Dun Aenghus – W. R. P. George

Dun Aenghus

Rhelyw o gaer, arlwy o gerrig

    ar wasgar yn Aran
    a roed ger fy mron
    ar ford erwinder o faen;

garth a gwledd o deires gwrthgloddiau
aruthr oes y cewri.

Iasau tir â'i phiol
    yn llawn o drawsterau ffiaidd
    ym mharabl y muriau

hyn a fu'n gwarchod y cynddyn rhag y gelyn ac alaeth
gyda'i fuches lwyd y tu mewn i'w loches lem.

    I'r golwg gynt o'r gwaelod,
    ochr y tir,

    golwg i ddarbwyllo gelyn
    awchus, ar fedr cychwyn
    cyrch, i beidio â dringo'r llethr draw
    yn nhymor brath y muriau brwnt.

    Pwy, tybed, a arlwyodd
    dyrrau y foel a'u braster o faen,
    caer y cerrig geirwon?

    Ai duwiau y tu hwnt i'n deall?

Does neb, – neb meddan nhw yn Aran – a wˆyr.
Cilia hon rhag ei chroniclo hi;
    hˆyn yw na hanes.

Mae ei miniog ddannedd hyd at heddiw
yn darostwng undydd dwrisiaid
ar ruthr ysgafala tua'i chrib
anwastad, â'u llygad ar amserlen y llong
a'u herys ym mhorthladd Aran.

A heulwen hygar heddiw dros Aran

    ag Awst yn peri gosteg,
    gosteg môr Iwerydd gwastad,
        heddiw bnawn,
    â'm chwilfrydedd yn llawn
    cyn dychwelyd i'r llong

edrychaf o'r crib tua'r dibyn,
o'm troedle swyn ar y twyn drwy'r tes
    a gweld rhedynwe'r gwynt
ar swnt islaw fel y swnt lle mordwyodd Odysews.

    Ar gwr hagr y gaer hon
    erioed ni thyfodd coeden
    â nerth mast i'm rhwymo wrthi;
    haul Awst a dawdd wêr fy nghlustiau.

Daw dwsmel, swyngyfareddol awelon
â'u melodi heibio im ar ymyl y dibyn.

Yn yr unigedd, o'r braidd, fe'm cyfareddir
    i roi pen ar raib byd
    a neidio ganllath isod i genllif
    ar daen danaf fel maen mynor.


Erthygl gan Nicholas Watt o'r Times, 15/8/1995 (gan W. R. P. George)

Irish limit access to cliff top site …
tourists throwing stones dismantle Bronze Age fort
One of europe's most spectacular Bronze Age monuments is slipping into the sea because thousands of tourists have been allowed to wander freely over the site.
     Dun Aengus, a clifftop fort on Inishmore, one of the Aran islands off the Co Galway coast, has fallen into such a state of disrepair that the Government has decided to limit access to the monument. The Office of Public Works responsible for maintaining heritage sites in the Irish Republic, is seeking planning permission to build a visitors' centre to act as a feeder point for tourists.
     Up to 100,000 people a year visit the monument, which stands on top of a 300ft cliff on the southern side of Inishmore. During the summer, hundreds of people a day clamber over its walls and locals say they have seen visitors throw stones from the fort to see how long it takes for them to hit the sea.
     Jim Blighe,for the OPW, said his department was very concerned about the state of Dun Aengus, "If hundreds of people throw stones off the cliff there will be no fort left. Anyone who visits the fort is impressed, but some people do get carried away."
     Mr Blighe added that it had been unnecessary until recently to protect the fort because relatively few tourists visited the site. "It is only in recent years that access to the islands has become easier," he said. "It is now important to maintain the site because it is certainly the most spectacular in Ireland."
     Dun Aengus, which covers 14 acres, consists of three enclosures defended by stout walls. The innermost wall, which is nearly 18ft high, is a semi-circle that runs up to the edge of the cliff and has a sheer right-angle drop to the sea 300ft below. Archaeologists who have been working on the fort since 1992 believe it was built in the late Bronze Age around 2000 BC to house and protect wealthy farmers, and then remodelled in the Iron Age (500 BC to AD 500).
     Its magnificent ramparts were built in the early Christian period when the structure was reoccupied. The fort was restored in the 1880s.
     Clare Cotter, director of the Western Forts Project, who is working on a series of stone forts along the West Coast of Ireland, described Dun Aengus as the most important in Ireland. Her team has uncovered food remains, foundations from ten houses, and fragments of clay moulds used to cast bronze tools.
     Ms Cotter believes the plan for a visitors' centre is the best way of preserving the fort. "There will not be a serious threat if someone is here to oversee visitors and to tell them not to throw stones. Most people are well behaved but there is the odd thoughtless one."
     Dun Aengus has long captured the imagination of Irish writers and in the 1850s an antiquarian society used to hold an annual dinner within the inner wall. The society was so concerned about the poor condition of the fort that in 1857 Sir William Wilde, the father of the writer Oscar, and president of the society, called on the islanders to preserve the site by refraining from digging out rabbits that sheltered in the walls.
     According to An Aran Reader, a collection of writing about the island, he told the annual dinner: "It is much to be deplored that these vast buildings are so rapidly going to destruction, not by the slow hand of time, for to time they have almost bid defiance.
     "The destruction we lament has been recent, and has befallen them from the hands of those who should preserve, not destroy them, as they have done in the pursuit of rabbits."