Having long wanted to visit Ireland, the opportunity finally
arose in an unfortunate way. One must
visit in summer, while usually in summer this “one” must also go to Maui windsurfing. This
year in March, a fire destroyed my condominium on Maui, thwarting my visit
there, hence Ireland.
Thursday, June 13, 13
Seems like I got up in LA and am
going to bed in Ireland. Flying into Shannon
was a very impressive sight with many farm fields of odd shapes in luxurious
green and manicured with stone walls buried in hedge rows surrounding
them. One expects the well known city of Shannon
with Ireland’s second
international airport to be comparable to Dublin,
but instead it consists of one shopping mall and the airport, miniscule
compared to nearby unknown Ennis. Delta
made my connection so close at JFK that I just barely made it and my bag
didn’t. Fortunately am learning and
packed the carry on to cover – and when we arrived in Shannon the baggage agent
was already aware and taking steps to track and retrieve – not as complicated
as an India-Bhutan scenario a couple years earlier! After getting my car I got a SIM card for the
phone, drove to Ennis and got a room, then went to explore Bunratty Castle.
Ennis is a squeaky clean and neat little village typically European with
narrow streets …….. nowhere to pull off and read maps etc. Glad I’ve added a working Garmin. Trying
hard to not be an Ugly American, but nothing works in my room, TV, bathroom
lights, reading lights, heat, any place to sit down and use a computer, the
Wi-Fi all don’t work or are inadequate. But the room does have beautiful
and elegant marble and hardwood appointments. The SIM card provides voice
phone, but is expensive at €0.35/min($0.47/min), better than T-Mobile $1.49/min
roaming – caller only pays – data is more, my # 087
390 7562 (Ireland country code 353).
Friday, June 14, 13
Drove north through a lot of County Clare
through the Burren area and visited the Burren Center
at Kilanora.
Also went to the Cliffs of Moher, Ireland’s most popular tourist
sight which are cliffs that rival ours at home around Palos Verdes, actually
prettier because of the moisture and green vegetation adorning them. Speaking of moisture, my mile hike to view
the cliffs was in a cold rain, but fortunately the Atlantic air was clear for
good viewing. Returned to Ennis and had
dinner at The Cloister. Shannon
photos:
(Photos: A link near the end of a section will take you to the photo
album related to the section, while interspersed links take you to photos
related to the narrative context. - use Cntl or
Shift click to show in new tab or window respectively)
Saturday, June 15, 13
After spending the night in
Ennis, I drove to the Dingle
Peninsula, once reported
by National Geographic as the “most
beautiful place on earth.” Well it is
pretty nice. Hundreds of small sheep
pastures carved into small odd shapes by stone walls (fences) over grown by
greenery strewn over the rolling hills reaching down to the sea. Searching out a sheep farmer in a pub because
there were none in the fields, I learned that wool is currently nearly
worthless so the sheep are being raised to meat – lamb and/or mutton – the pub
farmers didn’t seem that credible to me.
Both here and in the Burren where I saw lots of cattle yesterday,
nothing is grown but grass, some of which is harvested into silage for winter
feeding. But notably no corn or grains
that always supplement the diet of American livestock at some stage. Apparently these animals live their whole
life on grass. Much of my trip around
the peninsula was in rain, so I missed the Ryan’s
Daughter school house, Robert Mitchum’s house and
the really neat ramp to the sea at Slea Head.
The Irish people are extremely
helpful and friendly in general. When I
was pulled off the road in the rain in the countryside studying maps trying to
find where I was and where I was going, a passing girl jogger opened the car
door and offered to help. Problem is
they can’t help that much in directions as nothing has an address over here –
so they start telling you it’s the second yellow building past the white church
………! Several B&B’s I have called
insist they have no address better than “Kilrush Road”
or the like and everyone knows where – well I don’t! And my Garmin street navigator is doing just
great here in Ireland,
but it doesn’t understand that stuff I try to put in about white churches.
The Irish eat potatoes. I was noticing where I ate tonight that every
item is “served on a bed of mashed,” that’s potatoes, with a side of chips,”
that’s potatoes too!, and a salad – thankfully.
