IRELAND

17th July, 2015 (Sally]

“If you ever go across the sea to Ireland…” and every other Irish song from our childhood seemed to come to mind as we wandered around this beautiful country. We certainly had lots of preconceived ideas, stone walls, whitewashed cottages and friendly folk and they were all met and surpassed. Many times over. Our journey started in Dublin. Myra had found a two bedroom apartment in Fishamble Street, Temple Bar so we were within walking distance of all the sights and happenings in the city. The apartment was attached to the George Fredrick Handel Hotel and the site of the original concert hall where the Messiah had its first public performance in 1742. What a night that must have been for the English gentry, so many were expected to attend that ladies were asked to not wear hoops and the gentlemen had to leave their swords behind. Fancy wearing your sword to a musical soiree.

Dublin is a fun city, full of young folks as it was the start of holidays, all there for a good time in the numerous pubs. However we were impressed at how well behaved they were. Saw quite few living on the streets, unemployment is still high but they seem to be coming back from the GFC and the bailout they accepted from the EU five years ago.  We saw a lot of Dublin from the Hop on Hop off bus, always a good way to get the feel of a city, stopping at Trinity College to view the Book of Kells and the ancient library. Trinity was the site of a monastery before Henry V111 had his little spat with the Pope and it was made a University by Elizabeth 1. Forty three acres in the centre of Dublin with an impressive list of alumni including Jonathon Swift, G.B. Shaw, and James Joyce to name a few. The Book of Kells, an illustrated manuscript of the Gospels is well displayed with numerous large panels describing the artistic skill that went into the making of it. The Library was equally as impressive, the long room is enormous and houses 20,000 of their oldest books, while tucked away in another eight buildings are the 3 million or so other volumes they own. Since 1880 the library has been allowed to claim a copy of every book published in Ireland and Britain. Surely they don’t claim them all, Mills and Boone would look decidedly out of place in such surroundings. .  

We left Dublin by car and drove directly west to Connemara, a picturesque but wild and inhospitable area. Stoney fields ruins of small holdings and houses. No one could have made a living in these parts but obviously people tried or were forced to. Now all National Park with walking tracks and pony trails. It was here we joined the WAW, Wild Atlantic Way, a coastal route that stretches 2,600kms from Donegal in the North to Cork in the south. Just outside the little town of Clifden we paused to visit a spot in the wild expanse of peat bog, the site of Marconi’s Transatlantic Radio Station and within 500m of that is a memorial to Brown and Alcock who crash landed here in 1919 becoming the first men to fly across the Atlantic.  Both sites are marked with small memorials, visited more by the sheep than the usual travellers. The road continues along the coast with views of the Aran Islands and a stunning vista over Galway Bay and into the town of Galway. The hotel we had booked had been flooded the night before when the boiler burst so was looking very sad and forlorn when we eventually found it. However the janitor kindly gave us very Irish instructions to the alternative they had booked on our behalf. Brand new, opened only week and still having a few teething problems, but the staff were lovely and we enjoyed chatting to them and learning a bit more about the country. Seamus, our waiter had obviously been told to stand with one hand behind his back, and there was no way he was going to go against the instructions. We thought serving the wine might induce the arm out but no, the bottle was presented in the cooler, top on and “There you are Sir, you can open your own wine.” One was reminded of the one armed waiter in Robin’s Nest, or is that showing my age, again…

On the way from Dublin we had passed many new housing estates, it was only later we learned that these were the aftermath and cause of the great financial collapse that Ireland has been through and they now have 230,000 vacant homes that were built with the easy credit that was literally thrown at developers. I could not get my head around that figure of 230,000 and that is with a population of just over 4 million. A lot of the houses are in areas with no transport, schools, or commercial services nearby so can’t even be used for social housing. Needless to say there is not much building going on at the moment. In fact several houses we saw are half finished and will probably stay that way. The result 5 years ago was Ireland took a €90Billion bail out and nationalised the banks, it appears that it was the right course as they now have the highest growth in the EU, or say they have, but youth unemployment is still over 9%.

We continued from Galway along the WAW which follows the Dingle Peninsular and The Ring of Kerry, dramatic coastal scenery, cute multi-coloured shops in the villages and not a scrap of litter or rubbish anywhere to be seen. Fines for littering are €1300 and for dumping rubbish €3,000 which explains the clean green countryside. Our greatest delight was the people we met, so friendly and forthcoming, everyone had a story to tell and all were amateur historians so we got a firsthand report of the Irish rebellion, troubles and recent history. We all came away with a much greater understanding and sympathy for the desire and fight for Home Rule.

The lovely town of Killarney was submerged under parked cars, the Munster finals of Irish Football was on and with no parking at the stadium the roads to and from the town were lined. We came back through town after the game and the main street had become an enormous outdoor pub, they were celebrating a draw so the whole procedure will be repeated again in a fortnight. We inched our way through the crowd, all very good natured and well behaved. In fact we saw no sign of rowdy behaviour or drunkenness in the whole two weeks. The pubs we stayed in were quiet, but we did go to bed before the Irish music started so perhaps they got a bit livelier later.

At Muckross house we took a ‘jaunty cart’ ride through the gardens, the driver was a real character, he had spent his last holiday in NZ and Australia so was full of stories from his time there. Biggest regret was going with not enough money, “Fancy having a holiday when you can’t afford to drink” he said. “I’ll never do that again.” Then he mentioned a pub in Wagga Wagga, he remembered the pub and “By Golly, I think they will remember me.”

We stopped briefly at Cork, long enough for me to buy a new pair of boat shoes. Eight years wear has seen the present pair gaping at the toes, then onto Cobh which is the port of Cork. A huge harbour which was the final port of departure for the Titanic but also the closest point to where the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk. Most of the survivors and the bodies were brought ashore here and there is a large memorial to the boat in the main street.

In our last three days we saw three of the most memorable sights, the first at New Ross which among other attractions is the Kennedy Home and his visit there during his presidency is noted with a life size statue, but pride of place in a very nondescript premises is an amazing work of art. The Ros Tapestries were conceived in 1998 and consist of 15 large tapestries measuring 6ft by 4ft all hand worked by 150 volunteer needlewomen. They tell the story of the Norman English arrival in Ireland in 1207 and at this stage are nearly complete with only two panels still being worked on. Fascinating and even Tony was blown away.

The next day having visited Kildare and Killarney we went to the National Irish Horse Stud, another sight not to be missed. The Japanese Garden is stunning and the grounds with all the stallions in their paddocks was interesting. Like anything Irish there has to be a story behind it, this one was a fairly eccentric gambler come adventurer who made good in the late 1800,s bought the property, developed the stud then in 1915 gifted the whole place to the state. His belief was that the star sign a horse was born under had a huge impact on its ability and any foal born under the wrong sign was immediately marked to be sold. In spite of the unconventional breeding ideas he was successful. Certainly successful enough to gift away a property worth many millions of Euros.

Last day we spent at Powerscourt gardens, only a few kilometres from Dublin and rated by National Geographic as the third best garden in the world. Forty seven acres of immaculate grounds, owned and run by the Slazenger family, of tennis racquet and other sporting goods fame. Really lovely and a super way to spend our last day in Ireland. We flew out that night back to France and a taxi to Sable who looked a little forlorn and neglected after a fortnight of very hot weather.

Now it’s back to our much more relaxed way of sightseeing in France as we wend our way back up the Somme. We’ve decided that it is time to list Sable for sale, so if you know anyone looking for a beautiful boat in France, tell them to contact us or to see the details: www.apolloduck.com barges/luxemotor.