A Day In Loch Garman

The Pikeman in the Bull Ring

29 April 2011: I’ve spent this day in one of the first towns in Ireland to rebel against the foreign domination of this Celtic country first overrun by the Norman rulers of England in the latter part of the 12thC and subjugated for a further 800 years.

In 1798, at the Bull Ring, at the center of Loch Garman’s Cornmarket district, many Irish rebels lost their lives in an effort to rid their country of English rule. The place is now a public testimonial to the sacrifice they made.

In 1850, Thomas Carlyle called for the Irish to honor their country by planting Trees of Liberty. One of the slate plaques on the Square states that the fight for freedom began in America, was nourished in France and the seeds of liberty then fell in Ireland.

The Irish Catechism

What is that in your hand? It is a branch.
Of what? The Tree of Liberty.
Where did it first grow? In America.
Where does it bloom? In France.
Where did the seeds fall? In Ireland.

—-Cork, December 1797

Irish Breakfast served at Sidetracks on the Crescent Quay

Loch Garman was a random choice but ultimately wholly significant to the reason for my journey away from Cymru today. Although the trip was a statement, I did have ample opportunity to sample the local fare, not to mention the several glasses of Guinness.

Opposite Sidetracks is the Crescent Quay. The town has been a settlement since the earliest times and was important to fishing industries and international commerce from the arrival of the Norse in the 9thC. On the Quay is the statue of Commodore John Barry – a native son of Loch Garman – whose contribution, in 1783,  in the fight for American independence included firing the American Navy’s last shot of the Revoltuion.