10. Ireland

From Limerick we headed straight for the Ring of Kerry. Not so much a ring as a coastal tourist drive through County Kerry. We stopped at a service station for fuel and to stock up on snacks. It was well into the afternoon, so I also grabbed a roast chicken sandwich that had stuffing spread on the bread. It was scrumptious. We also discovered something else quite unusual. An outdoor laundromat. I saw a couple of these in London undercover next to a service station but this one seemed far away from anywhere people might live. I guess sitting in your car waiting for your washing feels safer than sitting inside some laundromats but most of those have attendants. I also don’t think I would trust leaving my laundry at a service station and coming back later.

The ring of Kerry starts away from the coast driving through (more) rolling green hills and farmland. The first stop on our journey wasn’t far into our trip. And it was a gem. Dan and I don’t often visit the more traditional museums and art galleries (although the Guggenheim is still on our list despite several visits to New York – to some degree for the architecture of the building). We (well mostly I) search for the weird, wonderful, whacky (and kitsch) wonders of the world. We went on the journey through communication ride at Epcot and, the kitschiest one yet – the swine museum in Stuttgart Germany (see my 2015 blog for that one). The bog museum, on the ring of Kerry, certainly fit this description. While not quite reaching the heights of the swine museum, it ticked all the boxes. Apparently, the park really kicks off in April with lots of visitors. On the day we visited, the signs advised that we go into the bar to pay to get in. Which we did. And we were then free to wander around the bog village on our own. Dan was pretty happy when we first entered as there were a pair of resident Irish wolfhounds craving a pat. Their inclusion was not well explained but they have some kind of role in the collection of peat moss from the bogs and are alongstanding bree Peat moss is still used for heating in Ireland. It is essentially fossilised compost built up over thousands of years. And it smells like sewerage. I noticed the catholic area of Derry was right near a peat bog. There were also goats too. And the ponies were advertised as the once extinct Irish peat bog pony (although they looked just like normal ponies to me). But the inclusion of the animals to make this place fun for kids belied the true attraction. The village was setup as a replica of a peat bog village, complete with loads of old stuff presumably the proprietor had lying around in a shed. And manikins. You know you are entering the type of museum or ride that fits our description of weird and whacky when there are manikins to tell the story. And better yet there were sound effects, including a mooing fibreglass cow. There were signs discussing life in the village, the Irish famine and its effect on the peat bog village and many, many houses and stables and of course manikins – human and animal. Despite being surrounded by the boglands Ballintleevae, there was virtually no information about the peat bogs themselves – why are they there? what led to Ireland being littered with them? and how the peat is retrieved and processed for burning? They did have a small pile of peat moss that you could pick up and look at. It was like petrified compost and it smelt terrible. The Irish catholic area that formed the base for the IRA in Derry was next to a bogland and had that same stench. Once we were done in the village, we returned to the pub to ask about the advertised souvenir shop, I couldn’t see anything in the pub and was expecting to be shown to a small shelf of a couple of trinkets and hoping for a post card. What I found was an Aladdin’s cave. The proprietor slid back two barn doors to reveal and expansive and very well stocked souvenir shop, that was probably as big as the pub itself. He let us wander about in there on our own. I found my postcard and a fetching tweed page boy cap.

We bid the bog village farewell and continued on our drive through the ring of Kerry. Not long after this, we hit our first Atlantic ocean view for the day. While most of the Irish coastline is made of sheer cliff faces that reach straight up to velvety green grass, this part of the country also boasts some sandy beaches. Not that they are all bright white sand and sunshine – you would need a wetsuit to swim here most of the year and I think that is largely what the surfers here do. And it is a growing pastime. But the beaches are beautiful in their own right. As you make your way around the ring, you drive through picturesque villages. When we reached the southern part of the ring, we were absolutely floored by the majestic views. No photo you have seen gives this landscape justice. The steep green hills, rocky outcrops, whitewashed farm houses and rolling blue ocean beyond are just perfection.

