Consider this curious item of furniture, which belongs to the Geffrye Museum in London and appears at Turner Contemporary, Margate, as part of Curiosity: Art and the Pleasures of Knowing. The object in question, at once austere and elaborate, is a cabinet of intricately carved ebony that stands on eight slender legs and opens to reveal a prismatic array of interior drawers and doors, rendered in fruitwood and ivory. The thing is said to have been made by the renowned Dutch craftsman Pierre Golle, though we cannot be sure. What's certain is that it was bought in Paris in 1652 by Mary Evelyn: wife of the polymath John Evelyn, who used it to store prints and small items. The empty cabinet is a reminder of the capaciousness of Evelyn's intellect and imagination: by the time he died in 1706, he had completed not only half a million pages of his celebrated diary, but treatises on medicine, mathematics, air pollution and the cultivation of trees. He had even written a discourse on salads.
According to the jargon of his age, Evelyn was a curioso: one of those learned individuals whose acquisition of knowledge and things was marked as much by untamed variety as depth or precision of inquiry. And his cabinet is an emblem of curiosity itself, a modestly scaled descendant of the wunderkammer, or cabinet of wonder, that the Renaissance had invented to house its discoveries, natural and artificial. The great cabinets of curiosities, such as those that belonged to Ole Worm and Athanasius Kircher, were in fact whole rooms, precursors of the modern museum, in which objects drawn from far-flung places and times, from all disciplines and art forms, might inhabit the same physical and mental space: animal specimens, minerals, crystals, fossils, ethnographic objects, works of art and mathematical or scientific instruments. Evelyn's sober cabinet is the microcosm of a microcosm – infinite riches in a little room.
The historical cabinet of curiosities is one inspiration for Cabinet magazine: a quarterly of art and culture, founded in New York in 2000, for which I've worked as UK editor for the past 10 years. When I first came across Cabinet I was mystified by its mix of artists' projects and seemingly scholarly writings on topics such as the meanings of orange as a colour, the names paint manufacturers give to their products, and the industrial ruin of Hashima Island, near Nagasaki. It was partly to figure out just what Cabinet was meant to be that I took it home and wrote straight away to the editor, Sina Najafi. I learned later that he'd had in mind Documents – Georges Bataille's surrealist journal of the late 1920s – as well as great essayists such as Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes, but also a touch of Mad magazine in its prime. Above all, Cabinet was committed to curiosity, and to its serious and playful expression across the arts and sciences.
The magazine has published special issues on a wild variety of themes, including laughter, hair, ruins, electricity, dust, friendship, bubbles and learning itself. But when I was invited to conceive and curate an exhibition based on Cabinet's sensibility, it was clear it had to be about the fundamental, animating principle: curiosity. It would have to mix old and new, historical artefacts and the work of contemporary artists, and it would have to be as much about mundane curiosity, wonders discovered amid the everyday, as about modern equivalents of the oddities that stocked the early-modern cabinets. That is how we have arrived at a show that includes works as historically diverse as Leonardo da Vinci's drawing A Cloudburst of Material Possessions and Nina Katchadourian's photographs made on long-haul flights with her camera phone and whatever materials come to hand.
Among the obsolete meanings of "curiosity" is an excessive care for small things or details. It's a charge that was levelled at the virtuosi of the 17th century, not least Robert Hooke, whose Micrographia of 1665, with its fold-out engraving of a close-up flea, is in the exhibition. (Hooke didn't only train his microscope on minute naturalia: there's a passage in his book where he looks at full stops, and finds they resemble "smutty daubings on a matt or uneven floor".) Among the contemporary artists in Curiosity, Susan Hiller presents Split Hairs: The Art of Alfie West, her vitrined collection of tiny artworks by West, who in the 1970s earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records for having split a human hair lengthwise 17 times. At the furthest extreme of scale, Katie Paterson's History of Darkness collects images of the night sky, all void and black, from observatories around the world.
Curiosity involves very close looking, but also intricate manufacture. In the late 19th century, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, a father and son based in Dresden, made countless glass models of aquatic creatures for museums of natural history in Europe and beyond. Working at first from images by Ernst Haeckel and Philip Henry Gosse (whose illustrations are also in the show), and then from live examples in a large aquarium, the Blaschkas produced simulacra of such astonishing vividness and detail that they are still frequently displayed without comment, as if they are the real thing. The Blaschkas in no way thought themselves artists, but their models – jewel-like or glaucous, spiny or tentacular, made with purely scientific intent – are also part of a monstrous aquatic imaginary, pursued by later works in the show: Jean Painlevé's underwater films (Bataille put these in Documents in 1929) and Aurélien Froment's recent film of a billowing jellyfish that resists zoological categories.
The exhibition has a strong natural-historical strain. Dotted around at Turner Contemporary are hybrid taxidermal inventions by Thomas Grünfeld: a sheep-and-st-bernard cross, a penguin that tapers to an iridescent peacock's head. But historical taxidermy has already supplied an instructively bizarre specimen: the overstuffed walrus from the Horniman Museum in south London, a creature with the sculptural presence (and the weight, it turns out) of a Henry Moore bronze. The animal was shot by the Canadian zoologist and hunter JH Hubbard and exhibited in Kensington in 1886; its trip to Margate will be its first outing since the Horniman bought it in 1893. Like many specimens of that era, its folds were filled by insufficiently informed taxidermists, so that it swells fit to burst with evidence of curiosity and its limits.
The walrus, of course, reminds us of Alice: "Curiouser and curiouser". Fiction, fantasy and innocence have long been associated with curiosity and curiosities, and we wanted the exhibition to reflect this. The Irish artist Gerard Byrne has for more than 10 years been working on a formally varied project about Loch Ness, whose apocryphal tenant he takes to be an emanation of the twin histories of photography and research. In Byrne's own photographs and footage, the shores of the Loch seem to produce an absurd commentary on Nessie, that very modern monster, and on the odd affinities between enthusiasts of the creature and contemporary artists with their archival urges.
The original cabinets of curiosities were as much private chambers in which the world might be invented anew as repositories for definitive objects. The most resonant example is probably a collection that belonged to another renegade surrealist. Over several decades, the writer Roger Caillois amassed a collection of stones – among them agates, alabaster, quartz and jasper – in which he spied faces, phantoms, landscapes and ravishing abstractions. At the same time, as Marina Warner put it in an essay on Caillois for Cabinet in 2008, he exulted in "their inscrutability and their lack of affect, their silence, their sheer stoniness".
Warner has been an essential adviser for this exhibition. In an essay for the catalogue, she points out that despite the reality and the fantasy of the avid male curioso and collector, curiosity itself has long been considered a female vice: the besetting sin of tattletales, gossips and domestic spies. There's an example of the last in the show: the listening servant in Nicolaes Maes's 1655 painting An Eavesdropper with a Woman Scolding, which suggests that the whole ordered space of the Dutch interior is a machine for scrutinising the secret lives of others.
After scale, natural science, fiction and disreputable prying, a malign secrecy is the final major theme in Curiosity. Its oddest expression comes courtesy of the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI), a research organisation based in Los Angeles. In 2011, the centre was bequeathed a collection of ephemera from the US nuclear-weapons facility at Los Alamos. The artefacts had belonged to one Ed Grothus, a former technician at the lab who had grown disillusioned with his place in the military-industrial complex and left to become an anti-nuclear campaigner. Invited to take part in Curiosity, CLUI has lent seven Rolodexes containing the business cards of contractors hired by Los Alamos: mundane functionaries at the secret heart of the Cold War.
Last year Cabinet published, a little late, a 500-page anthology of its first 10 years, entitled Curiosity and Method. The magazine remains committed to heftily actual objects in the material world, as well as talks and exhibitions at its Brooklyn gallery space – and now for a time on the English seaside. This in an era when our inquisitiveness has migrated online, or we are so distracted by our technologies that we no longer know how to know the world. The truth, of course, is vastly more complex: the cabinet of curiosities was always already a web of immaterial hunches and links and allusions as well as a real space full of real things. And like the internet, it was partly to be distrusted and partly to be marvelled at for the profusion of things that might be known, and the responsibility it placed on the curioso to judge as well as to wonder.
• This article was amended on 21 May 2013. The original sub-heading wrongly referred to Da Vinci rather than Leonardo, in contravention of the Guardian Style guide. This has been corrected.


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Posts Tagged With: Wild Atlantic Way
An Ancient Coast and 5,000 years of Irish history. Maghery in Beautiful Donegal.
Posted on October 11, 2018 by singersong
One of the things I love about touring in Ireland is that you find so much to enjoy in the most unheralded and remote corner of of the country. You don't need to join the throngs of visitors kissing stones, ticking boxes and visiting interpretive centres to enjoy the 'real' Ireland.
Take the village of Maghery in the the area know as The Rosses near Dungloe in west Donegal.
What drew me there was a sunny Donegal Saturdayin late autumn and a vague knowledge of some sea arches at nearby Crohy Point, a spot favoured by photographers.
Clohy Sea Arches
But I found far more.
Yes there was the Bristi Stack and the Clohy Sea Arches. Unique land forms such as these are found dotted up and down the Irish coastline. It was easy enough to find the location along a scary single lane cliff road. And I mean scary; you have no choice but to rely on the other driver to be doing the right thing.
The Clohy Sea Arches are marked on GoogleMaps but not on the ground. Clearly they don't want people stopping. There is space for two cars to park on the verge and you can't actually see the rock formations from the road. Feeling that sense of welcome provided by a locked farm gate you climb it and follow a track that leads toward the coast and down the hill where you get your first look at the unusual triangular arch.
Panoramic view of Clohy Sea Arches
The Bristi Sea Stack
Nestled in a small bay it is accompanied by a number of pinnacles which are the remains of similar collapsed arches. There is another quite different arch attached to the mainland at the other end of the bay where the rocks are dragged into near vertical by a fault which has since eroded out.
Natural bridge formed by erosion of fault fill material
The Bristi stack was first climbed by professional sea stack climber Iain Miller in 2011. If you are contemplating it you need ropes, a dinghy to get there, amazing skill and a whole lot of heart. Not for me but have a look at this video on climbing Bristi Sea Stack
That's Iain Miller stands on Bristi Sea Stack. Unknown photographer. Unknown date
For more sedate pleasures I drove back to the village. Past the 1804 Signal Tower, like many others that dot dozens of remote headlands and islands along the west coast of Ireland. Built to give warning of an impending invasion by Napoleon. This one looks to be in excellent condition. I wasn't up to the hill walk to get there this day. Thanks be to long lenses.
