OPINION (AN COLÚN): A hidden gem in the Slieve Bloom hills

DURING the recent spell of beautiful, rain-free, quasi mediterranean weather I walked up to a hidden gem high in Glendineoregan in the Slieve Bloom hills. The gem is a ten metre waterfall set in a charming location. The place is difficult to access, sometimes requiring the use of your hands to get to.
When I arrived I perched myself on a grassy seat in a warm and sunny spot overlooking the fall. In my rucksack I had a book about Spinoza, whose writings I've appreciated since I first came across them in my late teens. Spinoza was a pantheist, which I think is an attractive way of looking at the world.
On my way to this very secluded spot I parked my car on the south side of the Cut. The Cut is a roadway that was forged through the blanket bog in the 1840s. You can see the names, inscribed in the sandstone, of a couple of the men who did the work. Near the northern end of the Cut you can see their initials high up on the right (eastern) side. They are 'DJ' of Killinure and 'MC' of Curragh.
Further on, walking along the road towards Clonaslee, on the left hand side is a memorial. This is an iron cross, erected to the memory of Michael Delaney, a forest worker that died working near this spot on the morning of the 18th of September 1975.
Shortly afterwards, I turned off the metalled road onto a forestry track which dropped down to the Gorragh River on the valley floor. Many years ago I joined the local walking club for a walk and they showed me a beautiful route they had forged following the course of the Gorragh, which I strongly recommend if you ever see it advertised in local media.
Glendine comes from the Irish Gleann Doighin and it means 'deep glen'. If you are fortunate you may see the Hen Harriers who live and hunt in this area. Years ago I was very fortunate to be shown the spot where they live by an NPWS Ranger. He knew what time they would be flying back to their nests after a period of hunting, and it was beautiful seeing them soar towards us from our hiding spot. Sadly, like so many species in Ireland, the hen harrier is in trouble. One of the attractive things about this bird is the Sky Dance when the male tries to catch the eye of potential mates.
When I reached the Gorragh I turned left and climbed up very rough terrain towards the waterfall. There used to always be wild goats in this area when I came here many times during the 1990s, but sadly they were all wiped out during the Foot and Mouth period in 2001. In another part of the Slieve Blooms, at the Stony Man on the Ridge of Capard, I often met a magnificent wild male goat with splendid horns and a long beard. Sadly, he too didn't survive Foot and Mouth. Recently, I was walking in the Cadamstown area when I saw a herd of a hundred goats. They were the first goats I had seen in the Slieve Blooms since Foot and Mouth. They were obviously farm animals but still, it was nice to see these lovely creatures grazing in a Slieve Bloom valley again.
Seated on my sunny perch above the waterfall I read my Spinoza. To our ears his name sounds exotic (his first name was Baruch). He lived from November 1632 to February 1677.
He was a Dutch philosopher of Sephardic Jewish origin and he worked as an optical lens grinder. He's been called a forerunner of the 18th-century Enlightenment, modern biblical criticism and other modes of thinking. He discussed the self and its relationship to the universe. Hegel was so impressed by his work that he said, "You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all."
Spinoza believed in the existence of God, a being which could not be adequately grasped by the rational mind but could be comprehended by the intuitive mind. All of creation, he said, flows from God and is expressive of God. Sometimes Spinoza's Deus concept is criticised as describing a cool and indifferent being, which is a charge often laid against pantheism. On the other hand, many people who find pantheism an attractive philosophy are able to warm it up, endowing it with an anthropomorphic, fatherly quality; in other words they envisage a comforting deity who cares about humanity. They believe that the being which created the universe is a loving progenitor.
My book told me that Bertrand Russell greatly admired Spinoza, whom he called, “... one of the wisest of men and who lived consistently in accordance with his own wisdom. He advised men to view passing events ‘under the aspect of eternity’. Those who can learn to do this will find a painful present much more bearable than it would otherwise be. They can see it as a passing moment—a discord to be resolved, a tunnel to be traversed. The small child who has hurt himself weeps as if the world contained nothing but sorrow, because his mind is confined to the present. A man who has learned wisdom from Spinoza can see even a lifetime of suffering as a passing moment in the life of humanity. And the human race itself, from its obscure beginning to its unknown end, is only a minute episode in the life of the universe. Spinoza would have us live not in the minute, the day, the year or the epoch but in eternity. Those who learn to do this will find that it takes away the frantic quality of misfortune and prevents the trend towards madness that comes with overwhelming disaster.”
Spinoza spent the last day of his life telling cheerful anecdotes to his host. He had written: “The wise man thinks less about death than about anything else.”