Ireland | Some Guy In Nevada

What’s a Guinness Without a Ciggie?

Some Guy — Wed, 12 May 2010 21:42:50 +0000

Miss Fish’s Brother in Law edited the pic of her sampling a Guinness during the brewery tour. I thought it was funny…although Miss Fish has other opinions.

NOW the picture looks complete.

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Pictures from the Dingle Way — Dingle to Cloghane

Some Guy — Sat, 08 May 2010 06:25:51 +0000

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Pictures from the Dingle Way, Tralee to Dingle

Some Guy — Tue, 04 May 2010 22:49:49 +0000

The post Pictures from the Dingle Way, Tralee to Dingle first appeared on Some Guy In Nevada.

Random Pics from Doolin

Some Guy — Tue, 04 May 2010 00:49:13 +0000

The post Random Pics from Doolin first appeared on Some Guy In Nevada.

Back in Dublin

Some Guy — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:55:14 +0000

Lounging in the Library Bar back at the Central Hotel after a quick bus and train from Doolin. Pretty cool, though…the hotel staff recognized us as we came staggering through the door.

We felt a bit forlorn at leaving the Twin Peaks B & B, as Sinéad and Pascal were great hosts for five nights. Over the past couple of days, we had even been referring to it as “home.” Pascal even slipped us a couple of envelopes Sinéad had thoughtfully stuffed with good, Irish tea bags. I’m going to miss the scrambled eggs and salmon for breakfast.

As we passed by the hostel to wait at Doolin’s lone bus stop, David came running out in his bare feet to bid us farewell. Cosidering that we didn’t even stay at the hostel, we found it very touching. We’ll miss his cheerful energy.

Now that we’re back in Dublin, we managed to catch up on the one remaining item on our Dublin to-do list. We strolled over to the Trinity College library and visited the Book of Kells. Although they only display two pages from the Book of Kells, plus two pages from contemporary manuscripts, the whole presentation and descriptive anteroom made it a worthwhile visit. In the imposing Long Room of the Old Library, many documents from the Rebellion are on display.

Hard to believe that in two days we will be back in the cultural mecca that is northern Nevada.

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Days of Doolin — Day Five: The Burren

Some Guy — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:14:58 +0000

The Burren

The Burren…it’s a Tolkein-esque name for an amazing area of western Ireland south of Galway and our area of interest for today, kids. Geologically, it’s a large area of limestone exposed during glacial activity of the Ice Age that had scraped away the top layers of sedimentary rock. As the eons passed, the weak acids in rainwater slowly etched away the at the exposed limestone, creating crevasses, caves, and underground rivers beneath a rugged topology and strangely-etched rocky landscape called “karst,” a term sure to spark immediate interest amongst cavers.

We were curious about this area, plus we know nothing about it outside of the few tourist brochures lying about. Therefore, we decided to take our first and only guided event during our Ireland trip. We found the flyer for John Connolly’s “Burren Wild Tours” in our B & B, so we scheduled a guided, 3-hour walk for this afternoon.

Corcomroe Abbey

As he sold us our bus tickets, David, the host at the hostel in Doolin, took great pleasure in digging out his map of The Burren and pointing out the various trails in the area. He heard that we had scheduled a tour with John, and in the time-honored tradition of “you can’t get there from here,” he began pointing out all the ways we could walk the ten miles across the rugged hills to get back to Ballyvaughan. “Ah, don’t worry, it’s an easy walk,” he opined. “You’ll be back in plenty of time to catch the afternoon bus.” I’m glad that there are rugged indivuduals who can hike ten miles of harsh trails in two hours…but that’s not us.

Noel, the Bus Eireann driver, dropped us off in Bellharbor, and pointed up a road. “That road’ll get you to John’s. Make sure you visit the Abbey first.”

