On the road again

Murlough Bay, secret spot, shhhhh


Us with Joe and Mary at Drumkeerin

Sunday, 1pm, in Clifden on the west coast of Ireland, County Galway.
On Friday we got an early start and drove into Belfast, little over an hour south. We wanted to get to the Friday market at St. Georges. Belfast is a port town; the Titanic was built there. We get to the market, and it is pretty cool, a lot of food booths, curios, clothes, and fabrics such as linens, basically a covered flea market or rastro. The kids are done in twenty minutes, so we arrange to hook up with them later. I traded some jade from home for a mother-of-pearl bracelet worth $8, and Dana got some linens.

The St. Georges Market

Belfast has a lot of shopping around a nice pedestrian area, with big modern malls. The new areas are designed for rainy days. The Victoria Mall has a glass tower, and an elevator takes you to the top, where there is a platform with great views of the city. We see a giant Ferris wheel a short distance away, but never get there. Instead, we head for another small arcade of shops in a much more gritty area, through the XXX district, and then on for more peeks into little shops. The kids call an hour before we are to meet them for dinner, and they have already eaten and want to get back to their electronics.

Dana in the Victoria Mall tower; note Ferris wheel

Belfast was at the center of revolt in the '70s, along with Derry, and so we retrieve the car ($20 for parking) and head for the Falls area and Shankill Road. Shankill Road is divided by Falls Road, and on one side is the Catholic or Nationalist neighborhood, and on the other side is the Protestand or Unionist neighborhood. The Catholic area has moveable barriers with murals on each, and many buildings are bombed out, gaping holes in the roofs and shattered windows. Murals are painted on many walls, depicting the Troubles and those who died.

On the Catholic/Nationalist side of Shankill Road

The Protestant area has all the red, white and blue banners hanging, Union Jacks everywhere, and lots of murals on the walls here as well. The city is at peace, but there is an undercurrent of tension. Marching season is in July, meaning the Protestants trot out their colors and march around, shoving it in the Irish faces which must rankle them, so maybe that is what I am sensing, but we don't want to get out and walk around. The car has Republic of Ireland plates, so we are trying to look like tourists as best we can. We go on to a stone ring outside of town, and then up on a hill overlooking the city, the grounds of Belfast Castle. The kids hike the hill to the top, but Dana and I just sit and ponder the view.


On the Protestant/Loyalist side of Shankill

We get back to Cushendun at 9pm, grab the ukuleles and head into Cushendall ten minutes away. McCollum's Pub is so packed we can barely get in, and the room we were in the night before that was crowded with 9 people now has 9 musicians and 10 observers, and another room has 5 musicians and 10 observers. It is elbow to elbow and we have to give up any hope of a table or even a place to stand and observe, so we leave and meander through town looking into the other pubs, but end up going home.

Saturday
We leave Cushendun and the Drumkeerin B&B, and miss the place instantly. Mary McFadden, our landlady, had won landlady of the year for the entire UK in 2002, and it showed in all the little touches. Everything we needed was there, I could wake at 5 am and not worry about waking everyone, and it was so scenic it made you ache that you were alive. We'd decided to make the 7 hour drive to the next spot in one shot, since we had already paid for the place in Clifden for a week starting Saturday, and our stay at Drumkeerin ended Saturday, that was the way it worked out. The $250 we saved would have been the cost of 2 rooms in a hotel half-way across the country.

On our way here we stopped in Omagh, to visit the Ulster Ammerican Folk Museum and break up the ride, and because Mervyn had highly recommended it. It was probably the best value monument we had gone to, at 22GBP for all of us. This museum documented the emigration of the Irish people to various parts of the world. You started out with a number of indoor exhibits, then went outside and folloed a path through the woods to visit huts and farmhouses that showed how the Irish people lived in the time before and during the famine years, 1849-53. The buildings were lifted stone by stone from various places in Ireland and reconstructed on the site.

After these exhibits you passed through a reconstruction of the docks at Derry and through a ship's cargo hold area, then up to the top where you came down the plank and into America. Outside again, there are reconstructions of the emigrant journey in America, including farmhouses and outbuildings brought from Pennsylvania. The entire place was staffed by people in period dress doing period work. Dana and I loved the place, and we were out of the car a couple of hours.

