Ireland April 23 2007
– May 23 2007
More than a year ago Claudia and Neil
Carver sent an email to several friends. “How about
joining us next May in Ireland on the Beara peninsula for
a week of hiking and good company.” Neil had taken
the place of the Castletownbere Church of Ireland
minister while he went of holidays. Neil and Claudia had
explored many of the hiking trails that make up the eight-day
Beara Way Trail. They had maps and were looking forward
to introducing us to their favourite spots. Seven couples
quickly signed up to go. The seven women had all
graduated together from Bishop’s University in
Lennoxville Quebec way back in the sixties and three of
the husbands were graduates as well. It promised to be a
good get-together.
We stayed, as usual, in hostels whenever
we could get a double room. They were economical,
friendly, clean and comfortable and had the extra benefit
of a communal kitchen. As much as we liked eating in the
pubs, we like to save a little money by cooking our own
meals. We have several quick and tasty favourites that
can be enjoyed over a bottle of wine bought in the
grocery store. We did stay in a few good Bed and
Breakfasts but more than one big Irish breakfast a week
is too much for us.
Ireland isn’t called the Emerald
Isle for nothing. The fields were new green, the leaves
were out and the spring flowers were blooming when we
arrived on April 24. This was in strict contrast to the
brown, still barren Ottawa landscape we had left behind.
Of course all that green comes with a price. It rains in
Ireland, frequently, but when we were there, not all day.
Ray and I had hoped that scheduling our trip for late
April and May would mean heaps of good weather. Indeed,
for the first time in forty years, the skies were blue in
Ireland from late March until early May we enjoyed
unseasonably good weather for the start of our trip, but
it did not last. It didn’t really stop us from our
activities. We just donned our rainwear on the less than
perfect days and carried on. Ireland is even more
dramatic in the wind and rain and the day never finished
on a low note. We had some great hikes, the people couldn’t
have been friendlier and accommodating, the drivers on
the narrow roads were patient and polite and the
traditional music in the pubs was superb.
Five narrow peninsulas fan out into the
Atlantic from the southwest coast of Ireland. The Beara
Peninsula is in the middle, just south of the Ring of
Kerry. We reserved two large four-bedroom Holiday Homes
just outside Allihies, a small town at the tip of the
Beara Peninsula for the week starting May 5, 2007.
Ray and I had never visited Ireland
before so we planned to explore more of the southern part
of the country both before and after meeting up with the
group. We flew from Ottawa to London Heathrow on April 23
on Air Canada and continued to Cork on Aer Lingus. We
picked up our small rental car in Cork and drove to our
hostel where we discovered that even seasoned travellers
like our selves could make mistakes. We had switched
luggage. Some poor unsuspecting man returning to London
from Ottawa had the same bag as mine. We had not
encountered many other blue MEC bags on our travels so we
had become lax in reading name tags. I phoned Air Canada
in London and they knew all about the bag switch.
Luckily, even though Aer Lingus is not a partner with Air
Canada, they agreed to ship the mistakenly taken bag back
to London and to return my bag to Cork, without charge.
It took more than two days but the bag arrived safe and
sound. Next time my bag is again going to sport an orange
ribbon to identify it and we are going to check name tags
very carefully.
 An extra day in
Cork allowed us to explore more of the town and its
surroundings. Our hostel, Kinlay House, was right next to
St Anne’s Church in Shandon. The church is topped by
the “Four Faced Liar”, a clock tower with a
golden salmon weather vane. The four faces of the clock
never display quite the same time except when they come
together at the hour. The bells are really the draw at St
Anne’s. For a small fee, a visitor can play a tune
on the eight bells. Ray called out the bell numbers
marked on an instruction sheet for the popular “Bells
of St Mary” while I pulled the ropes. I’m sure
several neighbours got a laugh out of one more tourist’s
attempts at a serenade, but it was fun.
 The port of Cobh,
pronounced “Cove”, is 24 km from Cork. Tourists
come to research their families using the databases
available in the very informative Heritage Center and to
see the displays on shipping. Cobh was the departure
point for millions of Irish emigrants, especially during
the mid-nineteenth century potato famine, on their way to
Canada, USA and Australia. The Heritage Center tells the
harrowing tales of passengers during their months at sea
in disease-ridden and less than seaworthy ships. The
center also has displays of the Titanic, which made its
last stop to pick up passengers in Cobh and the
Lusitania, sunk nearby during WWI.
