Postcard from Ireland - Cork to Glengarriff

Taking the N71 from Cork to Glengarriff; a word about Irish main roads. One of the most charming things about them, as they twist and turn along the wild Atlantic coast or wind through beautiful countryside (FACT: Ireland contains over 90% of the world’s twists) is that they will suddenly plunge straight through a wee village. You’ll be happily hammering along with only bemused sheep there to witness your speedy progress and the next thing you know you are in a street rather narrower than an anorexic’s belt (usually with cars parked on either side of the street) and pondering the possibility of shopping for a newspaper simply by extending your arm out of the car window, into the newsagent next to you.

To get to the Drombeg stone circle, one of the most famous tourist attractions in the area, you turn off a road, turn off the side road and, just when you’re starting to wonder whether or not you’re actually on a goat trail, you enter the car park.

Walk past the tiny model circle of stones that some wag has put in a nearby field, along a twist in the path and there, emerging from behind the hawthorn hedge, is the stone circle and, behind that, the Atlantic.

This is no henge, so don’t expect something on the scale of Stonehenge or Avebury, but it’s impressive. You can walk around it, touch the stones and take a moment to think.

Or leave an offering. People had – a few coins and a flower (a daffodil, the flower currently in season and, perhaps more importantly, the flower of the Marie Curie cancer charity in the UK and also the leading cancer charity in Ireland) or, on one of the uprights, a mound of coppers in a sea shell placed on top of the stone.

Looking round, you can see why the circle was raised here. Circles are raised in sacred places, they do not make the place sacred. With the hills embracing the field and the Atlantic stretching to infinity, this is a special place.

Knowing how seriously the Irish take their food, it comes as no surprise to learn that next to the stone circle is a Neolithic kitchen. There are two rock lined pits in the earth; one for fire, the other for water. Sudies showed that hot rocks from the fire depositied in the pool of water could raise the temperature to boiling in eight minutes, and it would stay hot for three hours. If this is true then it shows that the priorities in neolitic times were boiling meat; the lack of a soap dish shows that this was a kitchen rather than a bath. So, Neolithic Cork man was well fed with hot food, but smelly.

Glengarriff is a small village running either side of the main road, like many other little villages. The only thing different about this one was that it had our hotel in it. Like otrher irish hotels, this comes with a pub attached to it (that’s right, sod the hotel bar, why have one of thjose when you can have an entire pub?). This was the second pub I happened across a breast feeding mother in. Nursing her three and a half month old baby the lady and I had a brief conversation, while I practiced the art of looking anywhere but at junior and resisted making some quip about draught versus bottled.

Thirty twisty turny minutes away is Castletownbere, a fishing village with a particular claim to fame. There are, I learned, very very many pubs called McCarthy’s bar in this part of Ireland. But this is THE McCarthy’s bar that adorns the front of the book of the same name by the late Pete McCarthy. After walking through the town and trying to wrestle with the apparent defiance of logic that suggested there were more pubs in the town than there was actual town, I ended up in McCarthy’s bar. It is, indeed, a grocers at the front and a bar at the back (actually it’s more like two thirds bar) and it is, without doubt, one of the most charming places to drink I’ve ever been. There must be something about a pub with a literary connection – the Woody Creek Tavern in Aspen is the same, it has a certain quality; maybe it’s the relaxed bar staff, maybe it’s the slightly shabby furniture or maybe it’s the beer (it’s the beer), but the place was fantastic.

It also served, without doubt, the best Guinness in Ireland.

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.