Emerald Ireland

I: Driving and Lodgings

Thu, 8 Apr 2004 22:15:06 -0700

The Joys of a Rental Car.

We had purchased a package tour, consisting of a rental car + 6 nights lodgings from some outfit on the internet. The rental car we were supposed to pick up was from an outfit called Dan Dooley. At their depot at Shannon Airport we found out that the keys they gave us fitted in an older, brown Nissan Micra with lots of dents, a broken rear view windshield wiper and, as we found out later, an inside dome light that did not work. The vehicle also produced a large assortment of rattles and undefined squeals when the car was in motion. We should have asked for a better car, but we had arrived with another couple, who graciously allowed us to go ahead to talk to the single service agent, a woman of indeterminate age who was there in body, but who had left her humor in bed that morning. It is not that easy to be cheerful in the harsh light of the morning, especially when you can see the incipient lines of old age creeping up in your face in the mirror. She took a long time to finish the paperwork, partly out of incompetence, or maybe just to dissuade us from asking her for anything additional, such as a better car.

I thought the car was completely prepaid, but there were still additional charges on the bill, like local taxes, which apparently was not included in what we were entitled to receive. There was also a charge for a full tank of gasoline, which, they said, they would reimburse if we returned the car with a full tank of fuel. Their estimate on what the fuel tank could hold was overly generous. Had we returned the car without refilling the fuel, we would have been charged considerably more than what could fit in the car. I suppose some people don’t bother to refill the fuel tank prior to returning the vehicle. Because it wasn’t easy to do this, and we found out that the closest gas station to the airport was a few miles away and difficult to find. They had also converted the charges from Euro (Є) to US $. I thought the conversion rate of 1.281 was very high but, not having enough information on what it should be, we just accepted it. So our credit card was charged in US$ at that rate which, they said, made it easier for us. And all those numbers after the decimal created the impression that these were honest people giving you the benefit of the doubt. Yes, if you want to cheat, do it this way. I am sure half the people getting their statements do not realize what had happened.

We found out later that the official bank rate for that day was closer to US$ 1.21/Є. Had they charged us in Euros, our bank in the US would have charged us $1.21 + 1-2 % or so, but not the exorbitant rate of $1.281/Є. Somebody was fleecing the tourist. It could have been the merchant; it could have been the Irish bank. We found this custom to be quite widespread in the country and you had to insist that you want to be charged in Euros, if you didn’t want to be suckered by this practice.

So we took off, with our rental car in Ireland, driving on the left side of the road. To us, that was, of course, the wrong side of the road.

left: In Ireland you drive on the left, even though some will park on the wrong side of the road. Note the very colorful houses. This was in the town of Kenmare.

But we get used to it, except that as the passenger you feel that the car was always getting very close to the left side of the road. As driver your instinct for self-preservation keeps you from driving too far to the right, or the middle of the road. This applies especially for smaller cars, where you feel more vulnerable, so we do occasionally scrape the left curb of the road and hit an occasional side-window of a parked vehicle. It was good that those mirrors are now mounted on a swivel.

The car was very fuel-efficient; and when we tallied our gasoline purchases and our miles driven we calculated a fuel consumption of 41.3 mpg. Not bad, especially considering the very high cost of fuel, around Є0.90/liter, which translates to around $4.10/gallon. And we already yell bloody murder here in the USA if the price goes above $2.00/gallon. At least we saw only very few of those gas-guzzling SUV’s, which seems to be an inherent part of the American landscape.

On the other hand, our little car did not have much power, and the rattles were compounded with severe shaking as soon as we drove above 60 mph. Not that we had much opportunity to go this fast, because most of the roads we traveled on, especially in the more scenic parts of the country away from the big cities, were narrow. Which brings us to the second general observation on tourism in Ireland. 
On the Continent, you drive on the right; in England you drive on the left; in Ireland you drive in the middle of the road.

And you hope there is nobody coming from the other side at 60 mph. This is another reason why it is advisable not to drive as fast as 60 miles per hour. You should be happy if you can cover just 30 miles in an hour. In some areas, even at 30 mph the landscape goes by quite rapidly by you. Some of the roads are very narrow and you do indeed have to drive in the middle, unless you prefer to drive through potholes, gutters, and other surface imperfections more prevalent on the sides of the road. If you see somebody coming at you, both slow down, inch to your side and gingerly pass each other. On the Dingle Peninsula we drove over the narrow winding road of the spectacular Conor Pass. The road here is so narrow that a maximum car width was is effect. Only cars 6 feet or less in width were allowed. It was just as well, because this means that with vicarious glee we know the tour buses of Grand Circle Tour and other tour companies cannot go through that area.

When we were on the Kerry Peninsula, one of the more important locals had the poor taste to die a few days earlier. There was a huge gathering of solemn looking, well-dressed people milling around at a church on the side of this narrow road between Sneem and Kenmare, presumably there to pay their last respects to the deceased. It was also possible that the main character in this story was someone the locals wanted to be sure was safely dead. There was a somber and officious-looking hearse filled with lilies and other event-appropriate flowers to achieve the desired funereal effect, and cars were parked everywhere. Cars were also parked for more than a mile on, luckily for us, the right hand side of the road based on the direction we were driving.

Well, the road was barely wide enough to have two cars pass each other and with the parked cars it meant that there was only one lane available for traffic. Mind you, this was the main road around the Ring of Kerry, a standard itinerary for tourists visiting the country. We were lucky because our lane was moving when we were there. And when we passed the last of the parked cars some distance away, we saw this very long line of cars on the right waiting for their turn to use the road going in the opposite direction. There were no traffic controllers around and considering the distance of the parked cars, there was no possibility the left lane would clear sufficiently for opposing traffic to dart in and drive for any distance. They would be meeting more traffic from the side we were on and the traffic would jam, because the moving cars would have to go between the parked cars to create any movement. They are probably still there at this moment trying to unravel the traffic knot, because to get around by taking another road one will need to drive a substantial number of miles. This is beautiful, scenic and hilly country, so there are not too many roads around. We were hoping we would have the joy of seeing a large tour bus stuck in opposite traffic, but we were, unfortunately, not that lucky.