View in the vicinity of Maghery. Napoleonic signal tower.
Napoleonic signal tower
The village itself lies adjacent to a beautiful wide sandy strand. This Saturday it was empty except for the local equestrian group practicing their show jumping in this idyllic location. Happy horses indeed.
Maghery nestled in the bay
Practicing show jumping on the beach at Maghery
Hand painted signs on slate placed by the roadside led me to other points of interest. There is an impressive stone circle just north of the village. Again you are left to your own devices; there is no marker on the ground and no directions as to how to get there. Twenty metres in diameter and a bit overgrown but some diligent searching found this 4-5,000 year old monument. These circles are very rare in west Donegal, I believe.
Termon Stone Circle
From here you get a sense of that Donegal wildness as you look to the north east across Dungloe Bay towards Mt Errigal 23 km away on the horizon.
View across Dungloe Bay to Mt Errigal
Nearby is Termon House built in late 18th century and once owned by the local clergy sits on its own glorious beach. It is available as a luxury holiday rental.
Adjacent to the house are some impressive walls built as work relief for those affected by the famine of 1847. Hence 'Famine Walls'. Apparently the government refused to support the then landowner who ended up footing the £1,500 cost of paying his labourers 1d a day to build the wall. Beautifully constructed though they remain standing 170 years later.
The afternoon was closing in and I could hear the ringing sounds of twenty fiddles filling my head with mazurkas and schottisches so it was time to return to Glenties. I was well satisfied with this little village that delivered a slice of Donegal's wild coastal scenery and its human history of over 5,000 years.
Categories: Real Ireland, Wild Ireland	| Tags: bay, beach, Bristi, Clohy, coast, coastline, Donegal, equestrian, Famine, famine walls, history, horses, Ireland, Maghery, Napoleon, photography, sea, sea arches, Sea stack, showjumping, signal tower, stone circle, Termon, Termon House, Termon stone circle, The Rosses, travel, wild, Wild Atlantic Way	| Leave a comment
Categories: My Journey, Wild Ireland	| Tags: Cú Chulainn, Cú Chulainn's Leap, Clare, Cliffs, coast, Cuchulain, Hag's Head, Ireland, lighthouse, Loop Head, Mal, Munster, photography, Sampson Island, Sampson's Island, travel, viewing platform, views, West Clare, Wild Atlantic Way	| 2 Comments
Mutton Island. A Clare Treasure.
This is my longest blog to date. It is also one I have had the most pleasure writing. It is about a special place. Never visited by tourists and only by a handful of locals. A place where little vignettes of a vanished Ireland can be glimpsed, where nature has done its wonderful work and where you can find peace in solitude. I hope you find the time to read it and that I can give you a little of this feeling in these words and pictures.
I live on the edge. Of Ireland, that is.
Every morning I pull the curtains and look out my window across Caherush bay. The first thing I see is Mutton Island. It's the image that begins every day. Sometimes the cloud or mist or the spray from wild waves hides it and sometimes it is like a green jewel floating on a blue calm. I've seen it covered in snow and I've seen it bathed in the glow of a West Clare sunset. But in four years I'd never been there.
Sunset over Mutton Island viewed from Seafield Beach at Quilty.
Mutton Island during the 'Beast from the East' in March 2018. Covered in thick snow.
The island of 185 acres is shrouded in myth and mystery. It's inaccessibility gives these stories weight.
There is no obvious way to get there for those of us who don't own a boat or a kayak, but I decided one July Tuesday in the midst of an extraordinary spell of hot, fine weather to try and get there.
My inquiries led me to Anthony Murrihy, a Quilty fisherman, and so 10am Wednesday saw me waiting at the Seafield Pier to be ferried across. Well, after two weeks of blue skies, this morning arrived with low cloud covering Quilty and the island. Mmmm. That's Ireland. Still there was no rain and it was just a bit cooler than it had been which in the end I was grateful for.
As the little red boat pulled away from the Quilty shore, it somehow seemed appropriate that the island should be shrouded in mist. Why would it give up its secrets so easily?
Anthony Murrihy, Quilty fisherman. Leaving Seafield Pier.
In my travels around Ireland, I've visited many islands: Tory, Inis Oir, Inis Mor, Cape Clear, Sherkin, Valentia, Achill, Aranmore, Dursey, Scattery, Skellig Michael, Garinish. Most are 'tourist' experiences. Ferry terminals, interpretive centres, maps and paths, signs with arrows and glossy brochures. All were wonderful experiences of course, but nothing is like Mutton Island.
So it was just me, Anthony and a little red dinghy heading across the flat Atlantic. There is no actual landing point on the island and as Anthony tried to hold the boat against a rock with a gaff (made from a paint roller, a broom handle and some duck tape), I gingerly stepped ashore clinging to my camera bag and my egg mayo sandwich.
The landing spot. I had to step ashore off the boat onto that rock……
Then it was just me. Anthony and the little red dinghy disappeared back to the inhabited part of Ireland.
It was the strangest feeling watching the tiny speck disappear into the distance. I just stood there for some time, quite dumbstruck. I really can't describe it. A sense of excitement, of respectful awe, and at the same time a creeping solitude. It is so rare to actually be alone and isolated in this 'civilised' world. But here I was the only human being on this little slice of the planet. At least for the next few hours.
The island is elongate east-west fattening to the west. The boat dropped me near the eastern end so it seemed logical to start there and circumnavigate the island. This was my kind of exploration. It reminded me of my early days of geology fieldwork. No preconceptions, only a vague idea what I would find and no guide book to follow. I think now that's what attracted me originally to exploration geology. Here was an empty, abandoned world. Everything you see is a surprise, no paved path to follow, no interpretive centres or explanatory signs. Just raw nature, landscape, geology, wildlife and archaeology and only your eyes and feet to unravel it.
My first surprise was that it wasn't the quiet idyll I expected. Because I wasn't truly alone. The screeching and squawking of gulls and the persistent piping of oyster catchers was overpowering at times. They were telling me in no uncertain way that I was an intruder. Why would they welcome me? This was their world. One gull took a particular exception to me. I was repeatedly dive bombed. Heading straight for my head and only pulling on the joy stick at the last minute to clear me by inches. This was only a taster though. A more Hitchcock-like experience awaited me on the other side of the island.
Being dive bombed by a gull.
It only took a few strides from the rocky beach though until I realised this was a much more varied landscape than I had imagined. The rolling green slopes that you see from the mainland were there, yes, but hidden from view there were rugged cliffs. Sheer drops and a deeply incised coastline, caves, sea arches, channels and stacks revealing a wildness that was breathtaking.
The beautiful incised coast at the north eastern end of the island.
A natural arch on the northern coast
The sculpted coast exposed at low tide.
Caves and Arches I. High tide
Caves and Arches II. Low tide.
The rocks are all sandstones and shales, as on the mainland, faulted and folded by a disruptive tectonic event nearly 300 million years ago. This alternation of soft and hard layering and extensive faulting has provided many opportunities for selective erosion creating these awesome geological features.
This cave is formed at a fault boundary where soft shale is in contact with hard sandstone
A cave in the early stage of development. Erosion is taking place along a fault and under a sandstone cap. Come back in a few hundred years and this will be a cave.
Sometimes the roof collapses forming what are known as stacks. There is particularly impressive roof collapse which has formed a cave (known as Poul Tabach, a reference to the contraband dealings that went on there), It has created a giant sink hole with two entrances one open to the sea.
A collapsed cave and arch. Poul Tabach. Walled off by the early settlers to stop livestock disappearing down the hole. Said to have been used by smugglers.
On the western side of the island there are many similar caves and arches. I found a number of natural bridges across steep narrow chasms right at the north western tip – in one case a double bridge, something I had never seen before.
Arches and bridges over a steep natural chasm. The bridge in the middle distance is actually a double arch.
As I walked west the sky became thick with those gulls again. I was approaching their breeding grounds. I felt a bit like a cross between David Attenborough and an extra in The Birds, as I skirted around the edge trying as much as possible not to disturb them but at the same time wanting to observe close up this rare experience.
Gull colony with the cliffs of the north west tip of the island in the distance.
Gulls take to the air over the Napoleonic Tower
To my untrained eye there seemed to be two species of gull sharing the same nesting sites. I later identified them as Herring Gulls and Lesser Black-backed Gulls.
Herring Gulls and their chicks
A Lesser Black-backed Gull in flight
An oyster catcher
There were two distinct colonies with thousands in each. One was on exposed rocks with nests on little remnant vegetated patches or just on the bare rock and the other, some distance away with extensive burrows in a field. The dowdy chicks still unable to fly and with their distinctive grey, brown and cream down, scampered across the rocks or hid in their burrows abandoned momentarily by their parents to try and distract me. The more confident ones standing on the cliff edge dreaming of the day they would fly.
Gull eggs. Here they are in a nest but often they are laid on the bare rock.
Two Herring Gull chicks. Ready for their first flight?
Herring gull chick taking refuge in a burrow
I was endlessly fascinated watching this seething mass but there was more to see. Not far away was the tell tale silhouette of a Napoleonic signal tower, so I headed there.
Bearing a superficial resemblance to a Tower House, many call these structures 'castles'. They are not. They are a part of a network of towers built between 1804 and 1806 as a response to the threat of invasion by the French. There were around 80 towers built along the west and south coast from Malin Head all the way to Dublin. Each cost £3,000 to build.
The idea was that they were within sight of each other (theoretically! Irish weather not withstanding) and in this way a message could be transmitted using flags and black balls on a tall wooden mast. Following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the towers fell into disuse. Though solidly constructed many are now crumbling ruins. This one though has many typical architectural features preserved and seems to have been one of the better built ones.
Sea cliffs with caves and bridges and the Napoleonic Tower
The western coast of the Island
It is a handsome building with solid mortared stone walls built of local shale and sandstone but with window surrounds of cut and dressed limestone. Other highlights such as the fire places, the elegant window surrounds and the observation platform buttresses were also of this limestone. Some features were also constructed of red brick. The walls were rendered in a cement with a lot of shell grit The walls were covered inside and out with a mortar of the same material, though only a little remains. The external walls were covered with overlapping slate tiles of which only those on the north-east wall have partially survived. The limestone, bricks and mortar would have been imported to the island. Internally you can see remnants of timber lintels and floor joists. Again presumably imported onto the island. There are many names and dates scratched into the mortar with elegant script and though largely illegible now, most seem to date from the 1800s.
