St Peter & Paul's Cathedral, and Old Mellifont Abbey

Ireland 2007--St. Peter & Paul's Cathedral, Trim and Mellifont Abbey

(click on the pictures for the albums)
I find beauty in stone and architecture, in details and the juxtaposition against sky and flora. St Peter and Paul's Cathedral was in the town of Trim and not far from the castle. Trim was a very important center at one time. We happened upon the cathedral and just stopped. I loved the sense of age, the details still visible, and that the cemetery was still in use.

The days are blurring together but we arrived in the Newgrange/County Meath area on the Friday evening, then spent Saturday and part of Sunday boppign about before we went north. I can't remember if we did Trim on Sunday or if it was one of the last things on Saturday. The time of day and that the castle was nearly closed when we hit it makes me think that the cathedral was the last place on Saturday.

We then wandered back to Slaine (that we never did get pictures of nor see the castle because it was booked for weddings). We ate at "the Old Post Office" but had drinks at the pub across the street first until they had space for us. There was a guy playing music but it was 80s tunes. Alas, N.A. rock made its mark everywhere, when we wanted Irish traditional.

So on Sunday, after saying so long to Irene of the Roughgrange B&B right near Newgrange (she was lovely and very friendly) we moved on to Old Mellifont Abbey, a cistercian monastery first founded in 1142b by ST. Malachy. Of course, it was constructed and expanded over centuries and there were even ruins of one of the old houses on the hill. The rain spittered and spattered but never did more than that.

The detail in the columns were amazing and the sense of age was powerful. I got in trouble at the visitor center for saying we have such little history in Canada. I ameneded it to say architectural and civic history, because we do have history. But the artifacts of the first Nations were mostly of wood and leather and just as all the places no longer have their rooves in Ireland, we have very little (especially in western Canada) that goes back more than two centuries at most.

The sense of people living, adapting, changing through all those years is stunning. Nature is amazing and what humans have done, both good and bad, awe inspiring too.

Winning a Contest

Today I received two emails to do with stories I'd sent out. One was from Virginia Quarterly Review saying that although my story had obvious merit it didn't suit their needs. The other was from editor Joe Maita of Jerry Jazz Musician, a funky site of all things jazz and some things not.

“I am writing to let you know that ‘Cipher’ has been chosen to be the winner of the Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest. Congratulations! With this award comes a prize of $100.”

http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/mainHTML.cfm?page=fiction.html

It will be published on the site on Nov. 5th and beat out over 100 entrants. Wins and even nominations have been far and few between so it's very nice to feel like your top a heap, no matter how small. I've been selling erotica and poems this year, and this story is literary. So even though I'm not selling the speculative works, I'm still having my best year. It's a small bubble but I'm riding it for all it's worth.

Hill of Tara and Trim Castle

This is all still part of our very busy Saturday. After we left Newgrange we trotted up to the Hill of Tara. At one point, at a four-way intersection there were two signs at right angles, both saying Tara. Ah those funny Irish. Turns out one was for the town and one for the Hill. Hard to tell though I think we found the "brown" heritage/tourist sign at one point. Not that it point the right way either.

After stopping at a gas station (let me guess, you're lost and looking for the Hill of Tara--only about 100 people have come by) we found our way. The Hill of Tara is...well, a hill, a great big, luscious green hill, with a mound or two, with runnels around it. It's a hill (Cormac's House), a hill fort, a passage tomb (mound of the hostages) and numerous other things. I don't think we saw all of it as it was a murky wet day and wet grass makes things soggy. The Stone of Destiny shown in some of the pictures was supposedly moved in 1798 to commemorate the death of 400 Irishmen who fought the British. It's been the seat of the High Kings of Ireland from the 6-12th centuries and the stone was said to cry out when the true king touched it. (I wonder how they worked that miracle).

There is a little cemetery and church dating back only a couple of hundred years I believe. Or at least the stones we could see. But the age of the Hill of Tara goes back to neolithic times with other parts being of Roman and medieval times. Its significance is still great in Ireland.

We went on to Trim castle which was founded by Hugh de Lacy in the 12th century.Its more recent claim to fame is that it was used in filming Braveheart. But the ruins are quite fabulous. We hit it at the end of the day and didn't get the tour of the inside of the castle. I believe it's only a ruin though, no furniture. The tour would have consisted of talking about its different defenses and construction techniques as the tower has twenty sides.