I haven’t seen any potatoes growing yet, and when I asked, was told they
get a lot from Spain and the
Canary Islands. Circling the Dingle Peninsula
I saw many of the 1/2 million sheep reputed to be here. Wool is only €0.30/lb, maybe 4 lb of wool from a
sheep, so they are raised only for lamb and mutton slaughter at present. Typical farm size is about 50 acres still
family owned growing nothing but grass and sheep. Corporate farming has not moved in like in
the US
yet. But many farmers have found ways to
supplement their income with tourist businesses, like fencing off the ancient
stone forts, or other buildings and charging admission to see, or selling baked
pastries in the kitchen, or running a B&B in the farm house. I visited Dunbeg
Fort today and the Blasket Island people museum – they’re making a big
deal about these people, I didn’t get it.
Was quite windy, cold, and rainy much of the day. Dingle photos:
Monday, June 17, 13
After spending too much of this
fine sunny day driving from Dingle to Killarney and search out a Vodaphone store (sometimes the helpful Irish will tell you
where something is even if they don’t know), I finally got around to being
tourist again. Of course the Dingle Peninsula
part of the drive in the nice weather was a beautiful experience. At Killarney National Park I toured Muckross (pig peninsula) House with its 32
bedrooms and 65 chimneys. Queen Victoria was a guest here in 1861, the house is an
interesting tour with a good history, and later donated to the state as the
basis of Killarney
National Park. Then The Muckross
Abbey and Ross Castle. Many castles are
closer to a ruin, but Ross is very well preserved, restored, and has lots of 14th,
15th century furniture. It is
smaller with about 15 residents in addition to guard soldiers and servants and
a good example of how the medieval tribal leader (war lord?) lived.
Tuesday I began the drive round
the Ring of Kerry (and Ring of Shellig) --- after
going back to the Vodaphone shop in attempt to work
out more problems with my Ireland phone.
The Dingle
Peninsula is mostly green
rolling hills, while Kerry is low mountains with lots or exposed rock and lots
of green, but much rougher and “Camelot” wooded terrain. http://wikitravel.org/en/Ring_of_Kerry
. Visited a prehistoric rock ring fort, Staigue Ring Fort, then got a nice B&B at Waterville. There are quit a
number of small motor homes around but seemingly few places to go with
them. Today I did come across an RV park
on a Kerry beach, but in several hundred miles this is the first – so where do
they go? The roads are all quite narrow
with no shoulder and a stone wall rising 5 – 10 feet just a couple feet from
the pavement, so no place to pull off even for a moment usually.
Wednesday, June 19, 13
Up early to drive the Skellig Ring and catch a boat out to small rock of an
island that rises high out of the water with a centuries old monastery on top, Skellig
Michael. On the drive back to
Killarney for the night, I found my second camping ground, called Caravan Parks
in Ireland (reminiscent of Australia where I visited many), and pulled in to
learn a bit. To my surprise the first
two campers I approached were from across the “ocean” and brought their small
motor homes with them on a ferry, the first from Czech Republic,
and the other from Great Britton. I
could speak to the latter and he showed me a map where there are a lot of camp
grounds across Ireland
that provide hook-up facilities to motor home or trailer camping.
Seems a lesson
I have to re-learn on many trips is that the adventure is not what you expect
in anticipation of the trip. Rather, the
real adventure is solving the many daily challenges presented trying to
function in the new environment, learning to drive on the wrong side, trouble
with the language, how to get money, phones that don’t work, bathrooms with a
sink the size of a cooking pot, or bathrooms the size of a cooking pot. Everything is different and difficult and
takes a LOT of time that seems wasted until
you start to recognize this is all part of the challenge of travel. I have been back to the Vodafone store in a
couple cities a couple times to try sorting out the comedy of errors. Every
little task is a challenge when traveling on your own ……. Guess that’s what OAT
does for me on some trips I have taken with them.
Thursday, driving from Killarney
to the south of Ireland
one leg is Kenmare to Bantry. On this leg I got off
the primary route and found myself on Priest’s Leap. It was raining and foggy as I rose in
altitude limiting visibility to about 100 ft.
