#BookReview of Walking to the Foot of the Sky by Miriam Mulcahy | @mirmulcahy.bsky.social

[ About Walking to the Foot of the Sky ]

When she first set foot on the Beara Breifne Way, Miriam Mulcahy expected a long-distance hike that would take her across some of the most beautiful scenery in Ireland. What she found instead was a living tapestry past and present: ancient landscapes where myth and memory linger; pilgrim routes and rebel roads; quiet villages, wild coastlines, hidden valleys, and the ghostly thread that ties them all together.

Following in the footsteps of Domhnall Cam O’Sullivan Beare’s fateful march in 1603, she begins her journey uncertain – of the path, of herself, of what she hopes to find. But as the miles unfurl, something shifts, and she begins to carve a line of connection in time.

This is an extraordinary story of landscape and legacy, of attention and endurance, of losing sight of yourself and finding something far better: renewal. Lyrical, reflective and quietly radical, it captures what happens when you give yourself over fully to a journey – and how, in doing so, you return changed.

I want to walk through time, for days, for nights, I want every kind of walk, walks under sunsets and stars, walks of rain and storms, through howling winds and the most susurrating of breezes. I want to see, I realise, not just this kind of landscape of trees and fields and fences, I want to walk on top of mountains, over endless expanses of moor, wild reaches and spaces, I want to escape all people, I want to walk alone, I look at the horizon, and realise the foolhardy extent and scale of my ambition that has taken root and now grows within me and will not be silenced, suffocated or hemmed in - an ambition to walk completely to the edge. I need to burst through all the walls, to rise past all limits, to go right to the foot of the sky.

[ My Review ]

Walking to the Foot of the Sky by Miriam Mulcahy published May 7^th with Eriu and is described by Miriam as ‘a book about history, landscape, ghosts, spirits, art, stained glass, saints, technology and time.’

I was fascinated to read that Miriam Mulcahy’s second book, following on from her beautiful debut, This is My Sea, was supposed to be one about Peig Sayers, a name that brings shivers to many Irish adults of a certain age. On the realisation that the market probably wasn’t quite ready for Sayers (too fresh a memory), Miriam looked to the Beara Breifne way. She had read about the remarkable true story of Domhnall Cam O’Sullivan Beare and his treacherous fourteen-day flight from the Beara Peninsula in West Cork northward to Blacklion in Cavan in 1603 so she embarked on an extraordinary adventure.

Miriam Mulcahy decided to follow in his footsteps and recount her experiences in a reflective-style memoir, but she had no idea about the impact this adventure would have on her. The journey, approximately 700km, is traditionally a six-week hike but, as a single mother, Miriam was not in a position to leave her children alone for that long so she needed to get creative and approach this ambitious project with a different mindset. Over a period of a few months she broke the hike down into sections and every weekend left her family home to challenge herself unsure of what she would find.

Using unreliable maps she crossed bog and mountain passes, fields with unexpected bullocks, private yards with angry dogs. She was assisted by friends and strangers, wrangling lifts to certain points, sleeping in some really scenic places and learning more about her own grit and determination as a woman in modern society.

The physical aspect was exhausting as Miriam hadn’t grasped the level of fitness truly required to fulfil this, at times, hazardous journey but, as the weeks passed, she surprised herself. She grew stronger physically and handled some really frustrating situations with an extraordinary calmness. At certain points along her trek, she became quite overwhelmed thinking about the horrors that O’Sullivan Beare and his followers endured as they attempted to escape the slaughter and rampage that was been inflicted across the island under the command of Queen Elizabeth of England.

I am from Cork and have been to Dursey Island where one of the most horrific and brutal massacre took place in 1602 as members of the O’Sullivan clan sought refuge there.

‘Eventually tiring of their slaughter, and the work of running swords of steel through skin, muscle, flesh, organ, bone, the English drove the remaining survivors before them to Áit an Fheoir, the place of the slaughter. Here they tied the people back-to-back, bound them with rope and tossed them from the cliffs onto the rocks of Faill na Muc into the heaving seas below, shooting them with muskets as they bobbed. Human flotsam, they swiftly plummeted, dead roped to dead, to the depths of the sound.’

With approximately one thousand souls by his side, O’Sullivan Beare headed north in search of sanctuary and it is his journey, and those by his side, that Miriam Mulcahy follows, feeling the very presence of their ghosts and conscious that she was walking over the bones of those who didn’t make it. Only thirty-five people survived this brutal journey, many killed in battle, dying from their injuries, starving from lack of sustenance, the cold weather or just pure exhaustion.

While walking the Beara Breifne Way, Miriam observes how this historic route could be better utilised. Alongside appropriate markings and improved facilities available for hikers, she offers very valid suggestions regarding accommodation and community involvement. But amidst all the practical elements is the story of a woman on a journey, one that would change her in unexpected ways, allowing her momentarily to be that young woman in her twenties with the world at her feet. Her recognition of her own physical and emotional changes over the weeks is truly inspiring as she rediscovers her own personal strength and drive. She refers to the courageous women who walked before us and, in particular, gives a name to Siobhán McSuibhne, the one woman who survived the flight to Blacklion but is not named on the official monument.

‘Where there are men doing great deeds, there are women behind them, made of iron, made of stone, made of golden light, pure and irrepressible, carving paths of shining possibility into the future for their daughters and sons, for their descendants, paths that will still be walked on when they are dead and long forgotten, ghosts whispering to us through the centuries, silent, unheard, unnamed, multitudes and millions of them.’

Bun na spéire, the Irish word for horizon, is the inspiration behind the gorgeous title of this book, one that transformed its writer Miriam Mulcahy. Walking to the Foot of the Sky is a stunning account of an important piece of Irish history but it is also a life-affirming story of self-discovery and truth, of one woman’s pilgrimage to find herself again.

[ Thank you to Miriam Mulcahy and Eriu for a copy of Walking to the Foot of the Sky in exchange for my honest review ]

[ Bio ]