Inside Corcomroe Abbey

The Corcomroe Abbey lies at the end of a valley road, flanked by a pastoral landscape. For being a ruin, it’s in beautiful condition. The old graves are slowly being erased by centuries of exposure to the elements, so it’s worth a visit while it’s still standing. Over the years, people have buried their dead within the ruin itself, so the entire nave and apse is lined with old and new graves. Back in the 1400’s, in recognition of the unique area, the Cistercian monks named the abbey “Sancta Maria de Petra Fertilis,” or “Blessed Mary of the Fertile Rock.”

After slowly passing amongst the stones, we cut across a handy cow pasture, minus cows, and emerged on the road only a quarter-mile away from Burren Wild Tours, which is an old, family, working farm. We sat down by the garden and chatted with John’s father, who was kind enough to take a break from chores and talk with us about weather, the potato blight, and some of the strange geological features of this landscape. John came from the barn area and introduced himself, saying that we were waiting for two more people. It gave us more time to relax by the garden and watch clouds and birds float by.

The Burren

Karen and Kristen pulled in, right on time. After giving John €25 for each of us, we began our walk. John is an energetic guide, eager to share the landscape that has been his family’s farm for two and a half centuries. He brings his knowledge as an archaeologist and a scholar of history to give walkers on his tour a sense of time and place in history and geology.

From a distance, the Burren doesn’t seem like it could support life, but it is host to both warm climate and alpine plants. Brilliant blue gentian and alpine aven appear alongside orchids and primrose. As the limestone retains heat so well, the soil temperature never drops below 16C, even in winter.

As we walked, we carefully stepped over fissures and strangely-shaped drainage channels in the pale gray rock, which had formed over millenia.

The Fairy Tree

We came across a whitethorn tree, also known as a Fairy Tree, where generations of people would tie a little piece of cloth or ribbon, frequently blue, to the branches of the tree. Doing so would transfer whatever you were worried about to the tree. Right next to rhe Fairy Tree was a stand of hazelnut shrubs. There is a tradition that describes the hazelnut as a tree connected with the underworld, which John said was a way for ancient peoples to highlight the importance of certain plants and pass that knowledge on to the next generation. Kristen and Karen both tied on little strips to the whitethorn, and we headed further into the hills.

Famine-era Potato Drills

As we climbed up the jagged limestone, we paused as we entered a small, grassy plateau. John pointed out faint ridges in the earth, fading scars of desperate attempts to grow potatoes during the famine. One hundred and fifty years ago, the farmers had hoped that planting on the hillside would avoid the blight that was devastating the valleys below but sadly discovering that the blight was present even there.

We turned and looked across the valley towards the other Burren mountains at the odd, random stone walls meandering across the hillsides. These were “Famine Walls” built by Irish tenants at the command of the English landlords. The walls served no purpose, divided no parcels of land. The English figured that giving the starving citizens busy-work in exchange for a bit of soup or such would quell any potential unrest. John quietly added that looking at the walls is a solemn reminder of a tragic period in Irish history.

Heading for the Burial Mound

We finally crested the mountain and descended a little ways into an alpine valley, scoured by a chilly, strong northwest wind. Even here, the small, brilliant blue gentian and orchids popped up between the ridges of limestone.

We could see low mounds of stones on the opposite ridge, one at either end. Legend holds that two witches got into an argument that soon dissolved into a heated battle where they stood at either end of the ridge and hurled rocks at each other.

These mounds actually are pre-Christian burial mounds, holding the bones of ancient generations. We approached a mound that was nestled in the valley. This particular mound was torn apart by rabbit-hunters during the famine, although most of the mound still appeared intact. John climbed down the unearthed depression in the middle of the mound and reached deep beneath a stone. He emerged with two bones, one a first metatarsal and the other a fragment of a humeral head. They were sized right to be human, but whether they were human or animal will remain a mystery. Given that it was a burial mound holding many generations, and John’s professional archaeological opinion that they were indeed human, we believe the bones were human .

Bones in Burren Burial Mound

After placing the bones back in the mound, we climbed a short way up the opposite mountain. A sheltered cleft in the mountainside provided us opportunity to enjoy a rest out of the wind with tea from John’s volcano kettle, carrot cake made earlier by John’s mother, and some trail mix from Karen and Kristen from the Trader Joe’s in Baltimore.

