Ireland

Ireland

 

7-13-91: We landed at Shannon at 2am (DST ) or 7am UCT, cleared Irish Immigration Control, changed $400 into punts, claimed our bags, cleared Irish Customs without disturbing their conversation and got our rental car from Anne Donnellan (who was born October 14, not so many years ago and is to be married this September 27. Ian Dooley’s garage man showed us how to use the car, the lights, directionals, transmission, and so forth and I took the first turn driving the little car on the left side of the road from a right hand sided driver’s seat. We followed N.18 through Limerick (see map for geo details), Adair, (where we waited 30 minutes for the post mistress to open the post office so I could buy an airmail stamp to mail Kay’s birthday card). An old man waiting with a group of Irish seniors informed me the post office wouldn’t open until 9:15. It was 9:20 and then 9:30 before the postmistress got around to opening the door. Adair is a pretty town. A strong contrast can be seen in colors. When I picture American housing I tend to picture sameness. All brick, all one color scheme (not all one color) but as we drove through the towns, the Irish seem to individuate their housing units as something unique to them. Colors changed yet each unit is done in tastefully balanced or matched colors and taken together, impart a personality to the street on which they are located.

In Tralee we stopped to visit the pharmacist, a woman whose husband was a relative of Mary Lee, one of Mary’s friends. It was easy to find and the pharmacist was easy to spot. The pharmacist had an assistant at the store, a pretty woman, married and in (it seemed) an early stage of pregnancy. Apart from Anne Donnellan, the pharmacist and her assistant were the first Irish we stopped and talked to. Their speech was different. The pharmacist was difficult to understand and her language and speech conveyed a studied uncertainty. For example, Tralee was her home yet she could not give directions to the Grand Hotel the same way twice. She told us to go past Benner’s Hotel, go through the square past the Dominican Church and take the second left to find “Brandans Hotel” where we could get tea. We followed her directions and were completely lost once we passed Brenner’s Hotel. When we reasoned through her staccato Gaelic, we were able to park down the street from the Grand and had breakfast there. One waitress, when asked about getting breakfast (it was 11:30 and breakfast was served until noon) told us we were too late and could probably have some scones and breads with tea or coffee in the bar. Kathhleen persisted in asking and learned from another waitress that we could eat in the breakfast room. The “full` cooked” breakfast consisted of toast, brown bread (delicious) an egg, two sausages, fried blood pudding, ham (Irish bacon) and a potfull of tea for me, coffee for Mary and Kath. Mary also had porridge with cream and honey. With the right amount of sweetening it looked like the cream could be whipped into a delicious dessert topping with two or three twists of a spoon. After breakfast we looked at jewelry, visited the church and the tourist office and continued on our way to the Dingle Peninsula. On this leg of the journey, driving the narrow roads with little or no shoulder (berm) for safety and an increasingly poor response mentally, Kath took over the wheel and drove us to Dingle,

Emerald green is not what I would choose to describe this first day in Ireland. As we drove it seemed that a kaleidoscope of greens were revealed as we looked, no two greens matching up and each one as beautiful as the one before.

The hills (I haven’t seen what I would call mountains as yet) seemed gentle and undulating. It seemed as though a tableau of hills had been placed behind a tableau of hills to form a visual impression of gentleness, grace and peacefulness, as clouds, here light and there fleeting, gave the impression of a fold out screen in a child’s story book. The texture of the hills seemed velvety, especially where the sun shown through the clouds and brightened the spot, while the stands of trees and hedges and stone walls quietly separated the animals grazing on the hills. As we drove along point of view gave us uncounted numbers of impressions of the same scene, each one as breathtakingly beautiful as it could be from that locus. To see one of these spectacular vistas was rewarding, but as vista upon vista registered in the mind, I found it hard not to become immunized to the beauty. It is nice to have someone or someones to share impressions with but there is an intimacy which occurs between the viewer and the viewed that is too private to share. And too difficult to apprehend at the time it is viewed. Like the (something) of a good wine, part the taste, perhaps it’s essence, comes to you later and delights you in a way that escaped detection when first experienced. We pulled into the Alpine Guest House (Dingle) about 2 or 3 PM and after getting to the room, took naps until 5:30. This was the first actual rest since we left New York. For me it was the first chance to stretch our since 6am(DST) on 7.11 — about 30 hours before.

My first impression of Dingle was that I needed rest and the town could wait. When we were rested, we walked out down to the fishing quay and up through the town. Immediately I could feel the difference between seeing the country from the car and by walking around in it. Kath asked a man, the owner of Breamish’s about dinner reservations and took an instant dislike to the man. He seemed the pompous sort of ass that finds vocation in the food and beverage industry so we didn’t eat there. We kept on walking around until we found Doyles, a place Kath had been to before or had learned about from the guidebooks. There again we came face to face with the self-defeating attitude common to innkeepers. We were told we could be seated (it was 6:30p) but we would have to relinquish the table by 7:45. I wanted to tell the woman we only came to eat — that we already had a place to spend the night. But I didn’t and we ate. We had moulade — muscles in a saffron cream sauce and it was delicious. After dinner we went to watch the duck race in the run along the mall. We have pictures. A few hundred young and old lined the street alongside the run or race, while those in charge (mostly young women) saw to the details that must underpin any water race among duck decoys. There were 39 entries in all and one of them won. Who won didn’t seem as important to me since we knew nothing about the various sponsors. I can’t believe it was important to those who knew who the sponsors, but I suppose there were those who had their preference.

At the conclusion of the duck race we walked around Dingle visiting shops, buying postcards and sightseeing along the bay. The walk was good for the body and helped to neutralize the physical stress of the airplane ride and six hours in the car. We finished our first day with a nightcap at Mike Powers’ bar and leather shop and an early concert by children in a local marching band. We returned to the Alpine at 10:30 and it was still daylight. We wrote postcards, took showers and went to bed.