On the road to Clifden

Three hours later we stopped in Belleek at the border of Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland and had a good meal. Lamb stew, chicken pie, fish and chips. We got back in the car and headed on. Driving in Ireland is often tense, with little room for error. We did hit some stretches of highway, but the last 40 miles were the worst road yet, with the car and road conspiring to send us on a roller coaster ride. We drove through beautiful country with very few houses and no towns. I was having dark thoughts that we were heading to such a remote area that the youths would be bored to tears. Have I mentioned that Hertz is really going to hear it from me? I have to stop and fill a leaking tire with air every day, and the suspension seems shot on this car that has 47000 km on it. At least now in Ireland the roads are in KM and I no longer have to convert.

When we arrived in Clifden my fears were allayed, as it is a good-sized town right on the coast, lots of pubs, shops, and restaurants, completely designed for tourists and very scenic, and many small towns around with lots of pubs and artists. The place is jumping when we arrive, but we drive another 4 km to Clifden Glen. It is not what we anticipated. It's a complex of small houses that look very cute, and a small pub and park, but it is away from the ocean and has no views. When we enter the house, it is very spartan and the carpets are old, musty and unclean. It has a kitchen area with big windows overlooking a hacked down woods. We are all turned off right away, so Dana and I go back to reception and I pull out the low immunity card. We hash it out with Christine the manager, and we go to a slightly better house.

We move our stuff from the first house, where the kids have only partly settled, to the second. We bring all the stuff in, but before we get unpacked we all head down to the pub attached to reception. Christine is there, and I express to her our disappointment in as friendly a manner as I can muster after driving across Ireland. As it turns out, she does have a third house, this with newer carpets and a kitchen area with a view of woods. Not great, but better. While the kids are engaged in the pub with their pints, Dana and I move all the stuff from house 2 to house 3. Did I mention that it is raining this whole time?

Monday 6am
I am trying to catch up this blogging of our journey, so the above is reading like a travelogue. It lacks much feeling because I have my clutch riveted in. Let me just say that in 2001 when we were in Ireland I was very disgusted with the incessant GameBoying, and nothing has changed except game systems.

Sunday Dana and I went into town and went grocery shopping at the SuperValu, a pretty upscale store similar to a Vons with more household goods. The place is hopping at 9 am. Dana goes off with her list, and I know this is going to be an arduous journey. She loves to see what they have in places we go to, and has to read every label and squeeze every veg. I go around trying to find those few things I am qualified to get, cereal and sponges and chips, but in the end she switches my cereal, sponges and chips for others. Two hours and $160 later (and no alcohol since that section of the store is dark, it is Sunday), we are back home and making lunch.

After lunch we go into Clifden to check it out, and the kids go to a pub/hotel/coffee bar with internet access. It is on and off raining and really windy. Dana and I walk around and check out the stores and art galleries, and have dessert and tea and coffe. We then meet up with the kids, and they want their dinner. John has been sick with a cold for about a week, just started recovering enough to muster for Belfast, but now Mike seems to be getting the cold. I can see this dinner will be wanky, so we send them on their merry way to fend for themselves, and Dana and I go car-touring out the Sky road that hugs the coast here.

We come upon an area where kids are playing in the road, lots of kids, and maybe 20 campers with some rough-looking people milling about. They ignore us driving through, and I am very cautious as the kids do not make any action to avoid us. These are the Irish itinerants, or gypsies, and they are here because there is a fun fair or carnival happening in town this week and they will staff it. That is all conjecture on my part. We go on, and at a high point in the road get out and find the wind now blowing at about 60kph or 40 mph, a good four-club wind. Sheesh. The views of the bay and islands and ocean are awesome, but it hurts to look into the wind to see it all.

Dana nearly blowing away

Last night there were a number of choices of music in town, and we should have gotten there earlier, but we muscled into J.Mcneely's Pub and the place is jumping, with some fiddle, bazooki, mandolin and guitar, and a decidedly cowboy/bluegrass flavor with a little traditional Irish music thrown in. We got a table way in the back, and thoroughly enjoyed the evening. I was in a good mood because I had managed to take a nap after dinner. To Mike's horror and John's amusement I did some white guy old man jigging about, with some yahooing thrown in. It was mildly acceptable because we were way in the back.

Today, we are going to Roundstone and some other local spots, we'll see. The sun is out right now, but we've already had 2 showers this morning.