If you drive, you will occasionally need to park somewhere. This may not be very simple because good parking places, especially in busy areas, are already taken or are reserved for someone with some clout to swing around.

The picture on the right shows the parking place of the pastor of the church in downtown Kinsale. The sign says: “Park here and you do the sermon.”

Lodgings in Ireland.

Ireland is the land of B&B’s. There must be a few thousands of Bed and Breakfast places scattered all over the country and the way to tour the country is indeed to make use of the many B&B’s available. Part of the fun of visiting Ireland is to stay in their B&B’s. Outside of the high season, you can have your pick of almost any of the B&B’s available. Prices are fairly standard, between Є60-70 for two persons/per night, irrespective of whether it was a regular B&B or a 4 star B&B. We made extensive use of the Handbook of B&B’s supplied to us as apart of the tour package, listing the B&B’s who would accept vouchers. You could purchase vouchers ahead of time for around US$100/night, so it was actually less expensive just to pay as you go.

In the more popular areas there would be a choice of many B&B’s and our decision where to stay is usually based on the description in the Handbook. This write-up is supplied by the B&B itself and not by some outside independent agency. If they claim it is a 4 star B&B, then they fill up pretty fast. I don’t know who gives them the star rating, or where the stars come from, because we have stayed at very nice 4 star B&B’s and we have also stayed at just adequate 4 star B&B’s. If you run a B&B and you don’t have a 4-star rating, the next best thing to do is to butter up the operator of a 4-star establishment, so they can refer you to your B&B if their 4-star establishment is full. And I don’t believe ever seeing a B&B listed as 2-star or 3-star. So it is 4- star or “charming, very comfortable, beautiful view”, and other selected embellishments, which may or may not correspond with reality.

left: B&B’s are found everywhere. This one is in the town of Kenmare.

The first night we stayed in a B&B just north of Galway. There was an entry in the Frommer’s Guide listing it as being a “Selected Readers’ Choice”, complete with curlicues and other adornments around the entry, and a description to make your mouth water. So we called from the airport and we were so happy to find they had a room available for us. We came there a few hours later. It was just an average looking house on a major thoroughfare. True, it was located close to a 5-star establishment, which was situated across the street far behind the wall at the property boundary, effectively concealing it from view from the commoners passing by.

Our room was not overly large, dominated by a large queen-sized bed. I think it was the best room in the house. The heater was not on yet, because it only kicks in during the late afternoon, so the room was rather cold. There was no TV, no radio, no chair and no table to write on, no tissue paper box, no soap, and the lighting in the bathroom was dim. That way you didn’t see how dinky the bathroom was. There was a bidet, surprisingly, but when we used it, water leaked all over the floor. There were no glasses to use for drinking or for brushing our teeth, and when we asked for some glasses, they didn’t have any in the house. But we did end up with one sturdy-looking wine glass, which we had to share between us. The large window looked out on a fenced yard, where the main attraction was a partly collapsed tree-house straddling part of the fence. There was no lawn; just tamped ground with some sorry clumps of grass around and poles with laundry lines to break the monotony. It was an ideal place to cultivate groundhogs and moles.

Breakfast the next day was of the full Irish variety, a cholesterol fest of thick back bacon, three fried eggs, fried black blood, and white blood pudding, which I thought I shouldn’t ask what it actually was. There was orange juice, cereal, toast and marmalade. It was typical of what we would be served almost every day. The landlady was extremely nice and helpful, but it became obvious that she was by herself and had a difficult time making ends meet. So it seems a friend must have written that glowing recommendation. I don’t have the heart to report this to Frommer’s. She needs the income from the B&B to survive. And maybe get some plastic tumblers in the near future to place in the bathrooms. That was actually the poorest B&B we stayed in the 10 days we were there in Ireland. But we shall name no names.

The best B&B we stayed in was the Shraheen House in Ballycasheen, which is close to Killarney (www.shraheenhouse.com) . It was described as a 4 star place, and it was indeed so. It was a two-story building and we had a quiet, cozy and warm room on the second floor. There was a queen-sized bed and a twin. There was a radio and pull-out TV, and the bathroom was modern. The place had a lot of table surfaces, which was always handy as you unpack your bags and unload the contents of your pockets. They even had a small heater and blower on a timer to preheat the bathroom. There is a table where you could make hot tea or coffee, and she even supplied some Dutch speculaas to go with the hot drinks. They had a nice sitting room downstairs or you could sit in the verandah in front looking out at their well-tended and expansive graveled parking lot. Well, you cannot have everything.

And for breakfast there was a choice from 6 different menus. One day we had the small Irish breakfast, the next day we had yogurt and a variety of fruit, fresh and thinly sliced and beautifully presented. This is, of course, in addition to the standard juice (choice of juices) and cereal (choice of cereals) and toast, if you wanted it. The lady of the house served and the husband manned the kitchen. All was very good and we were sorry we had to leave. And yet she charged only Є62 for the two of us per night. The first B&B we were in charged us Є65. And Killarney is much more of a tourist place than Galway, so you would expect prices there to be higher. This is a place you should plan to stay if you are in Killarney. We stayed there two nights and we were sorry we had to leave.

Some of the newer B&B places are specially designed to be B&Bs. The area for the paying guests is in a different building or part of the building, away from the area where the operators live. In some of the older B&B’s the operator’s quarters would be just one or more rooms in the same area.

The last night in Ireland we stayed at the Great Southern Hotel. If you purchased a tour package, the tour operator usually gives you the first night of your stay in Ireland in this hotel. But the hotel was kind enough to switch our night to the final night of our stay. This proved to be an exceptionally good move. We would otherwise have been stuck in that hotel the first day. And there is not that much to see in the area.