 

7-14 We woke in Dingle and had a breakfast of one egg, sausage (bangers) Irish bacon, white blood pudding, toast and black bread. So far I’ve seen more coffee served than tea whatever that proves. It was a good sleep and I awoke about 6:00am fully rested, and wrote for about an hour and a half or two until Mary and Kath woke up. After breakfast we took the car and left for Slea Head. The fishing fleet at Dingle looked like business, not a tourist attraction as we drove through country so craggy and mean that only goats and sheep seemed at home on its lofty slopes. The roads are narrow and sometimes difficult to negotiate especially if there is a car coming the opposite way at what seems to be high speed. Inexperience makes it difficult on the passengers since the driver pulls far to the left so as to avoid a collision or a scraping of the cars. The experienced driver takes advantage of the road and continues on-coming with no lessening of speed while the passenger of the inexperienced driver gets too familiar with the hedge and wall defining the left side of the road or sits as the left most wheel enters the ditch. After a while and a few misses (my estimation) I began to slow the car down in place in the road or stop all together, forcing the approaching driver to take action for safety. Maybe it’s defensive, but if there is to be a collision, I’d be happier if it was someone else’s fault.

Slea Head was spectacular and from where we were on the road, high above the churning ocean, the greenish white foam and shallowness where the waves broke told of the cleanliness of the surrounding water. It looked cold and intimidating to engage but beautiful to behold. The land and hills of Slea Head seemed windblown and in some spots barren where outcroppings of limestone and granite had been exposed by time and rain and wind. I expected to hear the howl of the wind when we were out of the car but it must have been a relatively low velocity day. Of course, in the car you hear nothing but the strain of the miniature engine propelling the Nissan Micra. We passed the beehive huts said to have housed ancient monks in times prehistoric. The rock is abundant and could be used to build anything but a reputation. The McCarthys videotaped the beehives two years ago and we saw the woman who charged for entering her land to see the huts. She was wearing the same triangular blue cloth headwear she had on in the video. As we rounded Slay Head we saw a small range of hills that appeared saw toothed and defiant as though the wind tried its best but could not vanquish the craggy rock. We also saw the construction of “an authentic Irish village” for a film or video production. A skeletal form of scaffold piping was enclosed in stone ,or it might have been styrofoam, blocks. It looked like all the facade creations Hollywood uses to represent the “west” or a “city”, just facing, no substance behind it. I didn’t mention to Mary and Kath at the time, but I had already felt that some of what I experienced since we landed had that same facade quality to it — the Disneyworld feeling that no matter how real a thing seems, it’s someone’s representation of what they think you want to see and to which you will attribute a value for which you are willing to pay a price. We returned to Dingle and arranged housing in Lisdoonvarna before driving back to Tralee. I mentioned an observation to Mary and Kath about the people. The faces of the children are beautiful. They are full of innocent beauty, smiling, hopeful and happy, so much like Martin, the two and a half year old boy that “sat” in the seat in the row ahead of us on the airplane. It’s not a model beauty, although the “Mikey” of Life cereal commercials is a good example of what I mean. But the teenagers, those same faces seen a decade later, look angry and hard and lacking in hope. And it’s sad to see. The native adults had a look or passiveness, as though nothing they could ever do would change things, and maybe they wouldn’t want to change things if they could. These observations do not apply to the shopkeepers. They are more animate and more schooled in interacting with the tourist from wherever, and, for them, the possibility of hope seems more real. I suppose what I find bothersome about this is that I see the same attitude of hopelessness at home with some young people; lacking in vision or aspiration or hope except, more sadly, it starts much with our own children and there is nothing we can do about it.

From Dingle we took the road to Connor Pass on our return to Tralee – and a narrow fog-bound road it was. At too many points along the road it was necessary for one car to pull to the driver’s extreme left and stop to allow the opposing car to pass. There is a raw native beauty to be seen along the road, and as we descended northeast toward Tralee Bay, you could see a completely different topography. The cragginess of the Dingle Peninsula gave way to gentle undulating hills that seemed covered in a velvet of many shades and tints of green. The grass seemed like moss and the goats and the sheep of the robust peninsula became pastoral cattle lazing in the lower meadows. In Tralee I bought Claddah earrings for Leslie since she really wanted them. Mary had suggested several times that I buy gifts for the other children, but I didn’t. Within me the idea of gift arises from the relationship and has little or nothing to do with the external value of the item given. Michael asked me to bring him business cards for his collection. To an uninformed observer the gift here would be a handful of cards with different names, places and things disclosed on them. This is not the gift. To me the gift is remembering for fourteen days to pick up these things because I remember not the request, but my son as I go on about my touring. And remember not because he requested them, but because he is who he is. I feel the same way with respect to the girls and the grandchildren. I keep thinking of them all the time and at some point, something obvious will present itself and the token of the gift will be acquired. But I can’t buy five or ten of something and distribute them to five children or grandchildren. It isn’t me and those things wouldn’t be gifts.

From Tralee we drove northeast on N69 to Listowel and then to the ferry across the Shannon River to Clare at Tarbert. At Killimen we picked up N67 and drove northwest to Killrush and then Kilkee, a pretty seacoast town. We switched back to the northeast along the coast to Milltown and Malbay then to Lahinch where Kath experienced a shopping deficit. In Lahinch we visited one woolen goods outlet where we found nothing we wanted to buy, but I had a chance to engage in conversation with two young salesmen, both bright. One bewailed the lack of nuclear plants in Ireland and had his argument down pat. I told him I live 60 miles east of TMI and still haven’t begun to glow.

From Lahinch we motored north to Lisdoonvarna where we stayed at Catherine O’Connor’s Roncalli B&B. O’Connor seemed a cold bitch masked in tourist fodder at first meeting. Kath had arranged the accommodations and the woman at the I was led to believe there were three beds in one room. On arrival we learned there were beds for three — a double and a single. O’Connor assured us this is what she understood from speaking with the young woman at the I but it would be all right with her if we looked for another single. Kath called her from Kilkee to say we would not be arriving at 6:00pm as we had said earlier. O’Connor asked that it we couldn’t be there by 6:00pm to call and let her know. If we canceled or decided not to come she still had a chance to rent the room to someone(s) else. Of course it would be all right with her for us to go looking for another room at 9:00PM. We’d have no chance of finding one. Kath asked about the roll in bed as discussed with the I. O’Connor knew nothing about it.

We drove back to Doolin to eat at a pub Gus O’Connor’s (no connection to O’Connor) where the music was said to be traditional. There was little music but the food was passable and cheap. One final thought on O’Connor and control. When I got up in the morning (5:30am) I dressed and went to the TV room to write my notes without disturbing Mary and Kath. The TV room was locked.

