July 2012 Ireland

Fourteen years ago I attended a foreign exchange program with the University of Limerick in Limerick, Ireland.  Since then I have always yearned to return to Ireland but never imagined my dream would come to fruition.  Studying abroad in Ireland opened my eyes to a new world of different cultures, traditions, and attitudes.  It was one of my most intense formative experiences.  Somehow the world seems a smaller place when one studies abroad.  

Fast forward and here I was boarding the plane from Frankfurt, Germany to Dublin with my three children, Ansley 6, Evan 4, and Colin 2.  We met another couple with two small children also flying to Ireland.  The mother was Irish and the father was German.  All four of the family members were perfectly bilingual and rolled back and forth from German to English. Hearing the mother's lovely Irish accent was a prelude of our yet to come Irish family experience.  After a short weather delay and a two-hour flight we arrived late in Dublin. 

Neil was forced to drive late at night on the left side of the road.  We both kept chanting to ourselves “look right and stay on the left.”  In Ireland every car renter is mandated to buy local car insurance.  As Neil proceeded onto the street from the rental car parking lot, looking left instead of right, he proceeded into a supposed clear path.  Instead a car appeared out of nowhere on the wrong side of the road (that is for right side of the road for Irish drivers but the wrong side of the road for the rest of us).  We luckily just missed colliding with the oncoming car.  There is noting quite like fear and the school of hard knocks to teach one the local driving customs. With a hope and a prayer we made it to our hotel safely and checked into our cozy room.

In the morning we were treated to a buffet Irish breakfast including yogurt, fruit, sausage, blood sausage, mushrooms, grilled tomato, fried potatoes, baked beans, toast and croissant rolls.  Colin finished an impressive adult sized portion of breakfast.  We then tried to burn off the breakfast calories with a walk through Saint Stephen's Green.  St. Stephen's Green is to Dublin as Central Park is to New York City.  Evan and Colin proceeded to chase all the seagulls and pigeons.  We even spotted a resident birdman feeding a gaggle of pigeons.  Every city needs to have an eccentric person who does not mind being crapped on to feed the birds.  During our meandering stroll we found a playground filled with young Irish families. Mostly the Dads were attending to their toddlers while the Moms stayed home and slept in.  This is a proper Saturday tradition.  

After our Saint Stephen's Green traverse we proceeded to the town center of Dublin and specifically to Grafton Street.  The unemployment rate in Ireland is currently at 14% so many people take matters in their own hands to earn extra money by street performing.  One man was carving a dog out of sand, groups of students played traditional Irish tunes in a mini orchestra of stringed instruments.  I even caught a group of entertainers in the bathroom at Bewley’s cafe dumping out a violin case of the spoils and counting the change.  One entertainer pronounced, "Old people are the most generous."  Later at the pub Ansley and Evan put out their empty food basket and turned their silverware into a violin and a flute and asked us to contribute money to their baskets.  Ansley asked if she could play her tin whistle for money on the streets in Germany. 

Our next stop after Grafton Street was the Temple Bar district of Ireland in hopes of some live music.  Music does not usually start till 9:30p, a little late for the children but we ere able to find a pub with live music at the Oliver Street John Gogarty pub during the day.  Some other tourists had the same idea and the pub was packed.  The waitress quickly escorted our motley crew upstairs, away from the crowds and the music. Shamefully we could hear the music through a pathetic speaker.  I guess a family with three small children gets the cheap seats in the pub.  We finished off Dublin with yet another traditional Irish breakfast. and I forced myself to sample the black sausage aka blood pudding. 

Next we drove to the Ring of Kerry and to our next B and B on a secluded lake.  The children were thrilled to be out of the car and ran straight to the lake to throw stones in the water.  That night we put the kids to bed early, watched the Olympics, and our Irish hostess brought us tea and cookies as we marveled at the view of the lake.  The B and B owner was complaining that tourism in Ireland had been down in numbers since the recession and so many houses were still for sale.  She said it did not matter the guest, they all complained about the economy and no matter the language they all understood the word bank. 

During our trip Colin discovered how to escape the pack and play.  We were watching TV in the living room of our bed and breakfast as the children were supposedly sleeping.  Ansley came down to report, "Colin is out of his crib.  We are in room six and everyone is alive.  Evan spanked Colin and put him back in his crib."