Of course no visit to southern Ireland is
complete without a visit to kiss the Stone of Eloquence
on top of Blarney Castle built 600 years ago by the Irish
chieftain Cormac McCarthy. Legend declares that all those
who kiss the stone will be granted the gift of eloquence.
This story originated when McCarthy managed to prevent
the emissary of Queen Elizabeth I from taking over his
castle by talking endlessly and creating delays until the
Queen in disgust declared the emissary’s reports
“all Blarney”.  To kiss the stone,
you have to lie on your back and bend backward over a
yawning gap. It isn’t really difficult as there is
an iron grill preventing you from slipping through to
your death, a kind man in attendance to assist you and
iron bars to hold on to as you lean backwards. Both Ray
and I managed this feat but I think it is too late to
expect we will miraculously become eloquent. We capped
our Blarney visit with a walk through the Rock Close, the
extensive and lovely Castle gardens that take advantage
of the natural rock formations of the area.
We came to Ireland armed with the Lonely
Planet Walking in Ireland guidebook.  Our first walk
following the directions in the book was up to
Knockanaffrin in the Comeragh Mountains just west of
Waterford. We were glad the instructions were well
detailed in our guidebook as the signage was almost non-existent.
The reward for walking up the steep side of Knacknaffrin
was the view. In Eastern Canada and the US most of our
trails are in the forest until we are lucky enough to
reach an open viewpoint. In Ireland most of the hills
long ago lost their tree cover so the views are always
available. We appreciated them.
 Some of the most popular
tourist spots caught our eye. We had an interesting tour
of the Rock of Cashel, one of the most ancient
archaeological sites in Ireland.  Another was Kilkenny Castle
where we took advantage of a guided tour once again.
Whenever we could we looked for local
walks to explore the countryside. Near Cashel we walked
through farmers fields to the ruins of  Athassel Priory. We had to
pass a herd of cattle including one large bull in one
field. I figured Ray’s background on the farm gave
him the right to become my bull guard. I was glad I hadn’t
seen the “Beware of Bull” sign until we were
returning on the safety of the road. We celebrated that
night by joining some of the staff and other guests of
the Cashel Hostel at a local pub featuring a DJ for the
evening. It was very popular with the locals, some of
whom partied until the wee hours of the morning but we
only made it until 10 PM.
The small towns on our route often had
ancient churches or ruins to explore. We stopped for a
break in Fethard to find the 13th C church and were
surprised to be approached by a woman asking if Ray was
the priest they had been waiting for. We had to
disappoint her. We wondered if this might be a good spot
for Neil Carver to investigate for a holiday replacement
position.
 We stopped into St Canice’s
Cathedral in Kilkenny and were delighted to find the
Kilkenny Choir and Orchestra practicing for a performance
of a Cherubini Requiem for that night. We decided to
attend and were very pleased. Just before leaving Ottawa
we had attended another Requiem concert performed by the
Castenchel choir of which our friend Al Robinson is a
member. He would have enjoyed the performance too.
 Ancient tombs,
estimated to have been erected 4000-3000 BC, dot the
southern Irish landscape. Our road map indicated one on
the route to the Wicklow Mountains, a perfect break stop.
A huge granite capstone stood propped up by four upright
stones forming the entrance to an ancient tomb stone in
what is now a farmer’s field.  It must have been
quite a feat to assemble the huge rocks with no
mechanical device. Another roadside sign indicated a
Druid stone circle of rocks. We fought our way through a
flock of sheep to find the circle. The legend said
dancers turned to stone for contravening a holy day
formed this Piper’s circle.
Our destination in the Wicklow Mountains
was Glendalough, a popular National Park and hiking area.
There was no double room available in the local Hostel so
we booked into a nice B&B in Laragh, the closest town.
We found out later that the hostal was full of teen-aged
girls completing the hiking portion for the Republic of
Ireland President’s Award for young people between
the ages of 15 and 25. The girls have to complete a
volunteer activity in the community, participate in a
sport, do an adventure activity and learn a skill such as
music, language, or a craft to achieve awards. The more
hours completed, the higher the award earned. The girls
hiked 50 km over two days to complete the adventure
portion for the Bronze Award. We saw the girls at the end
of their first and longest day and were impressed by
their spirit and obvious enjoyment of their hike.