 

7-15 In terms of miles Sunday was the shortest day so far. We began our day in Lisdoonvarna and finished it in Galway. I awoke in the Roncalli B&B about 6:00am, again after about 6 hours sleep and went down to catch up on these notes. The first thing I found was that the parlor was closed and locked; so was the breakfast room. I could return to the three-in-one room, use the public toilet or go to the car to write. The car won. O’Connor had secured her B&B in a very controlled way. I wrote in the car and when I returned to the house two hours later, the parlor and breakfast rooms were still locked. I woke Mary and Kath to go to mass. Since we found the church the night before, getting to the church was no problem.. Like all RC churches we’ve seen thus far, and it seems there is one church for every three pubs, there was no name. Across the street from the church though, there was the Saints Joseph, Genevieve and Anne’s B&Bs, but the church, in the Sunday bulletin was only described as the Church in Lisdoonvarna. When we asked O’Connor for the name of the church, she stumbled and so did her children. Later it came to her that it was Corpus Christi. At Mass the church was simple by American standards. The floor was old marble, black, white and green and the pews, with their fold up kneelers were not attached to the floor. The chapel was just to the left of the main church body and was equally sere. The color scheme was two tones of salmon and the ceiling construction was like a boat upside down. The ridge beam was keel-like and was held in place by hand-formed two part ribs which served as supporting cantilevers (20 on each side) from the top of the gray stone wall (the wall had been stuccoed on the inside but outside the stone was the cold, aesthetically non-committal gray of the area. The stations of the cross were oil on canvas framed in hand carved Gothic wooden frames. The old pre-Vatican II altar was still in place and served as the tabernacle of the new Vatican II altar, a plain clothed tableau separated from the people by an intact, in use, communion rail. The priest’s vestments were still pre VII to traditional at best, and the sound system was about forty years behind the times. I couldn’t understand the homily so I used the time to study the people. Later I remarked to Mary and Kath that the men seemed, to me, to be resigned to their lot, accepting of who they are and what their place in life demands, while the women, still upright and rigid, appeared strong or at least steeled to what life had in store for them.

Getting back to O’Connor, her maiden name was Katherine O’Dwyer from Limerick and she married in 1969. She might have been 40 to 45 years and judging from the small trophies around the breakfast room, her son or children were active and successful at sports in school and in the Lisdoonvarna area. Her daughter, about ten or eleven, worked the breakfast with her mother (as the twig is bent). We were delayed in eating breakfast because there was one table that seated six persons and there must have been at least ten in residence the night before. I guess it was O’Connor’s way of controlling waste space. Back in the room there were instructions on the toilet door about the use of the room and its facilities. More commands with germane explicitness and authority. But it was signed (in typewriter) Cailtin O’Connor –Katherine misspelled Caitlin. We left for the Cliffs of Moher and found as we stopped to take a picture of a thatched roof, that Kath had lost one of her #7 knitting needles. We went back but could not find the needle. Picking up again, we took the coastal road to Doolin on the way to the Cliffs and got a good view of the Aran Islands. I’ve always imagined the area as bleak and desolate, as Synge described, but the mainland was beautiful in a quiet, reserved way. We found the Doolin ferry to Airann Oiliain, turned back and drove through Doolin, took pictures of the castle and found the Cliffs. After we left the Cliffs, we took the wrong road and recovered our way by driving through the Burren, a stone covered desolation I imagined the Airann mainland to be and then followed Galway Bay into Galway City. We stopped at the I for information and arranged to stay at Rock Ledge B&B on the other side of the Corrick River from the Claddah. We couldn’t find the address of the B&B but stopped a handsome young man on a bike and asked directions to Rock Ledge. It turned out it was his home and he led us to the B&B. His name was George Thompson. We had dinner at McDonagh’s and attended a Simsa (Shim-Sha) a stage presentation of two children’s tales which involved dancing, singing, acting and playing traditional music on traditional instruments. It was worthwhile, a good use of the evening. Back in the room we talked until one. I could have kept going but I think I talked Mary and Kath. to sleep. It’s a peculiar thought to have, but just because they are my sisters doesn’t mean I know them. Much time has passed since we lived under the same roof and we have grown in our own separate ways. Life and thought have imprinted on each of us differently, but it’s nice to get to know them again.

 

7-16 We woke in Galway City with a good idea for the day’s agenda. On Sunday evening we ate at McDonagh’s and Mary and I ate a tasty fish stew in red sauce while listening to endless versions of St. Patrick’s Breastplate, all instrumentals, by different orchestras. I forget what Kath ordered. While looking for a place to eat we passed a business, on the same street as the restaurant where we ate, named Rocca Tiles. I told Mary and Kath I know a tileman in Center Valley named Seamus Rocca, a Dubliner who married Ann McCullough, who came from Ballina. I said I would come by on Monday to see if there was any link. It turned out the Rocca of Rocca Tiles (Kevin or Cairn) is Seamus’ nephew and he looked like a younger edition of Seamus. Seamus and Cairn’s father were brothers. He had the same honestly joyful disposition as his uncle and gave me a bag of odd promotional items to bring back to the Roccas at home. We drove to the Claddah and saw the Spanish Arch, the waterfront, the fishing fleet and the oldest example of Spanish masonry in Ireland. This was followed by requisite shopping along the quay and up into the center of the city to Dunn’s and Roche’s Department Store. While waiting for the shoppers, I wandered the park and came to a statue of Padraig o` Connor, the writer and poet, some interesting statuary, and was approached by a Tinker pushing a stroller with a beautiful child in it smiling as she drank what looked like Coca Cola from a baby bottle. “Would you have something to feed the baby, now?” I was asked, as a well used Coca Cola cup was extended. When I said no, there was no change of expression on the Tinker woman’s face, it was all in a day’s work. It was a cold experience, like interacting with a preprogrammed, computer-guided holograph. I came up with a lot of unvoiced questions. What do the Tinkers stand for? What are they against? How did they begin in Ireland and why do they continue to be Tinkers? As we passed encampments of them at the side of the road with their trailers left on the berm and wash lines strung to the utility poles, they are undisturbed by the guarda or anyone else. The thing that struck me about the encampments is that the faces you see are the same faces you see all around, mostly beautiful as sculpture, mostly vacant where the emotional fire should glow. And then the mature Tinkers with the same hopeless expressions as the country people. We looked for sweaters for Kay in several shops and almost succeeded in O’Malley’s on Dominic Street (110punts)– but just almost. We went to Kenny’s Book Store and had coffee in Bewley’s (of Dublin) across from the Galway Book Store, and then departed Galway City by way of Salt Hill.

