Postcard from Ireland - Cobh and Kinsale

The Irish are supposed to take their drinking seriously. They do, I’m sure, but that’s as nothing compared to how seriously they take their food.

Cork has a food market called ‘the English market’. It’s made up of various stalls selling everything from soup to nuts and, to put it in context; the fish counter is sixty feet long and that doesn’t include the lobster tank at one end and the portable oyster bed at the other. There was very little that I didn’t want to buy but, I suppose, fruit has its place (which is adorning the side of a cocktail).

In the end, in seeking a picnic lunch, I purchased what appeared to be a loaf sawn in half and stuffed with enough cheese and meat to feed a regiment but was, I was reassured, just a sandwich. I managed to get the thing loaded in the car without assistance, although I was wondering if assistance might be required in eating it. The sandwich counter at the English Market manages to combine artisan sandwiches manufactured on an industrial scale.

Cobh is famous for being the last port of call of the Titanic. It’s also famous for being the place that many of the emigrants from Ireland left their home country, driven by the lack of potatoes to seek a new life, and a tan, in the United States. So, obviously a place that is associated with tragedy and grinding misery is a must see on the tourist trail.

And for many, it is the beginning of the Irish tourist trail. Because the reason that the Titanic anchored off Cobh was that it provides excellent deep sea anchorage for ocean liners or, today, cruise ships. I wonder if they play up the Titanic connection to those who still have some sailing to do on their ‘Europe in two weeks’ package.

Cobh was also the first time I saw an image on a tourist guide book brought to life; the houses are all painted different colours. Not unusual you might think but an unusual effect when it’s a row of terrace houses and every house is a different, vibrant, colour. The Irish, it would appear, do not go in for ‘blush of pea’ or ‘murmur of straw’. No, it’s green green, yellow and the red normally found on post boxes or the lips of a certain type of hooker.

The overall effect is charming, even on a grey day. Maybe the houses are a colourful revolt to the predominant weather front of the Atlantic, where nature has a colour scheme of ‘grey with a hint of damp’. Of course, when the sun shines the place is transformed, the sky turns a dazzling blue and the houses resemble a giant painter’s pallet.

Cobh is also where you take the Cobh to Monkstown ferry (five Euros for a car), cutting out a lot of tedious driving around roads in a landscape that would delight industrial historians and is beloved of those that like to see thriving industry but is not as appreciated by those that like to see their landscapes unblighted by, for instance, steam plumes, spoil piles, ugly warehouses, cranes, more warehouses, docks and yet more warehouses.

Catching a ferry is a very holiday thing to do. In normal life, one very rarely feels the desire to catch a ferry, incompatible as they are with any city without a river running through it. However, if global warming really catches on, we may all be catching the ferry to work. So catching the Cobh to Monkstown ferry was great fun and something special…so I thought right up until the moment I realised that my car was just one in a line that had arrived to make the short (two minutes) trip across the river. To the others on the ferry this was no doubt just another crossing but to me, seeing the waves slosh and froth through the raised ramp in a ‘should that really be happening?’ sort of way, it was all very jolly.

I was so happy to be travelling on a ferry (really, they ought to have one of those funfair wooden signs on the boarding ramp, showing a middle aged bloke in a suit, with moustache and a wife-and-kids-and-mortgage hangdog expression and a notice saying ‘you must be at least this mature to ride on this ferry’) that I forgot the problems that previous Cobh maritime departures have had. Luckily, I can report that the trip was Iceberg, Kate and Leo free.

I was also mature enough to sit in the car and not demand to see the engine room or to pilot the ferry in by pretending that it was my birthday. In truth, getting the car off of the ramp was challenge enough and I think the ‘woo-hoo!’ I uttered was entirely justified.

I do though have to consider whether or not I have an issue with the Sat Nav directing one onto a ferry. I thought the whole idea of a car was to be in charge of ones own destiny, and go by road. It was quite a novelty though to hear ‘next left, next right, next left, onto ferry’.

On to Kinsale via roads straight out of ‘Return to Glennascaul’. Kinsale is, I strongly suspect, very different in August than it is in March. Ireland in March is much as you would expect. The rain is cold but, hey, the people are warm and that’s what we’re here for. Seeing the Irish countryside obscured by a soft rain and the spectre of the sun trying to break through the clouds, highlighting the daffodils with the promise of spring is enough to lift the heart, and remind one why Ireland has a reputation for being green.