The “road” became a single lane track with grass in the center and on
the west side the mountain dropped sharply, on the east was a
wash with no place to allow another car to pass. As this went on for many miles my concern of
meeting another car, or just finding a place where the track was washed out not
allowing me to proceed and no place to turn – and of course the 100 ft visibility, was amplified. I knew the rain was causing me to take a lot
of risk, and preventing me from enjoying the huge green slopes and valleys
dotted with white sheep. Only after the
trip I found that this place is known to the world as Priest’s Leap - here
there’s a brief slide
show of the scenes I missed in the fog.
After some unfortunate false starts I got an excellent B&B with a
superb view of the Atlantic bay in Schull.
The first I looked at, Sea View,
was very nice with a great sea view from far up the hill above town, but I
rejected for a better rate. After
looking at several others, far inferior, I went back, but Sea View was gone for the night.
Now I’m in trouble and it’s getting late, but looking and calling
several places not doing well. Then I
called Rock Hill House B&B, it is by
far the best B&B I have found yet in Ireland, on a small hill right by the
water with a beautiful view of the bay and surrounding island, and would you
believe I can see the famous Fastnet lighthouse on a rock right around the corner from
the yard. Spacious bathroom, heat, and
also Cornelia makes the best breakfast and the stuff she calls streaky? bacon
is just like ours! The Irish bacon is
ham like we call Canadian bacon, while I am being told our familiar bacon is
called “rasher bacon” by the Irish. Kerry photos:
Farming, farming everywhere,
but just one crop – grass. (If you are not interested in farming jump
to the next paragraph where I’ll tell you about spacecraft flight control!)
Though sometimes they make the grass into hay and sometimes silage. There are lots of very large tractors I
often see traveling at high speed on the highways, but seems to me little to do
with them as the sheep and cattle harvest most of the grass – in contrast to China
where there’s lots of varied crops but it’s hard to find a small tractor. Later I learned that most large farm
machinery is owned and operated by contractors, had lunch with one, who go from
farm to farm on hire. The Irish farmers
do have an approach to silage unseen in the US.
It is cut and bound into large rolls, 4 ft
diameter by 4 ft long, probably weighing 500 lbs, like the modern hay bail in US. But silage must be sealed from the air, so a
machine comes along, picks up the roll and rotates it simultaneously about a
horizontal and a vertical axis, while a sheet of plastic film is being spooled
off, wrapping the silage in an air-tight cover, then kicks it off in the field
again.
The drive on Friday was from
Schull to Kinsale along the south coast and through
more farming country. In the village of Timoleague is
quaint but large Abbey in a state of partial restoration. In Kinsale Charles Fort is
an excellent restoration of a fort that saw service to Ireland from the 1500’s
to the early 20th century.
Also visited Desmond Castle which was used to house American POW’s in
the Revolutionary War, according to the resident guide.
Seems like the main commercial
activity of all Ireland
is tourism. Everybody who have found a
stone on edge has assigned some great Bronze Age significance to it and begun
charging admission. Farmers charge to go
to the top of the hill or to hear their dog bark. I have caught myself approaching New Ross in
Wexford County just when they are having the 50th anniversary of President
John Kennedy’s visit, the 1st visit of a US sitting President to
Ireland. Last week was the G8 Economic
Conference in Belfast which brought the Obama
family to Ireland.
Saturday, June 22, 13
I left Kinsale
mid-morning for a long day of touring. At
Cork, Blarney Castle, Stone, House, and Gardens,
probably the most famous Irish landmark outside of Ireland. I was impressed with Blarney House which
seems to be in the generation of but far surpasses the mansions of Natchez and the old south
in opulence and collection of artistic decor.
Claim is the owner, Sir Charles Colthurst,
still lives there. I don’t understand
why he lets tourists wander through at €3.5 each for the couple hundred per day
he must get. Along the way to Cashel I
detoured to Cahir
Castle and Swiss Cottage.
By chance at Cashel, I got a room at Rockville House, just a short walk from
the Rock. After getting this room I
learned it’s recommended by my Rick
Steve’s Ireland guidebook and run by a humorous guy, Patrick. Rounded out the day by taking the guided tour
of Rock of Cashel, one more old impressive church on a commanding hill.