The next day we drove a portion of the Ring of Kerry and thought the most spectacular part was the Coomakista Pass whereby the ocean, cliffs, and rolling hills all serenade together.  We took a short, steep, albeit rainy hike up one of the hillsides in the Ring of Kerry to try and get the wiggles out of the children.  During our drive we actually saw a ring fort and I came to understand these were the bottom half of peoples houses.  The bottom half was a stone circle and the top half was made out of thatched roof, not really that different from the thatched cottages that still exist in Ireland. The fort that we saw was called the Staigue Fort and it dates back to 2500 years ago.  

On the drive we saw a sign for the only beach pub in all of Ireland.  Of course we had indulge in a Guinness at this fine establishment.  Neil and I drank our Guinness as the children ran, played and dug in the sand on the beach.  We found several tide pools with barnacles, sea anemone, and whelks.  Some brave vacationers had their wet suits on and were swimming in the ocean.  I opted to sip my pint in dry clothes instead.  

The next day we drove to Dingle Peninsula and bought wool sweaters at a store in Dingle.  Now our car smelled like a sheep barn from the sweaters. We drove the Dingle Peninsula loop but the weather was so dreary we couldn't glean or decipher any of the spectacular views.  I convinced Neil the next day to make a second attempt at the Dingle Peninsula drive.  I told him it would be worth it as it was the most beautiful place in the world.

The weather held and the peninsula shone like a bright star.  Our first stop on the loop was Sleigh Head and the view of the beach down below where the movie Ryan's Daughter's was filmed.  We tried to peer through the trees to find the former temporary lodging house of Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise (long before the mayhem with Katie Holmes) when they filmed Far and Away.  We scarcely caught a glimpse of the cottage from the road. From this most spectacular vantage point we were able to see the Blasket Islands and Dunmore Head, the Western most point in Europe.  Our favorite stop was yet to come at km 24.9.  When we piled out of the car we could hear the sound of a bagpipe.  A woman was playing her heart out and proclaimed this was the first sunny day on the peninsula in two months.  We encouraged Ansley to do an impromptu Irish jig on the rock next to the bagpipe player.  She enthusiastically agreed as Neil recorded her dance on our camera.  Then we climbed to the top of the rock-studded hill before us.  Sea gulls were flying in every direction.  A set of hills called the three sisters expanded to the right and behind us.  We traversed a sheep field and then scaled up small piece of land jutting out into the ocean.  Below we could see a cozy cove/beach, ocean on both sides, a sheep beside us, and large green hills lopping straight into the ocean.  

Next we drove to the Gallarus Oratory.  It is a primitive church built in the 500’s-800’s and is made solely out of stone without mortar. It is a quite the architectural wonder.   The Oratory protrudes upward the same as an upside down-bow of a ship.  Last we visited the ruins of the Church of Kilmalkedar.  It was a Norman church built by the English as an attempt to centralize their rule and it replaced an older monastic settlement.  In front of the church stands an early Christian cross made of stone.  Many of the graves have the traditional Celtic cross.  The Celtic cross is a marriage between the former Celtic pagan worship of the Sun God with the new Christian faith.  The circle on top of the cross is the sun because Christ is the one who brings the light to the world.   An intriguing Ogram stone dating back to the 300's also stood in the ground before the church.  It has the mysterious Ogram writing and there is a hole through it whereby two people can touch thumbs and confirm a commitment such as marriage. Neil and I confirmed ours by touching thumbs through the Ogram stone. The church finally met its ruin in the early 1800's when the Catholic Church had to go underground due to the English control.  Many of the stone tombs were mere remnants of their former glory.   They have been worn down with time and weather and are now blank tablets.  The ruins of the church concluded our drive and we headed to Doolin for our nights' stay. 

When we arrived in Doolin we came down an especially narrow road (more like a one way road whereby if two cars meet one car has to back up). The streets were lined with hedges and many of the hedges are fuchsia with bright red flowers that bloom in the summer time.  Fuchsias were imported from South America but they have taken a strong hold in the Irish countryside.  Coming awkwardly down the country road our Ford rental came to a large hill with a castle to the right, the moor above, an overgrown cottage to the left and cliffs with ocean out in the distance.  I made Neil re drive this route because it was so lovely.  I also convinced him to eat dinner in the town of Lahinch.  My former Irish boyfriend was from this beach town in the days of yore when I studied abroad at the University of Limerick in Limerick, Ireland.  Neil and I had a good laugh about this topic and actually had some scrumptious pizza at the restaurant as well.  

