20 June 2006

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!!”

5 comments:

elasticwaistbandlady said...

Am I the only one who keeps thinking that an insult hurled by one of those ancient religious figures would quite literally be a "PAP smear"? Yes? Fine. Carry on then.

Bob said...

Fascinating history -- how do you keep abreast of all this.

jams o donnell said...

Ah Fraser I am just a mine of information.. sadly the vast majority is utterly useless!!! Actually I used to love visiting prehistoric sites. I really must get back into it. Sadly we do ot have an awful lot locally but there are some interesting iron age, roman and mediaeval places well worth a visit

elasticwaistbandlady said...

My other thought while gazing at the mammary mountains was that it could possibly be the real sunject of Black Eyed Peas intellectual ditty, "My Humps".

"My humps, my humps, my lovely lady lumps. Check it out"

elasticwaistbandlady said...

I was thinking Aunty Mullet, In the States they require a Pap every year at the well woman checkup.

Wretched HOO-HOO Invaders!