Cork photos:
Sunday morning breakfast was fun
dealing with Patrick’s humor, thought the food was average or less. Then off to Kilkenny
and Kilkenny Castle. This is much more modern than most, used into
the 20th century and restored with many of the fine furnishing, 600
paintings and many fine pieces of art.
Then St. Mary’s Church at Gowan, and Jerpoint Abbey at Thomastown. From Thomastown I set out to find the Elizabethan manor house at
Carrick-on-Suir. Getting there was
another trip for miles on a road so narrow the weeds were brushing my small car
on both sides, with only ocational turn-outs to pass
traffic, fortunately there was none.
Arriving at Carrick-on-Suir, none of the locals knew about the manor
house. But when I finally found it, it
turned out to be a very interesting place.
The Butler’s were big around Ireland in the 14th and 15th
centuries, having lived in and owned both Blarney House and Kilkenny Castle as well as many others around,
including the manor house I sought.
Turns out it is also known as Ormand Castle. The front of this castle is frequently
featured in the recent PBS movie The
Tudors. Then I learned that Margaret
Butler married William Boleyn and so became the grandmother of Anne Boleyn.
Apparently if is not known where Anne Boleyn
was born, but some say right here in Ormand Castle! Surely soon I will have enough castles, but
……….. on to Waterford
for the night. Monday morning toured the
small Waterford Crystal factory at Waterford,
they have several in Europe. Nobody there knows about hemispherical
resonator gyros, or even the ringing vibration of a wine glass it seems. Very impressive crystal though, heavy doping
with lead makes it stronger than just glass, resistant to breakage and
chipping. When I asked why they don’t
make many of the pieces with complex cutting and grinding patterns with
Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines, she told me they do and showed me a
machine working, but they are not as popular because customers want to say
their vase or bowl is “hand made.”
Waterford photos:
Also climbed Reginald’s Tower,
and Ballyhack
Castle, then drove on to Enniskerry, a suburb nestled in the Wicklow Mountains
near Dublin. Tuesday I went to Glendalough (Glen da lock),
a well preserved Monastic complex to the south in the mountains, as is Enniskerry. Then too a local bus from Enniskerry
to do Dublin in
a day! The city tour bus dropped me at
Trinity College to see the Book of Kells and their
famous and very old library with book stacked on shelves 15 ft
high a ladders to get up there, They
say people read these centuries old books – I wonder. Also Guinness
brewery and Kilmainham Gaol. Dublin photos:
Wednesday, June 26, 13
Trim, Tara, and Newgrange, the latter two a couple pre-historic burial
sites, on the way to Northern
Ireland.
Two guys, Hamilton and Montgomery, came over from Scotland 400 years ago and started the place
long called Ulster, now Northern Ireland. I guess this was before there was an Ireland too
……just a collection of fiefdoms until Oliver Cromwell came raging through in
1650.
Getting away from the motorway, I
hugged the coast stopping finally at Donaghdee
(don-a-ga-dee). Mostly farming country, maybe
appearance like Pennsylvania
but crops very different – still only grass and some barley. We leaned at
yesterday’s Guinness visit that Ireland
grows a lot of barley and Guinness gets two thirds of it. So far in Northern Ireland there are “zero”
B&Bs – had to stay in a hotel. Rick Steves says that Ireland is the most expensive
country to visit in the EU, I have nothing to compare. But he also says gasoline and other stuff is
cheaper in Northern Ireland,
I am finding opposite. Switching from
euros, my hotel is £50 ($1.57/£).
Thursday: On the 3rd
day of a particular scenic drive, previously Dingle
Peninsula and Priest’s Leap, today I
am diving the north shore of Northern Ireland, Giant’s
Causeway, and it’s crumby rainy weather. Stopped in down town Belfast to see the Titanic Quarter and the 4
story exhibit telling the life, and death, story of the Titanic which was built
at this location. Then to Ballycastle and along the north shore causeway drive,
stopping at the rope bridge of Carrick-a-Rede. Giant’s Causeway, so called because similar
rock formations are on a line joining the Ireland
and Scotland
coasts with geologists implying they once formed a causeway between the
two. The rock formations are identical
to Devil’s Post Pile in the Mammoth area of California.