 Busloads of
tourists come to Glendalough, but the majority spend
their time around the Lower Lake and exploring the ruins
of St Kevin’s Monastery. We did the rounds there but
we really wanted to hike some of the trails up into the
hills. We started out to do a short walk the first
afternoon and ended up spending three hours on the Spinc
Trail. Erosion is always a problem on popular trails so
stairs have been constructed on the steeper trails. We
left the crowds behind and climbed all 600 steps to reach
the ridge of the Spinc (it felt like 1000). The reward
for all the steps was a spectacular view of the Upper and
Lower Lakes and the abandoned ruins of a lead miner’s
village and workings.
The second day we followed one of the
trails detailed in the Lonely Planet guidebook to ascend
Camaderry Mountain. The ascent was tough work. There was
supposed to be a clear track alongside a stream heading
up the mountain but we missed it. The instructions were
to head towards a reservoir built on the top of Turlough
Hill so up we trudged picking our way over hummocks of
heather.  To our delight a
herd of about fifty deer were just ahead of us munching
on the heather and grasses. We watched for quite awhile
until they decided we were to be avoided and sped away.
The top gave us great views again and a chance meeting
with an Irish couple, the only other people on the trail,
led us to a short but steep trail back to our car.
It was time to head south again, for we
were to meet our friends in a few days. It was only about
200 km from Laragh to Kinsale but it took us six hours.
We elected to take the major roads, marked in red on our
map. We would have made better time if we had taken the
more scenic yellow roads. The roads in Ireland are good
but there are few four-lane hiways. Add to that no
bypasses and heavy traffic around the larger towns and
you have a traffic jam. We made it to Kinsale by late
afternoon in time to walk around the harbour and have a
fish dinner at a restaurant.
Kinsale is popular with boaters and
vacationers on weekends and during the summer but it wasn’t
too bad midweek in early May. For us it was just an
overnight on the way to Bantry but there were a few
detours to make on the way. The family of Andrew Auerbach’s
mother, Mary, emigrated to the USA from  Dunmanway, a
pleasant market town in Co. Cork. The family had a farm
called “The Top” but we didn’t see it. We
found our way on the back roads to the town square where
we snapped a picture of the Post Office to prove we had
been there. The President of the Republic of Ireland Mary
Robinson had unveiled a plaque in the square in 1993 to
mark the town’s 300th birthday. Like most of the
towns we visited Dunmanway looked very prosperous and
pretty.
Our second detour was a coastal drive
around the Mizen Head peninsula for the views of the
steep cliffs, stopping for lunch in Crookhaven, another
popular summer boating harbour. From there we travelled
to Bantry where we stayed long enough to explore Sheep’s
Head peninsula with a nice walk to the lighthouse at its
point.
We drove from Bantry to Castletownbere,
the largest town on the Beara Peninsula. Liz and Yves Dat
had just arrived via the ferry from France where they
live on the Normandy coast. We drove to our Holiday Homes
just outside the village of Allihies.  Another nearby village,
Eyeries with its gaily painted houses was the setting of
a 1977 film, The Purple Taxi. Allihies houses are now
painted in different colours and are equally pretty. We
met up with the rest of our friends: Ginny and Huibert
Arnold and Cathy and Bill Pawley from Ottawa, Claudia and
Neil Carver from Waterloo, Sheila and Peter Talbot from
Port Perry and Ginny and Jim Galway from Caledon at our
rental houses. We had two large four-bedroom houses right
next to each other. The houses couldn’t have been
better. We had big kitchens to prepare communal suppers
and large living rooms in which to gather. The first
night we all gathered at O’Neil’s Pub in
Allihies for dinner but most other nights we made our own
meals. We took turns preparing a meal but we all had to
meet the high standards set by the first dinner. Needless
to say this was not a diet week. It was time to enjoy the
company and renew our friendships.
 Claudia and Neil
ensured we would all have lots of exercise during the day
to work off our dinners. They suggested great hikes for
all of us, mostly following portions of the multi-day
Beara Trail. Up to ten of us set off for walks each day.