Back to Doolin, it is famous for its Irish pub music scene.  It is situated right next to the Cliffs of Moher.  The countryside around Doolin embodies the Irish standard beaming with stone cottages, rolling gentle hills, stone bridges, hedges, streams, cliff sides, and of course an Irish pub or two. The next morning we made a point to go straight to the Cliffs of Moher. The wind was cutting through our new wool sweaters and it felt as if it was a fall day not July.  We hiked up the trail that the Irish had just recently made safer.  One used to be able to just walk up to the 600-foot cliffs but now sheets of stone and a walkway back from the cliffs kept visitors safe.  However true to European philosophy there was a small rock you could climb over to go on private property to hike the trail right on the ledge of the cliffs.  When I say true to European philosophy, I mean Europeans don't believe in saving people from themselves.  It is a natural selection of sorts.  If one is so inclined to hike on the edge of a cliff then that person must be held accountable for the consequences.  The cliffs are slowly eroding and the ground is unstable on the edge of the cliffs.  Yet several tourists were sitting with their legs dangling over the edge despite the signs that warned extreme danger.  Can I just say, not for a million dollars would I dangle my legs over that cliff.

In the afternoon we made a drive through the Burren,  an area of Ireland that looks as if it is a separate planet with all the soil worn away and mostly rocks exposed on the hillsides.  We pulled into the drive of an old abandoned stone church in the middle of a Farmer's field. Neil went first to check it out.  Pretty soon a tractor came up behind our car trying to enter the land and into the field.  

Of course, Neil was down by the church now.  I explained to the tractor driver and pointed to my husband and took off running to get the keys to the car.  Tractor man didn't want to wait for us.  He just removed a piece of the fencing and drove through the field.  Our next stop was Pounabrone Dolmen.  It is that famous stone table, portal tomb.  People used to think it was a Druid altar and weird, modern want to be Druid people would arrive to have worship ceremonies at such artifacts as this one.  The ironic part is that it is not Druid at all.  It is from a time way before the Druids 4000 years ago and it is much older than the Egyptian pyramids.  It is theorized that people were able to move these large stones into place on rollers. Human remains were indeed found below the portal.  Colin enjoyed improving his balance and agility as he bounded between the ground and the boulders surrounding the portal.  

This is a good time to reflect on Neil and his driving abilities in Ireland and my experience as a passenger of the car he so kindly drove for our family. Let's just say I am so blessed to have all my limbs in tact.  Our car trimmed many of the roadside hedges for free.  I silently cringed as I heard the branches scrape up against the car.  Every time there was a stone fence on the side of the road I held my breath.  When there were puddles on the side of the road we would slide into the hedges and Neil would laugh his head off.  I love him but he is crazy.  I would tell him to slow down and he would say, "Oh honey, I’m not even driving the speed limit." Mind you the speed limits are generic 70km out of town and 50km in town or something like that.  The authorities expect drivers to proceed with caution.  Ireland has the second most dangerous roads next to Portugal in Europe.  You have to buy compulsory in-country insurance as if they expect you to wreck.  One lady was coming down the road of our apartment on the wrong side of the road right at us and Neil was again laughing his head off.  “Come on honey this is so funny.  She is obviously a tourist.”  The good news is Neil has a clean driving record in Ireland and we all made it back to Germany alive.  

That day after the Burren we decided to all take a nap so we could stay up late for the Irish music at 9pm in the pub.  We headed for dinner at 8:30 at the pub and ordered Irish stew for ourselves and fish sticks for the children. Then the Irish band began to tune their instruments and our anticipation was growing.  Soon enough the band broke out in a reveling Irish jig with a fiddle, accordion, flute, and vocalist.  The acoustics and the band were first rate.  The children started doing their jig, and Neil and I grinned from ear to ear.  One can’t help but be mesmerized by Irish music.  We stayed until the children started to act silly and tired.  The next morning we went on a cliff side hike that eventually meets up with the Cliffs of Moher.  The cliffs in Doolin are the smaller cliffs that begin the Cliffs of Moher.  The hike was suited for our family because it was far enough away from the cliffs for safety's sake yet we could still see the cliffs, view the birds, and watch the streams eroding and water falling right off the cliffs.  We walked maybe a half-mile and the trail started to get closer to the cliffs and the rain really started to pour.  We decided it was time to turn around but if Neil and I ever get the privilege of going back to Ireland, we are going to hike this trail to trails end.  Hopefully it won't be washed away by then.  