There was a lovely little wedding going one with the men in coats and tails. Yeah, if I ever got married a castle would definitely be a great setting. We didn't really stick around in Trim, the town, but drove through to an abbey, shown in the next set.

Ireland 2007--Hill of Tara & Trim Castle

Newgrange and Knowth

Ireland 2007--Newgrange & Knowth

We left Dublin on the 28th of Sept. However, trying to navigate out of a city that's centuries old with winding streets and missing signs was quite a challenge. The 15-minute drive from the car rental place to our guesthouse took an hour and a half.

The guesthouse gave us directions north on the N1 when in fact the map showed that we really wanted N2 to get to Newgrange. Part of the problem is that here you have a map that fills your lap. It's of all of Ireland. A map even of BC would mean hours of driving so our sense of size and distance were skewed.

On top of that, let's say that Dublin tourish has good maps. They list some of the more known sites. They list major roads and smaller subroutes or connector roads. However, the sites are sometimes before a town when they're shown as being in the town, or north of a place when shown to be west of a place. Some of those connector roads don't connect to anything but a playground while there are new routes not listed anywhere on the map. We had three maps and none were accurate or super helpful.

We took N1 with my sister driving and I kept trying to navigate us back to N2. What a mistake. We did end up in a subdevelopment, a schoolyard, on the M1 and back to still being on the N1 (which can disappear become the M1 and then R125 or something and then back to being the N1. All this plus navigating the many roundabouts any time there is a road leading in a different direction. We were told to turn at a cemetery by a local at one point and either she'd never been up that road in years or they moved the cemetery, bodies and all.

So, eventually with half the day gone after starting at 11 am to get the car, we made it to the Huntsman Inn somewhere around four. We stopped in because it looked cute except for the scary horse thing outside. Thatched roof and a few hundred years old, it seems it was competing as the oldest pub/tavern/restaurant. We saw several of these signs and had while in Dublin had a drink at the Stags Head and the Braven Head pubs, both the oldest for something. Though nice staff I had truly awful onion rings with soft doughy outer layer and soft, too fleshy wings. Blech.

Revitalized and coming to realize that though it's a short distance through Ireland, it's not a fast ride, we continued on. We even found Newgrange all by ourselves...but about a half hour too late to get into that day. So we drove along the road to Slain (Slane) and asked there about B&Bs. We stayed at the lovely little Roughgrange home of Irene and her husband, mere minutes from Newgrange, itself a 17th century grange (form of ranch house). We trotted off to Donore for dinner in a pub and had fairly acceptable food with a few massive potatoes.

The next morning we decided to stay a second night as we had plenty in that area to see and drove off to Newgrange. Only done by tour (not enough time as far as I was concerned) we went first to Knowth (nowth for pronunciation). This was the first of many experiences with the stones of Ireland. Knowth and Newgrange are megalithic (or neolithic depending on the info) passage tombs that date back 5-6000 years. These were Stone to Bronze age cultures. Knowth's chamber was bigger and there were several mounds of varying sizes.

There have been upgrades to the mounds as over the centuries they were farmed or even had small villages starting up on the top of the mounds. Excavation was needed to bring back the kerbstones which are made of a stone called greywacke (greywacky). I believe only one was missing. In most of the passage tombs there is an alignment to one of the solstices or an equinox. As well cremated human remains were found and in some the bodies of several people. Archaeologists know these were used for ceremonial or ritual purposes in the earliest days. Knowth and Newgrange are the oldest manmade structures in the world.

The sense of age and history is immense. I could almost see the people moving amongst these revered mounds of long ago, imagine the importance of sun and rain and the turning wheel of the seasons. This was the beginning of a growing sense of stone in Ireland, as if I was being etched, like the whorls and swirls that were set in these kerbstones of long ago to endure weather and touch, and the changing of culture and times.

Dublin and Ireland

Now that I've been back for a few days, I'm starting to sort through my pictures. Dublin was the first real landing spot in Ireland. So of course there are many shots of the streets and the housing, which differs from Vancouver. Architectural history, barring the earlier dwelling of the coastal peoples and not many of those remain due to the deterioration of wood and leather, in most of Canada goes back about three hundred years. Yes, there are a few exceptions like bits of a Viking settlement in Newfoundland or the 16th century Basque whaling village, but all in all, our civic history is relatively young. So Dublin like many European cities has history steeped in history that can be seen in the shape of the streets and the buildings.

