Southern Ireland, West to East

While the rest of the world is suffering the blazes of summer, it’s cool here in Ireland.  We are enjoying daytime highs in the mid-60s with nighttime temps hovering around 53°F. The overcast skies and rain are gone.  It’s beyond nice, and ideal for hiking, sightseeing, and sleeping with windows open.  

As we drive from place to place, we still exclaim many times over again, “Wow, this is pretty!” While the panorama is pretty, it’s becoming a bit redundant.

Last stop on this side of the country was Killarney. This, if its name doesn;’t touch your heart, the town certainly will. I fell in love with it right away. We headed straigiht for the entrance to the Killarney National Park, right in town. On lands occupied since the Bronze Age, later a monastic settlement in the 7th century. Its abbey was the burial place for local chieftans in the 17th and 18 century. Leap forward, great homes were built on several grand estates. In 1910, the 20-room Musgrove Estate was purchased as a wedding gift for his daughter by wealthy American, William Bowers Bourn. When daughter Maud, died, her husband and family donated the house and estate to the state of Ireland. This donation became the first property to eventually became Ireland’s first national park. Several other grand estates joined in following years later so that now the park has 25,500 acres of lakes, woodlands, and the only herd of red deer in Ireland.

Stan and I are in new territory now, still in southern Ireland but on the eastern side, near Waterford.  Although all of southern Ireland is scenic, there is a marked difference between the east and the west. On the western side, green farmlands cover undulating hills with fields and pastures.  Rugged stacked stone walls snake the land, outlining squares on the gently rolling land.  Those aged rock walls, many now covered with grasses, lichens, and wildflowers, make me wonder about the enormous amount of time farmers spent forming them.  As the soil is very rocky, all those rocks came from the fields they border. Many a farmer, his sons and daughters, must have toiled for years, picking up rocks to clear the land for growing grass to nourish the cows and sheep.  Near the coast of southwestern Ireland, the terrain becomes rockier and rugged but still predominantly green.  Range-grazing sheep who have free rein there seem to think they own this land and the meandering asphalt roads that slice it. 

In contrast, the eastern side of southern Ireland has plenty to oooh and ahh about, but it holds a second place to Counties Cork and Kerry.  The land on this side is much less hilly and shows little evidence of the granite that lies beneath its soil.  Here, fields of green are separated by fields of golden wheat, and cows seem to the the main money-makers.  Houses in general do not reflect traditional architecture but are modern, well-landscaped, and show the taste of a sophisticated, wealthy farm family.  Coastal areas near us are not ocean coasts but are broad delta lands of rivers emptying into Bannow Bay as it opens up to the Irish Sea.  Long stretches of beach, strongly impacted by the rise and fall of the tides, show wide mud flats at low tide.  Many a home has a spectaclar view of the bay, its beaches, surrounding green and golden fields . . . and a barn. 

From all I’ve written about the lovely farmland, one might assume that agribusinesses is the heart of Ireland’s economy.  While it is strong, farming is only a part of Ireland’s economy.  Surprisingly to me, Ireland’s economy is highly developed and knowledge-based, specializing in technology, financial services, and biotech and pharmaceutical sciences.   

In our move from the farmhouse in Kilnamartya, its cows, and the cute kitty to another farmhouse near Saltmills in southwest County Wexford near Waterford, we discovered some wonderful towns in between.  We took a side trip to Kinsale.  What a joy!  To my delight, a small farmer’s market was taking place.  It reminded me of markets at home where there are plenty of stands selling handmade jewelry, homemade bread and cheeses, and other crafts, but not a lot of produce.  The tented market was on the waterfront bordering the pretty marina, with the charming and colorful old town as the backdrop.  There are two 17th-century fortresses there, the star-shaped Charles Fort and a smaller fort barely still there on the other side of the River Bandon.  Strangely enough, this very nautical town has tragic notoriety; two well-known ships sank in the waters nearby.  The Lusitania, torpedoed by a German submarine in 1915, sank just 11 nautical miles off the Kinsale coast, and the Titanic made its last port-of-call in the nearby town, Cobh before sailing off to its destiny.  

Not wanting to miss a thing, we drove on to Cobh. 

Sometimes travelers, like Stan and me, want to skip the big cities and find a small place to settle into for a while.  Both of these quaint, historic towns of Kinsale and Cobh, are amazing getaway destinations.  Graced with a waterfront, deep history, and a community atmosphere, but loaded with native product shops like woolens and art, seafood restaurants, and interesting sights!  We had a cup of steaming, creamy seafood chowder with brown soda bread and butter in Cobh at Jacob’s Ladder Restaurant.  While Stan parked the car, I popped inside the seaside restaurant and asked the dressed-up waiter the soup of the day.  “Carrot and cauliflower soup,” he said.  Disappointed, I replied, “I’m looking for chowder.”  He said, “Oh, we always have chowder.”   