We carefully picked our way down the mountainside while John seemingly floated over the limestone. We stopped at Saint Colman’s holy well, quite a beautiful spot, with an windswept ash tree bending over the tiny pool and stones. Lore says that washing your eyes with the water would alleviate eye problems.

By Saint Colman's Holy Well

Holy wells are a pre-Christian, pagan tradition adopted by the church, much like Easter eggs or Christmas trees. The last generation that understands these traditions is dying out, leaving only the hippies and weird sorts to have any interest in these ancient ways.

We made our way down to the farm track and followed it back to John’s farm, where Karen and Kristen were kind enough to give us a lift back to Ballyvaughan where we caught the bus back to Doolin.

We normally avoid guided tours, as we find they limit our ability to spend time on our own truly learning about an area without being dragged off to a new place. John Connelly’s Burren Wild Tour is a glowing exception, and we heartily recommend it. It was one of the better side trips we made this entire holiday.

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The post Days of Doolin — Day Five: The Burren first appeared on Some Guy In Nevada.

Days of Doolin — Day Four

Some Guy — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:37:27 +0000

A Moody day in Doolin

The day started off cloudy, which is a change after almost three weeks of glorious weather. After hanging out at the record store/coffee house for a while, we went over to the hostel to purchase bus tickets for the next two days.

Tomorrow, we’re going to catch the bus to Ballyvaughan to do a day hike in the Burren. Finally, we’ll be able to pack our foul-weather gear with the chance of actually using it. As I write this, the wind is whipping the rain against the window, and it promises to be the same tomorrow.

Along the Boreen

We got a taste of nasty weather today on a short walk by the sea. The lady at the chocolate store told us of a trail that runs down the rocky boreen behind the b & b, across a stone wall, through a field where we had to look out for the bull, go near three houses with a dog, and down to the sea. Once we were out there, the instructions made perfect sense.

Miss Fish by the Sea

Once we reached the sea, the weather was starting to get worse. The wind picked up, and we could hear and feel the explosive “whump” of waves hitting the limestone cliffs. It definitely changed the stroll by the sea to a careful hike near a wild ocean. We stood and watched spray shoot easily 75 feet over our heads. Cool walk. We’ll get some pics up once we get back home. As we leave Friday, it won’t be too long.

During the session O’Connor’s tonight, I got tagged again to sing. I dunno why, but I was much more stressed than I was two nights ago. I think I need to get some more songs into the repertoire. I didn’t get to play the whistle at a session this trip, but at least I got to sing, which definitely counts for something.

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Days of Doolin, Day Three

Some Guy — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 10:50:11 +0000

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.

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Our 88 cups away from home

missfish — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:30:37 +0000

One of the benefits of spending several days in one area is finding favorite spots. Usually these take the form of familar sites from home and include pubs or cafes that just feel good. Places you look forward to stopping by daily. Missing our favorite cafe in Gardnerville, 88 Cups, it was only natural to migrate to Magnetic Music Cafe in Doolin. If permanent residents in Doolin, this would be our daily ritual hang. Good coffee, biscuits, conversation and an excellent vibe. The dudes serve up a very nice crumble and know who and what is playing each night in the pubs.

However, while learning to like a good cup of Irish tea is a must (always black tea, sweet and lots of cream)….my first request from Lee and Angel back home at 88 Cups will be for their perfectly brewed white tea and an everything bagel.

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Days of Doolin, Day Two

Some Guy — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:43:45 +0000

Or, How What Was Supposed to Be a Relaxing Layaround Day Wasn’t

Inisheer at Dusk

First off, be aware that any decision to visit the Aran Islands is a commitment to a major, all-day undertaking. Second, if Miss Fish repeats a desire often enough throughout a trip, it tends to materialize at some point.

Yesterday, we had taken a stroll down the boreen in front of the B&B towards the seashore as the sun was vanishing beneath the horizon pursued by angry clouds. As twilight deepened, we could barely make out the silhouette of Inisheer, the nearest of the Aran Islands, with its flickering lighthouse.