As we neared the end of the ring of Kerry and headed away from the coast, it was getting quite late so we decided to pull over in the village of Kenmare and grab some dinner. We stumbled upon the Michelin starred no. 35 and given it was still quite early in restaurant time (old people and children dinner time) we were able to get a table, despite the host joking with us about how there was no way we could get a reservation. I started with a mushroom soup – wild mushrooms to be exact, and it was delectable, followed by a slow cooked shoulder of beef, slow cooked in Guinness (and some other herbs). It was fantastic, paired with roost vegetables, cauliflower, hazelnuts and garlic potatoes. Some great flavours, done exceptionally well. Dan’s choices were a bit more adventurous –homemade pork sausage with peanut pear and chilli vinaigrette and pork belly with XO sauce and miso carrots and broccoli. It wasn’t quite what he expected but it was wonderful. The meal also came with the restaurant’s own baked bread and butter, which was fantastic. We also had their crème brulé for dessert which came with rhubarb – Dan rated it pretty highly on his crème brulee scale. Stopping for dinner meant that we drove the last portion of our journey in the dark. Here you aren’t really looking for native animals crossing the road. Apart from deer of course. But you are likely to see any number of sheep, goats and cows. And hedges. The roads aren’t very wide. Hedge rows are a real thing here and they form the front boundary to most properties, making the skinny roads even skinner and more precarious in the dark. There is also quite a bit of new road construction going on and google isn’t always up to date with the re-routing and detours. Eventually we arrived at our lodgings for the night in Cork. We parked and went straight to bed.

On my last visit to Cork I was sick and headed straight to a greasy spoon across the road to have a (fried) roast chicken dinner. I was a bit disoriented (it had been 14 years) but I am pretty sure the greasy spoon was no longer. We went a bit more upmarket for our first meal in Cork on this trip. And in comparison to my previous blue sky visit, it was grey, cold (and of course rainy). We rugged up and wandered across the river to the town centre, landing at the Cork markets. A bit like Adelaide’s central market but with more options (and less German focused). This market is also much older. And they have built a kind of loft in the original building housing a café, which prides itself on using the supplies from the local vendors. The fresh eggs, bread and smoked salmon in my scrambled with salmon, and Dan’s scrambled were a delight and just the right thing to steady us for walking around in the cold drizzle. And the breakfast came with a large dish of individually wrapped butter. As outlined in previous posts, one of the best things about breakfast in Ireland – whether it is a fry up from a greasy spoon or something more upmarket from a hipster café, you never have to ask for butter. There is a lesson in there about natural.

It was mostly dry with the occasional drizzle so we decided to brave it and walk around through the historic district. And another museum. Cork is where Ireland’s butter was exported from and the city was home to a butter market in centuries passed. And yes, there is a butter museum. And yes, I made Dan go. And yes, just like the pineapple train at the Big Pineapple, he learned things about butter that he didn’t know. We were the only ones in the museum when we arrived so we sat through the entire 20 minute film about the history of Cork (and Ireland’s) butter industry. When we were about halfway through the film, a kiwi came into the museum (probably because he too had a family connection to his country’s butter industry that can be traced back to Ireland.) In any case, other highlights from the butter museum, apart from of course the variety of old implemets for churning butter by hand, were the stamps to make your own butter wrapper (I am sure it was aimed at kids but when has that ever stopped me), the retro advertising and the barrel of fossilised butter found in a peat bog, bringing my two favourite weird and wonderful Irish museums together. [Boys from the County Hell – The Pogues – I rediscovered the Pogues after meeting Dan – their brand of folk infused punk music is intoxicating and an obvious influence for some of the other later bands I love – Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly etc. People talk about Dylan being hard to understand as a singer but I think Shane McGowan (especially when he is drunk which is most of the time) is equally unintelligible but both have a place in my playlist.)

From here, with rainier weather looming, we decided to head to Blarney castle – this was my second visit here and they had done a bit to improve the infrastructure surrounding the castle in the past decade and a half. As we climbed inside the towers leading to the top of the castle, snow began to fall. It wasn’t cold enough for it to really settle on the ground, but it was definitely snowing – white fluffy stuff was landing on my coat before melting away. Dan decided he didn’t need to lean over backwards to kiss the blarney stone. My need to do it a second time was questioned but I did it anyway. After the castle (and be assured Blarney castle is very much a ruin) we headed for the second attraction here. The owners of the castle have done a lot to develop the gardens around the castle- with the snow coming down and the sleet turning to quite heavy rain (as well as it being that wet cold that just feels colder) we decided to brave just one of the most interesting of the gardens – the poison garden, which had all manner of poisonous plants growing including hemlock and other potions of the dark arts. Along with cannabis and tobacco. After that we headed to the on-site café for a warming (yet underwhelming) hot chocolate. Then it was back to the car and the warmth of our hotel room.

