A Series of One-Night Stands

Some photos here of gorgeous Sligo (top), Clare (middle), and Galway (bottom)--in the reverse order we took them... I realize that the title of the post with the photo of PK and kids is a little, er, strange...

We've had 5 nights in a row at different sleeping establishments in Ireland and, as an English teacher, I know this has the makings of a good compare/contrast essay. Certainly the 5 places offered us vastly different experiences (some with toilet seats, some without). We began in Wexford staying at a resort-y place on the Slaney river--nice but a little unfriendly and crummy food. The following night, as loyal readers will recall, we stayed with the O'Brien chieftain who has recently built a neo-castle on a hill in Newmarket-on-Fergus complete with nouveau gargoyles, a turret, crenellated tower, and long, swooping driveway. His family line broke from the that of the lord who apparently owns Dromoland Castle (about 4 miles away). Our host's family opted to remain Catholic and lose everything while the other side turned Protestant and retained the lands (and hence own a real castle). The third night was spent in Galway's The Skeffington Arms, a back-packer inn stop-over without toilet seat. Despite its disabled throne, the Skeff had its charms--a lovely Victorian breakfast room and a super sweet concierge who appeared to be the only worker in the whole building. Moving onward to Sligo, we stayed at An Cruisin Lan (Gaelic for "The Full Jug"), an old guesthouse (SRO type) with a statue of the Virgin Mary in a Boston Red Sox hat at the desk. It was clean, and our host, Liam McGettigan, was terribly efficient, but hmmmmm. This was a creaky old place. Finally, in Belfast, we're staying at The Cullendon, a retro-fitted Church of Ireland bishop's palace--very swank and gorgeous with a fancy pool and all the mod-cons. While a good compare-contrast essay would go into proper detail and find an argument that somehow makes these disparate one-nighters cohere, as the teacher, I don't have to do that. But I will say that the Catholic - Protestant issues factored in 3 of the 5 spots. Having travelled from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland now, the division marked only by a change in the flags you see flying (and a change in currency), I wonder at the willfulness that keeps the sides apart. (PK notes that last time he crossed that particular border [late '70s\ it was marked by tanks, machine gun nests, concrete blocks and tommies. That was, obviously, even more incomprehensible). That said, we have been careful not to be ugly Americans (+ an Aussie) in the Republic, but when we arrived in Belfast, we felt it was alright to walk in like we owned the place and be loud and tacky. Off to Scotland tomorrow for 4 nights on Loch Ness. Will we try haggis? Will we see Nessie? Will we discover what Scotsmen wear under their kilts? Stay tuned...

Galway and beyond

After the Burren we pulled into Galway - apparently a real destination for the backpacking set. With a nice setting on the water and a reputation for the best place in the land for Irish music, its no wonder. There were backpackers a plenty, and bars a plenty (go figure). Despite all this, probably the most memorable aspect of our brief visit to Galway was the hotel. Our never ending requirement to have connecting rooms ran into the historic construction of small Irish town hotels - no connecting rooms. So we bunked in a "family" room that no doubt is more often used by groups (schools? pods?) of backpackers...or stag/hen parties. Galway's reputation attracts this crowd as well. Anyway, back to the hotel, which had the curious feature of...no toilet seat. This after paying up for the en suite! The WC had a cover but no seat. Curious - theories range from a stag party prank, some struggling band looking for an edge (apparently the Beatles once played an early gig in Hamburg wearing toilet seats), the maid absconding with the thing while renovating her own place, to a backpacker deciding that carrying your own toilet seat with you was the hygenic option. Who knows - but the fairer sex of our travelling party grumbled.

After a nice dinner & a good rest, we casually drove around Galway county, into Mayo (home of the Kearns clan) and off to Sligo.

Irish Surfing Dudes?

This one's for you Jon Jorgl.
Today (Wed 18th) we went to a funky little place. We arrived late afternoon in Sligo & decided to head out to the coast for dinner, to a place called Strandhill. With a name like that, we were kind of expecting, I dunno, sand dunes? What we found was a cool, hip sort of place - a real surf mecca. Or what passes for a surf mecca in these climates. The waves were rolling in, probably three footers, a shore break, but breaking decently far out from shore. The air was a chilly 58 farenheit (8pm); the water was only probably slightly warmer, but there were plenty of dudes (Irish dudes?) in the water, full wetsuits of course. Kind of cool to see these guys surfing with the setting sun behind them, then everyone retiring to the local watering hole for a…pint of Guiness. Hmmm. We ate a nice meal in a place run by an Aussie (of course). Worth a trip for the die hard surfers (fly into Shannon, connect to Sligo, beach is 200 yards from the airport). Worth a detour for the wandering souls.