We drove along Galway Bay past Bearne (?) and AnSpideal to Indreebhan before turning north toward Neaam Cross in the middle of Connemarra. We got caught in a traffic jam, just west of Casla (Castilloa) at Scriob and turned back. The jam was miles in length and we could not see the head of it. The birthplace of Padraig Pearse was nearby as was Cashel Bay, Cliffden and Connemarra National Park and that may have had something to do with the tie-up. We backed off to Costa and drove 30 kilometers through desolate bog country to Oughterard. The narrow paved road wandering through the bog covered mountainous terrain and was barely wide enough for a single car in places. Because of the narrowness and the danger of going off the road, Mary kept telling me to keep to the middle, meaning keep to the right. If I did, I would have gone off into the ditch on the right. The bog seemed endless and the utility poles along the road carried a scarce number of wires. There was nothing to power along most of the miles and little to which telephone communications would have been necessary. One got the feeling of moving isolation as we progressed along the road sharing the desolation with only the occasional sheep who grazed along the bog land. Finally the utility poles ended and for some distance before we spotted a settlement ahead, we were in the most barren, remote isolated area one could imagine short of Death Valley in California. When the next utility pole appeared we were on the way to Oughterard, a beautiful, Westchester (NY) like settlement, before turning west again to Maam Cross.

The guidebook described this area of Connemarra as Joyce Country, and a beauty it is.. Turning north from Maam Cross and Leenane, we crossed the Party Mountains and the wild but beautiful extreme of Galway that conjoins with Mayo. The road improved as we entered Mayo and we took time to photograph the “Welcome to Mayo” sign. The rest of the way to Westport was relatively simple and we enlisted the help of the I in finding a B&B. We ate at the Mooring Restaurant. Mary and Kath had roasted lamb chops and I had half a dozen Clew Bay oysters and pork medallions in mustard sauce.

 

7-17 We departed Westport and followed the road to Newport, then west to Achille Island. Now in our fifth day of MOTS (more of the same) only because of volume. Had we landed at Westport instead of Shannon, and planned a trip as far as Achille Island, the scenery would have been spectacular, or breath-taking, or maybe even awe inspiring. So I guess that is the way to perceive it. Achille Island is reached by what the guidebooks call a swivel bridge, a narrow two-tight-lane affair about five to six feet over the water. My guess is that it hasn’t been necessary to “swivel” it for some time. We covered the island, driving all the way to the beaches at Dagrooth (?) and then to a deserted village that was either abandoned by the Irish in the 1840s because of the famine and never reclaimed, or became destroyed because of something to do with the Church of Ireland and the RC Bishop.

For the past few days I have been doing all the driving and its either because Mary and Kath finally trust my driving on the left or they know they can’t do much better. We returned to Mullranny (?) and drove north to Bangor, passing peat bogs most of the way. The difference we noticed is that the peat was harvested by heavy-duty machinery. In one area we saw bog cotton and I retrieved a specimen for Mary. From Bangor we drove east to Crossmolina and then into Ballina where we were scheduled to stay. The natural beauty of the remote area defies description because there is so much, and as you progress thorough it, it changes form, content and lighting. It distracts you as you watch it, making concentrated absorption of all its components an impossible task. It’s like trying to describe the beauty of one of these magnificent Irish faces while a genuine smile continues to dance across its facial landscape. In Ballina we checked into the Whitestream B&B and set out to do our laundry, the first clothing wash of the vacation. For 4 punts we had all our stuff done, dried and folded, while we went about the area. Sandra’s knitting shop had some interesting things in the window and we stopped in. Kath found a beautiful sweater for Kate and I found someone to knit a sweater for Kay. Mary called Helen Gallagher and arranged to meet her out on the road to Sligo. We exchanged greetings as we blocked the road and then followed her to the house where she, Tommy Gallagher, and young Hubert and Killian, their sons, live. When Tommy came out of the house I became overwhelmed. There was the face of his father, Hubert, and my mother and Paddy Gallagher and my uncle Tommy, all in one. Not that he was a copy of any one of them, but to look in his face was to see their faces. He was also the first blood relative I had seen before (1938) on the trip and I was glad to see him. Helen seemed so nice and she is lively. We met young Hubert, who was sick that day and later, Killian, riding bareback on a donkey using a small rope halter. Tommy had on a light blue shirt under a dark blue crew neck sweater, that revealed his shirt collar and then some, old black pants and black shoes. He smelled of whiskey when we embraced. His hair is receding as did his father’s and Paddy’s. And, as I remember, Mike Gallagher’s hair started to go the same way by the time I met him. Tommy is wiry, given to thinness rather than weight, to heft rather than mass. At 57 he looks strong and capable. Helen looks too young to be Tommy;s wife, especially when you see young Hubert, a tall good looking young man with Gallagher written all over him. I got the feeling that the sins of many before me were still remembered as I spoke with Tommy, and I think that, too, is Gallagher (or maybe it’s just Irish). Tommy said something about how strong headed and determined Mom is (which is true) but in relation to things that should have long since faded into memory. He said it almost in a way that could pass as resentment. I don’t believe I could sit down with Tommy and say: “I don’t know what went on between my mother and her brother (Seamus) or my mother and anyone else, but that’s water under the dam; her business and theirs and we’ll never know the full story; I don’t have enough of my life left that I consider it important to rehash someoneelse’s past.” But I’ve seen the same characteristic in Mom, and Paddy and Mike, and to a lesser extent, uncle Tommy and Elizabeth, and almost none in Beatrice. Of course I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

We ate at Tullio’s in Ballina with Tommy, Helen and Killian. Tommy changed sweaters and his trousers. Helen got dressed up and Killian shed his blue sweatshirt for dungarees (jeans?) and a black sweatshirt. It was a good chance to visit with the Gallaghers. Tommy blew his nose in the white cloth napkin which brought an exchange of disapproving looks between Killian and Helen. He had a glass of wine along with Kath and Helen while I had a Kaliber. He had another wine with dinner. Tommy seemed awkward ordering from the menu while Helen seemed to order so that our bill wouldn’t be big. I’m glad we didn’t go to the Daron Hill Hotel (?) which might have been too much. I know that’s a judgment, but I think Tullio’s was a wise choice.

