Doggerland

During the last Ice Age, the English Channel was a land bridge. They call it Doggerland. By modern definitions, this European landmass included Great Britain. As the ice sheets melted, sea levels rose. Doggerland was flooded, and the English Channel became a waterway.

Doggerland was a fertile landscape, home to mammoths, red deer, wild horses, and humans. Sediment samples, geophysical surveys, and underwater archaeological evidence confirm the existence of this lost land. Tools and settlement artifacts have been found.

Was Doggerland Atlantis?

Ceo ar an teanga – Mist on the tongue

Cuan beag – A name like mist on the tongue. They say there was once a natural harbor here, barely more than a landing for fishermen, hidden between headlands. The sea eventually claimed it during one of the winter storms that sweep away everything not rooted deep in the earth. Only the name remains – cuan beag, the little cove.

We passed through a weathered gate, the only opening in an ancient oval wall. The roofs were moss-covered slate. The few cottages were adorned with shell motifs, their round shutters painted with maritime-mythical patterns. The smell of smoked fish and rosemary drifted in the air.

We walked over cobblestones and soon stood before an inn – Teach na nGael, the House of the Celts. On a whim, we checked in. We felt absurdly wealthy. In the room stood an old four-poster bed, the wooden posts carved with intertwining ivy. On the windowsill rested an antique telescope. I lifted it and trained it on the sea.

“Perhaps you can see Atlantis from here on a clear day,” you said. I thought once again that it was a line from a screenplay. You placed your hands on my waist. We stayed like that for a moment; the sky was deep blue, the light diffused. Then I turned in your arms.

“I want to look you in the eyes.”

You unfastened the dress I had bought with Goya in Frankfurt on the Zeil – white muslin, adorned with blue blossoms. Goya had been with me the whole time. Secretly, I offered him my penance, while you brought me to a supermarket climax. Suddenly, I felt a sharp, aching longing for Goya, so intense I feared I might betray myself. I wanted to retreat into my snail-shell of desire, without offending you. You no longer had to endure another lesson in self-improvement from me. I was done with you.

You had no inkling that I was already saying goodbye inside. I let you believe it was still about us.

Later, we visited a chapel at the edge of the cliffs, half-ruined, its roof shredded by the wind. They said an illicit couple once hid there, lost in a storm.

The Dúnmara peninsula had once been a refuge for Gaelic brigands and coastal pirates. As early as the 6th century, Celtic-Christian hermits settled here, following the ideal of solitude and building small monasteries by the coves. “Dúnmara” – Fortress by the Sea – may date back to that time, even if its exact linguistic roots are Gaelic, Old Breton, or early Irish.

During the Norman conquest of Ireland in the 12th century, the area fell under the authority of Anglo-Norman lords. The peninsula remained largely independent because of its inaccessibility. The past did not gather dust in Dúnmara; it was a breath that swept through the hedgerows.

*

Through the curtains fell hesitant morning light. Your hands roamed my landscape of desire. Yes, I enjoyed the heat of your breath on my neck. Our bodies found each other in the flowing warmth of an intimate morning greeting.

“My love for you tears me apart,” you whispered. We were no longer on the same ship, but I said nothing. The sun drifted over the crumbling stone and grass-covered hills. The shutters rattled.

I stepped barefoot onto the hotel veranda. The sky was milky blue, the sea smooth as a sheet. You followed with steaming tea. We sat beneath a gorse bush. I asked the manager about the local marine life. There were plenty of sharks. In my mind’s eye, a whole armada of fins tumbled through the water.