The next day we left for the south east part of Ireland to see a few more sights and start heading back to our departure city of Dublin.  I randomly chose our B and B because I thought it was by Kilkenny and the Rock of Cashel where St. Patrick converted the Druid King to the Catholic Faith.  I was wrong on all accounts.  The B and B was closer to the Kennedy Homestead, Wexford, and Waterford.  Waterford by the way has been sold to an American company and the crystal is mostly made in Eastern Europe but some of the custom pieces are still made in Ireland.  Our B and B turned out to be cozy with two large furry dogs in the driveway, a farmyard with chicken eggs to collect and sheep to watch in the pasture.  The cottage had stain glass and antiques and a winter garden glass room perfect for reading books while watching the sun set.  Our hostess suggested that we go to the Irish Heritage museum just outside of Wexford as well as a replica of a famine ship. 

The next day we headed off to both destinations and on the famine ship we were assigned a name of someone who did indeed board such a ship in the mid 1800's.  Characters dressed in time period clothes acted out life on the ship.  Ship patrons were aboard the ship for two months.  Most of the second-class passengers were let up for fresh air only a half hour per day.  Each passenger was given water, salted meat, and flour rations to make his or her own bread.  The second-class quarters were cramped and four people both slept and congregated in a single bed with four on the top and four on the bottom bunk.  The top bunk was better because the bodily fluids could not run down.  Only half of the passengers usually survived on the ship.  The actress that was acting for us was a mother of five and in the end her and her husband both died and left five children including a baby orphaned.  No one knows what happened to the children once the ship reached its destination.  Once the ship reached its port, the passengers had be quarantined and many did not survive quarantine as well.  These stories gave me a whole new appreciation of the sacrifices my ancestors made to come to America.  So many people were starving in Ireland during the potato famine that many people were desperate to board these ships for a new life in America or Canada.  

Life was difficult for new immigrants and the first immigrants that arrived were expected to save money and send it back to Ireland to get the rest of the family over to America.  Most of the immigrants worked menial jobs or helped build the railroads.  The Kennedy family left during the famine out of southeast Ireland.  It took 100 years to rebuild the family until JFK became president.  

The next and last place we visited in Ireland was the Irish National Heritage Museum near Wexford.  It has a 35-acre campus and recreates replicas of living quarters and life style during all the separate stages in the history of Ireland.  The first exhibit showed the start of Irish civilization between 7,000 and 6,000 BC.   The exhibit showed a large grass hut as well as gathered eggs and fish.  Then the next exhibit was displaying the time period of 3000 BC during the Stone Age and showed farming wheat and making rustic bread stone ground bread.  It showed that the stones used to build the burial mounds famous in Ireland were built by moving stones on rollers. Next the stone huts or ring forts were shown with thatched roofs and this exhibit centered on the Bronze Age.  We saw the original domestic animals such as the Kerry cow and the older varietals of sheep and pigs. 

About 750 BC the Celts arrived from modern day Austria.   They brought iron tools and weapons.  They liked to fight according the Roman writings. The priests of the Celts were called Druids and they worshipped many Gods.  The society had kings and aristocrats at the top, then free men, and then slaves.  Then we walked through a water mill that greatly advanced processing wheat.  Now bread could be made that wouldn't grind down the teeth.  

The last segment of Irish history represented the climax of Irish society with the introduction of Monastic communities and Christianity.  In 432 Saint Patrick arrived in Ireland.  Monasteries and abbots organized the church.  In 500-800 AD was the golden age of the Irish Catholic church. Irish monks kept Greek and Roman learning alive in the Dark ages.  The huts now evolved into cottages that looked like the modern thatched roof cottages.  One room had a coloring exhibit for the children with pictures to color from the Book of Kells.  A stone Celtic cross that was painted in bright colors was the center of the settlement.  

After a long day we drove back to Dublin and stayed the night by the airport.  We flew out in the morning and were so glad to be back in our own beds that night.