Corkonians consider Cork the true capital of Ireland and are well known for their heightened sense of pride in their City by the river Lee. Two years ago when I set about researching this film, I discovered to my amazement that there were a whole series of really intriguing facts about the river Lee that the vast majority of people I interviewed were clearly unaware of.
I walk and cycle along various parts of the river every week. I have swam, fished, and paddled many different sections of the river since early childhood. I have sailed around its magnificent harbour, the second largest natural harbour in the world. I have crossed its 29 inner city bridges a million times or more. But I never considered the bird’s eye view from source to sea.
The photo above is taken in the summer of 2013 at Cork airport. Seán Murphy, our flight captain is preparing the Skyhawk to fly the mp2film team, all two of us, the entire length of the river.
Barry McCarthy was on camera duty and I was assisting from very tight quarters directly behind his co-pilot’s seat. The wind chill factor and noise level at 500 feet and 120 mph takes a little getting used to. But the view as this little metal plane rattled through the sky and wound and turned along the meandering Lee on what was a crystal clear Summer’s evening was simply breathtaking.
This close range magical overview gives one the true sense of how gracious a natural river flows. This giant snake has carried billions upon billions of tons of water through the Lee valley since the ice melted some 10,000 years ago.
From the massive expanse of the harbour, shimmering silver in the evening sun, the city spreads in all directions, engulfs the river that divides into two channels and cuts it with its straight limestone walls. Once we fly past the city, mature sweeping bends appear with an almost erotic elegance as it carves its way through the lush green pastures. This is the lovely Lee. This is exhilarating.
Further out the valley the pilot asks if he should delay to get more footage, pushing up the saucy price even further. “NO” I respond through the ripping noise of the wind for obvious reasons. Two minutes later the unique inland forest delta known as the Gearagh approaches in its sprawling splendour. ”Come in Sean…eh..can you circle again please…over” This hurt the pocket but it wassimply worth the sting as it gave us the full sense of this meandering sprawling myriad ofliquid veins that we thought we knew so well.
A summer heat haze smothered Gougannebarra, the source of the river Lee, and created an impassable Monet-like shimmer over the Sheedy Mountains. Sean Murphy calmly flew us back to base, with our memory cards full and my ears frozen off the side of my head!
Regardless, that was the fastest hour of my life and once we got to view the footage back at base it proved to be really worth the effort.
Stay tuned for next week’s blog post entitled, ‘Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance’.