The town of Ballina appears old and tattered in a post World War II way. The main street shows signs of decay in the sidewalks and the roadbeds and the shops look drab and uninviting. Tralee looked old but in a different sort of way– old in layout and utility, but attractive as one wandered through it. I was glad to see the River Moy after hearing all the stories from Mom about how she and the kids would fish (poach) salmon with handfuls of sand so they could grab and hold on to the slippery salmon long enough to hurl it to the shore. Over in Ballina again we encountered the work of the pixie chartologist who changed the names of the streets, the numbers of the roads and the locations of places. We followed the (?) Ofay Failte signs to the Cathedral where the I man told us to go back the way we came to find the I office. We did and we found instead a travel bureau with the Tourist Office sign across the front of the building. The TO moved a year before but failed to remove its sign, change the map to show its new location. It didn’t change the old OF signs but since they were the old ones we didn’t expect them to be accurate. But they were.

 

7-18 Wednesday was spent as a series of flashbacks. Tommy guided us to Dooneen, the place we lived in the 1930s. He said the place had been bought by Eileen Gallagher for 800 punts when she was very young and was “given” to Mom. “Or maybe Mike Durkin bought it from her.” It was an old country house reached by following the Quay Road out from Ballina along the River Moy toward Killala Bay. On the way Tommy showed us several views from the road and the grave of his father. When we reached Dooneen, it was almost as I pictured it in my memory, except it was larger. The house was boarded up, the garden was overgrown, the barn and stable stood, as did the equipment shed. At the north end of the barn an open pig sty of stone and concrete still stood where it had half a century before. Killian entered through an open window hole at the front door to take pictures for K. We found a window to the kitchen covered over with a wooden shutter and secured in place with a tourniquet arrangement involving baling wire, a lock stick and a twist stick. Killian untwisted the stick so that Tommy and I could remove the shutter and gain access to the house. Mary and Kath followed me in. The original house was made of stone as were the outstructures and garden wall. At some time early or late, a facing of cement was added to seal the stone, as in chinking , or maybe to insulate the structure. The roofing was supported by a ridge pole and roofing timbers as well as sally rods covered by some form of peat moss or peat turf, and that was covered by thatch. At some time before Mom and Dad got the place, galvanized roofing had been added over the thatch to complete the structure as it now is constituted.

Inside was much as I remembered it. Inside the main door was a small vestibule measuring 4X4 or 5X5 and that led into the kitchen. The fireplace was to the right as was the window through which we entered. To the left, a small area the width of the house and maybe 5 feet deep that had been partitioned at one time to serve as a dairy to the back and a warming hatchery to the front Over this appendix was the loft I remember, the floor of which further divided this section of the house into upper (loft) and lower (Dairy and hatchery) sections. There was one entry to the annex, while I seem to remember two. The entry I remember to the dairy was sealed making the kitchen a more complete room. At the front wall of the house a doorway led from the kitchen to the parlor with which the kitchen shared a fireplace (front and back). This was a ceilinged room unlike the kitchen, but had no window. These two rooms (kitchen and parlor) might have measured 10X10 each or 12X12 east. The kitchen had no ceiling but was topped with the turf sod of the roof, and that openness gave rise to the utility of the loft. The parlor had a ceiling, finished for its time, about 7 feet above the dirt floor. At the south end of the house were two small bed rooms, front and back, connecting off the parlor. The fireplaces in the kitchen and parlor were small and were painted. The wall in which the fireplace was built served as a bearing wall for the roof and would have been close to the center of the structure. In all, there were five bearing walls. The end pieces, the chimney wall and the walls separating the bed rooms from the parlor and the kitchen from the dairy/hatchery. It was too dark to really see interior decorations of the house and it must have a lime wash over concrete. No one could tell me anything about the origin of the house, but Tommy indicated it’s sale in 1947 led to bad blood that seemed to still endure. I don’t remember the details, but the essentials were: Seamus did not want to pay the taxes on the property belonging to Mom, which he was using rent-free. Tommy says he was not much of a farmer and during his tenancy, he let the place become run down, both the structures and the fields Seamus was well liked in the town and no one wanted to see him evicted. Mom was cast as the heartless villain who came from America to sell the place out from under her younger brother. There was a conspiracy between some of the landowners (Seamus’ friends) to boycott the auction and take the “Yank.” Tommy. says Mom got a letter from Dad at home to come on back and take care of the children (16, 15 and 12). Tommy was not aware that Beatrice Daniels was watching out for us. When all was over, Tommy says, she sold the place for 800 punts, about half its worth and for a lower price than people were willing to pay. If the event were forgotten and forgiven, there wouldn’t be such vivid details of what happened and it seems that incident has already achieved the status of myth and may bear little resemblance to what really happened. The fields were in good shape during our visit. The structures and the myth have not improved with time.

We went next to the Carrabarry school where Mary and I began out schooling and where Dad and the Durkins and Hubert’s children went. It had been closed in 1957, Tommy says, and was replaced by a modern school system to which children are now bussed.

We drove back from the school to Castletown where Martin Langan (Dad’s first cousin) lives with his wife Dorrie and their son Michael. They live in the house that John James Durkin (our grandfather) built in 1912 and moved to from the old house in Knockbrack (?). Martin has been living there for 17 years and got the place from Patrick Durkin. We returned to Tommy’s house and caught up with Nancy (Gallagher) and John Norton, Tommy’s sister and her husband. We had dinner and went back to Knockbrack, to see the Durkin homestead, an old structure barely visible from the road and set back about 200 feet over a hillock in a stand of trees. From there we went to the Ox Mountains to Glanduff, where the O’Donnells and the Gallaghers come from and where so many of them still reside. It is a rough, rock filled, mountainous country, quiet in its own beauty, but treacherous in its way. Only a hardy, tough people could survive back there and I guess the Gallaghers were such people. On the way to the graveyard where Thomas and Maria (O’Donnell) Gallagher are buried, we ran into Kathhleen, Seamus and Biddie’s daughter and four of her children.

