If I wrote a travelogue about our entire two weeks in Ireland it would send you, dearest readers, into a catatonic state - and get me a lot closer to that case of carpal tunnel I've been working on all these years. So instead, how about some highlights and random observations?
Dislikes:
-- The public bathrooms in Ireland are ALL COLD. Every single one of them. I mean sit down and cry out, 'oh shit that's cold!' cold. (I asked one woman working at a gas station how she did it. "As little as possible," she replied.) However, they are for the most part amazingly clean.
-- The tertiary roads, the small ones like those that run through small neighborhoods in the States? Are barely one car width across. Boy, does that make for a scary drive, especially when you're already driving on the wrong side of the road and there's someone coming at you from the other way and you're blocked on the passenger side by a stone wall. (I spent half the time cringing.)
-- The way people give directions is the same as the way people in the South give directions. 'Go down the road past the old pub and it's practically on your left, near the church. If you've reached the bakery you've gone too far.' And everyone is overly concerned about the weather.
Other than that, not much to complain about.
The people are a little stand-offish at first but warm up very quickly, and are full of advice and suggestions. Travelodge hotels in Ireland are as basic as you can possibly get - not even so much as a complimentary packet of shampoo - but are also cheap. We had a lot of luck with hotels in the city centers, they had good prices -- but don't buy the breakfast with the room. Find your own meals instead.
In Dublin we took the hop-on/hop-off buses in order to see all the touristy spots. I really wanted to see something of the Viking influence on Ireland so we went to Dublinia and Christchurch Cathedral. It's amazing to think that there is surviving physical evidence that the people of Ireland were defending their lands from invaders
over 1200 years ago. We walked the quays, ate some fantastic meals, explored the small town of Swords in the north of Dublin. I became happily reacquainted with Oscar Wilde.
Drove up north thro
ugh the country to Letterkenny (Sweetie had a business meeting) and managed not to get lost until we tried to drive to Malin Head. As the navigator, I'm here to tell you that those small roads are tricky to follow on a map! We ended up driving
over a small mountain called
Slieve Snaght instead of
around it, so we had to take another shot at finding Malin the next day.
Malin Head is the northernmost point of Ireland - and man, was it ever cold! The north Atlantic wind was blustering and pushing a chill rain around. Brrr!
We drove through a town claiming to be the "smallest cathedral city in Europe" (
Raphoe), saw the harbor where
Lord Mountbatten's ship was bombed (
Mullaghmore), saw
W.B. Yeats' grave (
Drumcliffe), spent the night in Donegal, spent several in Galway. We drove through
The Burren, a national park containing some of the oldest structures in Ireland including a megalithic tomb that is 1000 years older than the pyramids of Giza. Risked life & limb driving down one of those tertiary roads to
The Burren Perfumery but I thought it was worth it; I learned a lot about the flora of western Ireland. We got threatened by small dogs protecting their home (hilarious) and saw sheep in just about every meadow we drove past.
Eddie Izzard is right, you can drive down any road in Europe and run into a fuckin' castle. There are castles and round towers and stone circles and old churches and stone forts and ancient cathedrals just about everywhere you go. In the middle of open fields and in the middle of cities. It is so very cool!
The weather was just what I had expected: cold at times, sunny at others, rained some but not too much. Irish television is an interesting combination of UK, Irish and Irish-Gaelic channels. We saw a show about road bowling that was fun and interesting; that's something we're going to try to see in person when we go back. They have a lot of antiques/collectibles and auction shows and tons of soap operas. Reality TV is so big there that the programs actually get regular coverage on the news!
Random observations made while out and about:
Irish horse butts (in a trailer) .. spotty cows and shaggy cows .. a 3-legged dog running down the street .. Broncos sheep (go orange and blue!) and counting sheep (they had numbers on 'em!) .. nuzzling cows .. an honest-ta-gawd jig-dancing old Irishman in a pub! Boys wear trousers that fit so one does not have to look at their underpants! I love that.
Oh, you betcha we're going back. There's still so much more to see!
(Click to enlarge photos)
UPDATE: Try this link for photos.
The Denver Post is reporting today that Tim "Barrel Man" McKernan has died after a long illness. He was a local icon for many years, showing up wearing his cowboy hat & boots and that famous barrel to home games in all types of weather. He became so well-known to Bronco fans that the team honored him in 2007. He even had a bobble head toy!
Now that we don't have children around full-time any more, Sweetie & I need an excuse to see kids' movies without looking silly. Unless it's playing at the local art theater, of course. But how often does that happen? So I was at the grocery store buying food for the holiday and I saw a display with copies of UP for sale. We hadn't seen it and I really wanted to ... so I bought it. The gal at the checkstand said she thought it was sad. I thought maybe I'd made a mistake, but upon viewing the film I think my choice was redeemed. It's a little sad but mostly funny and hopeful. I love that the house ends up landing right where she wanted it to be, and that in the end the curmudgeon finds happiness.
Anyone who has read this ridiculous little blog for any length of time knows that I'm a fan of David Malki! and his Wondermark strip. (Check it out, I just added a search box thing on the sidebar that allows you to search this blog for that kind of stuff. Go ahead, I'll wait.) He cracks me up on a regular basis; I subscribe to the strip via email - it's always a highlight of my day - and to his YouTube channel. Just recently he wrote a new story about a cop who follows all the rules - it's really silly but funny. David's obsession with beards and facial hair is practically legendary. I even bought his movie, Expendable, and loved it! (The story is about a henchman hired on to an evil organization and the events of his first day at work. Genuinely hilarious.)
If I wrote a travelogue about our entire two weeks in Ireland it would send you, dearest readers, into a catatonic state - and get me a lot closer to that case of carpal tunnel I've been working on all these years. So instead, how about some highlights and random observations?
ugh the country to Letterkenny (Sweetie had a business meeting) and managed not to get lost until we tried to drive to Malin Head. As the navigator, I'm here to tell you that those small roads are tricky to follow on a map! We ended up driving over a small mountain called Slieve Snaght instead of around it, so we had to take another shot at finding Malin the next day. Malin Head is the northernmost point of Ireland - and man, was it ever cold! The north Atlantic wind was blustering and pushing a chill rain around. Brrr!
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