Maybe it’s the invitation of the slowly lengthening days, but at this time of year I crave a long view. And here, on the approach to the ringfort of Grianán of Aileach, I have it. As the late afternoon sun squints over the fort’s high walls, it’s easy to understand why early medieval monarchs cherished this summit.
I watch my shadow loping across the heath before my gaze plunges to the Inch Levels reserve, where flocks of wintering whooper swans and greylag geese speckle the flooded fields. I stop for a moment, lingering over the sky’s perfect reflection in the reserve’s brackish lagoon, with Lough Swilly beyond. Not far from here to Ireland’s northernmost edge and the Atlantic Ocean.
The peninsula where I stand, Inishowen, is the aileach (“rocky place”) that was once the kingdom of the Owen dynasty. They reigned from Grianán/Greenan Mountain for nearly 300 years after a decisive battle in the eighth century. The name grianán (“sunny upper room”) suggests how this throne was prized – and it still is. In summer the fort can be thronged with tourists, and during midwinter locals gather here for the solstice. Occasional pilgrims walk the hills from Derry City to the nearby St Patrick’s Well. Today, as I turn for its narrow portal, it appears that I have Grianán’s palace of sunlight all to myself.
Graffiti from the past couple of centuries carved into the passageway stones reminds me that this monument is a 19th-century reconstruction of the original’s ruin. However, the grandeur of the interior – its grassy floor encircled by rising terraces and back-to-back stairways that climb to a roof of sky – makes any debate about authenticity seem churlish. Grianán has always been a contested site. Solid as rock and yet the seat of dreams, how could it be otherwise?
I climb to the highest rampart, and there’s no argument about what an Owen monarch must have gloated over. Three counties – Donegal to the north and west, Tyrone to the south, and Derry to the east. I lift my hand to shade my gaze and a snipe bursts from the heather. It flies off towards the sun, its plumage emblazoned to ochre and gold.
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