Golf course...all you need is a pitching wedge and a putter. Seriously.

Today, we walked to the pier past a very strange, yet tiny golf course, and we bought our tickets to Inisheer. The boatman behind the ticket counter suggested that for a little more, we could also get a cruise around the Cliffs of Moher. (“Do you guarantee that we can see at least one tourist stumbling over the edge?” I asked to appreciative snorts from the other crewmen lounging around the office) So, for an extra €5, we splurged and booked seats with a bunch of German tourists on an earlier ferry that also did a sightseeing turn around the base of the Cliffs of Moher.

Cliffs of Moher from the Sea

After finding makeshift seats on the rubber dock bumper, we sat back agaist the railing and watched as the cliffs loomed nearer. We found this view of the Cliffs of Moher much nicer, as we could see the bird colonies, and we could truly appreciate how high and burly these cliffs are, which isn’t apparent from above. Well worth €5, and the fact that your ferryboat is taking you for a scenic spin around the coast really doesn’t seem odd here. Imagine the Staten Island Ferry taking a siteseeing detour around Battery Park and Jones Beach. There’d be an outraged mutiny and a sensationalist story in the New York Post.

Birds nesting on the Cliffs of Moher

Miss Fish’s Wish

After we dropped off the Germans back at the Doolin pier, we continued to Inisheer. Inisheer is a tiny island, only a couple of kilometers across. So, imagine my disbelief as we disembarked and headed inland from the pier, when Miss Fish’s head snapped up, and she said, “I hear a sporting event. It’s unmistakable.” and she started up the road at a racewalker’s pace.

Inisheer vs. arch-rivals, Connemara...Connemara with the ball.

Gaelic Football is one of those inexplicable sporting events that we never see in the states, but is shown regularly on Irish television. Essentially, it’s a blend of soccer, dodgeball, keep-away, rugby, basketball, and good, old-fashioned kill-the-guy-with-the-ball, played with a volleyball. (“Hurling” is basically the same game played with a softball and Polynesian war clubs). It’s addictive to watch, so about a week ago while we were still in Dingle, Miss Fish began her repeating desire to see a live Gaelic Football match.

Oddly, her wish came true on Inisheer. This tiny island actually has a regulation size paying field and a team as well. The lads in green were playing the boys from Connemara, and we leaned against a split-rail fence and enjoyed the game.

The gist of the game, from what the Irish tell us, is to either put the ball past a goalie into an opponent’s net–much like a soccer goal, except it counts for three points, or kick it between the uprights as in American football, except that instead of three points, you get only one, plus you do it on the run while the opposing team tries to dismember you. A player must dribble the ball every three or four steps, and can toss, dropkick, soccer-kick, pitch, or volleyball-serve in order to pass the ball to a teammate, in any direction. Although tackling and in-game assaults on other players aren’t allowed, the incidental contact is pretty tough, and a successful run downfield can leave the field littered with horizontal players.

Inisheer kicks the almost-gamewinning score

So we got to watch a live Gaelic Football match, where Inisheer rallied to pull ahead of Connemara, only to have Connemara tie it up in the last few seconds of the game.

After leaving the game, we walked trough a maze of fantastic stone walls (apparently, Inisheer is also the site of a wall-building symposium) and visited the lighthouse, the Napoleonic-era watchtower, and the ruins of the O’Brien castle. Along the way, we met a gentleman with a pony cart, and upon inquiry about the game, he proudly stated that his son had kicked the last point for Inisheer. We were very pleased for him and congratulated him and his son.

Miss Fish and the lighthouse

After far too much sun, not enough water, and only powerbars for lunch, we caught the last ferry to Doolin. Next time we come to Inisheer, we’re booking a room overnight. It’s a tiny island with too much to do in a single afternoon.

After catching dinner and the last half of the afternoon session at O’Connor’s, we went back to our room for the night, with plans to go out in a little bit, but seeing as Miss Fish is comatose under the covers and my ear hurts when I even *think* of playing the whistle, this’ll be the last of it for the evening.

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