Friday, 18 August 2000
The bus left for Cork at 10 a.m. and I got pretty good at jotting notes and snapping pics while wholloping down the road. Going west out of Dublin, we passed through Co. Kildare, which is major horse country! Just outside of the city of Kildare there is a big racetrack with crosscountry jumping courses.
The bus went through farmlands and small towns all morning. The Midlands, the central counties, produce a vast amount of food. Ireland is a food-exporter; its most important exports are meat and dairy products. All the Yoplait yogurt for the UK is made here. I got some pretty good photos of farms.
We made a 20-minute stop at Urlingford, at Josephine's Restaurant, a truck-stop outside town. In the snack shop, I got a banana, a Cadbury's Crunchies (king-size bar), and a rather weak but very hot cuppa. Then went outside and set on a kerb with other passangers who were wolfing chow and puffing on ciggies. This truckers' island is surrounded by corn and sugar beet fields. =
The land in the Midlands is mostly flat with occasional low hills. Some hills have quarries. Almost all houses are stone or brick, many stucco-covered. Most house roofs are slate, some tile. Thatch is very rare, nowadays.
There are also large beef and dairy farms with a few ancient pasture oaks and fields of "small grains." The haybarns have curved corrugated-metal roofs, sorta like Quonset huts on stilts. Some fields are up to 40 acres, most are around 10 acres. Most fields are surrounded by hedges, with electric fences inside them or stockfence wire, what my Grampa called "hog wire." One "gentleman's farm" had double board fences keeping the beef cattle (Angus) and thoroughbred horses away from the neatly trimmed hedges and rows of young trees.
About two miles later, at 1:05 p.m., I saw the Rock of Cashel. The castle is very impressive, a real knockout! There is a medieval watchtower, to boot, on the main street of Cashel village at the foot of the Rock. I want to come back and spend some time here! =
Soon after Cashel, mountains rose up in the south and southwest, crowned with rainclouds. As the ground lifts and rolls, there's more hayfields and sheep. Clumps of bright yellow aster-like flowers bloom in cowfields, but not in sheep pastures. Their flower is a fuzzy pinkish one (some sort of thistle?)
Cahir (pronounced "Care"), was the home of the Butler family. They changed their name from Walter after being appointed King's Butler, supplying butts of wine. Sorta had the liquor concession for Ireland, I guess. Their castle is right beside the main road on the edge of the town, crumbling elegantly like the old mills in New England.
South of Cahir there are lots of woodlots, lodgepole pine, spruce and poplar, mostly, mixed in with the sheep fields. Many places, I noted juniper invading the pastures.
Apparently many of the newer stucco houses are made of concrete blocks. I've seen several under construction, large and with french windows, so they aren't economy models. I've also seen a lot of little old cottages just abandoned, or used as sheds, next to a new = house.
Nearly every house has a stone or concrete block wall around the yard. Often, most of the yard is bare crushed stone, sand, or macadam. Newer houses have more lawn in the yard. Some have flower beds. Working farm yards are usually bare dirt, however.
1:50 p.m. Michaelstown. The square vaguely reminds me of Waterville's Concourse, a car park with little saplings. Urban renewal strikes again!! The houses around it are brightly painted with quite a few windowboxes full of flowers. At 2 p.m., the Blackwater Valley has a tower and ruin overlooking it.
Between Michaelstoown and Fermoy, we came over a ridge, the one with the tower on it, and the trees changed. I started seeing Lombardy poplars and Mediterranian-looking softwoods like you see around San Francisco. It was an abrupt shift to a different ecosystem, reflecting the much warmer, marine climate of Co. Cork.
4:50 p.m. Following the guidebook, I found Sheila's of Cork (hostel) with no problem. Took a brief nap and am now the only one in the common room. What the map doesn't show is that Sheila's is up on the side of a steep hill. York Street is patterned cobblestone, narrow, and I found myself puffing and blowing while making the climb. Sheila's is carved out of two rowhouses and has a flower-trimmed terrace in front. Massive granite blocks hold the terrace in place. Rambler roses clambered all over the granite blocks.
6:45 p.m. Took a short (?) walk, maybe 2 km. Went down to McCurtain St, had coffee and a scone at O'Brien's Cafe, walked to the second bridge and across, windowshopped and went into a cut-rate bookstore. Took a gander at Roches, a big department store in an old Victorian-style building painted bright yellow. Then came back up, walked up and down McCurtain again, climbed up a different street, and came along Wellington Ave. to Sheila's. The Irish Heart Association is near the top of the hill. You have to have a good heart to make it. It was aerobic exercise; my heart was thumping fast! The Living Tradition is right beside O'Brien's Cafe and there is an Indian place two doors west that smells awfully good. I still have some tomato, apples, sausage and bread I got in Dublin to tide me over till breakfast. I'm paid up here through tomorrow night. Probably I'll bus westward after that. Passing by the Butler estate today, only got one picture, but San will get a kick out of that (her mother's maiden name was Butler).
11:30 p.m. Just got back from an evening searching for Irish traditional music. Kelly, who works at the hostel, and her friend Mike (both from Australia) invited me. We went to 3 places, the first of which had canned music, then Gallagher's which had a guitar player singing 1970's American tunes (he was good, though). Here we met Bob, a retired man from the Isle of Jersey. The four of us went to the Long Valley, where they had a poster, "Trad. Music Upstairs Tonight." A flute and guitar duo who played 2 Irish folk tunes and then shifted to Beatles' and Bob Dylan tunes. "Trad.," right! And, to boot, they got lost in the middle of "Hey Jude" and just switched to "Blowin' in the Wind." Kelly and Mike left to go to dancing at a night club, and Bob and I walked back up here. He's staying at York House, just downhill from here, because he couldn't get a single room at Sheila's. He says it's a pigsty, or words to that effect. Nice gentleman, sounds like John Bailey, of course. We may run into each other again, as he's planning to do the open-top bus tour tomorrow, too. By the way <*chuckle*> I introduced Bob to a "Black Cow" (Coke and milk).