Daphne D.C. Pochin Mould:
geologist, historian, archaeologist and
travel writer
Niall C.E.J. O’Brien
In November 2010 Daphne Pochin
Mould celebrated her ninetieth birthday and a remarkable life well lived. But
at a time when other people would be winding down Daphne was planning her next
project – a book on Cork’s first newspapers, the Hibernian Chronicle and Cork
Mercantile Chronicle which ran from 1769 to 1815.[1]
Pochin Mould (photographer unknown)
Early life
Daphne Desiree Charlotte Pochin
Mould was born in Salisbury in 1920 but lived in Ireland since 1951 and was
living for a time in Scotland before that. As Daphne said “My background is
English, but I have been so long out of contact with its thought and way of
life, that going back there in recent years, I found I passed for a born
Irishwoman.”[2]
Daphne’s young life in Salisbury
was free for exploration as she said that she was lucky to “escaped formal early
education” but this was no drawback for someone who went on to become an author,
photographer, broadcaster, geologist, traveller, pilot and Ireland’s first
female flight instructor. Daphne has always had an interest in machines and
matters mechanical. At 17 years old she took her driving test and passed with
flying colours and as she said “I have been addicted to cars ever since.”[3] Fortunately
for the wider archaeological community Daphne Pochin Mould also had an
addiction to planes and became a well-known and respected aerial photographer.
In later years she kept a single engine Piper Cub at Cork Airport and was still
flying up until her last years. During the Second World war Daphne Pochin Mould
attended Edinburgh University and qualified with a PhD in geology along with a
research fellowship.[4]
Scotland
After University, Daphne Pochin Mould went on a spirit of adventure to settle in the Hebrides, where she learnt to become a crofter as well as writing on the islands (The Roads from the Isles and West over Sea). Her PhD was studying the rocks of the Scottish Highlands and the Hebrides was not that far off the beaten track.[5] Her new neighbour, Sandy Grant, taught her to make hay and use a scythe to cut corn. The fast fading townie also learnt to harness a horse to a cart and do ploughing and harrowing.[6]
Scotland
After University, Daphne Pochin Mould went on a spirit of adventure to settle in the Hebrides, where she learnt to become a crofter as well as writing on the islands (The Roads from the Isles and West over Sea). Her PhD was studying the rocks of the Scottish Highlands and the Hebrides was not that far off the beaten track.[5] Her new neighbour, Sandy Grant, taught her to make hay and use a scythe to cut corn. The fast fading townie also learnt to harness a horse to a cart and do ploughing and harrowing.[6]
But the farming landscape of the
Hebrides didn’t ground her mind to the soil but opened it to the wider world.
One of her earliest published books was the Scotland of the Saints which
recounted in a popular but scholarly way the coming of Christianity to
Scotland. Using her geology qualifications Daphne explored Scotland to say why
they built the sites of early abbeys and churches in the places that they did.
The book combined this exploration with geographical and historical data to
produce a nice book complete with a map and over 50 photographs.[7] Daphne
Pochin Mould was brought up in the Anglican Church but developed into a
militant agnostic. Her intention to write the book on the Scottish church was
to attack the Church but the journey of exploration actually took her into the
Church. In 1950 she was received into the Catholic Church by the Benedictines
of Fort Augustus.[8]
Ireland of the saints and scholars calls Daphne
Ireland of the saints and scholars calls Daphne
In 1951 an interest in early
Celtic saints brought Daphne to Ireland where she took up residence at Aherla,
in mid-Cork. Many years later a book dealer recounted a story of how he went to
Aherla to meet Daphne Pochin Mould about 2012 and found the door ajar of the
old rectory where she lived. The dealer and his wife slowly walked in but the
house showed no sign of life. Then they heard a distant tap, tap, tap, from
somewhere deep inside the house. No wishing to disturb Daphne in her time of
intense writing the couple quietly retraced their steps out of the house.[9]
Writing was an important part of Daphne’s eventful life. As she once recounted,
“I do not really remember when I did not want to write. I remember composing
stories and poems before I learned to write and dictating them to members of
the family who wrote them down for me.”[10]
The book Ireland of the Saints
In 1953 Daphne Pochin Mould
published her first on many books about Ireland. Entitled Ireland of the Saints the work explored the Ireland before
Christianity and the impact the new religion had on the country. With chapters
on the principal saints like St. Patrick, St. Brigit, St. Columcille, and St.
