, but they wonder where they’re going to put it. Snowbanks are already so high they have to drive halfway onto the street to see if there are any cars coming. Body shops say there are three times more cars with collision damage compared to past winters.

Boston

Then there are the endless stories from other greenies in Boston where winter snows keep piling up and below normal temperatures prevent any of it from melting back. Environmental cassandras like Robert Kennedy Jr and Bill McKibben are still insisting it’s all caused by global warming. “Climate change is a time test,” claims McKibben. “If we don’t act very quickly — well, Boston is getting a taste right now of what a changed climate looks like.” He’s the leading cassandra of the global warming movement and likely will be the last to admit it’s really mass hysteria.

Coo-Coo McKibben

Kennedy, meanwhile, is trying to convince Harvard to divest from fossil fuels to prevent catastrophic global warming. He wants to lead “Heat Week” sit-ins for students to pressure the university. They’re going to have to shovel out some space for the students to sit, unless they want fashion Cambridge’s enormous snow banks into chairs somehow.

Massachusetts

Greenies at the Washington Post are struggling desperately to keep their “climate change” house of cards from collapsing with a recent headline: “What the massive snowfall in Boston tells us about global warming.” They just won’t give up, insisting: “It doesn’t yet for most of us, but sooner or later we’re going to have to get past the idea that global warming and huge amounts of snow are somehow contradictory.” Contradictory? Who would ever think that? Kermit The Frog warned us all a long time ago that it’s not easy being green. These are indeed very difficult times for greenies. As Kermit sang:

When green is all there is to be

It could make you wonder why, but why wonder?

Why Wonder, I am green and it'll do fine, it's beautiful!

And I think it's what I want to be.

Penn State’s Michael Mann, author of the dubious “hockey stick graph” touted by Al Gore, still insists all this snow and cold is indeed caused by global warming: “storm[s] will be feeding off these very warm seas, producing very large amounts of snow as spiraling winds of the storm squeeze that moisture out of the air, cool, it, and deposit it as snow inland.” Warm seas? They don’t appear warm to me when I look out over the ice in Portland Harbor.

Portland from Bug Light Park last week

Scott Peck, a psychiatrist who had some best-selling books back in the 1980s, described the greenie dilemma well: “Our view of reality is like a map with which to negotiate the terrain of life.” He said we construct one in adolescence and try to use it without modification throughout life. It’s tough to admit we’ve been wrong even in the face of overwhelming evidence. “Life is difficult,” he said. To even consider we may be wrong about the way we understand things is hard enough. Admitting it to ourselves and others is even harder. Constructing a new life map is the hardest of all, so most of us never undertake the effort.

Portland Head Light last week

It’s especially hard for the head greenies like President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, who keep insisting that global warming is more dangerous to us than Islamic terrorism, I mean “extremist violence.”