Staying overnight in the Great Southern Hotel the last night of our stay in Ireland was actually very practical. The hotel was located just across the parking lot and was much less than a 5-minute stroll from the airport arrival and departure halls. For some reason Aer Lingus only assigns seats as you check in for your flight. And since it would be a long flight, it would be nice to get good seats. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8:00 a.m. So we woke up at 5:30 a.m., got dressed and walked over to check in at the Aer Lingus counter at 6:00 am, just as the counter opened. After receiving out boarding passes, we went back to our hotel room to take another 30-minute nap on our beds. We then had a leisurely breakfast, finished our toilet, and at 20 minutes before the scheduled flight time we ambled to the airport to go through security and then into the waiting plane. It was civilized and unhurried, reminiscent of the golden days of yore when travel was polite and belonged to the province of civilized people of means.

left: The private ferry to Waterford Castle.

On the subject of accommodation I should also cover the high end, the castles where you can get overnight accommodations in genteel and luxurious surroundings and where the guests are fawned over by attentive staff. We chose to stay at Waterford Castle for one night. The location was rather unusual. The castle was built on an island and the only access was by using the private cable ferry, which can transport as many as maybe 6 cars at one time.

You drive on the ferry and the captain comes by and asks whether you have reservations at the Castle. You answer in the affirmative and he asks your name. You drive up the road and as you step out of the car in front of the castle, somebody comes out and welcomes you by name. Now that is class.

right: Entrance courtyard of Waterford Castle as seen from our room

There was absolutely no hint of a disparaging look for coming to the castle in a wreck of a car. The staff comes by to help you with the luggage and to park your car, I am sure far away and hidden from the views from the castle.
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As castles go, Waterford Castle is fairly small, but it does have all the trappings, with a large entrance hall replete with huge fireplace and armor and Belgian gobelins on the walls. The rooms were not overly large, but very well appointed and luxurious. Rates were Є175-400 for a double room. We got ours as part of the car and lodging package we purchased earlier.

left: The ornately decorated porcelain toilet bowl
There were small touches of luxury, such as the ornately decorated porcelain toilet bowl shown on the left. But one thing surprised us in Ireland. Even in these luxurious surroundings they still had separate faucets for hot and cold water.

It is interesting to read the comments on staying in these castles in the internet blogs. Most people think it is a wonderful experience, but there are always a few who think that these places are overpriced and are mostly designed to cater to the wide-eyed Yankee tourist who doesn’t know any better. But the hotel not only caters to the one-day tourists like us. We met a young woman who is staying there for prolonged periods because she was working for some company sponsoring her studies for her PhD in conflict resolution. Well, it is nice to have an expense account to allow you to stay at these posh places without having to worry about budgetary constraints.

II: Dark and Brooding Castles

Tue, 6 Apr 2004 23:17:59 -0700

Kylemore Abbey.
In a country where the prevailing weather has a tendency to be wet, dark, and brooding, it is obvious that the castles would tend to act the same. We were in Galway on day 1, and in the afternoon we explored the melancholy scenery of Connemara nearby. There the roads are narrow and the shifting light of the dying afternoon accentuates the starkness of the rock-strewn hills and fields in this thinly populated area. In this haunting landscape we drove past little cottages and walls of rocks, which had been painstakingly stacked on top of each other over the centuries.
left: Kylemore Abbey in the dusk.

We stopped to look at Kylemore Abbey, a picturesque neo-Gothic style castle, which looked just like what an Irish castle should look like. It was a cheerless-looking citadel, with turrets and battlements right out of the set of Lucia de Lammermoor. In the fading light of dusk, the mood was somber, with the stiff wind blowing little heads of foam on the surface of the lake in front of the castle.

Kylemore Abbey dates back to the middle of the 19th. Century. It was built by Mitchell Henry and it was finished in 1865. He was a successful English financier and his young wife fell in love with the area while on their honeymoon. As befitting the somber mood of the area, she sadly died while on a cruise on the river Nile and only four years after moving into the house. The property was eventually purchased by the Benedictine Sisters of Ypres, after their own convent in Belgium was destroyed in the first world war- they have been here since 1920. It is now one of Ireland's most exclusive girls' boarding schools, catering to Irish as well as to international pupils. Many of the daughters of diplomats and ambassadors have gone through its academic program. From the outside it did not look as if there would be too many wild programs in the curriculum. And if someone you know in the diplomatic service does not have a sense of humor, he or she probably had gone through this program.

There are lots and lots of other castles, abbeys, and cathedrals besides Waterford Castle and Kylemore Abbey. A goodly number of them are in ruins and it seems that a real Irish landscape should look forlorn, dark, and doleful with at least one set of ruins in the picture. Many of the important ruins have been restored and sanitized, so you can visit these ruins and see how some of the structures should have looked like in the original. But many are still maintained as ruins, where the roofs are still gone and not replaced. Sometimes there is a visitor center with toilets and literature describing the castle as it was before. The weeds have been replaced by grassy lawns, the tottering parts of the crumbling walls strengthened, the grime removed from a lot of surfaces, and the newly graveled walking paths have been made easier for the visitor. Some of the castles are only partly in ruins; they still have rooms where you can see exhibitions about the history of the castle and the surrounding areas.

Ballycarberry Castle and Cahergal Fort

This once dominating castle is located some 3 miles outside of the town of Cahersiveen, which is one of the larger towns on the Ring of Kelly. This fortress dates to before 1569, when first mention was made in some ancient chronicles.

right: The mournful ruins of Bellycarberry Castle

We were there in the waning light of the windswept and cloudy afternoon; there was nobody around, and the ruins of the castle conveyed a feeling somber and haunting. There is moss everywhere on the walls and except for a few pigeons and surely some ghosts, there is nobody there to claim the place as their abode or even as an occasional place to work or while the day. Count Dracula may have lived here for a short while before he was resettled to Transylvania, because even he may have found the castle and the surrounding moors rather too bleak for his taste. Bram Stoker, the author of the novel “Dracula”, published in 1897 to mixed reviews in London, was Irish-born, by the way. Surprisingly, the grass lawn in front of the ruins was green and well-kept.

Close to Ballycarberry Castle is an ancient reconstructed stone fort, probably from around the same period.

left: Cahergal Fort

1This is a very unusual fortress because it lies close to the ground and is round with no protruding spires and watchtowers. Looks as if the concept is that of a tortoise. Go in a shell and allow the superior fortifications take the brunt of the enemy attack.