While visiting Biddie (Wicklow) Gallagher, Seamus’s widow, she asked me if I would like to hear a story. I said I would and she told me of how Ann Gallagher (Schoenwandt) was banished from Glanduff by her mother (Maria O’Donnell Gallagher) when she was very young because she was romantically linked with John McHale, who was engaged at the time, and whose sister had a baby out of wedlock. Ann left Ireland and never returned. John McHale married his girlfriend and had a daughter who, in turn, married Hubert and Biddie’s oldest son, Tommy. We met Tommy and his wife Lorraine (?) as well as John McHale and his wife at Tommy(Seamus)’s house. While in Glan we also met Beatrice, Kathleen and Jimmy — three other children of Biddie and Seamus. The only one we didn’t meet was Margaret who lives in Kilkenny..

At the top of the hill nearing Biddie’s house, we ran into John Thomas Gallagher, grandson of Hugh Gallagher (brother of Thomas), who is our second cousin. We saw the old house in which the Gallaghers (Mom and our aunts and uncles) were raised. It is now used to house cattle and store peat. Biddy was cordial and invited us in. Within a few minutes we met Jimmy, Seamus and Biddie’s second oldest son, who is a six foot leprechaun. While we were visiting, Kathhleen’s children came up. They were very quiet, they didn’t say a word, just seemed to stare at us and take us all in. Beatrice came up. She had broken her arm in three places working with the tractor and had her right arm in a cast and a sling. She drove up, which must have been difficult because of her arm since the road is narrow and to turn around took a good deal of strength and all the ability I could muster. We all visited, looked at the pictures and drank tea. Jimmy took Tommy, Killian and I down the road to James (Dada) O’Donnell’s house. James was the father of Kitty, Beasie, Eleanor and Maria (our grandmother and the wife of Thomas [Hugh} Gallagher). This is where we began four generations back. It was a good visit and we left Glanduff at 10:40pm. We followed the road back down the Ox Mountains and returned to the town of Ballina. It was to early to go back to the B&B so we all – Tommy, Mary, Kath, Killian and me- went to Beleek Castle to join Helen Gallagher, Nancy and John Norton. We listened to traditional Irish music of a more gentile kind while three rounds of drinks were drunk. At 11:40pm the manager asked all the guests to leave the lounge and gather on the lawn in front of the castle to enjoy a pipe band from England that played a fifteen minute concert from the wind swept roof of the castle. At 2:00am we called it a night and returned to the B&B.

 

7-19 We were tired today. I showered and dressed before going down to the parlor to catch up on my notes. While I was working a couple, an older man and an unattractive woman came in and asked if they should wait there until breakfast was served. I said they might as well. She plopped down on a couch and he turned the TV on, an automatic unthinking action that drives me crazy when I see the children do it because it as much as says: “I am incapable of the higher functions of mankind and must be fed by the electronic device.” I mention this because it got to me and also because it was the first such incident of pure knee-jerk boorishness I’ve encountered in six days here. After breakfast we picked up Killian and went to visit Joe Gallagher, Tommy’s brother, Mary Jo, his wife, and Ronan and Rachel, their children. Nancy and her husband John had stayed there the previous night and while Nancy was up and around, John was still in bed at noon. I had not met Joe and his family before. They live at the old place Hubert and Mary Gallagher lived during the time we were in Dooneen and for some time thereafter. I’m not sure of the geographical name of the place but it was across the road from the Inniscrone (Inis Crohain) Golf Club, so I expect it was Inniscrone. Before our visit we drove to Inniscrone to see the beach (three miles long) and look for a bakery. After the visit we drove back to Inniscrone to the Atlantic Hotel where we met Siobain, Joe and Mary Jo’s oldest daughter. Our next stop was the nursing home in Ballina to visit Mary (Devaney), Hubert’s widow. At 86 she seemed bright and cheerful and spoke with precision. Her gray (white) hair was very thin and spare but her skin looked extraordinary for a woman of her age.

Later, about five o’clock we went to make our final visit to Pat, Ann and Damien Langan, Dad’s first cousins. Pat and Damien are brothers of Martin whom we met the previous day with his wife Dorrie and their son Michael. They (Pat, Ann and Damien) weren’t home so we went back to Martin’s house which was built in 1912 by our grandfather John James Durkin and his wife Kate (Gilmartin or Kilmartin) Durkin. This is where all our Durkin aunts and uncles were raised after 1912. John James left the home and farm to Patrick their oldest son who, in turn, sold it to his cousin Martin Langan. We left the gifts Mary and Kath had brought for them. We had tea with the Langans and brought Killian back to his home. We made our final good-byes with Tommy, Helen, Hubert, and Killian, and left for Sligo town to begin the next leg of our trip. We checked in at the St. Martin de Pours B&B, had dinner at Gullian’s and went to the B&B for much needed sleep.

In Sligo town we stopped at the I to book a B&B. While there, a tape of Irish songs played on the TV and I watched — and listened– with intent. The man who wrote “The Town I Love So Well” sang that song while he played the piano. As he was singing, a young Japanese woman, not yet 20, stopped to listen. By the time he got to the second verse, she was lip-synching the song along with him.

 

7-20 Yesterday we drove from Sligo town to Killibegs in the west of Donegal. Since I had taken the wrong time-release nitroglycerin bottle, I did not have enough tablets (60) to last the trip. I cut back to 2-a-day about four days ago and it caught up with me yesterday morning. I felt lightheaded and nauseous. But since I ate four eggs, four bangers, four pieces of white pudding, Irish bacon, brown bread, toast, butter and marmalade for breakfast, I didn’t put too much importance on the nausea. The lightheadedness did bother me and I hoped to sit it out until it passed. Angina came on stronger than usual and I had trouble staying awake. I asked Kath to drive saying I was lightheaded. We drove around Lough Gil toward Drumain (?) and got several good views of the Isle of Innisfree and Yeats country. We stopped at Parke Castle and took pictures, then onto Drumcliffe to visit W.B. Yeats’ grave and take more pictures. While there I bought a penny whistle for one of the boys. Our driving took us off the main road into Carney, Lissadell and Grange, which are between Sligo Bay and Donegal Bay. From there we could see the tower on Innishmurray, an ancient monastic site. Benbulben, a distinctive mountain ducked in and out of the clouds so we could get a look at this part now, and that part then. Further up the road we turned right and entered Northern Ireland for the first time, to visit the Beleek Pottery Works and Museum. It was an impressive operation with all the work done on site. Through a window of the pottery we could see Beleek being finished by hand and gotten ready for market. the show (sales) room was as good as one would expect at Tiffany’s and the prices of some of the pieces were aware of the comparison. Though some pieces could be bought, a thimble for 8 punts 50, other pieces were up to 1200 punts for a basket. The museum showed examples of past periods of Beleek, bathroom sinks, chamber bowls and (ewers) pitchers as well as fine works from each of the Beleek periods.. We returned to Ballyshannon and stopped in a pharmacy to see if I could get some additional nitro (Slo Bid) to tide me over. The pharmacist, Patrick Carney, didn’t have what I needed but he placed a call to Lifford where I should be able to pick up some nitro patches today. Knowing that, I went back on full dosage, supplemented by Isordil 2.5mg and by the time we got to Donegal town, I was on the way back. We stopped at the I and Kath arranged housing near Killybegs. While she was about that Mary and I walked around the diamond (the town square, except it’s diamond shaped) and stopped at MacGees tweed shop. Very commercial in a 1950’s way, but prices pegged to the 1990s. Beautiful stuff at too high a price. After we checked in at Killybegs, we went down to the town and had supper at the Lone Star Restaurant — good fish chowder and grilled salmon with peas and french fries. We walked around the fishing port looking at the fishing trawlers and then returned to the B&B for a good night’s sleep. Before turning in we decided to cut the trip to London to see Nora (Durkin) Burfoot, Dad’s sister, because we just don’t have enough time. We expect to make it up to Derry and up to the Giant’s Causeway by tonight, and then through Belfast to Dublin by mid-day Monday.