The others visited many of the places of interest on the
Beara Peninsula.
 We had no
competition for the trails. The Beara Peninsula is not as
heavily visited as Kerry or the Dingle but it meets or
exceeds the views on the more popular routes. We had well-marked
trails, spring flowers galore, great views of the rocky
coastline, sheep in the fields, strange rock circles,
standing stones and Ogham stones with inscriptions in a
primitive  Celtic
writing system of slashes on the side of the stone. After
one hike we rewarded ourselves with a visit to McCathy’s
Bar in Castletownbere. The bar featured prominently in a
very popular novel by the late Pete McCarthy in 2004.
 A highlight was
our hike on Dursey Island. Only five permanent residents
remain on this small island off the tip of the Beara.
Most of the land is used for summer grazing of sheep and
cattle and there are no shops, restaurants or
accommodation. Access is by a cable car that runs high
above the swirling channel waters. We hiked across fields
to a Norman watchtower ruin then down to see the remains
of a fort perched above cliffs on the tip of the island.
The O’Sullivan clan ruled over much of Cork for
centuries. One of their castles was on Dursey Island. The
English captured Dunboy Castle, just outside
Castletownbere, in 1602 so their leader Donal O’Sullivan
sent 300 clan members to Dursey Castle for safekeeping.
The Dursey Castle was captured as well and the entire
population was butchered, many by being thrown over the
cliffs into the sea. Donal O’Sullivan and 1000 of
his followers spent the winter in Glengariff then decided
to flee northward to Leitrim to join with other friendly
clans. Their reception along the 300 mile trek was not as
good as they had expected and the conditions were so
difficult that only 35 people made it to Leitrim. This
epic retreat was re-enacted in 2002 to celebrated the 400th
Anniversary of the trek.
 The week together
with our friends came to an end and Ray and I were on our
own again. That took a little getting used to as we had
enjoyed the company of our friends. As well, the rains
came more frequently. Instead of long walks we did a
little more sightseeing and that was enjoyable. We drove
to Killarney stopping in Kenmare for a walking tour of
the town. There is another of those strange stone circles
plus Our Lady’s Well, a beautiful flowered grotto.
Pilgrimages have been made to this “holy well”
from the time of the Druids and it became a place of
secret worship after Cromwell banned Catholicism in
Ireland. The Heritage Museum in Kenmare had very good
displays on lace making begun as a money maker during the
potato famine as well as a colourful history of the area.
 It was the weekend
in Kilarney and the hostels were full. We stayed at
Peacock Farm Hostal in the hills above Muckross. We had
to stop and confirm we were on the right road as it was
truly remote, but there was a great view from the hostel
of Lough Guitane. The hostel was well named as the
resident peacock kept trying to entice the peahen with
his flamboyant display of tail feathers. She wasn’t
interested.
Our room, the only double in the hostel
was booked for the next night so we moved into town to
stay at Kilarney Railway Hostel. We had hoped to explore
the area by foot but the rain clouds had moved in, so we
set off in the car to drive the Ring of Kerry.  After all the hype
for this scenic wonder we concluded that the Beara
Peninsula has as many or more to offer. The most
impressive section for us was an extra loop not
accessible to the big tour buses where we had good views
of the jagged Skellig islands. To learn more about them
we crossed to Valencia Island and visited the Skellig
Center. We watched a video presentation on a monastery
built in 600 AD on Skellig Michael, the largest rock. We
wondered how anyone could survive on this sharply pointed
barren rock. We would have loved to visit and climb the
600 stone steps to see the stone beehive huts that housed
the monks but the seas were high and the crossing too
dangerous that day.
Sunshine greeted us the next morning,
just in time for a hike up Torc Mountain. The Lonely
Planet guidebook marked the trail as straight up the hill
but the Parks people had been busy in the last three
years. Switchbacks and sleepers (railway ties) steps
interspersed with gravel paths made the 1 ½ hour climb
up a little easier and safer for the environment. We had
a great 360° view of the upper lakes and Muckross and
Lough Leane. It looked so pretty below of the Muckross
estate that we went for a tour in the afternoon.
