Free Malarkey by Sheila Simonson Page B

heroic breakfast, we packed
and checked out, promising to return for a visit, Dad with my mother
when she came.
    It seemed strange, given my apprehensions, but I found
driving to Ballitore on the narrow secondary roads easier than
driving south on the N11. There was little traffic, though the
occasional lorry zooming along in the opposite direction kept my
adrenaline flowing. I had to watch out for farm vehicles.
    Dad had borrowed the atlas from Ballymann House and dug
a guidebook from his book bag. He kept up a litany of place names
every time we came to a signpost, which was often. There was no
point in trying to follow a numbered route. The only number to be
found on the signposts was the distance in kilometers.
    We passed through villages with lilting names—Avoca,
Aughrim, Tinahealy. We should have gone to Tullow as well, but I
took a wrong turn and we wound up with an English clank in
Hacketstown. I spotted a signpost for Carlow there and followed
it.
    We drove a while in silence. In fact, Dad had said very little
to me beyond commonplaces since we left Stanyon Hall. I thought he
was displeased with me for not telling him about the red paint. I was
not going to apologize.
    One of the disadvantages of nervous driving is that you
focus fiercely on the yellow line—when there is one. The scenery
rushed by in a green blur. I wondered why the tourists hadn't
discovered the area. There were no B & Bs, which was how I
knew they hadn't. The rolling hills and pasture land were as lush as
Wicklow though lower. I crossed the main road to Tullow, still on
course. As we rounded yet another blind corner, I spotted the first
dolmen.
    "My God, what's that?"
    While Dad riffled through his guidebook, I heaved the car
over a humped, one-lane bridge, pulled onto a wide spot that looked
like a turnaround for tractors, and set the brake.
    "I believe it's the Haroldstown Dolmen."
    "Yes, but what is it?" I got out of the car and walked back
over the bridge. My father followed. A van rattled past. The driver
waved.
    "A megalith. According to the guide, there are more than
fourteen hundred of them in Ireland."
    The dolmen resembled nothing so much as a stout, three-
dimensional rendition of the Greek letter pi . It squatted in the
middle of a field full of black and white cows. Affixed to the stone
wall that girdled the pasture, a neat brown sign in Irish and English
warned that dire punishments awaited anyone who defaced a
national monument. So somebody else had noticed the dolmen's
existence. Part of its eeriness arose from the fact that we had come
on it unwarned.
    I considered leaping the stone fence and slogging through
the cowpats for a closer look. The cows seemed amiable. I saw no
bulls. I didn't want to curdle some farmer's cream, though, so I just
stood and looked. The hair on the back of my neck bristled.
    Dad was in lecture mode. "Dolmens were tombs. The stones
formed the interior framework for a burial mound, and dirt was
heaped over them. There are tumuli all over the country that
probably contain similar stonework. Here the earth eroded away and
exposed the stones."
    A tomb.
    We edged back to the car. I had not driven five kilometers
when we found another one. Dad identified it as the Browne's Hill
Dolmen, the largest in Ireland. The site was clearly marked and
featured a graveled lay-by for pilgrims. I parked the Toyota.
    The dolmen sat on the brow of a hill on the far side of the
inevitable cow pasture. The Office of Public Works had built a tall
wire fence that created a safe corridor through the field.
    I turned to my father. "Do you want to walk over there? It's
quite a distance."
    He smiled. "Absolutely."
    Close to, the dolmen was even eerier. The builders had
heaved vast slabs of stone into the characteristic formation. Smaller
stones marked the edge of the sanctuary, if that was the right term
for the area surrounding the tomb. A pair of frolicking calves nudged
the OPW fence, but the rest of the herd ignored us. The