Holidays and big boobed mountains

I am very grateful to my parents for my childhood summer holidays in Ireland. We would be packed off to Millstreet in County Cork( the village my mum comes from) a few days after school ended for the year. We would not come back until just before the new school year started. For a child brought up before the days of video games etc it was a great place to holiday, the only downside being that it rained a lot.

Millstreet is overshadowed by Claragh Mountain (at 1500 feet a mere bump for those living in countries that have real mountains!), the first in the small range, the Derrynasaggarts, that stretches west to Killarney. Beyond Claragh is Caherbanagh, the tallest point in County Cork and then further on the Paps (aka the Paps of Anu , the maiden aspect of the Celtic earth mother goddess) a pair of peaks that as you can see look like a pair of breasts..



The word pap is an old word for nipple and just to confirm how appropriate the name is, each peak has a prehistoric cairn at the summit. Websites stress the mystical and religioussignificance of the Paps to the ancient Irish and perhaps they are right. The Area is extremely rich in prehistoric sites including the Knocknakilla and Glantane stone circles, ring forts, and standing stones. None may be as impressive as say Avebury, Stonehenge or Carnac but they are impressive in their own way and I am sure the ancient Irish held the Paps in reverence.

On the other hand I am sure that more than a few prehistoric teenagers would snigger at the site of mountainous boobs in the same way as I did when younger:

“Hey Buttvoc, check it out. Those mountains look like boobs, huh huh, huh huh. Huh huh. Huh huh”

“huh huh, huh huh. BOOBS, Bivus, BOOBS!!”