The link listed here connects to my photos of Dublin, with the exception of the two fox pictures from my friends' back yard in Glasgow (where we first landed). Foxes are the local vermin in Glasgow but protected there now. Some of the pictures I've included are fuzzy. I was still learning the digital camera and in some cases the lighting was very low but have them here out of interest.

Dublin's one day included a trip to Christchurch Cathedral. Parts of it date back a thousand years. Some of the tile work is still beautiful and holds up well after thousands of feet and hundreds of years. Interestingly there was a glass encased, mummified rat and cat, found in an organ that was restored. Who was chasing whom, we may never know. We also went to the famous Temple Bar area, which is trendy but has some interesting pubs and restaurants. We ate at Fitzers which was very good and not that cheap. A drink of rum and coke and a cider cost about 15 Euros in Dublin. It's 1.5 dollars CDN to the Euro. Dublin is suppsed to be the most expensive city in Europe right now.

We also went to Dublin Castle, which like many structures has many centuries of history and more modern parts built on the remains of the older places. Still used today by Ireland's president (who serves a seven-year term) the rooms are of 17th-18th century designs. Under the buildings are excavated ruins of the original walls and towers. We were told that they used to take the heads of the executed and stick them on pikes about the castle. Eventually the heads would rot and plop into the moat. How do they know this? Well, they found four hundred severed heads in the moat. Which spawned this drinking song that you can sing to "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall."

Ninety-nine severed heads in the moat, ninety-nine severed heads.
You take one out, you toss it about, ninety-eight severed heads in the moat. At which point, you could take a sip of said beverage and pass it down the line. More than ninety-nine heads though and it gets quite ungainly to sing. My sister and I had the opportunity to sing through all the heads to zero while stuck in rush-hour traffic in Cork. It kept us amused and even if our windows were open a bit, the people stuck beside us studiously ignored us.

Last was wandering around the River Liffey. This bisects south and north of the city. There are various car and foot bridges over the river and the areas between are called quays, such as Merchants quay, which gives you an idea of what it must once have been like before the advent of cars.

Ireland2007-Dublin

Things Irish

Blarney--we heard many a tall tale in Ireland and the gift of the gab runs through many it seems. Now that we're nearly on the homefront we've checked the internet and if Liam's fish whacking is a record it's only in Killybegs or Donegal as there is no listing. But somehow we're not surprised by this in the least.

Almost all the toilet bowls in Ireland are quite roundish, kinda cute...as toilet bowls go. The handles are on the right instead of the left in Canadian/US toilets. Why one side or the other, who knows?

Latches on almost every bathroom door are slide latches. It seems to be the latch style of choice.

You'll be hard pressed to find a face cloth at any B&B or guesthouse. I hate water in my face so I always use one. Luckily I brought my own.

About 80% of the places we stayed didn't have hairdryers.

Everything from toothbrushes (equiv. of $8-13) or hair mousse (equiv. of $10) is really expensive.

I've been called love or lass but no other form, besides "girls". So my friends who think chicken (never heard this one even the first time around Eng. and Scotland many years ago) must be remembering a local idiom from somewhere.

I was told that no matter where you are pretty much there would be the friendly Irish and you wouldn't be sitting alone for long or they would start buying you drinks. This friendliness was apparent in the towns but by no means universal. The resort areas and modern cities were as friendly...or as unfriendly as every big, trendy place. Kilkenny would have been the same except for the lads from the North.

Food was generally of high quality.

Every town or village goes back centuries so the streets are narrow and winding, the buildings tall and joined together as row houses. As you get farther out from the town center you encounter newer row houses, or individual dwellings. These seem to be quite large and have at least four bedrooms. That's why there are so many B&B's in Ireland.

Traffic circles and few lights. They're insane and you'll get honked at for doing it wrong but then find in the next town that it's different. Speed limits are for decoration. If you see a sign for 60 km, people will easily be going 120. The small roads are usually 60-80 km and the highways 100-120 km.

We only saw one farmer with a horse and buggy but saw some country fellows in the typical cap, jacket, baggy pants with shiny bottom, and wellies.

