Campervan Therapy

Rosslare Port has been a feature of my life since the years of the old St. Columba, without stabilisers, bucking and ducking on the wild stretch of sea between Fishguard and Rosslare. The port was a small little shed in those days where Uncle Scotty would chat to the dock workers before strolling out to meet us from the gangplank.

Since Brexit it’s become a massive 21^st Century Port, all steel and glass buildings, offering sea crossings straight to Roscoff, Calais, Cherbourg and Bilbao, as well as the old routes to Fishguard and Pembroke.  

We arrive for our Brittany Ferries crossing to Bilbao with hours to spare before the midnight embarkation time, so we stroll out on the cliff-side walk above the arc of fine, silver sand and jagged rocks. Today the sun beats down, the sky is a bare blue and the rocky headland with its indigo deeps, and azure shallow waters, is more like a Caribbean view than an Irish one. The cliffs blaze with the rampant montbretia’s orange as multicoloured butterflies flutter around our feet. The wildflower meadow of field scabious and wild carrot at the top of the cliff buzzes with bees.

A local man working in the fields tells us to enjoy the view from the bench by the cliff and that he’s off up to the graveyard to tidy it for the “August 1^st Pattern,” which was once the traditional festival of Lúnasa (or Gaelic Lughnasadh). The festival was named after the Celtic god Lugh, a mythological figure associated with craftmanship and the sun, marking the start of the harvest season.  

In ancient times communities gathered at this time on high places for fairs, legal agreements, athletic games, music and matchmaking. With the emergence of Christianity, these ancient Celtic celebrations became linked with ‘pattern days’, or parish patron saint celebrations, with pilgrimages to holy wells and social gatherings.  It’s so interesting how throughout Europe pagan gods and beliefs were subsumed into the relatively recent advent of Christianity.

We walk along the cliffside path, looking down on the beaches, rocks and over to the 21^st Century windfarm at Carnsore Point and I’m brought back to the present day.

We mooch around Kirwan’s Garden in the centre of Rosslare Harbour village, its snaking paths making it seem so much bigger than it is, its fairy houses hidden in every dip and glen. It’s a real example of a community gardening together, blending myth and imagination with a care for the environment and biodiversity.

Then it’s on to the Brittany Ferry service to Bilbao, aboard the Santoña and a midnight Champagne to celebrate while we chat to two Irish bikers, life-long friends, “like the odd fellas” they tell us, off for a tour of Spain and the French Alps. The 31-hour crossing is as good as a mini cruise, the sea millpond smooth, with onboard singers, guitarists, and beauticians. The young impassioned marine biologist telling us all about the whales and dolphins who share the same migratory paths as us on the ferry. On board for data collection, she invites us up to Deck 10 while she scans the seas, but sadly for us there’s not a fin, a spout, nor an arcing dolphin in sight today.