Somewhere in this same area are the ruins of another fort, Leacanbuaile, but we could not find it in the waning light.

Kilkenny Castle.

Kilkenny Castle, on the other hand, first established by Strongbow of the Fitzgibbons clan in 1170, is still in very good shape now. It was built on the banks of the river Suir to control traffic on the river. In 1391 James Butler bought the property and started his dynasty there. He had made the farsighted decision to go into voluntary exile with King Henry II and was rewarded by the monarchy when Henry regained his throne. James Butler also became Duke of Ormonde. Castle walls were as much as 3 meters thick, the better to withstand assaults from unfriendly forces.

left: Entrance to Kilkenny Castle

The high point of the castle tour is its “Long Gallery”, where both the walls and hammerbeam truss wooden roof were richly decorated, the walls with paintings and gobelins, the wood with finely detailed drawings and decorative art. It took the artist close to three years to finish the drawings on the trusses. The main fireplace was covered with sumptuous white Carrara marble, and sculpted in it was the crest of the Butler family. Their motto was “Comme je trouve”, which sounds rather nonchalant to me. No photography was allowed, but neither did we see any postcards for sale showing this part of the castle.

St. Patrick’s Rock of Cashel.
There is a castle called the St. Patrick’s Rock of Cashel, because St. Patrick was said to have visited this place. This huge castle complex was built on a hill; it is some 90 m above and overlooking the city of Cashel. From the city below below the fortifications in the sky look brooding, fierce and forbidding, especially with the dark, rain-laden windswept clouds chasing each other overhead. More than half of the buildings were still in ruins but there was a lot of restoration activity afoot.

right: St. Patrick’s Rock of Cashel.

It was the seat of the King of Munster as far back as 360 AD, and it remained a royal fortress until 1100, when king Murtaugh O’Brien granted it to the church.

But behind the forbidding ramparts a lovely cathedral was built. And there are still some very well-tended old graves in the graveyard, reminding the visitor of the temporal nature of life and of the generations who had lived, loved, and toiled here in the past.

Cahir Castle
Further down south is Cahir Castle, also known as Caislean na Cathrach in Irish. The first structure was erected on an island in the Suir, the same river flowing around Kilkenny Castle, by Conor O’Brien, Prince of Thomond, in 1142. Since then several castles have been built on the ruins of the previous citadels. The river acts as a natural moat and the current castle was built on the foundations of a 13th century keep. James Butler, the man who purchased Kilkenny Castle in 1391, was awarded this castle in 1375 for his loyalty to Edward III.

left: Cahir Castle in County Tipperary.

At one time it was also the stronghold of the O’Neills, who were leading the Irish revolt against the British Crown. The Earl of Sussex, described by the more salacious historians as the most prominent lover of Queen Elizabeth I, was directed by her to quash the rebels. So he went out and managed to capture the castle after just a brief siege, sorely disappointing his enemies in court who was hoping he would stumble in this assignment.. The Irish did not mount much of a defense and the O’Neills managed to escape by climbing down the ramparts in the dark and rowing away in a small boat to fight another day. Queen Elizabeth I, as befitting her imperious majesty, was not too happy with the results. Defeating the enemy and capturing his castle was fine, but letting them escape was in her book inadequate, and it was said that this turn of events resulted in a marked decrease in his assignments to her bedroom chamber.

Jerpoint Abbey
There was the magnificent Cistercian Jerpoint Abbey, founded in 1160 by the Benedictine Order. Even though it is in ruins now and most of the roofs are missing, it was clear that the building must have been a most marvelous abbey in its times. It is located near Thomastown in County Kilkenny.
right: The well-preserved ruins of Jerpoint Abbey,
We walked along the graveled footpaths and looked rather awestruck at the beautiful structures which were still intact, the transoms, the vaulted walls with the openings where stained-glass windows used to be, the flying buttresses pointing into the heavens supporting nothing more today and looking stark and forlorn against the emerald blue sky. Yes, it was beautiful weather when we were there. And the stone carvings, including the ones at the tomb of the Bishop of Ossory, were mute testimony that skilled craftsmen used to live and work here.
The Abbey is now a national monument in care of the Office of Public Works and legend says that Saint Nicholas is buried here.
left: Stone carvings on a tomb in Jerpoint Abbey.

Muckrock Friary
Muckrock Friary in Killarney National Park we visited on a dreary rainy morning, which actually becometh it well. Weeds and grass were growing between the graves and the building itself had large amounts of moss on the walls. The place, also called Muckrock Abbey, founded in about 1448, has as the central feature a vaulted cloister around a courtyard, which contains a huge Yew tree, traditionally said to be as old as the abbey itself. There were huge stone tombs or sarcophagi on the ground floor of the church dating to the 18th century.

left: The melancholy ruins of Muckrock Friary.

The roofs were gone, but the structure was sound enough for us to climb onto the second and third stories. On the top floor was a section of a wall, which must have been part of the outer ramparts, because it had the narrow vertical slits for archers to launch their missiles protected by the surrounding walls at the enemy outside. And on the top of this 20” thick wall, which was sloping outwards, there was a long trough. There were little gullies leading outwards from this trough.

right: This is where hot oil can be poured so the burning liquid will pour out in rivulets over the ramparts on the heads and bodies of any enemy brave enough to scale the walls.

The Muckross House.

Muckross House is not a castle, but rather a magnificent Victorian mansion, originally built in 1841 and owned by a succession of owners, including the Guinness family of sudsy beer fame. It is located in Killarney National Park about 4 miles from Killarney on the Kenmare Road. To take the guided tour of the house means to walk through lots and lots of rooms, some of them elegantly appointed, as befitting the lifestyle of the landed gentry, others just bare, if they were located in the basement and were used only by the servants.
The mansion, with 100+ rooms, was given to the Irish Government in 1932, because the owners could not afford to maintain it anymore. The Government made it a tourist attraction to pay for its keep.

left: Part of the extensive gardens of the Muckross House.