Brendan the book examine the new religion in terms of male and female
prospectus and how Christianity was moulded into the Irish way through the
monasteries and how then the Irish took Christianity back into Europe with
their love of travel and learning. In the preface Daphne said that it was “perhaps
a rash undertaking for an incomer to Ireland” to write the book but she
acknowledged the use of previous researches by other scholars, listed in a
bibliography. Most of the photographs used in the book where taken by other
people, including the aerial photos. Daphne’s own photos took her around the
country to Inismurray, Ahenny, the stone chapel of St. Macdara in Connamara and
the Aran Islands.[11]
The book The Mountains of Ireland
The Ireland of the Saints included a number of photographs of Irish mountains
associated with Christian saints. These photographs and Daphne’s own training
in geology made a project on the mountains of Ireland a venture not to be
missed. Published in 1955, The Mountains
of Ireland was described as the first book to explore the Irish mountains –
it possibly takes an outside to see the beauty that long residents take for
granted. The book describes the geology, customs and place-names that surround
the Irish mountains with a climbers guide to the best ways of visiting and
ascending and how to descend again. The book was illustrated with over fifty
photographs but only three by the author (Mayo, Connamara and upon the Twelve
Bens of Galway). Photography was a young science for Daphne but she would soon
master it and take it to new heights!
Other books
After the book, Ireland of the Saints, Daphne Pochin
Mould published another two books on Irish Christianity entitled The Rock of Truth and The Celtic Saints: Our Heritage.
The book Irish Pilgrimage
In 1957 Daphne Pochin Mould
publish another book on Irish Christianity called Irish Pilgrimage. This book included twelve photographs taken by
Daphne on her journey from Ballyvourney to Mount Brandon and the Reask cross
pillar stone to Clonmacnoise and Glencolumbkille and St. Mullins by the River
Barrow.[12]
The book The Irish Dominicans
Also in 1957 Daphne Pochin Mould found
time published a second book, this time on a general history of the Irish
Dominicans over seven hundred years. On Ash Wednesday 1952, at Galway, Daphne
was received into the Dominican Third Order. Her book as a general history was
not the detailed history of the Order which Dominic O’Daly asked for in the
seventeenth century but Daphne hoped it would act as a starting point for some
future scholar to conduct a detailed examination. Daphne was aided in her
researches by Luke Taheney, O.P., who found many forgotten fragments of
Dominican history.[13] The
fourteen chapters and fourteen appendices were inter-spaced with eighty-three
photographs of which forty-seven were taken by Daphne.[14]
The Irish Dominicans was described by a later historian of the Dominican Order
as an “eminently readable” book.[15]
Other books
After the extensive output of
published books in the 1950s Daphne Pochin Mould continued with her exploration
of her new country and published nearly twenty books to share her discoveries
with the wider public.[16]
These books included The Aran Islands
(1972), The Mountains of Ireland (1976).[17]
In 1988 Daphne Pochin Mould went in exploration of a different form of travel
with her book on Captain Roberts of the
Sirius.
