July 9 2001

We went down to Maynooth College yesterday. They have two nice gardens there. One of them is a walled garden with very many alpine plants in one section and lots of perenniels in the rest of it laid out as long beds or borders. The other garden is a much more formal affair based on rocks, water, green shrubs and water plants such as lillies and reeds. Lots of the rocks are used as stepping stones but many others are upright features rising out of the water and coming to a point at the top. They all have two smoothe vertical sides at right angles to each other and look like the remaining corner of a ruined house. I don't know if they are supposed to mean something, but I wonder if the ruins of the FitzGerald castle outside the College played any part in the inspiration there-of. With regard to the castle, you know it was built by Maurice FitzGerald around 1240 and was in good repair up to the 1640s when it was pretty well destroyed by Owen Roe O'Neill. But it is now being restored once again and ironically the builders involved are FitzGeralds. The castle is situated at the junction of two rivers which are in fact no more than streams. But they probably were at a higher level in those early times and ensured that the castle always had a supply of water. The rivers are the Lyreene and the Joan Slade. I went to the bridge near the mill and had a look over at the Lyreen. You can see where the Joan Slade comes in on the left hand side. The river is very shallow and a lot of large stones are half above water with plenty of moss growing on them. And Lo and Behold what did I see, but a wagtail with a flash of yellow on him. I thought to myself " a yellow wagtail". A bit unusual. Later the Hazeler called. This was my chance to check out with Newcastle Ray who definitely knows his birds. He told me that what I had seen was more likely to be a Grey Wagtail. The wagtail that most of us would call a grey wagtail is in fact a Pied Wagtail and the grey wagtail has a good flash of yellow on him, and he would be likely to go to places such as where I had seen him looking for food on wet mossy stones in a river. The yellow wagtail on the other hand has lots and lots of yellow on him and would be unusual in Ireland though not unknown.