Now it has an area where one can observe skilled craft workers with traditional skills in the crafts do bookbinding, pottery, weaving and other professions. There is a restaurant and a cafeteria. The gardens are beautiful, especially for their fine collection of azaleas and rhododendrons. And they have lots of visitors, because almost everybody who visits Killarney National Park stops at Muckross House.

To view the grounds in more comfort, visitors go on a “jaunting cart”, which is an open horse-driven cart. The official route takes you from the mansion to the Torc Waterfalls and back, with a short detour to view the lake. All this for €30 for a trip covering about 5 miles. You can also walk this route if you feel like it.

right: A jaunting cart with Muckross House in the background. Passengers sit next to each other facing sideways.

III: The Food in Ireland

Sun, 4 Apr 2004 19:52:10 -0700

There was a time when people believed that all the Irish ate were potatoes with maybe some stew on the side. This could have been the unwanted effect of Vincent van Gogh’s painting of the “The Potato Eaters”, showing an Irish peasant family sharing a dinner of potatoes. Today this concept is certainly not applicable. Agriculture is not dominant in Ireland’s economy and potato production is actually quite small, just a fraction of what is produced in China. Yes, with 70 million metric tons in 2006, China is the world’s largest producer of potatoes And in the northern provinces of that country every self-respecting chef will know at least 40 different recipes for potatoes.
One very pleasant surprise when visiting Ireland is to discover that the food is actually very good, much better than in England and comparable what we would find in France. We usually eat in modest establishments, but even in these smaller restaurants they try their best to offer worthwhile culinary offerings in their menu. We have often traveled in France by car to sample the local cuisine, and we find the overall quality in Ireland to be comparable, and at much lower prices. We would not go to England for the food, but we probably will for Ireland.
Waterford Castle Restaurant.
The restaurant in Waterford Castle was very beautifully appointed and the staff was most courteous and helpful. Well, they were impeccable all over the place. Prices were what one would expect in a good restaurant; I believe the 5 course set menu was Є75, which was not bad, considering that there were no additional charges such as tax and service, which one is used to see in the USA. The descriptions on the menu were very imaginative and quite mouth-watering. The food itself was good but actually a bit disappointing. Yes, the portions were large, the presentations were quite good, but the finesse of the master chef was not there.

We made the mistake of asking them to hold the main course just a few minutes before they were ready to serve, because we had just asked somebody to join us and she was a still on her first course. So they had to reheat our main courses, with devastating results. There were broccoli stalks, which were singed, dried, and tough. They should have just removed those prior to serving. It was an elementary mistake, dear Watson.

We also always make the questionable decision of ordering wild boar or wild venison if it is on the menu. We do this with trepidation because the meat is invariably tough. We were in Auckland, New Zealand, in presumably the best restaurant in town, and the venison was tough. And maybe because they had a single Michelin star, they did not bother to offer us another entree or refund when we complained. And that night in Waterford Castle was no exception. But we keep trying. One of these days, unexpectedly, like a long-forgotten medieval hymn returning to life from the dusty bowels of an ancient monastery, the meat will be so well prepared it will be tender to our aging and deteriorating teeth. We’ll never learn. We should stay with chicken.
But then, one day, in Bariloche in Argentine, we had venison, so savory and tender, it erased all the bad experiences we had over the years. So it is possible to have tender venison without having to pay a fortune. Then again, it might not have been venison; maybe muskrat?
Pub Food.
Most of the time, we ate in pubs for both lunch and dinner. Sometimes we bought something from a deli and had a picnic in the car for lunch. Pub food is great most of the time and much less expensive than eating in a restaurant. Besides the price, it seems the only difference is that in a restaurant your napkin and utensils are waiting for you as you sit down at a table and in the pub they are delivered to you with the food. And in the restaurant there is a tablecloth; there may be none in the pub. In a pub it is slightly less genteel. But if the pub is full, you can sit at the counter.

right: A friendly pub in the town of Kilrush.

Most pubs in Ireland nowadays cannot survive without serving pub food. Just serving drinks is not enough. Not enough people make serious drinking a profession anymore. Changing lifestyles and less leisure time make the habitual pub visitor a thing of the past. Some people don’t even drink alcohol when they come into the pub. I have seen people come in and order pub food and just ask for a glass of tap water to drink. So that is what I order when I have pub food. Sometimes I order a small Guinness. Norma likes a pint of hard cider. The character of the pub has changed. It is now also a place for families to go and have a reasonable priced good meal.

The death knell for the classical pub-crawler tolled just two days before we arrived in Ireland. On that day it became illegal to smoke in work places. The papers report with glee that the Minister of Health of the shadow cabinet of the opposition party was caught the day after, smoking in his office. Since bartenders work in pubs, the pub is a place of work. So now you cannot smoke in pubs anymore. If you want to smoke you go and sit at the tables in the great outdoors, which can be pretty cold and uncomfortable. Sometimes there are not even tables outside the pub, just an area with ashtrays. But it seems that the people who were the most upset were the visitors from Britain, many who vowed never to visit Ireland again. There goes a place where you could have stayed all evening drinking beer, swapping stories, and smoking till the place is blue of smoke.

That is now a thing of the past. But for us it was marvelous. Now we could sit in the pub and quaff our pints of lagers without having to develop a hacking cough and lose our sense of smell. Some of the pubs we visited still had a slight smell of smoke drifting out from their dark mahogany wainscoting reminding us sadly of an era drifting into oblivion, together with the ghosts of Sean O’Faolain and the characters he created. Some pubs still carry large advertisements promoting diverse brands of cigarettes, which looked as silly as a drunk in the bright light of the morning after. But we never heard anybody complain real hard.

Pub food is, as I mentioned earlier, usually quite good. In some places it was even haute cuisine. Consider Kinsale, a picturesque little village where they organize an internatinal gourmet festival every year, and where the town prides on having the best food in the country. And they may be right. Even outside the festival periods, the food is good and reasonably priced. Just looking at the menus of the restaurants and the pubs did show that this was a good place to enjoy the art of eating well.