Napoleonic Watch Tower
Red bricks and limestone block were used for some parts
Mortar with shell grit
Fireplace on the Ground Floor
Remains of the timber joists for the first floor
Names carved into the mortar
More graffiti
Elegant limestone detail on the window surrounds
The building was faced with overlapping slate tiles. They have only survived on the protected face.
The whole is surrounded by a very solid wall in similar style to the tower and a stone out building. It is perched on the top of a cliff on the highest point on the island and in sight of the Hag's Head tower to the north and Loop Head (tower now gone) to the south.
Entrance gate and wall surrounding the tower.
These towers are a reminder of the fear that would have engulfed Britain and its colonies at the time and the incredible effort that nations would go to to protect their borders. It is truly remarkable to think that 80 of these towers were built in a two year period in some of the remotest places you could imagine.
My day was rapidly coming to an end. To get back to the pick up point I had to cross a wide expanse of meadow and in places, bog. But first I headed out to the headland at the southern end of the island. Something drew me there. I think it was the cormorants at the point but on the way I pondered a rubbly ridge of stone on the landward side of the headland. Later I discovered this is believed to be the site of an ancient Promontory Fort possibly Bronze Age. You can clearly see this rocky ridge on the google image.
Rocky rubble possibly representing the wall of a promontory fort at the southern tip of the island
Google image of the promontory fort You can see the break where the rubble in the photo above is.
No one really knows what these were used for. But they may have been some sort of lookout. This would suggested habitation before the time of Christianity. St Senan was said to have built a monastery here before going to Scattery. So we are confident it was lived on in the 7th century. Records suggest four monks had an oratory here. It is common for oratories to have a circular wall and there is such a wall at the eastern side of the island. Was this the site of the oratory, long since gone?
Google image showing part of a circular wall which may have been the site of St Senan's oratory. The hole to the north of this is Poul Tabach.
The circular wall and much later ruined cottages.
It would seem the island is getting smaller as Samuel Lewis in his 1837 book on Clare gives it an area of 210 acres, down now to 185 acres. Historically however it may have been much, much bigger. The island is referred to in The Annals of the Four Masters, (a compilation of Irish history up to 1616) as Fitha Island which included the now separate islands of Mutton Island, Inismattle and Roanshee. This source states that Fitha was connected to the mainland until in 804AD "the sea swelled so high that it burst its boundaries, overflowing a large tract of country and drowning over 1,000 persons." This is now presumed to have been a tidal wave and it is speculated that it may have been responsible for separating the islands from the mainland. Geologically, this would be pretty unlikely if the connection was of sandstones and shales, however it is plausible, given the extensive glacial deposits still on the island, that if these unconsolidated sediments were the connection with the mainland, then such an event may well have removed some of these deposits. As storm events today still do.
In fact the water between Mutton island and Quilty is very shallow. Anthony, my ferryman, told me that they used to walk cattle across on very low Spring tides. As we returned on the boat he showed me the 'road' that lies at the ocean bottom visible in the clear water just couple of metres below. In these very low tides water will reach your knees suitable for cattle. A couple of days later I visited the Seafield shore to see whether I could find it. Sure enough there is a ramp of sorts visible at low tide and in the photo below you can see the trace of the submerged roadway, highlighted in the evening light. It turns out it is in fact clearly visible also on the google satellite image.
View from Quilty to Mutton Island. The ramp to the left is the start of the 'roadway' and you can see its trace continuing to the eastern end of the island. You can also see it in the first photo of this blog.
A google image showing the shadow of the roadway at the eastern end.
The island would have had many stories to tell. A ship, the Sao Marcos, from the Spanish Armada, is said to have run aground in 1588 with sailors buried on the island, and it was used extensively by smugglers in later years who took advantage of its many caves. During the days of the Sinn Fein courts, which operated outside the British justice system, it was used as a detention camp.
Further evidence of habitation is in the ruins of some cottages on the south eastern side of the island. It is believed that up to a dozen families lived here in the 19th century, the population peaking in the 1920s. They fished, harvested seaweed, grew potatoes and vegetables, and as the island's name suggests kept livestock. 'Mutton Island' is said to derive from the quality of the meat, flavored by the lush grasses and herbs that the sheep dined on.
Ruins of the village on the island. A home now for the starlings
People lived on the island seasonally until late in the 20th century. One resident led a hermit-like existence there until the mid 50s, living summer and winter for four years. Quite remarkable when you think about it.
As I walked around I saw signs of more recent human activity however. Some fencing. Lobster pots, the remains of a motor vehicle? I had heard a report that one of the residents of the island had built a raft and freighted a Ford Anglia to the island. Was this it?
Recent fencing
An abandoned lobser pot
Is the the wreck of the Ford Anglia?
Is this the the wreck of the Ford Anglia?
Mutton island is an island of mystery. I have talked about the archaeological heritage but what about this? I found yhis unique figure in the thick grass around the Napoleonic Tower. Made from the red bricks used in the tower construction. Is it the oldest example of an iconographic emoticon? Predating the digital age by two centuries?
Archaeological heritage? An early emoji.
And then there's this. A crop circle?
A crop circle?
There is a wide variety of vegetation. No trees. That's a given, but grasslands, bogland and in places thick growth of thistles and cow parsley that comes up to your chest. Not easy to walk through especially given the hidden rabbit holes!
Fields thick with cow parsley.
Bog cotton
For now the island is populated by rabbits, rats, seals and reportedly goats (though I didn't see any, so that population may have died out). Doesn't sound appealing but all the land mammals were introduced from the mainland and are happy in this people-less place. Even less appealing perhaps were the colonies of midges. But, you know, they weren't interested in me in the least. They were quite happy to dine out on the sweet nectar of the cow parlsey flower.
Midges on a cow parlsey flower head. That's a normal fly for scale.
The island is privately owned and changed hands many times of late. At one time it was owned by the DuPont corporation who thought that it would make a perfect terminal for shipping the oil that was discovered west of Aran Islands. Luckily that plan fell through! An American bought it then and he had grand plans but couldn't get permission for a pier.
It is a bird sanctuary now and this gives it protection, to some degree, from such avaricious planning decisions, so hopefully it will be there to be enjoyed by those willing to take the trouble and time to get there and who respect its cultural value to Ireland.
This is as it should be.
Around 5 pm Anthony returned in that little red boat, this time finding a shallow beach to pick me up. Reluctantly I re boarded, but the memory of that special place will be permanently etched. Images that will return every time I pull the curtains of my bedroom window to let in the morning light and stare across at that proud rock.
The ferryman returns to collect me
An excellent four part radio series about Mutton Island was made by Raidió Corca Baisicinn in 2016 It's worth listening to. You can find it at http://rcb.ie/mutton-island/
Categories: My Journey, Real Ireland, Wild Ireland	| Tags: archaeology, Atlantic, balck-backed gull, bird colony, black backed gull, breeding colony, breeding site, cave, Clare, Herring gull, Ireland, island, midges, Mutton Island, Napoleonic, promontory fort, Quilty, ruin, sea arches, sea bridge, sea cave, Seafield, stack, WatchTower, Wild Atlantic Way	| 1 Comment
Oysters and Trad Music. And sunshine. Sound like Ireland?
Posted on May 8, 2018 by singersong
May Day weekend in Ireland is one of the busiest music weekends of the year. There is too much choice and if you live in the west you probably think of going to the Cuckoo Fleadh at Kinvara or the festival at Louisburgh. I am sure the Carrigaholt Oyster and Traditional Weekend does not come into your consideration. Well it should.
To be honest I didn't even know it existed until I prepared the listing of Festivals, which you can find elsewhere on this blog (A Feast of Festivals) but I decided to eschew the larger festivals and the jam packed sessions and head south to this tiny village.
Carrigaholt is not a name that immediately springs to mind and, in fact, I suspect that many, even Clare, people only have a vague notion of where it is, tucked away in the very south west of the county. Many visitors come to nearby Loop Head but most, indeed including myself, seem to miss Carrigaholt.
I was attracted by the mention of oysters among other things. Just love fresh oysters. Sunday arrived with a clear blue sky and a positively balmy 15 degrees so guess where I went.
Carrigaholt is located on the shores of the Shannon Estuary but is a struggling village, like many in the west of Ireland. Population of the village itself is down to 40 and I am told that of that there are only two children. There are four pubs, a small shop inside one of them, a restaurant with brilliant food and a gift shop. But not much else. Oh, and there is Carrigaholt Castle, one of the most elegant tower houses in Clare, which sits on the water's edge, and a stunning coastal drive towards Kilbaha with some beautifully exposed geology as well.
The imposing entrance gate to the Carrigaholt Castle
Another view of Carrigaholt Castle ruin. One of the most beautiful in Clare.
West of Carrigaholt on the Coast Road. Pink Thrift in the foreground and Loop Head in the distance.
Gently folded strata. Looking across to Loop Head
Stunning scenery on the Coast Road from Carrigaholt
Yet for this weekend the streets were jammed and the pubs crowded. Little local festivals like this are the heartbeat of the traditional scene and mean so much to these isolated villages and I love them. I found myself as possibly the only person in town who had traveled there specifically and who didn't have some connection to the village. Most were either locals, former residents or family visitors. But I was welcomed fulsomely; like joining a family party as the long lost cousin from Australia.
The weather helped of course. Everything was out on the street. An early so-called Junior Session was the first event of the day. 'Junior' is the wrong word. The session was led by members of the Maguire family from Wicklow and the music was anything but kid's stuff. I was stopped in my tracks by Aiofe Maguire doing a concertina solo that showed a truly phenomenal mastery of the instrument. Playing with her were sister Emma on fiddle and Sean, still only 11, wowing all with his fiery bodhran playing. I had another chance to see them later in the day at the Long Dock.
The 'Junior Session'. Some were more interested in other things
Aoife and Sean Maguire on the street at Carrigaholt
The Maguires perform in front of the Long Dock
The Maguires
Robbie Walsh with Emma Maguire
The afternoon and evening was filled with sessions at all four pubs. Mainly local musicians from the district, including members of another talented family from west Clare, the Brownes, with some sensational sean nos dancing in the street from Colm Browne.
In my element. Thanks Pat Keating for the photo.