Rich and creamy, it sure hit the spot! 

I could stay in either of these two towns for weeks and feel right at home! 

Driving another 2-3 hours more, we made it to our little house near the bay.  The house is comfy, and the weather is perfect!  Just perfect! 

Tomorrow, there is a swim race in which the Ferrymen who operate the East Passage Ferry that provides a shortcut to Waterford will swim in a race against any able-bodied swimmer, 15 years old or more, who signs up.  They will swim across the river from Ballyhack on our side of the river to Passage East on the other side.  There will be music, a jump house, and BBQ.  We hope to be there. 

Speaking of good towns woth a visit, Waterford is one to put on the list.  It is pretty, has a lively marina, a handful of exquisite museums, and pedestrian walking streets with lots of good pubs to rest a while, eat, and drink while listening to live Irish music on the street. And you can bet your bottom dollar we visited the House of Waterford Crystal, the original and still the primary factory of Waterford Crystal.  This place was closed for a hundred years, from the Great Famine until 1950. 

I may never leave this little spot . . . at least I don’t want to go far.  We rented a car in Paris on May 17 and have driven 4-6 hours not every day, but almost every day since then.  People often ask if we travel in an RV.  Stan quickly tells them that he would have to get a new wife to travel around in an RV or a sailboat.  He knows me well. I do not enjoy confinement, and both those travel modes are confining . . . and for a car as well. After hours in the passenger seat, I begin to feel like a dog left in its crate for far too long.  

The scenery, especially here, is wonderful, yes, but after a while in the car, my mind wanders.  I’m tempted to check my phone or read my book, but I cannot because it takes both of us paying attention to navigation instructions, other cars, and street signs while driving and shifting gears on the left.  And it’s even more complicated on the tiny “L” roads on which we often find ourselves.  All roads are numbered in Ireland, even the tiny “car-paths.”  Those that start with the Letter N, Stan and I decided are National highways. They are multi-landed and modern, zoom, zoom.  Roads numbered with the starting digit of R might be Regional roads.  They are striped, two-lane roads wide and plenty wide enough for two cars.  Then there are roads numbered starting with an L, possibly Local “car-paths.”    These narrow “L” roads wind, twist, and intersect in all directions.  An aerial view of the landscape might resemble a green carpet covered by a rumpled net. The Google Maps lady speaks so often on these roads, so much that it is easy to tune out her comments and accidentally pass our turn, especially when it looks more like a private driveway and not a public road.

Along these “L” roads are grassy hedges.  They hug the road and look soft and cushy, but they are more examples of the stacked stone fences, overgrown with plants and lichens.  When we meet a dreaded car coming toward us, one of the drivers has to find a spot along the road wide enough to pull near the fence and let the other pass.  Quite often, the question is, do we risk getting our left mirror knocked off by the rock wall, or lose our right mirror when we hit the mirror of the oncoming car?  While I shudder in my passenger seat, Stan waits while the oncoming local driver confidently drives on past, business as usual. 

I will finish this one with some interesting observations:  Roads and streets in Ireland are super clean; except for a little sheep poo on L-roads, there is no debris. Recycling is important here; everyone sorts their trash.  All homes have bins for recycles, residual trash, and organic debris.  In addition, huge containers are spaced conveniently in many places where glass bottles can be dropped for recycle.  When a soda in a recyclable bottle is purchased, a .15 Euro deposit is charged. Participating retailers have machine receptacles that verify the bottle ok for recycling, then pass the bottle or can into the machine.  Rejects come back .  A voucher is printed that can be redeemed for cash, returning 100% of the deposit.  There are no loose bottle caps here; all bottles have caps that flip back and cannot be screwed off.  A multipack of soda is not bound by plastic rings or cardboard boxes; instead, the tops of the cans are topped with a cardboard package that holds the cans and keeps the top clean, protected from dust, etc.  Food in restaurants is moderately priced but not cheap; tips are built into the price, but good service calls for 10%.  Aldi, Lidl, and Super Value are the big food stores here, which means groceries are cheap, except for eggs; they are expensive here, too.  Gas is highly taxed and is expensive. Nearly all small towns host their own Lottery.  The biggest jackpot I’ve seen is 16,000 Euros; it is like passing the wealth among neighbors.    While most people speak English, some carry on in Irish/Gaelic.  It is a strange language, but it is traditional and taught in school.  All road signs are in English and Gaelic.  Language buff, I try to find similarities between the Gaelic and English versions to help me understand.  Sometimes that works: Corcaigh is the Gaelic word for Cork, but most often, there is no similarity at all.  There is no winging it, no deciphering.  You must be Irish to know the language. 

Heading to Dublin tomorrow. Goodbye to country life, for now.