In the pub in “The White House” we had moules marinière, where the mussels were fat and succulent; and where the lightly creamed sauce was created by a chef who knew what to do with broth, cream, spices and herbs. Prepared in a similar style was a superb seafood dish, with pieces of fish, crayfish, shrimp, mussels, oysters, clams, and scallops. Dessert was a light crepe with ice cream and chocolate toppings. It was excellent food definitely comparable in quality to the 1 or 2 Michelin star establishments in France. At half the price or less. Granted, there was a minor drawback. It was a pub and it was not always easy to get the attention of the waiters especially, as the place filled up. Unless your glass is empty and then they are right there to ask you whether you wanted another pint. There was little space to maneuver around. People were standing all around, especially later in the evening, when crowds started to come in to wait for the music to start at 10:30 p.m. But Kinsale and its surroundings were interesting enough to visit for a day, but not much more than that. So we did not stay for more gourmet meals in that place. Which may be a pity.

left: Doolan restaurant in Kilkenny. The decorations are Bavarian.

In the “Marble City Bar” in Kilkenny, we had a marvelous Moules provençale and an unusually good Thai dish of shrimp in filo with Thai style vegetables. The chef was good and the fairly small place was also always crowded. Then there is another place called Langton in the same city. That place is almost always mentioned in the tour books, maybe because it is such a humongously large place. I suppose they give incentives to publishers of tour guides to mention their place to fill up the space. What is interesting about these two places are the bathroom fixtures; they are created from polished and cast colored concrete; the styling is modern and similar in both establishments, obviously one of a kind. This is actually not very surprising, because the same guy owns these two places. But the food in Langton was just average pub food, and nothing to write home about. And the attitude of the waiters there were of those nameless faces in huge corporations where you come in the morning to do your assigned job and look only forward to when you can call it quits and retire.

right: A restaurant in a stone “beehive” building on the Slea Head, in the south of the Dingle Peninsula. This building is several hundreds years old.

In Cahersiveen we had dinner at the QC Seafood restaurant. Their sauteed and sweetened calamari was exceptional. So was the main dish I ordered; seafood in a crepe in white sauce. Even their cornbread was tasty. Portions were huge and prices were reasonable. In Killarny we had dinner at Khazana, a small Indian restaurant tucked away in an alley and only accessible through a small circular metal stairway to the second floor. We had lamb briyani and bhasmati rice. It was good and tasty Indian food. The waiter was very attentive and helpful. And in Kilkenny we had lunch at Kyteller’s Inn on Kievan Street. The building dates back to 1324 and the owner used to be a rich woman accused of witchcraft. She managed to escape, but her maid, Petronella, was caught and burned at the stake. With all this, the atmosphere was still very gemütlich and the food pretty OK.

Cafeteria Food.

But not everything is well in Paradise. There is also something called cafeteria food. We had the misfortune of being in Adare on Good Friday, so everything was closed except for the cafeteria in the tourist information center. They do appear to take religion seriously there; even the Chinese restaurants were closed. Chinese restaurants anywhere else in the world are always open for business 365 days in the year. Maybe they had no choice if they still wanted to have the respect of their neighbors. As for the cafeteria food there, I can only say that we needed food to survive and we were glad something edible was available that day.

There are exceptions. We arrived at the Great Southern Hotel that evening and even though the pub was closed that day in observance of the Holy Day, the waitresses were quite willing to go into the “closed” pub to supply us with our minimum daily requirement of booze. So the pub food was not served in the pub that day, but in the reading room of the hotel. Even then, the food was quite good.

IV: Tourist Sights

Fri, 2 Apr 2004 20:35:49 -0800

The Waterford Crystal Works.

Waterford is, of course, well-known for its crystal, and the Waterford Crystal Works capitalize on their fame by organizing overpriced tours to allow the visitor to watch goggle-eyed how the stuff is being manufactured in their factory. I was actually surprised to see how many of their craftsmen were working in the cutting areas with no eye protection on. When I mentioned this to the tour guide, she assured me they follow good safety practices. I told her in the US all the workers in that area, where flying glass is always a possibility, would have been required to wear safety glasses. She looked at me as if I was from another planet. Well, one of these days somebody is going to get hurt, and then they will review their safety practices. Not before then.

Even though it was Sunday, there were still a number of glassblowers and cutters working in the shops. I suspect they make so much money from tourists, that they always have some craftsmen working every day of the week, so the visitor can gawk at them working on the glass and then purchase the crystal in the adjacent gift shop. They surely do not want tour buses to come in on Sundays to find their chantiers closed, God forbid. These tourists would almost certainly be more loath to spend money to buy their products. Making Waterford crystal is indeed quite time-consuming as the cuts are made by hand and we did not see any machine making these cuts fully or semi-automatically. It seems to me that it would not have been too difficult to design something which would make these cuts by a robot, but that would eliminate a job and the Unions would object strenuously.

I personally am not too enamored of Waterford crystal. The appearance is stodgy and I do not see much difference between their products and cut glass crystal from China sold in Woolworth for about 10 times less money. Of course you get better packaging in Waterford, a nice box and soft tissue paper hugging the overpriced “work of art”. Waterford crystal looks as if it was manufactured by just about anybody with a little bit of training to cut glass and with an emphasis on mass production. And to some extent this is the case. In the workplace you see rows and rows of workstations for cutters all doing the same thing. I am sure they have the same thing in China too, where labor is also 10 times less expensive and the rules less restrictive. But just wait. In a few years, China’s living standards and wages will go up, their safety regulations will be enforced, and the Waterford Crystal Works will rule the world.

left: A glassblower in the Waterford Crystal Works. No dark safety glasses to guard against hot glass spatters and against sharp glare.

None of the special pieces they had on display took my breath away; the more expensive pieces were just larger pieces of glass with more cuts in the glass. The products had a stodgy, belabored feel to them and were seemingly devoid of inspiration and artistic flair. But the company provides work for many people and was instrumental in the economic recovery of the area in the last years, so we should be generous to them. And they also seem to have cornered the market in supplying these cut-glass monstrosities, called trophies, for the major sporting events around the world, such as the Super Bowl in professional football, the World Cup in soccer, the Masters in golf, Wimbledon in tennis, and many others. It is good advertisement and perchance they don’t charge that much to the event organizers. But one has to be careful with critique. Waterford crystal is mass-produced and prevalent everywhere and any disparaging observations on their appearance are bound to fall on unhappy ears of owners. Maybe they too realize the stuff is hokey, but they do not dare to admit it outright. But really, I have seen “mass produced” pieces by Sweden’s Orrefors, France’s Baccarat, and Italian glass from Murano, which would still take my breath away because of their beauty.

