One of the Friends of the Glen has found some images of the old Fleischman House… It is hard to imagine this in the undergrowth, today’s mission will be to locate this crazy tree, I can’t make out what the leaf form is but will be looking out for the bendy trunk and have sent out feelers for ID from the photo, this little bridge is still there… and so we hear that the Mill stream flowed under the Fleischmann House, and the Heron was captured from the kitchen window… just 28 years ago… labelled as “Glen House Ballyvolane 1947-1992” and “Mill stream flowing under Glen House – view from kitchen” on UCC’s Fleischmann Diaries page.
I find another astonishing photo from the Rory Gallagher Music Library’s archive on Aloys Fleishmann, I had heard that Maeve, one of the daughters built a house beside the family’s in the 1970s…
I find it fascinating to imagine these colossal buildings amongst the tangle of trees, I go looking, following the clues – the river ran under the house and the photo of the bridge was taken through the kitchen window. The site is at the place where there is a fork and diverging paths, So I enter left, via the ruined gate posts to ‘the clearing’ I turn and looking back I see the arch of the bridge and I find I am standing on the ground that is covering the river there are many remains of walls, and as many layers of history here so I’m following closely the clearest clues from the photos and
I see now there is the upright handle bars of a scooter where the Heron stood.
The Fleischmanns literally lived on top of a river …there is a fallen tree, I look for the bending tree from the photo… there is a laurel, the large rhododendron where the parties happen and where the drinks cans clutter the ground, this is the right place, grown larger now
There is a family of shoots peeping out above the leaf litter a robin joins me while I excavate, deeply pleasurable, dank and dark and decaying fecund and virile we share moments together