Aerial photography
Aerial photography of
archaeological monuments began in Northern Ireland in 1927 and was first used
in the Republic in 1934. In 1951-3 and 1963-73 Professor St. Joseph of the
Cambridge University Committee for Aerial Photography took a series of photos
from across Ireland for the National Monuments Council.[18]
Daphne Pochin Mould was excited by this new view on archaeology and secured a
pilot’s licence. She would go on to become Ireland’s first female flight
instructor.[19]
Much of her work in aerial photography was in the south of Ireland and although
most of her photos were not published, some did enter the public arena. In the
1980s the Cork Archaeological Survey took on Daphne as their aerial
photographer. In a photo of the Survey team in 1984 Daphne looked a bit lost in
the group of younger people but a later reunion photo had her among the group
standing proud.[20]
Daphne’s activities helped encourage other female archaeologists like Gillian
Barrett to take to the air and expand the range and density of Irish
archaeology sites.
The book Discovering Cork
In 1991 Daphne Pochin Mould published
a book exploring and discovering her adopted county – Cork. The book explores
the county through its monuments of the centuries from megalithic structures to
Christian churches, medieval castles and monasteries to modern canals, roads
and industrial sites. It is full of photographs and information with an
extensive bibliography.
Honorary Doctorate
In 1993 Daphne Pochin Mould’s
work as "a scientist and a free spirit, a courageous pioneer and an
outstanding woman warrior", was acknowledged with an honorary doctorate
from University College Cork.
Final years and death
Daphne Pochin Mould was active up to the end writing and
travelling. In 2011 she stayed for a few days at the Walter Raleigh Hotel in
Youghal where she was visited up by a number of local historians. They were
delighted to hear her stories and enjoy the atmosphere. Unfortunately due to
other commitments this author was not able to join the fun.
Daphne Desiree Charlotte Pochin Mould died on 29th
April 2014 after a short illness.[21]
Daphne Pochin mould travelled far in a long life – from Salisbury to Scotland
to Aherla in Co. Cork – from geology to history and aerial photography – from
Anglican to the Catholic faith – she truly went on an Irish Pilgrimage.
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[1]
Unfortunately the book didn’t make it to the publishers before her death in
2014
[5]
Pochin Mould, D.D.C., The Irish Dominicans: The Friars Preachers
in the history of Catholic Ireland (Dublin, 1957), dust jacket
[7]
Pochin Mould, D.D.C., Ireland of the Saints (London, 1953), p.
4
[8]
Pochin Mould, D.D.C., The Irish Dominicans: The Friars Preachers
in the history of Catholic Ireland (Dublin, 1957), dust jacket
[9]
Information recounted to the
author c.2012 at the Lismore antiques fair
[11]
Pochin Mould, D.D.C., Ireland of the Saints (London, 1953), p.
8
[12]
Pochin Mould, D.D.C., Irish Pilgrimage (New York, 1957), p. ii
[13]
Flynn, T., O.P., The Irish Dominicans
1536-1641 (Dublin, 1933), p. xx
[14]
Pochin Mould, D.D.C., The Irish Dominicans: The Friars Preachers
in the history of Catholic Ireland (Dublin, 1957), pp. xiii-xvi
[15]
Flynn, T., O.P., The Irish Dominicans
1536-1641 (Dublin, 1933), p. xx
[16]
Other books included The Celtic saints,
our heritage (1956), Peter's boat: A
convert's experience of Catholic living (1959) The Lord is Risen: The Liturgy of Paschal Time (1960), Angels of God: their rightful place in the
modern world (1963), The Second
Vatican Council (1963), Whitefriars
Street Church: A Short Guide (1964), Saint
Brigid (1964), Saint Finbarr of Cork
(1965), A book of Irish saints and Irish
saints' names (1965), Ireland; From
the Air (1973) and Valentia: Portrait
of an Island (1978)
[17]
Pochin Mould, D.D.C., Discovering Cork (Dingle, 1991), dust
jacket
[18]
Lambrick, G., Air and Earth: Aerial
archaeology in Ireland (Dublin, 2008), p. 13
[20]
Power, D., ‘The Cork Archaeology Survey’, in Emer Condit (ed.), Surveying Our Heritage: The National
Monuments Service: marking 50 years of the Archaeological Survey of Ireland
(Dublin, 2013), pp. 22-23
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