Erin Go Bragh

Some impressions of Ireland: it's cold in summer; the food is very creamy (heavy cream in coffee, in cereal, in potatoes, on fruit); We overheard a family speaking in Gaelic at dinner--it is pronounced very differently than it's spelled (but I guess that's just our Anglo limitations--Clare is toying with spelling her name the Gaelic way, "Chlair"); the landscape is breathtaking--we can see how this was to Edmund Spenser a "Faerie" world; it feels a little magical and auld (George, you need to be here to discuss "me lucky charms"); the history of British domination is more apparent closer to Dublin; here in the West you feel closer to Cuchulain and Fergus than to Parnell and Collins. There's a young population and sports is central (even women's sports! we've seen footage of women's Gaelic Football and girls trotting around with hurling sticks, what a wicked game); golf courses take up some of the prettiest parcels of land, and the Celtic Tiger economy is now a bit of an sickly kitten--we have heard terrible riches to rags stories since we've been here--here's hoping it starts to roar again.

Keep Clare Clean

No, not that Clare! We had some fun with the signage around beautiful County Clare and we soaked up its spectacular views. What can I say? This place lives up to the hype. Leaving Newmarket (Limerick/Shannon) we went to the coast on our way to Galway. First stop, the Cliffs of Moher. Yes, it's touristy, yes, it's crowded - but with reason. The rocks are spectacular, as is the feeling as you gaze out over the Atlantic ocean roaring below you. Apparently a couple of the Spanish Armada ships made it down here as they scurried towards their home waters after taking a beating from a storm. Out of the frying pan into the fire. Can you imagine what their reaction was - "land ho" (or whatever you say in Spanish), quickly followed by "Dios mio, estos son enorme rocas culo." The folklore that I recall was that a decent number of sailors made it ashore & hence the somewhat darker, swarthier appearance of some folks from the west coast of ireland. The official count is that 6 sailors survived - hardly enough to meaningfully contribute to the gene pool of the Galwegians. Anyway, quite a place. And, by the way, the coolest tourist centre around - dug into the rocks so you don't even know its there, minimises its footprint…very nice.
Leaving the cliffs, we tooled through the Burren, an eerie moonlike landscape, apart from dashes of emerald between the rocks. It's a huge limestone landscape, I guess formed by the presence of a warm inland sea some millennia ago. The past inhabitants used the plentiful limestone rocks to form the famous dry rock walls (PK was taking plenty of notes, given his interest in building rock walls). It really is something else, the labour that went into & still goes into, building these walls. The effect is really quite stunning. Even more interesting, we stopped at a megalithic burial site, the Poulnabrone Dolmen, likely 6,000 years old. Take that Stonehenge - although the capstone was only 1.5 tonnes. Still, it took quite an effort to build the thing. I dare say not many things we construct now-a-days will still be standing 6,000 years from now.

Slainte

Life on the emerald isle is relaxed, so relaxed that there aren't a lot of free wi-fi ops; now that we're in Galway, we're cooking again. But we have some catching up to do. After we left Dublin, and a quick stop at Stephen Daedalus's Martello Tower, we spent the day resting and relaxing in Wexford at a resort on the shores of the river Slaney. The next morning we struck out for the West, stopping at the gorgeously ruined Rock of Cashel and the rather underwhelming King John's Castle (eh, a 12th-century castle, whatever) in Limerick, taking a wee detour through Cappamore, County Limerick, where Philip's ancestors (the O'Briens) resided. We pushed on to Newmarket-on-Fergus to our B&B where our host brought out his broadsword (really), a replica of an original chieftain sword from the, wait for it, O'Brien clan! Then he dragged out a boomerang and a didgeridoo! We were at home. Fantastic dinner at Durty Nellie's (best meal we've had in Ireland, land of heavy cream & blood pudding), next to Bunratty Castle. There's a castle, a ruin, or a castle ruin around every bend in County Clare.

And now for some perspective on the first 12 days. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words...
Sid and Philip upon first landing on these fair shores. Bright (well, almost) and chipper:

Sid and Philip with one of their offspring after a week on the road:

Its been a tough week & a bit. But things are looking up:

Although Emmett may have beaten us to the punch (bowl?):

How are the kids faring? Lets go to the videotape...
Once again, the start of the trip, everyone looking keen (chipper?):

But after a few days, things started to deteriorate. Or maybe it was the imbibing (cf Emmett above):

Of course, being the good parents we are, we threatened the kids with dire consequences unless they bucked up. Unfortunately, we found it necessary to follow through on the threat...

But its onward & upward for more weeks of travel...