 

7-21 We spent a comfortable night at Killybegs after dinner at the Lone Star, a pub with a restaurant for 30 people on the second floor. We walked through the wharves where the fishing fleet comes in (Killybegs is one of the principal fishing ports in Ireland) and called it a night. In the morning Mrs. Cahill, the B&B owner asked me to write a complaint letter to her about the heavy machinery outside our window. The heavy equipment was used in road building and she thinks it discourages business. Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t. What she wants is to have others do the job for her, thinking that the I will listen to tourists faster than they will a native. She gave me some supposed discount coupons for use in Ardara, our next stop. After we left we stopped at two shops. Kath found a Killala knitting pattern she was looking for Cathy and bought some knitting wool. We got nothing in the other store. Up the road we stopped at Anna Marie Knits, also a recommendation of Mrs. Cahil, and I bought Kay a sweater, I think will fit her and that she will like. It was 66 punts, I paid 58 punts and it is worth at least $225. K got a gray wool cardigan for Vin. We stopped at still another wool shop and Mary bought a yard of absolutely beautiful tweed. Our shopping mission accomplished, we drove to Lifford where I was to pick up transdermal nitroglycerin patches since I was running out of Slo Bid. The pharmacy had closed at 1:00pm and it was now 2:00pm, so we crossed at Strabane (NI), passed the British military border guards dressed in camouflage uniforms with barbed wire barracks/jail off to the side. The first impression is that we were entering a war zone. By contrast, the people entering the Republic from Strabane got a welcome nod from the garda and a distracted wave of the hand from the customs officer. After that shock we found the roads much better quality than we had been accustomed to in the Republic. We drove north along the Ricer Foyle to Derry here once again we encountered guards armed with machine guns. This time the armed men were the police, not soldiers, and they were wearing flack jackets or bullet proof jackets. Derry is a walled city, walled to keep the Catholics out a few centuries back and symbolically in use today for the same reason. We parked and I visited a pharmacy where I was able to buy 10 nitro patches, enough to last me for the next ten days, by which time I’ll be home. We found the Bogside, Craigen (?) and the other slums. We drove around and photographed the “You are now entering Free Derry” sign as well as some others, drove in and out of the slums and looked at the people. These people were not like the people we met in the Republic. They were not friendly and did not return a greeting. We drove from Derry to Bushmills, the closest town to the Giant’s Causeway and settled in at a country house. We had dinner at a small hotel/restaurant close to the Causeway and had our first taste of Northern Ireland hospitality. Though informal, there was a more elegant approach to food service than we found in the Republic. We sat first in a day parlor with other dinner guests, ordered a drink and later, ordered our dinner. After another period of time passed and we watched those who were there ahead of us go into the dining room, our turn came and we were seated at a table for four, reconfigured for three, and adequately separated from the other dining guests. I had roast duckling and it was good. The following morning I didn’t have time to write my notes. I was tired and we woke up late. We walked the first part of the Causeway, took pictures, resumed our driving, looked unsuccessfully for a church, and headed on to Belfast.

 

7-22 Belfast is another war zone. Parts of the city are “pedestrianized,” that is, blocked off so that marauding cars of rebels cannot bomb the business places. It is patrolled by armored personnel carriers with machine guns mounted and loaded for use. As we drove around we came to one such blockade and were approached by a policeman. He was wearing a bullet proof flack jacket under his outer tunic and asked us what we were doing there. We told him we were touring Ireland and were not familiar with the area. We asked about the barricades and he said they were for security reasons. In his speech and in his attitude (though polite) there was no mistaking his partisanship. He told us of Belfast people who visited the Republic and when they asked directions locals would reply to them in Gaelic. We never noticed that and we came across nationals of every origin. He told us that fifteen feet ahead of where we were parked talking with him, a businessman was killed within the past two weeks and right behind us another innocent businessman was killed. In reply to Mary’s question, he said the killers were not caught and said as much as the killings were the work of IRA terrorists. While we were talking with him two fearsome armored cars drove past out of the pedestrianized zone. The second armored car slowed down then stopped ahead of us and off to the right. The machine gun was manned and trained on us. We left the policeman and went looking for Falls Road. Falls Road is also structured in a way that is meant to be hard to negotiate the area in the event of a chase. The place looked run down and the people looked depressed beyond caring. Both Derry and Belfast had the look and feel of hate and it was inescapable. Between Derry and Belfast, up to the Causeway and back we drove through some beautiful towns. It seems people in those towns, too, share the hate, the “present troubles” as the wags write about it, but they don’t display it as freely and as openly as in Derry and Belfast. We left Belfast and drove along well developed roads including the only superhighway — the Motorway– we have encountered here and went on to Drogheda in County Louth (RI) along the River Boyne, to see New Grange, a restored site said to be 5000 years old. After New Grange we drove to Slane, the site of Tara and then drove on to Dublin. We found our B&B, walked down to Grafton Street, ate in a good Chinese restaurant, came back to the B&B and called it a day.

 

7-23 I’ve caught up on my notes and it is Monday night in Dublin. Mary and Kath are at a play “Moll” at the Gaiety and I took the night off to rest.