Sean nos dancing on the street from Colm Browne
Colm Browne with grandfather Tommy Browne. A musical dynasty continues
I watched a bodhran workshop on the street led by the renowned Robbie Walsh and his Bodhran Buzz. I had to fight mightily the temptation to grab one and have a go but I resisted.
Joining in the Bodhran Buzz
Wherever you can find a seat
And later I joined Clare musicians Geraldine and Eamonn Cotter and their extended family for a marvelous couple of hours of tunes and songs.
The Cotter family plus
Everyone was clearly enjoying themselves in their own way but for some ice cream was the order of the day.
Totally absorbed. A family day out.
I scream and you scream.
Let out of the Convent for the day or a very Irish Hen's Party? Your call.
Paparazzi. Can't escape.
The party continued at Keane's Pub well into the night but after 9 hours of playing I made a quiet exit and left them to it.
Oh and by the way I got my free plate of delicious local oysters!
Fiddling with oysters
Categories: Festivals, My Journey, Real Ireland	| Tags: Bodhran Buzz, Carrigaholt, Carrigaholt Castle, Carrigaholt Oyster and Traditional Weekend, Clare, Festival, Geraldine Cotter, Ireland, Irish music, landscape, Long Dock, Loop Head, Maguire, Maguires, music, oysters, people, photography, Robbie Walsh, Sessions, sun, Tommy Browne, traditional music, travel, West Clare, Wild Atlantic Way	| 3 Comments
Quilty. On the Edge of Ireland.
I've lived in West Clare for over three years now. My local village is Quilty. It occurred to me the other day that I have travelled all over Ireland discovering beauty in places known and unknown but I have never photographed this tiny fishing village in my back yard.
So the other day on a fine day in early November I went for a walk around Quilty. Quilty truly is on the edge of Ireland and inextricably linked with the sea. Quaint fisherman's cottages perched on the cliff above what can be a very stormy Atlantic. And the Our Lady Star of the Sea Church and its imposing tower is a constant reminder of the heroic rescue of the crew of the Leon XIII in 1907. The stuff of legends.
Here is a collection of images taken that day. It doesn't need my words so I will let this photo essay speak for itself.
Categories: My Journey, Real Ireland	| Tags: Atlantic Ocean, Clare, cliff, cottage, fishermen, Ireland, Leon XII, Mutton Island, ocean, Our Lady Star of the Sea, photography, Quilty, rescue, views, West Clare, Wild Atlantic Way	| 2 Comments
The Flaggy Shore and Aughinish. Make the time.
Just a short distance off the N67 which tracks the northern coast of Clare as part of the Wild Atlantic Way is the Flaggy Shore. This is the perfect spot to see the Burren meet the Bay, in this case Galway Bay. A sweeping stony shoreline with a backdrop of the bare purple hills and the lush green fields beneath.
Look north across the bay, now calm and peaceful and you see the villages of Galway clinging to the coast and beyond this the misty silhouette of Connemara and the Twelve Pins.
Cliffs of Aughinish in the foreground and the Twelve Pins on the horizon
The place has a permanent spot in Ireland's psyche thanks to one of Seamus Heaney's most celebrated poems, Postscript.
And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other ……
Heaney in describing how the poem came to him said: "I had this quick sidelong glimpse of something flying past; before I knew where I was, I went after it".
He has said it beautifully of course so I won't try and improve on those words. All I can do is attempt to give that feeling in pictures…
There is no beach, as such, at Flaggy Shore. Just boulders, pebbles and rocky outcrops. But a walk on the strand will well reward. You can stroll along the roadway or explore the limestone platform in the littoral zone.
This is the best place in the whole of Clare to observe the coral fossils that make up such a large part of the 350 million year old layers. Huge colonies of branching corals (fasciculate lithostrotionids) are sliced at various angles revealing themselves from all perspectives. Their true branching form can be seen often in section on the rock face. Sometimes the colonies seem completely intact and measure over a metre across. If you have been to the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland it is easy to imagine the warm shallow sea that was once home to these corals and the teeming life that surrounded them.
Planar sectional view through a coral colony
Large fossil coral colonies on the rock platform
Excellent view of coral colony showing branching and dendritic form. About a metre across.
If you look hard you will see long straight grooves etched into the rock. These are called striations and are caused by the movement of a glacier which smoothed this landscape around 10,000 years ago. Rocks trapped in the ice were dragged along the bottom scouring these cracks. We are able to measure the direction of movement of the ice sheet using this evidence.
Glacial striations on the rock platform at Flaggy Shore
If you like watching sea birds, you are in the right place. As well as gulls, this time of the year starlings gather in flocks and search for food on the sea shore. These murmurations can number thousands of birds and when performing their acrobatic gyrations they make one of the truly spectacular sights in nature. They swoop and soar and flit and glide in perfect concert. It's only when you freeze this motion with the camera that you see how perfectly aligned is the movement of each individual bird. I could watch them for hours.
Starlings I
Starlings II
Eyes left
Eyes right
Aughinish Island, just a few hundred metres across the calm water, is comprised of glacial deposits left behind by the retreating ice as the continent warmed. The Island was originally part of the mainland but a devastating tsunami caused by an earthquake in Portugal in 1755 separated it. The British built a causeway in 1811 to service the troops manning the Martello Tower (built to protect Ireland from Napoleon). It is still the only access to the Island. The one lane causeway actually connects Aughinsh to County Galway which paradoxically means the fifty residents on the island and the occasional vistor who stumbles on this place must travel through Galway to get access to this part of Clare.
The causeway built to access Auginish
Peace I
Peace II
Peace III
For the 'tourist' looking for a quick fix there is not much to take you to Aughinish. But it is a place to walk and breathe. Where the quiet ambience is tangible. It has a feeling of calm so unusual for the Atlantic Coast. You will be unlikely to meet anyone except a farmer attending to his boggy field or another collecting seaweed blown in by Hurricane Ophelia. But you will get stunning views across the inlet and if you are lucky enough to see the sun disappear behind Black Head you may not want to leave.
Looking across the inlet from Aughinish to the village of Ballyvelaghan
A Martello Tower built in 1811 to defend the Irish coast from the French.
Lengthening shadows
Evening serenity I
Evening serenity II
The shoreline on Aughinish. The softest most comfortable grass you will ever find.
Vivid red growth on the tidal flats
The high tide mark left by Hurricane Ophelia which exploded the previous day.
Collecting seaweed
Life on Aughinish
As usual I will let my camera have the last word.
Categories: My Journey, Real Ireland, Wild Ireland	| Tags: Aughinish, boulders, Burren, calm, Carboniferous, causeway, Clare, coast, colony, coral, evening, Flaggy Shore, fossils, Galway, glacier, Ireland, light, Martello, peace, photography, scenic, serenity, shadows, shoreline, striations, sun, sunset, tourist, travel, view, views, Wild Atlantic Way	| Leave a comment
The Beach at Allihies, Co. Cork. A Beautiful Legacy of Ignorance and Indifference.
Allihies is a very photogenic village near the tip of the Beara Peninsula. I have blogged on it before (click here). There I gave an overview of the whole Beara Peninsula as well as highlighting the extensive history of copper mining in the area, but I didn't mention the pretty beach near Allihies, which I didn't visit last time.
The beach at Allihies
Back in the Beara recently, I had a bit more time and found myself on the strand during a break in the bleak weather. This beautiful place has a very interesting back story and an unexpected connection to the mining operations located high up in the hills above the village.
The beach is a surprise. It seems like it shouldn't be there. The whole coastline here is rugged and rocky and apparently too wild for sand to accumulate. And yet there it is, an extensive thick accumulation of golden sand in a protected inlet.
The inlet at Ballydonegan with the Allihies Beach, the village in the background and the Caha Mountains
A glorious setting and safe.
Sand, water, rocks and sky
A close look however shows all is not what it seems.
The sand is very coarse. It is also very uniform in size and it only comprises fragments of quartz and shale. There are no organic bits or shell fragments as you would expect. In fact is unlike any beach sand I have seen. There are no dunes; just a thick deposit of banded unconsolidated coarse sand. And due to the lack of fines, it is not compacted as might be expected. It is very hard to walk on and especially hard to climb its slopes.
Coarse sand. Lots of quartz and rock fragments
Thick banded sand.
So where did it come from?
This is where the mining comes in. Copper mining took place at Allihies for over 70 years starting in 1813. In its day it was the largest copper production centre in Europe. Allihies was remote and there were no environmental or safety controls and the Mine Captains pretty much did what they liked. So rather than build an expensive dam to contain the tailings they were pumped into the local rivers that eventually found their way to the coast at Ballydonegan. Standard practice then. Environmental vandalism today.
Tailings sand deposited among the rocks near the mouth of the river
The mouth of the river. Some unusual giant ripples.
So what are tailings? In hard rock mining the rock containing copper minerals is brought to the surface for processing. The total percentage of copper minerals may only be about 2-5% so over 95% of the rock mined must be disposed of. It is crushed and then the copper minerals are separated with the remainder of the rock disposed of. It was lucky that the processing this time didn't involve toxic chemicals so the tailings was reasonably clean. It accumulated at the mouth of the river and eventually the Atlantic Ocean converted it into a beach. The vast majority of visitors are probably totally unaware that it is man-made.
It is a pretty place. A great safe swimming beach and stunning views. It is ironic though that in the 21st century it is one of the attractions of the area whereas two centuries ago it would have been a major blight on the landscape and that a place of such beauty exists because of man's indifference and ignorance.
Tranquil and empty. Mid June.
Not quite empty. Holiday makers from the popular adjacent caravan park
Categories: My Journey, Real Ireland, Wild Ireland	| Tags: Allihies, Atlantic, Ballydonegan, beach, Beara Peninsula, copper, copper mining, Cork, history, Ireland, landscape, mining waste, photography, polution, scenery, scenic, tailings, travel, views, waste, West Cork, Wild Atlantic Way	| Leave a comment
The Vandeleur Walled Garden, Kilrush. Of Fragrance and Famine.
Posted on June 6, 2017 by singersong
The Vandeleur Walled Garden is located near Kilrush in the south western corner of Clare. I visited it in the middle of Spring when it was at its charming best. It is a formal garden space within high walls and is now a place of calm, peace and reflection. Especially reflection.
Historically it was the private garden of the Vandeleurs, who were the largest landowners in the area. It is completely surrounded by enormous stone walls and was located close to the family home, which was destroyed by fire in the 1890s and demolished in the 1970s and is now a car park. The rectangular design was oriented to catch maximum sun so today Mediterranean plants thrive.
