Day 5: Cork

Tuesday June 7

Cork was cloudy but warm and cleared toward the middle of the day.  We started by walking up to Shandon and strolling around until the Butter museum opened.   The town was very picturesque.

The main drag

Along the river

At the museum steps, a very friendly tiger cat greeted us warmly while they opened up.  

What most impressed us about the butter museum is that we hadn’t known just how organised and centralised the control of the butter industry was in Ireland.  The degree to which cooperation and a common marketing program benefitted the industry and propelled its modernization was amazing.    

From there we perused the English Market, where we found excellent sausages for lunch along with local Irish strawberries and some excellent chocolates.  

The English Market, Cork

We ate al fresco and then walked up to Fitzgerald Park.  

Otter sculpture in the park

Our timing was off and we missed seeing the city museum, but had a pleasant stroll through the grounds of the University College there, where they are celebrating George Boole, who taught mathematics there.  (For the non-geeks, Boolean logic is a core concept in computer programming, so you can thank George for making this blog possible.)

University College, Cork

We circled around and explored the south side of the city, which was residential and rather pretty, looking for the Red Tower, which we never found. We stopped and admired St. Fin Barr's Cathedral.  Then it was back to the English Market to acquire some excellent bread and cheese and off to the train station for our train to Tralee, where we had arranged for a shuttle to take us to Dingle.

Our shuttle was waiting at the station for us when we arrived, driven by a nice young man named Tristan.  He took us up through the most scenic way, through Conor's pass, so we could get a good view.

We arrived at our very pleasant bed and breakfast, and then headed out to enjoy the long evening light and explore the town.  

The harbor area is very pretty and every other pub we passed advertised traditional music.  We had done our research in advance, however, and headed to O’Sullivan’s, where we heard some excellent music from Theresa Corrigan and Tom Griffin.

We left reluctantly when the music ended and went off to our lodging and to bed, but we did acquire their CD- what was to be the first of many on the trip.

Day 4: Twentieth Century

Monday we went first to the Little Museum of Dublin, which gave us a very nice feel for the social history of the city.   It occupies a handsome house and is concerned mainly with the cultural and social history of the last century of the city. The interpreter who gave the tour there was lively and charming, and rather than trying to explain everything, pointed out her favorite items in the museum.

These ranged from a first edition of James Joyce's novel The Dubliners (along with the guide's advice on what quote to memorize if you want to pretend you've read it), letters written to Alfie Byrne, the most popular Lord Mayor of Dublin, and memorabilia from the Irish rock band U2. We thoroughly enjoyed the museum and the tour both.

From there, we dodged a few sprinkles and stopped in to the General Post Office (GPO) and saw their exhibition on the 1916 rising.  It too has a lovely building.

The location is of course apropos for the exhibition, because this is the very building that the Irish republicans occupied in their doomed attempt to rebel against British rule while the British were occupied fighting WWI. You can still see the marks of the bullets left on the facade of the building. The quality of the historical commentary was impressive and evenhanded.  

From there a tram bore us up to Kilmainham Gaol, which was thematically appropriate since that was where the leaders of the 1916 rising were executed.    Particularly impressive were a series of contemporary portraits, done on scratchboard, of many of the people involved.  

Our guide there was himself from Kilmainham, and the tour was excellent, ranging from the conditions suffered by the prisoners (appalling), the design of the jail (considered progressive at the time, due to the light, and the open design that let the guards monitor the cells) and the prisoners held there. Drawings done by prisoners remain on some of the cell walls:

A cross marks the spot where James Connelly was executed:

The tour finishes at the main door to the jail, surmounted by five serpents in chains.

After the jail tour we hefted our backpacks and trekked back down to the train station. We cut through the park adjacent to the Irish Museum of Modern Art. The park featured infographic plaques. We were advised of sheep:

That seemed reasonable enough. Then hedgehogs...which struck us as a bit odd.

At this point we began to suspect that we might be in the presence of Art. Then we got squirrels:

Foxes:

And last but far from least, housecats, which we found highly appropriate for us.

At this point we encountered some exceedingly odd sculpture and hastily made our escape before we saw anything else that we couldn't unsee. (I've spared you a photograph. Be happy.)

We finally reached the train station where we achieve cold drinks, a snack and train tickets to Cork. A pleasant journey by train later, we reached our destination, on the banks of the river Lee.

We only had time to take a quick walk through the central part of the city and then we finished out the day with an excellent dinner, and plans to hit the ground running...or at least walking briskly...in the morning.

Day 3: The Banks of the Boyne

Sunday, June 5

Sunday we were up early and on a bus to Newgrange and Tara.   We took at tour run by an archeologist, which was quite good. I hadn't registered before the tour that both sites are on the banks of the Boyne River, site of the fateful battle when William defeated James II in 1690. It's considered the turning point that led to Protestant rule of Catholic Ireland- I've heard the Boyne referenced in songs.

Seen in person, it was amazingly peaceful and bucolic, in vivid contrast to its long history.

We crossed the Boyne on a pedestrian bridge and then were taken in small shuttle buses up to Newgrange.

Newgrange was impressively large and older than Stonehenge, though our guide told us that it was rather unlikely that the original frontage had this appearance, as it had been heavily 'reconstructed' without much basis.  What was most noticeable was just how speculative most of the information was.   We really know very little about the way that Neolothic monuments were used in daily life.  Still it was an impressive piece of civil engineering.  And to look at the carvings and realize that these were carved 4500 to 5000 years ago- just amazing.

From there we went to Tara.  Our tour guide took us to see a local bookshop owner who showed us aerial slides of the site and told us some of its history.  The emphasis there was less on the neolitic and more on its relationship to the kings of Ireland and more recent history- for values of more recent that were mainly in the 1st millenium AD! The morning mist had lifted by then, and we climbed Tara in glorious sunshine.  

The various ridges and ditches of the hill were fascinating if enigmatic.

Everywhere we went, there were wildflowers in profusion. Even the trees that bordered the fields were covered in blossoms. Entirely lovely.

On our return, we went up to Kilmainham Gaol but found that the tours were booked for the day so we booked tickets for the next day and strolled - out to Phoenix park-

-and back to the downtown.  

We found a pub we’d walked by the day before which advertised traditional music and stopped in for dinner and to listen.  They served some really excellent fish and chips, and the musicians were good.  We eventually returned to our hotel stuffed and happy, with our minds and ears full of lively tunes.