 The wealthy Herbert family
built the Manor house in 1843. Their claim to fame was a
visit by Queen Victoria and an entourage of 100. They had
two years to prepare for her visit so they redecorated
the house from top to bottom. The Queen stayed just one
night. Unfortunately Prince Albert died shortly after the
visit and Victoria went into mourning. The family
expected to be given titles and lands as a reward for the
Queens visit but they never materialised. Instead the
expense of the visit bankrupted the family. Beware Royal
visits!
The house and grounds are now part of the
Killarney National Park. We passed several horse drawn
“jaunting cars” taking people for a tour of the
property.  The gardens were in full
bloom. The Rhododendrons towered over us and the rock
gardens and water-gardens were impressive. Rhododendrons
lined the roadsides wherever we drove but they are
becoming a nuisance. Like many other introduced plants,
Rhodos are taking over and choking out other native
plants. They are beautiful anyway.
There are advantages to staying in the
tourist centres like Killarney and one is traditional
music played in at least one pub every night. Our big
problem up until now was staying up late enough to take
in a session that started after 9:30 PM. Once we
experienced our first session in Murphy’s Pub in
Killarney we were hooked and searched out the best pub in
other towns.
The Dingle Peninsula came with rave
reviews, so over we drove in the mist and drizzle. We
stayed in a small hostel in a private home where we were
entertained and vice versa, by five year old Mollie. We
came away impressed by her intelligence and/or the Irish
school system as she was far ahead of our Canadian
kindergarten level children in her math skills and
reading and writing in both Irish and English.
Signs in many of the Dingle stores
proclaimed that the town had been denied they democratic
rights. It was shades of the French-English language
fight in Quebec. Dingle has been declared an Irish
speaking area and therefore the town names have reverted
to their original Irish names and all but a few road
signs are in Irish. The problem is that most road maps do
not have the Irish names and tourists are continually
getting lost. We had been unable to locate a hostel on
our map because the new name bears no resemblance to the
old name. Several of the roads signs leading to “An
Daingean” are spray painted with the more commonly
known name “Dingle”.
 A drive around the Dingle
peninsula is a must. There is a rugged coastline around
Slea Head, numerous ruins of forts, beehive stone houses
and  old churches to
visit plus the interesting Blasket Center. The Blasket
Islands are small rocky outcrops 5 km out in the Atlantic.
The isolation of the people led to the retention of their
unique Irish language and culture but the community is no
longer there. Successive emigrations had reduced the
population and there were no schools or medical
facilities. After at least 300 years of habitation the
last 27 people were moved to the mainland in 1953.
Doolin, on the West Coast in Co. Clare
had two draws. It is a center of Celtic music and ferries
leave from the small port for the Aran Islands. We got to
hear lots of traditional music but the Aran Islands will
have to wait for another visit. The weather conspired
against us. Winds of up to 100 km per hour stopped the
ferries running for three days.
 We explored the Burren, the
most extensive karst limestone region in Ireland, instead.
Once covered by the ocean millions of years ago the ocean
floor was built up over the ages with the remains of
coral, shells and sand creating hard stone. The buckling
of the earth’s crust forced the seabed above the
water and bent and fractured the stone creating deep
fissures. At first glance the area appears to be barren
but wild flowers abound growing in small pockets of earth
in the fissures. Blue Gentians, wild orchids, Purple
Cranesbill and hundreds of other varieties add colour to
the grey rock.
Our host Mattie at the Rainbow Hostel
showed us slides of the area and lent us maps for our
drive around the area. We had tea at the Tea Junction in
Ballyvaughan, a small harbour on Galway Bay and returned
later for great seafood soup at Monk’s Bar. We
visited Corcomroe Abbey ruins where a stone effigy of
Conor O’Brien, who died nearby in 1267, lies. He was
an Irish chieftain and patron of the abbey. We visited
the popular Poulnabrone Dolmen Portal Tomb, similar to
the one we had seen on the way to Wicklow. Thirty-three
bodies were found inside the Poulnabrone Tomb, which
dates from 5000 years ago.  We never did find
the Gleninsheen Wedge Tomb, made famous by the discovery
in 1930 of a gold torque that hung around the neck of
some ancient king. Family of the man who found the torque
had sold the property and the new owner had removed all
signs to discourage visitors. We passed by several castle
ruins and visited the churchyard of the 12th C Kilfenora
Cathedral, the smallest cathedral in the Ireland.