The original garden design was simple and functional as it was mainly used for produce, fruit and supplies for the household. It also included a large greenhouse. All that is gone and the garden lay forgotten for decades. Restoration commenced in 1997 and it was opened in 2000. It has been redesigned as a recreational space with lawns, an horizontal maze, an hedge maze, plantings of exotics and an arboretum. It is a lovely space. There is a red theme throughout with furniture and installations matching some of the plantings.
Remnants of the supports for the roof of the greenhouse
Lawns and plantings cut by gravel paths
Mediterranean plants thrive.
Vigorous growth under the high walls
The Garden has a red theme
Red theme reflected in plantings.
But despite all this beauty as I stroll around my mind remained troubled.
Near the entrance is a small plaque. It says "Dedicated to the memory of the people evicted from the Estate of Landlord Hector Stewart Vandeleur. July August 1888". The effect is somewhat diminished though with the tag "Erected by the Kilrush Tidy Towns committee April 2010"
Memorial plaque near entrance to Garden
I suspect most people just walk by and give only a passing thought to this hint of the awful history that accompanies the family responsible for this garden. I wonder further how many people actually are aware of what happened in this place during the 1800s, as their children skip and play on the lawns and chase each other through the hedge maze or as they wander along gravel paths and admire the plantings from all over the world.
skip and play
Children take a short cut across the Horizontal Maze
There is no information provided so I too was in the dark. My interest piqued though I explored further a little later.
So who were the The Vandeleurs? Descended from Dutch merchants, they settled in county Clare at Sixmilebridge in the early 17th Century. In 1712 the Earl of Thomond leased the Kilrush estate to the family who eventually purchased it in 1749, The lands amounted to almost 20,000 acres spread over a very wide area of West Clare. John Ormsby Vandeleur played a major role in the development of the town of Kilrush in the early 19th century and built Kilrush House (to which the garden was attached) in 1808. Later the Vandeleurs gave land for the building of the Catholic Church, convent, a fever hospital and, ironically, the workhouse.
The family however is remember more for the large number of evictions that took place in the famine years and then again some forty years later.
As I said the brochures you collect at the entrance make only passing reference to these events with the words that "history must never be repeated". But behind this is a painful picture of despair, cruelty and terrible injustice. I am sure all my readers will be well aware of the Famine. An event that killed one million people and forced another million to flee to other lands. But as I dug deeper the sense of injustice increased and I think it is worth retelling the story at least as it impacts the Vandeleurs.
As the Famine took hold in 1847 and tenants were unable to pay rent mass evictions began. Not just by the Vandeleurs but by landowners all over the country.
County Clare however had the highest level of evictions, relative to its population, of any county in Ireland and Kilrush Poor Law Union had the highest level of mass evictions in Clare. So the Vandeleurs were right in the centre of it.
We are lucky that the records of Captain Kennedy who was the administrator for the Kilrush Union are available and they make extraordinary reading. Captain Kennedy was extremely disturbed by what was going on and though he was diligent in administering the regulations he did what he could to alleviate the plight of those affected and destined for starvation, disease and the workhouse.
A quick word on Kennedy. He was a good man caught in terrible times. He later went on to be Governor of Western Australia but he never forgot Kilrush and regularly sent money back there.
In early 1848 he observed in one of his regular Reports.
"I scrutinized a list of 575 families here, and saw each individual; On one estate alone, little short of 200 houses have been 'tumbled' within three months, and 120 of this number, I believe, within three weeks! The wretched, houseless, helpless inmates, for the most part an amphibious race of fishermen and farmers, scattering disease, destitution, and dismay in every direction. Their lamentable state of filth, ignorance, destitution, and disease, must be seen to be comprehended."
In July of that year things were desperate:
"Twenty thousand, or one-fourth of the population, are now in receipt of daily food, either in or out of the workhouse.
"I may state in general terms, that about 900 houses, containing probably 4,000 occupants, have been levelled in this Union since last November. The wretchedness, ignorance, and helplessness of the poor on the western coast of this Union prevent them seeking a shelter elsewhere; and to use their own phrase, they "don't know where to face;" they linger about the localities for weeks or months, burrowing behind the ditches, under a few broken rafters of their former dwelling, refusing to enter the workhouse till the parents are broken down and the children half starved, when they come into the workhouse to swell the mortality, one by one. It is not an unusual occurrence to see 40 or 50 houses levelled in one day, and orders given that no remaining tenant or occupier should give them even a night's shelter.
"I have known some ruthless acts committed by drivers and sub-agents, but no doubt according to law, however repulsive to humanity; wretched hovels pulled down, where the inmates were in a helpless state of fever and nakedness, and left by the road side for days.
"As many as 300 souls, creatures of the most helpless class, have been left houseless in one day, and the suffering and misery resulting therefrom attributed to insufficient relief or mal-administration of the law: "
I could go on. In total there were close to 7,000 evictions. The event, of course, changed the nation. It was surely inconceivable that it could happen again. But extraordinarily it did; and the Vandeleurs were in the forefront.
A series of bad harvests plagued the country from 1870. This had led to a movement in the next decade for tenants' rights and land reform with the foundation by William O'Brien of the National Land League. The 'land question' caused major upheaval in the county and people flocked to Ennis in 1880 to hear Charles Stuart Parnell make his famous "Boycott" speech.
Irish Land League poster from the 1880s
By1885, bad weather, poor harvests, falling prices and declining markets had again taken their toll, and thousands of tenants, especially in the western parts of the county, found themselves unable to pay rents.
The National League introduced the Plan of Campaign in 1886. This was adopted by many tenants who got into trouble. Where a landlord refused to lower his rents voluntarily to an acceptable level the tenants were to combine to offer him reduced rents. If he refused to accept these, they were to pay him no rent at all, but instead contribute to an "estate fund".
Vandeleur's tenants adopted this strategy, which was summarily rejected and negotiations went nowhere. And after a long stand off the evictions commenced in October 1887. But the main evictions of the Vandeleur tenants were not until July 1888. It was a massive operation. A procession moved from house to house that comprised hundreds of men and was 1¼ mile in length. It included detachments of police, hussars, government representatives, the landowners, Emergency men, Infantry, cart loads of observers, visitors and a massive battering ram. It is estimated that up to 10,000 people were there on some days.
The mob was resolute in its intent and ruthless in its implementation. Here is a description of the demolition of the house of Michael Cleary, near Moneypoint.
Cleary had strongly barricaded the house and was clearly prepared to resist. First of all cordon of police and soldiers were drawn up about the house, but at some distance. Smoke was coming from the chimney – and the first action taken was to block the chimney with straw. Possession was then demanded and the only reply heard was a laugh from some girls inside. The police were now ordered to fix their bayonets, while the bailiffs got to work with crowbars and hatchets, but to little effect. An attack on the door moved it only slightly and hot water was thrown out. The tripod and battering ram were then brought up – and after a long time eventually made a breach in the wall. A shower of hot water was thrown out through the breach.
Finally, a large section of the wall crashed down to a cheer from the Emergency men. Two girls and their two brothers who were in the house were seized by the police The house was then knocked to the ground.
The eviction of Mathaiass Macgrath from Moyasta a week later received the most attention as he resisted strongly and was brutally beaten. His mother, watching this, collapsed and died that night. The evictions ended two days later.
These Vandeleur evictions were on a much smaller scale than those in the Famine years. only 22 houses were destroyed compared to the many thousands previously. However, Because the event was so well documented and photographed and because of the resistance of the tenants it received wide publicity. This was a factor in reaching a settlement which led to the tenants being able to resume their land a year later.
The photographs above and many others were taken by Robert French and are now in the collection of the National Library in Dublin. They were a major factor in changing perceptions. Maybe more would have been done if the public had been better appraised of what was happening during the earlier evictions.
So back to the garden. Earlier I commented that there was no informaton on these events. But I am now in two minds. Perhaps we don't need an Interpretive Centre to tell us of these terrible events. Perhaps it is a place for people to enjoy in their own way. For some just to walk and contemplate and for others to run and play.
And for others it is a place to honour and respect an extraordinary formative time in Irish history. To reflect on inhumanity and injustice. To ponder on the harm man can do to their own. To contemplate and to evince hope for the future.
Categories: My Journey, Real Ireland	| Tags: Clare, diaspora, emmigration, Evictions, Famine, Garden, history, houses, Ireland, Kennedy, Kilrush, Land League, Parnell, photography, starvation, travel, Vandeleur, views, Walled Garden, Wild Atlantic Way, William O'Brien	| 1 Comment
Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way! Avoid it?
I don't really mean that – I just wanted to get your attention. Now that I have it……
Well, actually I sort of do mean it. Let me explain.
The Wild Atlantic Way was inaugurated in 2014. It is a 2,500 km coastal route that extends from Kinsale in County Cork to the tip of Donegal. Of course the roads were always there and nothing much has changed except lots of blue signs with a wiggly white line. It has been a roaring success as a focus for visitors to the western counties and has become one of the great coastal drives in the world.
So this is good but my concern is that it funnels people along those coastal roads and it means that travellers become a bit blinkered and are less likely to visit the many gems that lie off this road and away from the coast.
The coastline is magnificent. I won't sing its praises here because there are many who have done that already. But it's only one Ireland. There are others and the best way to see them is to leave the N-roads and take the R's and L's. Sticking to the coast in Clare for instance you will miss Miltown Malbay, Ennistymon and Lisdoonvarna, not to mention Corofin, Kilfenora, Ennis and all of East Clare.
This was highlighted to me the other day. I regularly drive from my home near Quilty to Ennistymon. I habitually take the coastal route through Spanish Point and Lahinch, which happens to coincide with the WAW. This time though I sought an alternative and Google Maps in her infinite wisdom sent me inland through Miltown Malbay along the Ballard Road and then along a number of boreens to Ennistymon, avoiding Lahinch. It was only 2 minutes longer. I was amazed that I hadn't come this way before.
It was stunning countryside. Rolling hills, stone walls, full of those fabled forty shades of green that defines this country. It benefited from being that little bit higher with stunning vistas to the ocean and Aran Island in the distance. There was no traffic. The narrow lanes entice you to take your time and soak it in and maybe even get out and walk. You can guarantee you will discover the unexpected.