This morning we had breakfast and Mary and Kath did what they had planned to do. Kath arranged that we change the B&B accommodations to a bed-only house; Mary called Nora in Dorset, England, and told her we were not coming. Both went to the bank to change traveler checks. We dropped our stuff at the new address, parked the car and set out on foot for the center of the city. We walked back along Grafton Street, took pictures of “Molly Malone “ (“the tart with the cart”), the Liffey, O’Connell Street, the General Post Office, “Anna Livia” (“the floosie in the Jacuzzi”), and of course, Kentucky Fried Chicken. We visited the GPO, saw an audio visual presentation of the Easter Week Rebellion of 75 years ago. After that, Kath went shopping and Mary and I went of to Trinity College to see the Library and the Book of Kells. We next went to the National Museum to see a different presentation and exhibit about the Easter Week Rebellion, but it was closed on Monday. We made a brief visit to the National Library and a long visit to the National Art. Gallery before heading back to the shopping area. Mary picked up some post card size repros of the Goose Girl. We rested at the Shelbourne Hotel (elegant) and used the washrooms there. We then went back to Grafton Street, Bewely’s and then to Davy Burns on Duke Street, one of Leon Bloom’s hangouts talked about in Ulysses. We met Kath at Bewley’s and came back to Davy Burns for dinner. We went back to Bewely’s for dessert, after which I stayed there with Mary and Kath there until it was time for them to go to the theatre, at which time, I came back to the house to rest.

 

7-23 Tuesday in Dublin was a wonderful day all together. We started off for breakfast at Bewley’s and on the way made a brief stop at St. Patrick’s Cathedral (Church of Ireland) where Jonathan Swift was Dean and is buried. After breakfast we walked to the National Museum and saw the exhibit commemorating the Easter Week Rebellion, which really covered the early movement for home rule until Independence in 1921. We returned to Bewley’s at 2pm to go on the Literary Walk with Ann O’Neill. Our first stop was MacDaid’s, a hangout for Joyce, Yeats, Flan O’Neill and Brendan Behan, among others. We visited Stephen Square to cross the other O’Connell Bridge, visit a monument to Yeats, another one for Joyce, see where Joyce went to school, visit a chapel next door built by John Henry Newman, past the National Art Gallery, which received one third the estate of George Bernard Shaw, saw the house where Oscar Wilde grew up and the hotel next to Trinity College where Nora Barnacle, Joyce’s wife worked as a chambermaid, and finally to Bailey’s on Duke Street to see the front door of 7 Eccles Street.

We had supper at The Bailey Pub (John Ryan’s Bar directly across the street from Davy Burns, one stop in the day of Leopold Bloom) and met David and Darragh our hosts for the Literary Pub Crawl that evening. Darragh opened the evening with a rendition of Joyce’s “O’Grady,” a song about a woman alcoholic I had never heard before. That was followed by a recitation from Becket’s “Waiting For Godot” and a song “The Sally garden” lyrics by W.B. Yeats, and a piece from Joyce’s “Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man”. Our next stop was Trinity College where David recited Leadville from Oscar Wilde’s “Visit”. Then on to the Dublin Gas Company founded by Daniel O’Connell where they performed a piece from Sean O’Casey’s “Juno and the Paycock”, an exchange between Captain Boyle and Joxer, set in the newly renovated Piss Alley. A stop at Mulligan’s at 8 Pooley (?) Street, founded in 1782 was in order, and a time out of 20 minutes was declared. We walked back to a location at the Bank of Ireland, once the old Parliament Building where Darragh sang “The Raglan Road” by Patrick Kavanaugh, and performed a piece about 1913. This was a stop instead of a stop at the Palace Bar, which was off the tour temporarily, because the street in front of it was torn up. Our next stop was O’Neill’s of Suffolk Street for a 20 minute rest then on to a place across from MacDaid’s where they performed a piece of rhyme by Flan O’Neill about the pint being your only man and a Brendan Behan piece “Two Birds for the Graveyard” (?). The tour ended and we went back to the rooming house, all cultured out.

 

7-25 Our visit is winding down rapidly. On Wednesday we forsook breakfast and drove to the National Gallery of Modern Art where we devoured some interesting impressions as well as some leek and celery soup, scones and coffee. We saw only a small part of the modern art collection and I’d like to see the rest. But time was against us. Our next stop was Killmainham Gaol, an extremely emotionally charged exhibit and tour of the jail where the prisoners of the Uprising were held and executions by the British performed. Within the jail, selected contemporary artists were asked to contribute concepts for each interior cell. It is a striking exhibition dealing with courage, love of life, the cost of freedom and the importance of free expression. This was the third leg of the National observation of the 75th anniversary of the Easter Week Rebellion, the others being at the GPO and the National Museum, where a graphic and artifactual display deals with the same period in broader terms of home rule, republicanism and independence. After the Gaol we went to Parnell Square, circled it and tried to find our way out of town. After much effort, we took off for Wicklow, Arklow and Wexford, stopping in Arklow to arrange accommodations for the night in Waterford, and then proceeded to that glass making town. Enroute we were caught in some of the worst rain we have experienced on our trip. We had dinner in town at the Bridge Hotel. I had plaise for the third time, and enjoyed it. After dinner we found the Waterford Glass Works, drove around it and returned to the B&B tired.

 

Afterthought I’m not happy in cities. Everyone knows that. But Dublin is different. We spent a total of three days in Dublin, about as much time (or maybe more) as we spent with the family in the Ballina area. I enjoyed Dublin. Maybe staying in a city in which I could walk where I had to go had something to do with it. Maybe it is because the town is inhabited by a large number of great dead guys and that the people we dealt with did a lot to keep the ghosts alive. Or maybe it has something to do with the link to antiquity. A town where the average lawn is several time older than the United States as a nation. Wit was rampant and as one of the guide books noted, every Dubliner has an opinion and if you ask enough people you will find someone who agrees with you. No one seemed concerned in any way with the wretched malaise of political correctness that is rife in America. There is a sense of freedom of expression that is refreshing. Maybe that’s because having suffered for 800 years at the hands of the British, the Irish in Dublin celebrate the true spirit of freedom. I think if I had to live in a city, Dublin might be more accepting of me than most. I would like to come back here again and spend more time with the dead guys, They’re a lively bunch.

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