Youghal, and an update

The Covid-19 situation remains fluid. As of last night, there are 34 confirmed cases in Ireland (population just under 5 million), and an additional 16 in Northern Ireland (population 1.8 million). Nearly 1800 people have been tested in the Republic. Authorities are still urging calm, and saying that closing schools and public transport remains unnecessary at this time. France, our next potential destination, has around 1800 confirmed cases (population 65 million), or roughly 5 times the infection rate of Ireland. They are expected to escalate their response to Level 3, which will involve closing most public transport. At that point, we expect our trip to be canceled for us by the airline.

Portugal remains relatively unaffected, with 41 total infections recorded out of a population of roughly 10 million. Travel to and from Italy has been suspended pretty much everywhere, as well as travel within the country. Spain is canceling most public events and large gatherings. Our itinerary puts us in Portugal and Spain between 5 April and 22 April, so we are keeping close tabs on both of those. We have confirmed that we can pick up our rental car from Cork to Dublin at an hour’s notice (currently we’re planning on making that drive between 1 April and 4 April), and that we can change our flight back to the US at no cost. So, if we decide in the next few weeks that it’s time to get out of Dodge, and ride this out in the comfort of our own home, we can do that in basically 24 hours.

Once again, our thanks to all of you who have expressed concern over our well-being. We are somewhat stressed, possibly inconvenienced and disappointed, and likely out some money. But we think our risk of catching this virus remains relatively low (my personal assessment is that it is no greater here than in the States), and there are far many people in much worse shape than we are.

Back to our travels!

Today is the midpoint of our planned trip. Yesterday we took the bus to the coastal community of Youghal. On our 2017 trip to Ireland, we passed through this town on our way between Waterford and Cork, and spent a couple of hours walking around. It was high on our list of places to return to.

We misread the bus schedule, and thought there was only one stop in the town, so we inadvertently got off 2 km from the town center. That turned out to be fortuitous, as we found ourselves at probably the nicest beach in the Republic. It was cold and windy, but gorgeous. And at low tide, flat and sandy.

I didn’t take my shoes off, but i did dip my hands into the Atlantic Ocean for the first time this year.

While some of the beach features are clearly man-made erosion control, there are some fascinating rock formations as well.

This little memorial would be called “Brandy” if it were in the States.

The story of the Youghal lighthouse is pretty cool. There’s been a light on this site for pretty near a millenium. A couple of hundred years ago, some town leaders thought it would make sense to move the light to an island a mile or so offshore. Construction got about halfway through, when the faction arguing that the light should remain in its traditional location returned to power, and the island project was abandoned. You can see the island in the second picture above, although at blog resolution i don’t think you can make out the light. It’s now a bird sanctuary. A new lighthouse was completed on the original site in 1852.

The village green reminded of nothing so much as the Willoughby epsiode of the Twilight Zone.

At the entrance to the green is a statue memorializing 4 men killed by British troops in the town in 1798. As i’ve mentioned previously, i’ve had a couple of conversations with people here about Confederate statues back home. (All initiated by locals. I’m doing my best to avoid politics on this trip). They have all made the “history” argument that removing memorials to the Confederacy violates “history.” The responding argument, of course is simple: where are the memorials to the British governors of Ireland who ordered these executions? They don’t exist, nor should they, because although they are clearly a part of history, their actions are not those we want to commemorate. The Confederacy is the same.

We walked about the town for a while, ate a fantastic lunch at McCarthy’s, in the Old Imperial Hotel, and otherwise enjoyed the relatively benign weather. Definitely high up on the list of places we’d consider living in.