As US poet Robert Frost put it:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
Categories: My Journey, Real Ireland	| Tags: Clare, Ireland, photography, scenic, stone walls, touring, travel, views, Wild Atlantic Way	| Leave a comment
All is not what it seems. A little story from the Wild Atlantic Way on the west coast of Clare.
Posted on December 17, 2016 by singersong
I live in a remarkable spot and I have written of it and photographed it many times. Point Caherush lies between Quilty and Spanish Point along the spectacular west coast of Clare. Indeed it was spectacular before it became part of the Wild Atlantic Way but now of course it is legitimately spectacular because it has a label with the word 'wild' in it. Anyway I live at the end of a one kilometre long boreen known locally as the Clogher Road. My front door looks out over Quilty and Mutton Island. Here's a reminder.
My little cottage nestled on the rocks at Pt Caherush
The rocks at my feet though are similar to the rest of the West Clare coastline from Loop Head to Doolin, and comprise shallowly dipping interbedded sandstones and shales. For the whole time I have lived here I assumed that I was living at the edge of a wilderness (that's the 'wild' in Wild Atlantic Way!). A thin strip of pristine land beyond the rolling green that is everywhere so heavily moulded by man. I surmised, somewhat romantically, that only the hand of the sea had sculpted the shore. Despite this I was troubled by some observations I could not explain. Perfectly circular holes in the rock sometimes with radial joint patterns around them were disturbingly reminiscent of what I had seen in open cut mines. This made no sense. There was nothing to mine in these barren sandstones.
But I didn't think of the sandstone itself.
Perfectly circular holes and radial joint patterns on the rock platform at Point Caherush
One day I was chatting to Mikey Talty, a resident of this place all his long life. I have written about that day in a previous blog, when three generations of the Talty family were harvesting kelp from the bay. Mikey is full of wonderful stories but he really got my attention when he mentioned working as a young man in the 1950s at a massive quarry operation on the Point. He showed me where the crushing plant was and described how truckloads of rock were carted away to build roads as far away as Kilrush and Kilkee. This mining it would seem had changed the shape of the headland and much of the protection of the bay was lost.
Mikey Talty talks about Caherush in his youth.
With this new knowledge I now see the evidence everywhere in my wanderings. Of course the drill holes were for the explosives, some still showing their perfect shape and probably unexploded, and others with radial shatter patterns showing they did their job. There are rock exposures that are not natural and there is angular rubble strewn, that has yet to be smoothed out by the ocean.
Blasted face at limit of quarrying
Quarried rock face and blasted rubble
It is hard now to understand the thinking that would have led to the locating of a quarry here when there would have been plenty of locations away from the coast. I would like to think that in 'modern' Ireland it would be impossible to conceive of permission being obtained today for mining on the seashore. Perhaps planning approval wasn't needed then and certainly priorities would have been different.
I can find nothing in the literature about this operation and maybe the memory of it is only now with those who lived or worked here. But the record will stay in the rocks for hundreds of years and I am sure it will confuse and intrigue future generations of geologists and non-geologists, who wander around Point Caherush, as it did me.
Categories: My Journey, Real Ireland, Wild Ireland	| Tags: Caherush, Clare, Clogher Road, drill hole, Geology, history, Ireland, mining, ocean, people, photography, quarrying, Quilty, rock platform, sandstone, sea, seashore, Talty, travel, West Clare, Wild Atlantic Way	| Leave a comment

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Lorenzo de' Medici (reigned 1469-1492) and Pietro de' Medici (1492-1494), dukes of Florence.
Giovanni Galeazzo Sforza (reigned 1476-1494), Lodovico Maria Sforza (1494-1500), and Massimiliano Sforza (1512-1515), dukes of Milan.
Francesco Maria della Rovere, duke of Urbino (born 1490; died 1535).
Ferdinand I. (reigned 1458-1494), Ferdinand II. (reigned 1495-1496), and Ferdinand III., kings of Naples, the last being he who was also king of Spain as Ferdinand V.
Innocent VIII. (1484-1492), Alexander VI. (1492-1503), Pius III. (1503), Julius II. (1503-1513), and Leo X. (1513-1523), popes.
Bramante (1444-1514), architect of St. Peter's.
Sanazzaro Jacopo (1458-1530 or 1532), poet (De Partu Virginia).
Ariosto (1474-1533), poet (Orlando Furioso).
Francesco Berni (1496-1536), comic poet.
Cardinal Bembi (1470-1547), celebrated scholar.
Count Baldasarre Castiglione (1478-1529), writer and patron of literature.
Christopher Columbus (1436 or 1446-1506), discoverer.


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This month, hang out with the most iconic salsa bands that make Night Life in New York City in one of the most prestigious and popular Mexican restaurants with Live Salsa Saloon, Gonzalez and Gonzalez.
This restaurant with more than 20 years of history offers the most varied menu accompanied by the most exquisite drinks with a pleasant atmosphere that will make your nocturnal encounters the most fabulous.
From Thursday to Sunday, Gonzalez and Gonzalez brings the finest and accustomed Salsa bands Live with two-set performances during the night. These unique evenings of Latin music also feature DJs and salsa lessons, for FREE!, with professional dance instructors.
So you know, have a memorable night with the best of the Live Bands performances of the salsa music scene in GONZALEZ AND GONZALEZ!
Los Hacheros presents rhythms such as: Son Montuno, Guaracha and Salsa, which combine with Bomba (A fiery rhythm from the mountains of Puerto Rico).
Astoria Salsa Company brings Latin American rhythms such as: Salsa, Bolero and Champeta played with the intensity of the city of New York.
Johnny "Dandy" Rodríguez is an American bongo player. He belonged to several popular bands of the salsa era, such as: Tico All-Stars, Fania All-Stars and Típica 73.
Sebastian Natal is an Uruguayan pianist and percussionist player with knowledges of Bass, Trumpet, Trombone and vocals. He offers musical genres such as: Salsa, Cuban music, Latin Jazz, Tango among others rhythms.


Information in this schedule is provided by the theaters. We suggest calling them to confirm shows and times. Saturday times are the same as Friday unless otherwise noted.
The Adventures of Tintin (PG) 4:40, 7:35, 10:10 p.m.; The Adventures of Tintin: 3D (PG) 10:15 a.m., 12:50, 3:40, 5:30, 6:30, 9:15 p.m., midnight; The Adventures of Tintin: IMAX 3D (PG) 10:55 a.m.; Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (G) 9:40, 10:20, 11:25 a.m., noon, 12:45, 1:40, 2:25, 3:05, 4, 4:40, 5:20, 6:55, 7:40, 9:25, 10:05, 11:40 p.m.; Arthur Christmas (PG) 11:20 a.m., 2:15 p.m.; The Darkest Hour (PG13) 12:05 a.m., 4:50, 9:40 p.m.; The Darkest Hour: 3D (PG13) 9:45, 2:20, 7:25, 11:55 p.m.; The Descendants (R) 10:55 a.m., 1:35, 4:25, 7:10, 9:50 p.m.; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (R) 9:35, 11:45 a.m., 1, 3:30, 4:30, 7, 8, 10:30, 11:30 p.m.; Happy Feet Two (PG) 11:30 a.m., 2:05 p.m.; Hugo: 3D (PG) 11 a.m., 1:55, 4:55, 7:50, 10:40 p.m.; J. Edgar (R) 9:45 a.m., 12:40 p.m.; Mission: Impossible � Ghost Protocol (PG13) 11:10 a.m., 12:15, 2:10, 3:10, 5:10, 6:15, 8:30, 9:20, 11:45 p.m., 12:20 a.m.; Mission: Impossible � Ghost Protocol: IMAX (PG13) 1:25, 4:30, 7:30, 10:45 p.m.; The Muppets (PG) 11:05 a.m., 1:50 p.m.; My Week With Marilyn (R) 9:50 a.m., 12:20, 3, 5:40, 8:20, 10:50 p.m.; New Year's Eve (PG13) 4:35, 7:15, 10 p.m.; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (PG13) 11:35 a.m., 2:45, 3:45, 4:45, 5:45, 6:45, 7:45, 8:45, 9:45, 10:55, 11:45 p.m.; The Sitter (R) 11:50 a.m., 2, 4:10, 6:10, 8:25, 10:25 p.m.; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 (PG13) 6:50, 9:35 p.m., 12:15 a.m.; War Horse (PG13) 9:30, 10:35 a.m., 12:40, 1:50, 3:50, 5:05, 7:05, 8:40, 10:15 p.m., 12:05 a.m.; We Bought a Zoo (PG) 9:30, 10:30 a.m., 12:30, 1:20, 3:20, 4:20, 6:20, 7:20, 9:30, 10:20 p.m.; Young Adult (R) 10:05 a.m., 12:35, 3:15, 5:45, 8:10, 10:35 p.m.
2121 Route 38 and Haddonfield Road, Cherry Hill, www.amctheatres.com.
The Adventures of Tintin (PG) 10:30 a.m.; 1:10, 3:45, 6:15, 8:55, 11:35 p.m.; The Adventures of Tintin: 3D (PG) 11:30 a.m., 2, 4:40, 7:25, 10:05 p.m.; The Adventures of Tintin: IMAX 3D (PG) 10:15 a.m.; Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (G) 9:50, 10:25, 11:10 a.m., 12:10, 12:50, 1:40, 2:40, 3:25, 4:10, 5:55, 6:40, 8:25, 9:10, 11:45 p.m.; Arthur Christmas: 3D (PG) 10:50 a.m., 4:30, 9:45 p.m.; The Darkest Hour (PG13) 12:15, 5, 9:55 p.m.; The Darkest Hour: 3D (PG13) 9:55 a.m., 2:35, 7:30 p.m., 12:05 a.m.; The Descendants (R) 10:45 a.m., 1:45, 4:35, 7:45, 10:35 p.m.; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (R) 10, 11 a.m., 1:25, 2:50, 4:50, 6:30, 8:15, 10, 11:35 p.m.; Happy Feet Two (PG) 10:40 a.m.; Hugo: 3D (PG) 1:30, 6:50 p.m.; J. Edgar (R) 9:40 a.m.; Mission: Impossible � Ghost Protocol (PG13) 10:35, 11:20 a.m., 12:20, 1:50, 2:30, 3:35, 5:10, 6:05, 6:55, 8:40, 9:20, 10:10, 11:50 p.m.; Mission: Impossible � Ghost Protocol: IMAX (PG13) 1, 4:20, 7:40, 11 p.m.; The Muppets (PG) 9:45 a.m., 12:30, 3:10, 5:45 p.m.; New Year's Eve (PG13) 2:15, 5:05, 7:55, 10:55 p.m.; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (PG13) noon, 12:40, 3, 4, 5, 6:10, 7:15, 8:10, 9:30, 10:30, 11:30 p.m.; The Sitter (R) 10:20 a.m., 12:35, 2:45, 4:55, 7:05, 9:15, 11:25 p.m.; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 (PG13) 8:45, 10:45, 11:40 p.m.; War Horse (PG13) 9:40 a.m., 12:05, 1:15, 3:20, 4:45, 6:35, 8, 9:50, 11:15 p.m.; We Bought a Zoo (PG) 10:05, 11:15 a.m., 1:05, 2:20, 4:05, 5:20, 7, 8:20, 10:15, 11:20 p.m.; Young Adult (R) 9:45 a.m., 12:05, 2:30, 4:50, 7:10, 9:35 p.m., midnight.