I don’t want to imply that the Irish are not capable of producing beautiful glass sculptures. When we were in the Art Design Center on Kilkenny, there was a display of exquisitely beautiful glass.

right: A lamp shade made from blown glass.

The Burren.
It is said that this is a place where there are no trees to hang a man. And where there is not enough water to drown him. And if you finally succeed in killing him, it's too rocky to bury him.

The Burren is nevertheless a favorite tourist destination because the fields look like a moonscape, with relatively small-sized rocks strewn everywhere over extensive regions. Geologically speaking, it is a young region with lots of limestone. It lies south of Galway in County Clare, Ireland. The name Burren is from the Irish - bhoireann meaning a stony place. Its formation has lain unspoiled since the ice-age and is composed of karstic limestone, the largest area of such in western Europe.  .   left: the Burren is a very rocky place.

It is a place of surprise and delight to botanists, archaeologists and ecologists alike. The area itself is bleak in appearance. However it does have sufficient soil to grow a wide variety of the most unusual and rarest of plants, many of them strange bedfellows. A fine collection of alpines and Mediterranean species grows together in this limestone area with, strangely, some of them being lime-hating plants. If you go in springtime you will find rare wildflowers such as gentian and orchids and the bloody cranesbill. This area has some of the finest archaeological megalithic tombs in Ireland, if not in Western Europe. There are relics of human habitation dating back almost 6000 years and the most famous is the vortal tomb, or portal dolman, at Poulnabrone. In this area alone there are more than 60 wedge tombs. There are also numerous examples of raths (earthen ring forts) and stone cashels. This area is also rich in historical ecclesiastical sites, including the ruins of Corcomroe, a Cistercian Abbey from the 12th century.

The thing about the Burren is that it is not an obvious place like the Taj Mahal or the Grand Canyon. You could be standing in the middle of it and asking the locals where it is. This has happened. Let's face it, to some people Ireland is just a blend of gray stones, green fields and cows. So if you don't do your homework, you could cycle or drive the length and breadth of the Burren and feel like you never really saw it. The Burren is an amazing place. It is a karst limestone region of approximately 300 sq km, which lies in the northwest corner of County Clare. It is composed of limestone pavements, which are eroded in a distinctive pattern known as karren. This pavement is crisscrossed by cracks known as grykes and underneath the pavement there are huge caves and rivers that suddenly flood when it rains. It is desolate and you can find villages abandoned since famine times and green roads on which you can walk for miles without ever seeing a car. But we stayed on the main ring road, and there was enough traffic there, albeit not as much as during the high season.

right: A stone wall in The Burren.

What is especially interesting is the large number of stone walls, painstakingly built by hand, dividing the inhospitable soil into small areas where livestock, mostly sheep industriously try to survive by eating the meager grass. In some areas stone walls are also built threateningly close along the side of the narrow roads, forcing the driver to slow down less the vehicle scrape the wall. We see these walls all over the country but in the Burren there are a lot of them.

Somebody wrote the following about these walls:

"Firstly when the land was cleared by extreme physical labour, the rock pavements that had to be broken up and moved by hand became the walls around these 'fields'. Each farmer has his own method of dry stone wall building, and it is amazing that his handiwork can be distinguished from someone else's. This art is passed down generation to generation. The stone walls are also remarkable in their strength, given the high winds and storms that hit the islands - and this is taken into account during construction. Remember, no concrete or binding material is used. The structure is all important, and this allows wind to pass through the walls easily, giving them stability in gales. The walls have no gates but will have one area in a lot of cases where some rounder stones are placed, that can be rolled to one side to let cattle in or out, and then easily rolled back.”

The Aillwee Caves.

Nestling unobtrusively within the Burren, and just 4 miles from Ballyvaughan, are the Aillwee Caves. A local farmer discovered these caves in the 1940's while out flocking his sheep. His dog had disappeared and was then found inside the cave entrance, which must have been covered for millennia. Remains of brown bears and indentations of the bear pits were discovered not far from the entrance. Bears have been extinct in Ireland for thousands of years so this find caused some excitement. It is now a highly touted tourist trap and we fell for it. It was a waste of time and money. There were just a few small stalactites and stalagmites. There was an underground river and it was dark when the lights were turned off. There are really many more interesting caves in other places in the world. On the other hand, if we had not gone in, we would forever wonder what mystical wonders of nature we had missed.

The Cliffs of Moher.

Close to The Burren are the Cliffs of Moher, which is part of the scenic tour if you go and visit the area. It is understandably one of the most spectacular sights in Ireland.
left: If you have a death wish, you can climb over a small barricade to get on that narrow ledge five hundred feet above the ocean.
These majestic cliffs rise almost perpendicular from the Atlantic Ocean to a height of some 230 meters at its highest point and extend for some 5 miles. In this area limestone deposits were formed at the end of the Lower Carboniferous period. For millions of years afterwards sand and mud were washed on top of them and these sediments formed shale and flagstones. These formations can be best seen at these cliffs, which are not technically part of the Burren, but close enough to be included. Vast colonies of birds nestle along the cliff ledges- fulmaras, shags, puffins, guillemots, kittiwakes and razorbills, together with different varieties of gulls.
right: ”The Cliffs of Moher.”
We walked the path from the visitor’s parking lot to O’Brien’s Tower. It was windy with occasional showers, but the views of the cliffs and the ocean from this point were impressive. Along the path there is a large ledge jutting out of the rocks where you can walk on and jump right off into the ocean some 500 feet below. It is definitely not a place for the faint of heart. There are no safety barriers and sections of the cliff sometimes give way. So one day somebody will walk over the ledge into the blue-green waves below and then an ugly fence will be erected to keep people away.

