Some Guy In Nevada

Turf Fire in Magnetic Music

We finally had a low-energy day, which was pretty nice for a change. We stopped into the local cafe for a cup of coffee and engaged in some mandatory shopping.

While in one shop, a very kindly gentleman entered the store, wondering if the shopkeeper had any interest in stocking the book he had written.

He turned to us and said, “You look like the sort of people who’d be readers. Would you like to buy a copy of my book?”

“Well, we’d have to see it first.”

He stepped out to his car and returned with a book on being one of the last old-time matchmakers in Ireland. For generations, Willie Daly’s family had been responsible for countless marriages in County Clare, and this book is his memoirs of doing the same as the internet age began and changed everything. An intriguing topic, so we bought a copy. As we left, he was asking the shop girl if she had any boyfriends. He was very charming, and he had the girl giggling and blushing as we walked out the door. Now I have something to read on the plane.

After hanging out in the Internet Cafe, where the computers were just about old enough to use a pull-starter, but functional, we made our way down to the Doolin Cave, home of the largest publicly-accessible stalactite in the world.

We had wanted to do something close to Doolin today, and the cave is only about two miles north of McGann’s. We were feeling so pleasantly lazy that we even accepted a lift out to the cave instead of walking.

A reluctant Miss Fish in a hardhat, 200 feet underground

We met up with Jim, the tour guide, who led us down a cylindrical mineshaft, fitted us with safety hardhats, and led us into the cave two hundred feet underground.

As caves go, the Doolin Cave is a tiny system consisting of two large caverns carved by millions of years of gradual erosion by a tiny, underground stream, which still trickles through the cave. Since the stream stiil flows another eight miles underground before reaching the ocean, there’s probably more to this system that has not yet been discovered.

Oh my...that's a big stalactite

As Jim led us through the darkness, he positioned us in the first cave and turned on the lights. And, indeed, it was the biggest stalactite I had ever seen. 24 feet long, it consists of 11 tons of calcium carbonate dangling from the ceiling, formed over half a million years by drops of water depositing thin molecular strips of calcite. It resembles a huge, sparkly dishrag folded into an opalescent chandelier. Very pretty.

After we left the cave, we walked back to Doolin. Along the way, Miss Fish confessed that caves creep her out as she was acutely aware of the tons of rock surrounding her in the darkness. That’s a legitimate sensation experienced by most normal people, but for some of us, we rather enjoy mucking about inside caves.

We stopped by Magnetic Music where Charles mentioned that Blackie O’Connell, a very talented uilleann piper, would be playing at McDermott’s in the evening.

At 9:45, we stopped by McGann’s to see if anything was happening musically, but the pub was almost empty, and there were no musicians at all. We then went across the road to McDermott’s.

Michael "Blackie" O'Connell

There was a big, German tour bus parked in front, so we knew the place was crowded. We heard the piping as we neared the door. Blackie O’Connell is an impressive piper. He and Karol Lynch were tearing it up for a bunch of German tourists and squeezing new life into old tunes. We sat right up front drinking in the alcohol and the music. Once the tourists jumped back on the bus and left, we stayed for another hour and listened to the music. As the night was winding down, Miss Fish asked if he would mind playing an air, and he seemed relieved that he had a moment to play something a little slower–which he then followed with Colonel Frasier and Rakish Paddy. I’m definitely picking up Blackie O’Connell’s CD at the little music shop in town.