Greentree Square, Route 73, 888-262-4386, www.amctheatres.com.
900 Haddonfield-Berlin Road, Voorhees, 856-770-9065, www.nationalamusements.com.
The Adventures of Tintin (PG) 10:30 a.m., 4:15 p.m., 12:55 a.m.; The Adventures of Tintin: 3D (PG) 1:10, 7:05, 9:40 p.m.; Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (G) 10, 11:30 a.m., 12:20, 1:45, 2:50, 4:15, 6:40, 9 p.m.; Arthur Christmas: 3D (PG) 9:55 a.m.; The Artist (PG13) 11:20 a.m., 2:20, 5:15, 8:05, 10:45 p.m.; The Descendants (R) 10:45 a.m., 1:35, 4:30, 7:10, 10:10 p.m.; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (R) 10:55 a.m., 12:35, 2:30, 4, 6:30, 7:35, 10, 11, 11:45 p.m.; Hugo: 3D (PG) 12:45 p.m.; Mission: Impossible � Ghost Protocol (PG13) 10, 10:35 a.m., 1:20, 1:55, 4:20, 4:50, 7:20, 7:50, 10:20, 10:50 p.m., 12:15 a.m.; The Muppets (PG) 10:05 a.m.; New Year's Eve (PG13) 10:10 a.m., 10:10 p.m.; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (PG13) 12:10, 3:15, 6:35, 7:45, 9:55, 10:50 p.m.; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (R) 10:50 a.m., 12:55, 1:50, 4:05, 5:05, 7:15, 8:10, 11 p.m., 12:50 a.m.; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 (PG13) 5 p.m.; War Horse (PG13) 11:40 a.m., 3:10, 4:25, 6:50, 7:40, 10:05, 10:55 p.m., 12:35 a.m.; We Bought a Zoo (PG) 10 a.m., 1:05, 3:55, 6:55, 9:50 p.m., 12:40 a.m.; Young Adult (R) 11 a.m., 2:15, 4:55, 7:40, 10:15 p.m.
The Adventures of Tintin (PG) 12:25, 3:15 p.m.; The Adventures of Tintin: 3D (PG) 11:05 a.m., 2:10, 5, 7:55, 10:35 p.m.; Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (G) 11:15 a.m., noon, 1:45, 2:30, 4:10, 5:10, 7:50, 10:10 p.m.; Arthur Christmas: 3D (PG) 12:45, 6:20 p.m.; The Darkest Hour: 3D (PG13) 11:45 a.m., 2:25, 5:20, 8, 10:30 p.m.; Don 2 (NR) 6:25, 9:40 p.m.; Don 2: 3D (NR) 11 a.m., 2:35, 5:50, 9:10 p.m.; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (R) 11:40 a.m., 1, 3:10, 4:40, 7, 8:15, 10:25 p.m.; Happy Feet Two (PG) 11:50 a.m., 2:40 p.m.; Hugo: 3D (PG) 3:20, 9 p.m.; J. Edgar (R) 12:05 p.m.; Mission: Impossible � Ghost Protocol (PG13) 12:35, 4, 7:20, 10:35, 11:30, 2:55, 6:35, 9:45 p.m.; The Muppets (PG) 11:10 a.m., 2, 4:45, 7:35 p.m.; My Week With Marilyn (R) 1:10, 3:40, 6:55, 9:35 p.m.; New Year's Eve (PG13) 7:05, 10:05 p.m.; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (PG13) 12:50, 3:35, 4:30, 6:50, 7:40, 10, 10:40 p.m.; The Sitter (R) 10:15 p.m.; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 (PG13) 6:30, 9:25 p.m.; War Horse (PG13) 11:25 a.m., 12:10, 2:45, 3:25, 6:10, 7:10, 9:30, 10:25 p.m.; We Bought a Zoo (PG) 12:20, 3:45, 6:45, 9:50 p.m.; Young Adult (R) 1:20, 3:50, 7:25, 9:55 p.m.
Moorestown Mall, Route 38, 856-222-1800, www.uatc.com.
The Adventures of Tintin (PG) 5:30 p.m.; The Adventures of Tintin: 3D (PG) 12:10, 2:50, 8:10, 10:50 p.m.; Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (G) 12:40, 3, 5:20, 7:40, 10 p.m.; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (R) noon, 3:30, 7, 10:30 p.m.; Mission: Impossible � Ghost Protocol (PG13) 12:50, 4, 7:30, 10:40 p.m.; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (PG13) 1, 4:10, 7:50, 10:45 p.m.; War Horse (PG13) 12:20, 3:40, 7:10, 10:25 p.m.; We Bought a Zoo (PG) 12:30, 4:20, 7:20, 10:15 p.m.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (R) 12:30, 1:30, 3:15, 4:15, 6, 7.


No social media profile, no employment?
If you don't have a social media profile, is it now stopping you being employed?
The market reacted positively, with the pound rising by 3% to be back above the $1.50 mark.
BBC News and their excellent economics editor Stephanie Flanders reported on the figures, with Flanders analysis as always having an early focus on commercial sector v government sector employment. We know the government need to cut spending, but only Flanders up until now of the many commentators makes a point of highlighting how at present government spending is taking up the slack of commercial sector reductions.
The employment rate is just 72.2 per cent, the lowest percentage of the working-age population to be in employment since 1996.
Like many of the news reports, BBC Televisions report featured an unemployed person, this time an accountant who had been unemployed for six months. I noted her name and those from other media reports, but the lady accountant featured on the BBC had a name which was quite unique and easily searchable. Yet: not one Google result or social media hit. I even tried dedicated searches on LinkedIn, Facebook and Google profile: nowt!
The case of unfortunately departed and greatly missed Neville Keithley highlighted one man's job search, who had rightly analysed that if he didn't market himself then employers wouldn't know about him. Unfortunately Mr Keithley shortly afterwards suffered some tragic medical news, and was unable to follow through on the 20+ employer enquiries that he had received as the result of his considerable expenditure.
When I released Social Media Checklist as a product, there were two reactions: one planned, one unplanned. Firstly, it sold well and has created a lot of discussion in those who bought it – mainly over how open their own social media profiles were.
X seems to have the right set of skills, but we can't find him online, can you?
Some of these people I found, and all was well. With others I couldn't find them, or as the employers suspected found something interesting: a duplicate identity for instance.
The real question here is, is it legal to reject a job application on social media evidence? Most legal and employment advisers would suggest no.
I have told each employer who has contacted me to only reject a job application they are suspicious of, after they have undertaken a telephone interview. They then go through their normal and legal employment procedure, and it offers the option to raise the question of a lack of supporting information.
If you can't be found, or your CV information supported, then employers have the right to reject you. When we know from surveys that 65%+ of employers are using social media to check employees, it is not surprising that employees are being rejected for the lack of a social media profile. Whether this is legal or not is a question I am sure that the courts will be answering soon, but a social media profile is an essential in the real world of job search.
What social media/networking sites are must-haves for job-seekers?
That is some inspirational stuff. Thanks for all the enthusiasm to offer such helpful information here.
Hey! Just had to leave a comment. I truly liked your opinion. Keep up the awesome work.


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The Optimal SaaS Company Organizational Structure
Not that long ago, software licenses were purchased upfront for large sums of money on CD-Roms and even floppy discs.
However, the emergence of cloud computing and fast broadband connections has transformed software delivery over the past decade.
Allied to this trend, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies have disrupted industries such as TV (Netflix), music (Spotify) and accounting (Quickbooks) conditioning consumers towards subscription-based licensing.
These evolving business models have also brought on changes in business processes and organizational structures, and industry org charts have evolved to represent the way SaaS companies now operate.
Business-to-business (B2B) SaaS companies are renowned for their hyper-growth success driven by agile product development, experimental customer acquisition, and ongoing customer lifecycle management. Companies such as Docusign, Atlassian and Canva have forced former CD software selling companies such as Microsoft to move to SaaS.
SaaS companies have brought forth new executive roles such as the Chief Customer Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, and Chief Revenue Officer. We will discuss how these fit within a SaaS company org chart and what the typical roles and responsibilities are.
What Is a SaaS Company Org Structure?
An org structure defines how a company's operations are directed to achieve company goals. It outlines how work flows through an organization, along with the various lines of reporting and how groups work together to manage tasks.
Traditional org structures tend to be formalized with employees grouped by function, region, or product line. In startups and less traditional structures, SaaS operations team structure is often more loosely defined and flexible to respond rapidly to evolving needs.
Regardless of the actual org structure that is put in place, the key is to align the structure with the business strategy in four areas:
Leadership: Who is responsible for developing strategy and monitoring its effectiveness?
Organization: What structures, processes, and operations will be used to execute the strategy?
Jobs: What roles and responsibilities are needed for effective operations?
People: What experience, skills, and competencies are required for the successful execution of the strategy?
When individuals in an organization understand the interdependencies of these four areas as they apply to your business, it facilitates a smoother workflow while allowing for the ability to adapt to changing conditions when necessary.
When thinking about your SaaS operations team structure, there are also five key elements that define the structure:
Job design: Defining job responsibilities
Departments: How jobs are coordinated
Delegation: Which functions or tasks are assigned to positions
Span of control: Number of employees reporting to managers
Chain of command: The lines of authority within an organization
Your SaaS roles and responsibilities will also vary based on your management style.
In a centralized model, the authority to make decisions is restricted to those at the highest levels of management with declining authority for subordinates. Think of this as the pyramid approach with those at the top setting policies and strategies for each group below them.