I did get a very nice seashore cliffs hike at both the bridge and the
causeway, the ladder reminiscent of Ngorongoro on a
tiny scale. The Irish have turned
“everything” into a tourist attraction and they talk so fast sometimes you
can’t tell they are using English.
Belfast photos:
Friday, June 28, 13
This morning I drove into Londonderry, found a I place to park free and hiked a
short distance to the wall. I
circumnavigated the wall on foot which takes you past a number of the city’s
landmarks, cathedrals, library, museum and the Millennial Center. This is claimed as the only remaining walled
city in the EU. Isn’t Prague in the EU? Only saw the new Peace Bridge
from a distance. Later, reading about
the bridge, I am really disappointed that I didn’t get up close and cross
it. This bridge is in the shape of an
“S” and supported solely by two cantilevered towers in a very unusual and
clever way. Not much technically on the
internet, but seems to be a pedestrian only bridge. Afterwards drove north to the extreme of Ireland. The shoreline is not really attractive as it
is mostly tidelands where the tides ebb and recede over log
distances leaving big mud flats. Did
find one attractive beach in the extreme north with two brave soles swimming it the 9ºC (48ºF) water! Rarely do I see any evidence of poverty. There are many new homes in the country side
that look very elegantly constructed with a lot of stone work, concrete and
quality stucco – these might stand out in most southern California housing
tracts. Who lives there? Although I have observed this pretty much all
over Ireland, today in
particular these where high up on the Inshowen Peninsula where there are only the usual
small farms and a little fisheries. Far
too many fine homes too far from any evident employment – surely not retirement
or vacation homes? Since the farms are
small, there is always a farm house in sight, but there is no urban sprawl,
lots of open countryside. Picked up a hitchhiker thinking the conversation would
help explain, but he wasn’t talking much, I wasn’t understanding much and he
smelled terribly of cigarettes. Went on
to Letterkenny where I thought to spend the night – but there seemed no
B&B’s available because of some local “events.” Decided to drive on toward Glenties. Sometimes
at 5:30 pm and I still don’t know where I am going to sleep the situation
becomes a nail biter trying places that have no room or not finding any
places. This was the case tonight as 6
pm approached and all the way to Glenties I saw
nothing. However, got a nice place on
arriving and there seem to be several choices in this small town nestled below
the beautiful green Blue
Stack Mountains.
Londonderry photos: Saturday morning I drove west in County
Donegal. The scenery is 1500 ft mountains devoid of any trees, covered with emerald
green velvet grass and moss, dotted white with sheep and streaked with small
streams and occasional waterfalls.
Visited cold foggy beaches at Malin Beg. Stopped on the return at a little village, Drumreagh, to ask questions but learned little from an
adult couple except that at 1 pm the guy was late for his “pint” and in a
hurry. I wonder that Australia can
have the highest per capita beer consumption – I’m having 2 pints a day
myself. Couple early teens, brother and
older sister, did better but couldn’t tell me much about sheep farming. I was wrong about the poverty! I asked “What do your parents do?” hoping
they were farmers. She replied
“Nothing.” To which I said, “How do you
live, buy clothes, and food and that soccer ball you are carrying” He replied, “The government.” “Do you have a computer at home?” She replied, “Yes, but we only use it to
play DVD’s, we have no internet.” I soon
learned that most of the people out in that area are on some sort of government
support. But where does the government
get the money in this country where taxes are so low that Steve Jobs and now
Tim Cook are accused of harboring much of Apple’s profits because taxes are
low? Later I stopped at an ocean side
town Killybegs (Killy
Begs?) where big time fishing goes on – there they told me that most who are
not fishing are on government assistance.
Went out on the docks and chatted with a serious fisherman for half an
hour. The EU will only allow fishing
about half the year to avoid fish depletion.