Ireland is green and after a few millennia of deforestation, there are border trees and groves, a few protected forests. It was the stunning thing to see flying over. However, we did see areas of reforestation. When flying over I couldn't figure out why the trees looked as if they were combed. It was because they had been planted at some point.

Ireland roads are almost all bordered by hedgerows or stone fences. There may also be trees that have been growing there for a long while that form tunnels as the branches reach above and leave space enough for car and lorries to go through. It definitely gave a different feel to the countryside.

Irish Food

We're in Glasgow but haven't really done anything but fly here today. We were wiped so napped on the couch, which means we'll have tomorrow to explore a little bit.

In Ireland, the Irish really do love their potatoes. It will be on the menu for everything; either fries or potatoes. I watched people in a pretty fancy Italian restaurant eat past and fries. Fork a fry and then scoop your pasta and sauce together. Or the ladies that ordered pasta and pizza and a bowl of potatoes on the side.

One night I ordered chicken curry with rice. It came with a large (about two full serving's worth in Vancouver) serving of fries that I was too full to touch. And the portions are more than substantial. Last night I think we ended up in the equivalent of a diner and I had smoked cod and cabbage (with potatoes of course). I ate the cod but couldn't finish the rest.

So even though the prices are high, there is a lot of food and I doubt anyone would be hungry at the end. There's never been room for desert, except one night when I did an early bird menu, which seems to be quite popular in restaurants. You can get two or three courses for prices ranging from 20 to 30 Euros.

So food left an impression on me. We're nearly done. It will be good to get back but sad to leave. I'm sure I'll write a bit more about the Emerald Isle once I'm home.

Dublin or Bust!

We're in Kilkenny, which turns out to be a hopping college town, or at least where all the young people gather to party. Yeegods, we almost didn't get a B&B but lucked out on try 3 with a very nice place and very nice people.

There's been so much and not enough time to even find internet cafes which some of the small towns don't have. We got into the habit of sometimes eating the breakfast--a full breakfast will come with two cooked tomatoes, sausages, ham (bacon but it's like back bacon), toast, eggs, cereal and fruit, maybe potatoes and black and white pudding. Who could eat all that. We were down to ham and toast and tomatoe and skipping it some days as it's too much and eggs over more than 2 days don't sit well with me.

We would skip lunch as we were always running about trying to fit in the most by the end of the day. Some castles and sites close at the beginning of Oct. Boo! Most disappointing site--Ormonde Castle, a mostly Victorian manor house, closed off completely. Not exciting by architectural standards and why it was in the guide book, I don't know. Nicest castles--Bunratty, and errr...another I can't remember right now.

We've been eating dinners that are around 15-20€ and a pint of cider and a rum and coke have cost lowest at 7€ for both in Dungarvan, to 15€ in Dublin. Not cheap but the food portions have been substantial and quality mostly very good. My celiac sister hasn't had any problem getting food adapted and it turns out Ireland is only second to Italy in number of celiacs.

We stopped at Blarney castle, which is mostly a shell but I didn't kiss the stone. Rather, while snooping down some dark, tunnelly passage, I saw light and stairs to my left, and went to cautiously look down. I ran my nose right into a ridge of stone and nearly broke it. It's still bruised but feels okay. Reminds me of Lorna's year of the broken nose.

I have many many photos and I'm always into architectural details and the small stuff. I've taken pictures of some very old tiles froms some cathedrals and castles as well as some gothic and earlier carvings. Much in stonework, not as much in wood, of course.

We've come to want to avoid the bigger cities like Limerick (though we went to the castle there) and Cork where we spent an hour going a few blocks. We've just done Kilkenny castle, restored by the Irish gov't and once owned by the very rich Butlers for over 500 years. No pictures inside were allowed and most of it is done now in 18th century style as it went through several changes over the centuries.

I also realize that I've been trying to live up to being Irish and I've drank cider every day since I've been here. This could be a personal record. Last night we met some gents from the North who had been down for the races. One was a Belfast cop and we ended up drinking more than we would have. Then got lost in the fog going back to our B&B.