We decided to brave the weather once more time, heading back to the central market to collect some goodies for a hotel room picnic. We still had the smoked cheese from Cliffs of Moher, so we grabbed another local blue cheese, an assorted packet of locally smoked salamis, a salmon dip, an assorted tub of olives, some soda bread crackers and some locally produced chutney. We rugged up in our room as the rain pelted down outside and enjoyed a glorious picnic of local produce. Then it was just time to chill (or snooze or blog depending on your persuasion).

Later that evening, the rain abated for enough time for us to grab a quick dinner at the pub up the road. It wasn’t the most stellar meal I have had in Ireland but the beer was good – their own stout – and my cider roast chicken with potato mash and gravy was pretty decent. The gravy was what I was really after and it was pretty good but it just wasn’t up there with some of the other meals I have enjoyed. After a restful night’s sleep, we awoke to yet more rain and set out for Dublin, only to turn around about 25 miles into our journey (and just after we had paid the toll), realising we had left some crucial medication behind. The Metropole Hotel staff were fantastic. They checked the room for us and confirmed they had it. They also arranged for us to park in front of the hotel (which is in quite a busy location) so I could run in and get it. After that we were actually on our way to Dublin in the rain, with one or two small detours, and after having paid the toll three times!

Fridge Magnets – 5 Postcards – 11 T-shirts – 2 Christmas decorations – 4 Countries – 4

Our first stop out of Galway was Athenry – principally to see the fields of Athenry – I am a big fan of the Dropkick Murphys version of this traditional Irish tune about a young man who stole corn to feed his family and was sent to Botany Bay, Australia. As it turned out, Athenry itself was pretty interesting. We walked around the cathedral ruins, the city walls and castle. It is amazing that city walls that are hundreds of years old just exist as a part of the typography of the town. The fields of Athenry, however, had all but disappeared in this expanding town, with a cookie-cutter housing development going up between the freeway and the village.

From Athenry we started heading towards the Cliffs of Moher, stopping off to look at yet another castle – the Dunguaire Castle. We pulled over on the side of the road and walked back for some pics. The theme of tractors continued. They were everywhere – mostly just driving a short distance, sometimes with a bale of hay and probably between different plots of their own land where the tourist roads are the only access. You see beware of tractors signs everywhere in Ireland so after a while it just becomes part of every drive (except on the freeways). Not long after we headed upward on a steep and winding road that would have been heaps of fun in the mini. And the scenery was even more picturesque than the previous day. I do recommend going north to south in Ireland as the scenery just gets more stunning each day. As you get to the top of the plateau the trees disappear – It looks drier up here because it is slightly less green but as it turns out that has much more to do with the fact that there are peat bogs up here where the water sits. You are so high up here that the mist is settling below you. You start to head down a bit as you approach the coastline and the spectacular Cliffs of Moher.

Like so many of the tourist attractions in Ireland, the cliffs are well set up for visitors – the carpark is on the other side of the highway and you walk across to the tourist complex that is nestled into the hill. It was cold and windy so ended up being the first outing for my beanie/scarf/glove combo on this trip. When you reach the cliffs themselves there are wide paths with stairs up each side so you can see the cliffs from both sides as they form a small cove with a single rock formation surrounded by water just out from the main cove – a little bit like the (remaining) apostles on Australia’s Great of Ocean Road – and very strong solid barriers. In the visitor centre you can see photos from the 1920s of people picnicking on the edge of the cliffs. Not something you could do today. There is also a very strong culture of music here dating back to the turn of the century and once you are standing near the cliffs, you can imagine the ethereal sounds of celtic music would add another dimension to the experience. The cliffs themselves are spectacular. And while there are other possibly more grand and impressive coastal rock structures in the world, the rolling green hills of Ireland and the deep blue of the wild Atlantic ocean make this perfect. On one side there is what looks like a cross between a lighthouse and a castle tower – another folly – built as a gentleman’s club (read mancave rather than burlesque establishment) according to the local oracle. Like all Irish people we spoke to he had a relative in Australia. And apparently, they all live in Melbourne. He was impressed with my historical knowledge when I told him the story of my (catholic of Irish extraction) Dad’s disappointment that he wasn’t given a saint’s name and my grandfather’s response that “Brian Boru was the king of Ireland and that is just as good.” After walking up both sides of the cliffs, we headed to the gift shop and purchased some suitable tourist tat and some locally produced smoked cheese.