O'Brien's Tower was built in 1835 by Cornelius O'Brien a descendant of Brian Boru, the High King of Ireland and the O'Brien's of Bunratty Castle, Kings of Thomond. It is an observation point built on a headland for the hundreds of tourists who even then, visited the Cliffs. It is the best location from which to view the Cliffs. It was said that Cornelius O' Brien built the tower to impress female visitors. This may be true but it is hard to believe that that was his main reason, because Cornelius was a man ahead of his time, believing that the development of tourism would benefit the local economy and bring people out of poverty. He also built a wall of Moher flagstones along the Cliffs and it was said in the locality that ‘he built everything around here except the Cliffs’. O’Brien’s Tower is located a short distance from the village of Liscannor – famous for its slate ‘flagstones’ which were used at the time for fencing purposes. In fact the story goes that Cornelius O’Brien, one time member of the parliament for County Clare won a bet with his English counterparts that he could build a fence ‘a mile long, a yard high and an inch thick’. These were the dimensions of the flagstones and they were quickly adapted as building material as well as floor covering in farmhouses throughout the 19th century.

Killarney National Park.

Killarney National Park, which is only some 25,000 acres large, is located in southwest Ireland. Notwithstanding its relatively small size, it has three lakes, connected to each other but with different characteristics and ecology. It also has bogs, moorlands, heather, wetlands, woodlands, wild mammals, a real waterfall, mountains, a castle with lots and lots of rooms and beautiful gardens, and the earlier mentioned ruins of Muckrock friary. The altitude in the park ranges from 70 to 2800 feet. It also has narrow winding roads to heighten the experience of being there. There were, thankfully, not that many tour buses around when we were there, just a few; enough to jar us into reality.
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left: landscape in Killarney National Park.

But there were a lot of jaunting carts, especially between the Gap of Dunloe and Killarney. These carts are special to this region. These are horse-drawn carts seating the driver and up to four passengers on two benches parallel to the direction of travel. So there can be two passengers looking out to the left and the other two looking out to the right as the driver canters the carriage across the preordained route, spouting the same story he spouts to all the tourists he gets in his carriage. This is a civilized country. The drivers do not fight over the passengers, the way we are used to see in some other places. Here they stand in line and take their turn taking passengers as they come, without hurry and without stress.

This is the first national park created in Ireland, after the Muckross estate was donated to the Irish State in 1932. It has beautiful scenery and it has since been designated an UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve in 1981. Nature conservation is a main objective of the park, and even though recreation and tourism amenities are provided, you cannot just zip through the Park.

The Gap of Dunloe.

The Gap of Dunloe is a narrow pass between Macgillycuddy’s Reeks and the Purple Mountains. The Gap starts officially at Kate Kearney’s Cottage just outside of Killarney, goes up to the summit and then goes back down in the Black Valley, some 11 kms away. It is a popular tourist attraction and because the roads are narrow, entrance into the Gap by motorized vehicles is prohibited. So many people walk to the summit and back, a round-trip of some 8 km, but the main mode of transportation, if you don’t want to walk that far, is the jaunting car. It is a beautiful drive (or walk) through wild and desolate country. At the Wishing Bridge one can make a wish, and it will come true. Just don’t ask for too much.

right: The Wishing Bridge in the Gap of Dunloe.

What is not indicated anywhere is that, although entry by private motorcar is prohibited from the Kate Kearney’s Cottage entrance, you can enter the Gap by motorcar from the other end. But this entrance is very difficult to find and there are no signs directing you to this place. At Molly’s Point turn into a narrow, unmarked road downhill and then go another 15 kms or so past several unmarked intersections to get there. You have to keep asking and there are usually not many people around. Maybe a Garmin would be useful to have.

Literature in Ireland.

In closing I should probably touch upon the writings of Ireland. There are wonderful little bookstores all over the place and the prices are quite reasonable. Since the weather is usually not very cooperative and the landscape is bleak, what else is there to do creatively than to take the pen and write? What other country the size of Ireland can claim four winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature. They are W.B.Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney. But Ireland has other world-famous literary names. You may recall James Joyce, Flann O'Brien, Oscar Wilde and Jonathan Swift. Edmund Spenser wrote his epic poem, The Faerie Queene, honoring England's Queen Elizabeth the First.
We heard something interesting when we were in the south of the Dingle Peninsula. We were considering visiting the Blaskets, remote and desolate islands off the south west coast of Ireland, but the seas were too rough that day. “Mebbe next week”, was what we heard. So we visited the “Skellig Experience” instead, a diorama plus video presentation set in an incongruously modern building where the wistfully empty parking lot looks hopefully for more visitor cars than was present that day. Most other days too, we surmise, because we had to make a 25-mile or so detour from the main road to get to this place. And the average tourist is always in a hurry..
The two main islands in the Blaskets are Skellig Michael and Little Skellig. To get there you need a boat to traverse the 10-mile distance from the mainland. Often the seas are too rough to allow a vessel to reach the islands. In 600 AD some monks built a monastery on a mountaintop some 200 meters above sea level on Skellig Michael, the larger of the two islands on. To get there they chiseled and built a stairway in the rocks with 700 steps to get to the top. At the top there are stone beehive buildings from around that period and also a 12th century church. Some people do go to amazing lengths for hardship and solitude. The monks also wrote. In the writings of the monks on these desolate islands a distinctive literature developed in the first half of the twentieth century. Some people claim it is comparable to that of Homer. I do not know how true this is. It could be a figment of the imagination of somebody in the Ministry of Tourism.

These are some of the impressions we had of Ireland.. I am sure we missed a lot. What about Dublin? And what about Northern Ireland? We did not go there. Maybe we’ll visit these places some other time.
But what is Ireland really like? To some it may just be green fields embroidered with stone walls and decorated with spray-painted white sheep, pink wildflowers, and Celtic ruins. But to us it is all of the above. It is the beauty of barren and forlorn landscapes, it is the reality of modern living, born from ancient history and evanescent dreams, it is gloomy weather interlaced with bright sunshine, and it is a place filled with wonderful Irish people and unexpected culinary delights.