We're about to head up to Dublin and flight out godawful early tomorrow to Glasgow. Then it's, sob** home on Wednesday. We've lucked into great weather except for one rainy day in Carrowmore and when driving out of Dublin. That's made it much nicer. Ireland is truly beautiful and kinda laid back about driving even if the speed limit is 100km on winding country roads built for carriages originaly. I've come to love the inherent use of and living with stone of the Irish. Stone plots in cemeteries, stone castles and homes, the wonderful stone walls everywhere and the megatlith tombs and dolmens. Oddly enough it's the stones I will miss most.

And now it's time to drive off to Dublin.

Donegal & Slieve League

Yesterday was big hike day. We went to Kinbane Castle, a ruin, down many steps to a crag and a rock in the ocean. It was fine gong down but definitely a sweaty hike up the steep steps. My sister couldn't make it.

Then we drove (driving is fine now...mostly, except those traffic circles, which are literally every five blocks when you drive through a city. Very confusing when there are five names on each sign and you're trying to find one.) to the Carrick a Rede rope bridge. Randi is afraid of heights so I went on and over the bridge (short) to the hummocky island. It's like it's covered with peat and then grasses and little field flowers here and there. A beautiful view of the North Sea in its blues and turquoises with the white cliffs, the black rocks and the little green sharp cliffed islands called Carric Island (where the rope bridge leads to) and Sheep Island. That was another easier hike but with some steep steps to climb back up.

We then went to the Giants Causeway where there were hundreds of people. This is where the land coughed up great sestagonal? (six sided) columns of stone everywhere to the water. These columns form natural seats and steps and are very cool. Managed to get some good pics but the haze stopped me from getting good ones of the chimneys farther out and I was a bit tired to walk that far.

We went on to Bushmills. Why we did this tour I'm not sure. It wasn't on our itinerary (made up daily) and it wasn't very exciting or interesting. No old architecture, a bit on the making of (which was kinda intersting). Bushmills is named for the old Bush river from which they pump the water and the milling of the barley. But because we did this we missed getting into Dunluce castle. October hours means many things close at 5 instead of 6. It would have been the most impressive castle with a bridge, large environs and a cave beneath the castle. All these castles today were coastal castles. All we could do was take pics from the gates.

We then drove and drove through many a roundabout, through Portrush and Portstewart, Strabane, various little towns to Donegal. We stopped in a pub, the Reel Inn, had a drink and got some idea for B&Bs. This was a nice change. A small town center and our B&B just over the bridge, less than five minutes from the town. The pub is just one side of the little bridge. We ate in some restaurant which was okay. I had chicken curry (13.50€)which was only chicken, no veggies. Lots of chicken and rice though and then I was given a huge bowl of fries, which I didn't even touch. The Irish do love their taters.

We went back to the Reel Inn which was supposed to have live music. We barely set foot in the door when we were mobbed by drunk Irish men. There was a very drunk, bleary eyed, mostly incoherent Liam and his friend who we called Harry Potter, of barely legal drinking age. Enda was a nice guy who looked like he used to play rugby (on the TVs everywhere here) who had his own pub but goes for drinks with the boys on Mondays because one of them is banned from his pub. The banned one, the older Liam (40-ish)with a front tooth missing, regaled us with many a story of his fishing forays, true or not. Liam McGurdy holds the world record for fish whacking and gutting. Supposedly this is true though some of the other tales were not. There was a equally drunk, red-haired Eric. They were all drunk when we arrived and just stayed the same.

Randi and I had been told that the men buy your drinks everywhere. We hadn't found this yet or even that people talked to you that much. But it was true here. They all wanted to shake or hold our hands but we never bought a drink all night.Each guy would try to up the other in blarney.

There was also a Pete or Finnbar but it was hard to tell as he was not always on the up and up either, who kept telling me I was a fine woman and if I was there alone would I fancy him. I didn't want to say outright no, but I did say no and he asked why. I said because I like to get to know people there. A younger Pete came in and all the guys in the bar started calling old Pete Daddy. Younger Pete, Pete Cannon was kind of like a leprechaun, not that tall, pretty eyes, lots of character in his face and brown hair with blond and light red streaks. Turns out he's a musician and he also contributed to the blarney in his way. But overall the lads were friendly and harmless, if half of them completely inebriated. I got to try Adam's cider which came in a larger 1.5 pint bottle.

Now we're off to Slieve League and the coast. More as the internet allows.