Kilfenora is noted for its high stone crosses all
intricately carved.
 Our
hostel was just doors away from two pubs that featured
traditional music every evening. We visited both,
enjoying the music played on guitars, tin whistles,
fiddles, the bodhran drum, concertina and the strangest
one for me, the “small pipes”. The uillean is a
bagpipe-type instrument played with the bag under an arm.
A treat for us was a concert to raise money for the
Doolin Music School. It was so popular that it was held
in both the community center and a local church with the
musicians moving between the two venues. We heard several
well-rehearsed youth groups plus the best of the local
musicians. The church we attended was quite cold so after
two hours we left at 9:30 PM. We were told the musicians
played until midnight.
 Since we couldn’t visit
the Aran Islands, we made a detour to Ennis, another
traditional music center. A stop to visit the Cliffs of
Mohr was essential. We had passed the cliffs on the way
to Doolin several days before but at that time they were
shrouded in heavy fog, but the winds were blowing the
clouds away on our second visit. A brand new visitor
center and wide boulevards along the cliff tops spreads
the crowds out. They were impressive.
 We visited an
interesting Abbey in Ennis but the music, or lack of it
proved disappointing. We heard only the last two numbers
from a group who packed up and left at 9 PM, to be
followed by a DJ. No traditional music was to be found on
Saturday night in Ennis. If we had been there the
following week we could have attended the annual folk
music festival but we were too early.
 We returned to the
Burren. We stayed in the village of Corofin where the
manager, Mary, suggested a walk to Mullaghmore Mountain.
Mary lent us a map that we needed as the trails we
unmarked. The approach was over the rocky Burren, which
we found out is difficult to walk on. You have to
continually watch your step or risk twisting an ankle in
one of the fissures. We climbed a series of 10 m high
rock walls to the top where the open landscape allowed us
to see far away in every direction.
That evening we went to the local pub for
a pint before making our dinner in the hostel. A group of
locals were celebrating the first communion of several of
the children. Several young girls were in long white
dresses and a few boys were in their Sunday best. The
long dresses didn’t hamper the girls ability to
dance. It was mothers and daughters only, some as young
as 3 or 4 years old, having a grand time dancing to a DJ’s
tunes. The men were belly up to the bar but some of the
young boys looked as if they would have loved to join the
girls. The DJ started into a traditional number and three
of the girls got up and showed us how to do a proper
Irish dance. They were very good.
We only had a few more nights in Ireland
so we decided to return to Doolin for one last night of
music, but first we had another hike to do. The ruins of
Oughtmama churches and Turlough Hill, near Ballyvaughan
sounded interesting., so off we headed. We stopped at a
house advertising guided walks in Oughtmama and asked
directions to get to Turlough Hill. The guide, John, told
us that all the land was private property but that if we
joined his hike, he would let us know when we could
divert and get to the top of the hill. John had two women
already there but he was waiting for a tour bus
originating in Galway to deliver a group who would join
us. When the group arrived we set off up a hill while
John gave us a running commentary of the geology and
history of the area. We left the group after almost an
hour and followed John’s directions to Turlough Hill.
The Oughtmama valley is green grazing territory for
cattle in the summer but in the winter the farmers graze
the cattle on the top of Turlough Hill. Turlough is from
the Irish meaning disappearing lake. They flood in the
winter, keeping the meadows green. Sure enough we found
meadows and not bare rock on the top of the hill.  There
are also the remains of a stone-aged fort and huge burial
cairns on the top so there was much to distract us on the
way. Back in the Oughtmama Valley we walked around the
ruins of three small 12th C chapels built by monks in
search of a quiet life.
After attending our last music session in
the Doolin pubs we drove to Shannon where we stayed in a
B&B prior to flying back to Canada. The B&B was
pleasant but the “purpose built” town of
Shannon is the only place in Ireland with a modern
shopping mall as the town center and even that shuts down
after 5 PM. We were lucky to find at least one place open
for supper.
So ended our visit to the Republic of
Ireland. There are still plenty of places we didn’t
visit and more walks to do, so I am sure we will visit
again some day.
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