SURVIVAL – IRISH STYLE
Spinning nettle stalks into cordage forfire and getting shelter are important, sterile, muddy, dank landscape but was
bow stings and snares.and here in South Kerry making fire starting to appear more and more like
is really difficult,” Aebhric said.“The a well-stocked hotel suite with a to-go
five-minute fire is the most important restaurant attached.
thing you can take away from any of Within a few hundred yards of our
these courses, so, unleash your inner camp kitchen we were shown nettles,
pyromaniac,carry a lighter and test plantains and sorrel to turn into salads
everything you see in the woods, and or cook up like spinach.From the
learn what burns and how.” wood we picked spruce tips for a
This was a hands-on course and after fresh-tanged tea. On these foraging
a quick run through the science of fire trips, Aebhric allowed his passion
we were out in the sopping wet forestry for wilderness medicine full rein;
hunting for tinder and dry twigs.There willow tea for headaches, plantain for
were no five-minute fires on our first poultices.Keen on more credit-crunch
attempt.But techniques and tricks were busting I added salad-for-free to my
absorbed until over the coming days evening meal, whilst Tom reckoned that
whenever Aebhric shouted out‘Five- learning how to pick and eat raw stingy
minute fire,GO!’we’d drop whatever we nettles without getting stung gave him a
were doing and scramble to spark up as great after-pub trick.
quickly as possible.We got into the habit Still on the food theme, there was a
of keeping an eye out for dry tinder talk on snaring and hunting and then
– and then anything useful – to stuff practise in whittling triggers to make
into our warm, inside pockets.Aebhric dead-fall traps and carving wooden
seemed pleased at this spirited bending fish hooks before taking hunting bows
of the rules.“There’s no cheating in out to practise on a cartoon deer target.
survival – use dried shavings, paper, The ethics of hunting and its legality
anything you’ve got on you or you can in Ireland are confusing, but I thought
find to start a fire.”
Keen not to cheat, on the first night “From the outside it was like a giant
I gave up on my tent, forswore the
comforts of the wooden floor in the green igloo of spruce fronds and
classroom and disappeared into the
woods to sleep in the group debris boughs piled much higher than my
shelter that the winter survival group
head, with a tiny wriggle-in hole for
a door. Inside the cave-dark interior
was a raised couch of leaves, straw and
branches.I’d found the solution to the
mortgage crisis.”
had built on the previous course. From of what we were learning as similar
the outside it was like a giant green to practising a martial art; something
igloo of spruce fronds and boughs piled to perfect in the abstract, almost as a
much higher than my head, with a tiny meditation.Though also as skills I might
wriggle-in hole for a door. Inside the be grateful for in an extreme survival
cave-dark interior was a raised couch of situation.
leaves, straw and branches.I’d found the Aebhric may have had a tough
solution to the mortgage crisis.I slept military background but he was
soundly, warm and dry and woke to the still passionate about the benefits of
sound of birds singing. natural foods, spending time in a sit-
spot to absorb a real understanding
of the natural world we were livingHunter gatherers
in, and developing our hearing and
With each day living in the woods practising all-round‘owl vision’.“I’m
that awareness of the natural world for woo-woo holistic nature stuff and
increased.When a brace of ducks I’m for antibiotics;I’m for whatever
quacked as they flew high overhead we works.Awareness is just as useful for
looked up hungrily from the nettle fibres surviving in the Bronx or Dublin...
we were spinning into cordage for bow this stuff translates into everyday life,”
strings and snares.We were turning into he said. Aebhric and his wife,Anna,
hunter gatherers and our senses were have something of the Lakota Indian
taking on new importance.Our eyes and philosophy, establishing a permaculture
Foraging for edible plants. ears had sharpened to locate the basics lifestyle on their land and re-planting
of life in what had at first seemed like a with native hard-woods, bearing in mind
46|June-July|OUTSIDER
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