The Naked Ladies of Inistioge

Peculiarly, there were no newpaper headlines; nor did it make the news on tv or radio – I had been listening – but this morning some hundreds of naked ladies gathered on the riverside meadows of the picturesque village of Inistioge in Co. Kilkenny.

The iconic ten-arched bridge at Inistioge

The river view from beside the bridge

A stretch of riverside road

Looking across the river to the village of Inistioge

It didn’t seem to bother the local population in the slightest; nobody took the least notice. Drivers in cars and trucks crossed the beautiful ten-arched bridge without as much as a sideways glance; school children had their normal mid-morning break and seemed to be engrossed in their games and not to notice these ladies at all; the cows across the river simply lay down at the boredom of it all – nothing new to them at all.

Paying no attention whatsoever, a herd of cows relax in the field across the river. 

And, there they are, in open view, the naked ladies!

A sprinkle of pink through the rich meadow grass

Of course, the naked ladies are the annual flowering of the Meadow Saffron, a rather scarce plant in Ireland, and found only in a small number of moist riverside meadows where the strong grass supports its weak flower stems. The “Naked Lady” name is applied not only to Colchicum autumnale but to several plants which produce their flowers in the absence of their foliage. In the case of the Meadow Saffron, the foliage appears in spring, nourishes the bulbs so they can produce their flowers in autumn.

Colchicum autumnale, Meadow Saffron, Naked Ladies!

Another riverside site, near Thomastown, has a number of white-flowered plants – a friend visited during the past week and reported seeing them again this year – but there are no white flowers in Inistioge; they are all pink, blushing?