When we do road trips, we do two things – sample the local snacks (except in Australia where they are the same countrywide) and collect local produce to have a picnic (which sometimes ends up being in our hotel room. On the snack front, in Ireland and the UK so far our faves have been the oven roasted peanuts, particularly the Scottish and Northern Irish co-op brand which are so much better roasted than in Australia, and M&S foods cheese and pumpkin seed crispbread. Along with Pret a Manger, better Guinness and roasted peanuts, the other UK chain we could benefit from having is M&S foods. They do a great range of pee or semi prepared foods as well as good snacks. [I don’t like Mondays – The Boomtown Rats – The only well known song from the Irish band whose singer is probably better known as the force behind Band Aid and Live Aid, hanging out with Ireland’s other favourite musical son, giving his daughters ridiculous names and raising his ex-wife’s child with Michael Hutchence after their untimely demise. This song about the senselessness of a school shooting is a solid tune that resonates. The Boomtown Rats were a pretty solid band, There was just a lot else going on in the early 80s.]

From the cliffs we headed toward Limerick with more stunning views and emerald green countryside unfurling before us. I had picked Limerick primarily because of its name and proximity. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. When we arrived at our lodging for the night, Absolute Hotel, we had a delayed check in because a tour bus group was in front of us.

Unlike the tour group, we decided against dinner in the hotel restaurant and headed out in search of more local sustenance. Granted it was Monday evening at the end of winter but in contrast to Galway the streets here were deserted. We wandered up a cobblestone path with single story row houses that looked like they could have once had thatched roofs on one side, and the ruins of a cathedral on the other. Our dinner destination was Katy Daley’s, which looked a bit like a tourist trap with an outdoor beer garden with bunting. Inside though it was like a local with the bartender obviously knowing many of the patrons and the food was good home cooking. Dan had the steak and Guinness pie – I think he is on a quest to find the world’s best. And I had the stuff of childhood comfort food – freshly baked glazed ham with cabbage, an assortment of other (root) vege and parsley (white) sauce. And of course a big pile of mash. Our family had corned beef instead of ham but the accompaniments were all the same. We tried the sticky toffee pudding for dessert, which came layered with cream in a parfait. The date version doesn’t seem to be a thing here.

The next morning, we decided to stay in Limerick to tour the castle which opened at 10 so we took a leisurely stroll into town to have breakfast at Hook and Ladder, inside a home decor store. I decided I needed a break from eggs and potatoes so had the (semi-healthy) oatmeal which came with blueberries, apple compote and cinnamon sugar. Dan opted for the Benedict – he is searching for the best of these too and a scone with jam and cream (ditto). After breakfast we wandered around the town, which despite the castle lacked the tourist tat of other Irish towns. One of the things you see a lot of here are what, at first glance, look like over the top bridal stores but on closer inspection the white dresses in the window are actually communion dresses. Now I have watched a bunch of observational docos on Irish travellers (like the Amish this small, introspective but omnipresent culture fascinates me. Travellers go over the top for these occasions (and for teenage weddings) but given they make up 0.6% of the population, and the plethora of these stores, this is clearly more mainstream than I realised. They also advertise Irish dancing costumes. Perhaps it is the time of year throughout lent in the lead-up to Easter, but it was only the white dresses on display.

From here we headed back across the river to the castle. St. John’s castle is a good one to visit as you get to see some of how the structure was put into action in battle. After a stroll through a museum detailing a particularly big battle at the castle, you get to do a subterranean tour through the castle’s foundations describing what was happening during the battle. You eventually resurface in the main square inside the castle wall, which has various entertainments for young ones like stocks you can put your head through. The day we visited they were filming a school play or concert or something in the square. You could also climb up into the main battlement towers – which was worth it for the views alone. You could see out over the city and the countryside beyond. From the castle we headed down the hill to check out the (relocated) treaty stone before bidding Limerick farewell and heading for the ring of Kerry.

Fridge Magnets – 5 Postcards – 8 T-shirts – 2 Christmas decorations – 3 Countries – 4