They go out from Killybegs to fish the north
Atlantic and North Sea for several months, calling on the port of highest price
every couple weeks in Norway, Sweden, UK, Ireland, Denmark to unload their
catch of mackerel, herring, haddock, - all net fish. The boats are several times as large as any
fishing boat I ever saw before and look well equipped and in good
condition. Two boats tow a net about 300
x 500 ft in dimension. Donegal photos: I then drove on to Sligo,
home of a well-known poet named Yeats, and spending the night nearby at Ballysadare in the Seashore House B&B – another of
those seashores with far receding tide that leaves a big mud field. This is in competition for my worst, lady
wouldn’t turn on the heat, sink water was lukewarm …….. All have been adequate, and many quite
nice. Main issues are poor lighting for
reading, computer, etc., and no heat – they think it’s summer here. I might add, they talk too fast and eat with
the wrong hand. Sunday morning rain and
fog again but I drove west to the Ballycroy
National Park area through the Nephin
Beg Mountains
and made the best of it. There’s a lot
of sod (peat) cutting in this area and I was trying to learn about how it
originates and is harvested. It is
really dead vegetation that is sinking in a wet area, bog, for 100 years or
so. I am starting to call it “almost coal”
because if undisturbed for another 10,000 years it would be coal and it seems
to serve the same purpose. At one point
I drove off on a side lane and was exploring a farm yard. An old lady came out and when she wasn’t
getting my questions answered her son Frankie showed up. He soon said, “Too cold out here, come in the
house.” He was right, so we did. He, his mother, and his son Michael (really
the Gaelic version that I can’t remember), were very welcoming and I spent
about an hour with them learning more details about farming, peat, and their
life. They had a stove in the tiny
house, this was the mother’s house who lives alone, that resembles the coal
stove I can remember from my mother’s kitchen in Pennsylvania, but in this one the burned sod
(peat). Frankie confirmed the small size
of typical Irish farms saying his is about 100 acres, but also adding that most
farms are distributed, 20 acres here, another 50 across the way, etc. – not a
contiguous strip of land – typically inherited from disperse family
members! The bogs are also a valuable
inherited piece of property. Tonight I
moved farther south below Westport, across the
border into County
Galway and stopped in a
heavenly little village called Leenane. It’s on a fjord about 8 miles in from the
Atlantic surrounded by those velvet mountains I described above, except that
here the velvet is occasionally ripped open by some weathered rocks. Above the fjord the Erriff River flows down, and the salmon are
running up right now – lot of fishermen here.
Finished off the evening at a local pub where there was pick-up
Irish music and best, some pretty good cloggers giving us
an impromptu Riverdance. I see about 4 motor homes dry-camping down by
the waterfront parking area here in Leenane. People go anywhere in Europe apparently,
I’ve seen them with Czech, France, Denmark, license. Sligo
photos:
Monday,
July 1, 13
Drove the Connemara loop, returning through Cong
and Galway to Kinavara
for the night’s B&B. Some good
scenery, some average. A lot looks like
being just above the tree line in the Sierras, though it’s between sea level
and about 2 – 3,000 ft. First day in
several with NO rain. Typically for the
last week it’s raining lightly early morning with fog, then changes hour by
hour through the day from this to sunny then rain again, then gets clear and
mostly sunny in late afternoon and evening.
Connemara National Park Visitor Center has a nice tutorial about turf,
how it’s formed and harvested. Kylemore Abbey is really elaborate in a beautiful setting
on lake edge – I didn’t go in.
Gravitating back toward Shannon and spent the night in Kinvarra near Galway.
Conemara photos:
Ireland cities, excepting Dublin and maybe
Belfast, are all rather small and easy to get around, though streets are narrow
and stopping is harder due to no parking.
The locals park any way anywhere, as I am learning to do. My little Fiat 500 is perfect for this,
smaller than a VW bug, lots of pep, a tight turning radius and power steering
that responds to a finger’s touch so is very easy to park and maneuver in all
the tight European style city streets. I drove it 2,100 miles getting around
the entire country. There is no graffiti
and essentially no trash anywhere. Tuesday, my last day in Ireland, so I
drove south to Bunratty near the airport. Along the way visited the prehistoric “portal
tomb” Poulnabrone Dolmen in the Burren then roamed
around Ennis, Limerick, and Adare a bit.