A decentralized style creates a flatter and leaner organization. Lower levels of the org hierarchy have greater decision-making authority and structure may evolve for different tasks or goals.
Related interactive template: Early Stage SaaS Technical Team Evolution
What's the Best Organizational Structure for Your SaaS Company?
Specifically defining a B2B SaaS org chart can be difficult because each company is unique and has its way of conducting business.
It also depends on the size and scale of your company and where you are in your growth cycle. As you scale, you will need to adapt your SaaS company organizational structure to accommodate your growth.
In other words, you will want to draft your SaaS company org chart to match the way you want to work right now and as your company evolves. The best way to get started is to look at the typical org structure for SaaS companies of varying sizes and see how they line up with your operational goals.
You can approach this in two ways — by the size of the company or by revenue thresholds.
Typical SaaS Organizational Structure – Defined by Size
1 to 5 Employees
As most SaaS companies start with a founder and maybe a few employees, the distribution of labor is typically unstructured. Everybody in the organization is wearing multiple hats and doing whatever it takes to move the company forward.
While there may be a division of tasks, any organization structure must be loosely defined to allow for the flexibility to adapt rapidly as operational priorities evolve.
In small SaaS companies with five to 10 employees, the founder is typically the highest executive and is responsible for setting the tone and vision. They are also usually responsible for the sales and marketing functions of the company.
Any co-founders will make up the rest of the executive team. If there are no co-founders, the typical SaaS organizational structure will include two high-level managers. One generally manages the product and technology for delivery while the other handles administration, sales, operations, and processes.
Any other employees will report to the management team and may be assigned by areas or jobs.
Small, Flat SaaS Organization Structure (Example)
As the SaaS organization grows, a more formal structure starts to evolve. While the executive team may remain the same, typically more employees are added in key function groups, such as:
Admin and process
Product and technology
As employees are brought on board, they will now have assigned roles and responsibilities. Underneath the executive team, the typical org structure for SaaS companies will include a Sales Manager, Product Development Manager, and Marketing Manager.
Org charts tend to follow the more traditional hierarchy of executives, departments, managers, and employees with assigned roles and responsibilities.
As SaaS companies grow, the administration, financing, and accounting functions will need resourcing. The next logical step is to start to add C-suite execs.
As companies grow beyond 50 employees, this is the time when a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) are typically brought on board to manage the organization's operations and finances. Many also choose to add a Chief Information Officer (CIO) or a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) reporting to a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at this stage.
Founders may take on these C-suite roles, although many SaaS companies look to seasoned management to fuel growth at this stage.
75+ Employees
As SaaS companies expand to a larger scale, an even more formal structure may be necessary to operate efficiently. C-suite execs will be on board to guide the operations with Vice Presidents heading defined departments such as:
Within each functional area, there are also likely to be managers or leads that oversee functional groups.
SaaS Organizational Structure – Defined by Revenue
Venture capital firm Redpoint Ventures works with early and growth-stage companies. They surveyed SaaS companies to find how teams grow as startups scale. The 2020 Redpoint Go to Market study shows how teams are structured by revenue.
The survey breaks out structures based on annual recurring revenue (ARR), a key metric used by SaaS and subscription businesses to forecast predictable and recurring revenue. ARR measures the growth momentum for companies.
ARR up to $1 Million
SaaS companies with annual recurring revenue up to $1 million typically have leads for Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success. Founders may lead efforts in one or multiple areas with other key Leads augmenting founder strengths.
ARR $1 to $5 Million
As companies grow their ARR, they also start to increase their headcount. While marketing and customer success continues to have leads, a VP in Sales is typically leading the sales and growth efforts.
ARR between $1M-$5M, median of 21 employees
12 engineers
6 in sales
4 in marketing
SaaS companies invest in engineering at startup and then scale up their go-to-market (GTM) teams as they roll out the product and grow the customer base.
ARR $5M-$20M
As ARR grows beyond $5 million, SaaS companies generally have VPs heading each of the core operational areas. The ratio of engineers to salespeople starts to get closer to 1:1 rather than 2:1 as sales and support are necessary to continue to fuel growth and support customers.
At this level of ARR, the Redpoint study shows that the average SaaS company sees as much as a 10X growth in sales staffing compared to 5X in engineering teams and 4X in marketing teams.
ARR $20M+
At the $20 million and above level, companies typically add a level above the VP rank for sales. A Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) position is added to oversee growth initiatives in the majority of SaaS companies.
Chief Customer Officer and Chief Marketing Officer positions are also established although this varies greatly by company. According to the study, just 10% of SaaS companies with ARR at $20m or above have a Chief Customer Officer.
By comparison, 35% of SaaS companies with ARR in the $20 to $50 million range have a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) with the percentage growing to 40% at $50 million and 53% at $100 million.
$20M+ Revenue SaaS Organization Structure (Example)
Evolving SaaS Organizational Structures
While looking at SaaS org structures based on headcount and revenue can give you ideas on how to structure your company, there's really no right or wrong way to do it. Today, many SaaS companies have moved past separate sales, marketing, engineering, and finance areas headed by a senior executive.
SaaS companies have found this traditional structure makes it easy to report activity and revenue, but it may not address the cross-functional customer and product lifecycle management that is critical to maintaining and growing a subscriber base.
SaaS companies often require execution across functional activities which can tend to blur rigid departmental lines, roles, and responsibilities. This non-traditional workflow is focused more on customer outcomes than traditional lines of reporting.
That's why many of the newer SaaS companies are restructuring their functional management structure and creating new roles, such as Chief Product Officer, Chief Performance Officer, and Chief People Officer.
The CPO is responsible for product development, management, and marketing. CPOs may also be responsible for Customer Success, especially if efforts are focused more on customer engagement, satisfaction, and retention rather than sales. While some companies elevate a Chief Technical Officer (CTO) or Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) to this role, the majority employ both a CPO to oversee product marketing and management and the CTO/CINO handling product development and implementation.
Chief Performance Officer
The Chief Performance Officer (CPO) employs a holistic view of performance throughout the organization and develops measures to assess outcomes and improve them. CPOs often evolve from CFO or CIO roles.
The Chief People Officer role often combines CFO and Human Relations functions into one role in some organizations. In other SaaS companies, the Chief People Officer operates separately from the CFO and is responsible for talent acquisition, diversity, training, retention, and HR practices.
Each of these roles works across traditional department lines. Consulting firm Bain & Company calls this approach "integrated management based on value creation."
'Performance' has become a department in Itself
: Creating Your B2B SaaS Org Chart
Creating your SaaS organizational structure and defining SaaS roles and responsibilities is easy with Functionly.
Functionly uses intelligent org design to help you navigate the future and make it simple to optimize your organization and deploy resources.
You can develop a functional org chart in minutes using drag and drop tools. Intelligent mapping allows you to quickly see functional gaps or overlaps.
Just as your organization grows and evolves, Functionly's org charts grow and evolve with you to help navigate change and see a clearer future. The powerful Scenario Builder tool lets you imagine a future state and strategically align roles and responsibilities as your organization grows.
Functionly also integrates with many of the tools that SaaS companies are already using, such as ADP, Slack, Quickbooks, Zenefits, JustWorks, Bamboo HR, Rippling, Gusto and others.
Want to learn more about how Functionly can help you design your optimal SaaS company organizational structure? Get a free trial and start today.
Learn about other industry org charts.
SHRM.org resources and tools
What's the Best Organizational Structure for Your SaaS Company? B2BNN Newsdesk, 22 Aug 2021
What is the Structure of the Typical SaaS Company as it Scales? Tomasz Tunguz, LinkedIn, 22 June 2020
2020 SaaS C-Suite Evolving to Support Product and Customer Lifecycle Management, L. Kelley, C-Suite Best Practices, 13 Feb 2020
4 Steps to Elevate Functional Effectiveness & Operational Maturity, A. Mani, Functionly
Don't panic! And other sound learnings for fast-growing businesses, Functionly


Yanlord River Bay Town Tower, close to the Olympic Stadium, covers 350,000 sqm, with apartments ranging from 90 sqm to 200 sqm. It is a composite area including apartments as well as entertainment and leisure. The landscape design is of an international level and well illustrates the water and ecological environment; along with humane atmosphere, complete living facilities and convenient transportation, this area is a very attractive option.


text:
Who Run The World? Beyonce Averages $1.6 Million A Night On "Mrs. Carter Show World Tour"
Myeisha Essex
Myeisha Essex is in love with all things pop culture, thanks in large part to her hometown. This Los Angeles native has an encyclopedic knowledge of the entertainment industry and she loves a good trivia game. She received her bachelor's degree in journalism and media studies from Bennett College for Women and her master's from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Her work can be found in Sister 2 Sister, Harlem World Magazine, Clutch and on Essence.com. When she's not keeping up with the news or learning Beyonce's latest dance moves, she enjoys watching stand-up comedy on YouTube! Follow her on Instagram @more_about_me
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To say Beyonce is making a lot of money on tour is an understatement. Sources say the international superstar is raking up an average of $1.6 million a night — just for one show!
MUST READ: Beyonce & Jay-Z Share Kiss On Stage At Chime For Change Charity Concert
Billboard reports that Queen Bey made a whopping $9.7 million in gross sales from her six performances at London's 02 Arena as part of the "Mrs. Carter Show World Tour." After her London shows, the"Grown Woman" singer did three performances at the Manchester Arena, which brought in an additional $4.65 million. These figures indicate that Beyonce is making an average $1.6 million per show.
MUST READ: Beyonce Slams Pregnancy Rumors By Sipping A Glass Of Wine
At this rate, Billboard estimates that the 31-year-old will earn over $100 million by the end of her 65-city tour.
For you plan to check her out, the U.S. leg of the "Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" kicks off on June 28.
Who run the world? Bey!
LIKE HelloBeautiful On Facebook!
2013 Essence Music Festival Mainstage Performers
Beyonce Tells Serena Williams To 'Stunt On Them' In Open Letter
Check Out This Gallery
Beyonce & Jay-Z Attend 10th Anniversary Of Pharrell's BBC Line


I used to dabble in making jewellery but vwery, vwery little nowadays. I made this for a friends Mam as a christmas present a few years ago now but it needed a sprucin up cause she wore it so much...which is pretty groovy. So here's the finished, revamped hemitite, pearl, onyx, black swarovski crystal, mish mash necklace.
Posted by Gillian Comerford at 6:48 p.m.
That's cool Gill. nice to see your other talents on display!