Author: barry

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Ireland Midleton Trains Traveling

Midleton: Town & Kindred Spirits

Yesterday we took the train into Midleton. It’s about a half hour ride, most of the way sharing the same track as the train to Cobh, splitting off for the final two stops.

Midleton is a bit smaller than Cobh, with much less waterfront and no harbor to speak of. There are two main points of interest, the distillery and the Kindred Spirits memorial. I’ll make a separate post about the distillery, but here’s some thoughts and images about the memorial and the town.

Directly adjacent to the train station is Midleton’s hurling pitch. Unfortunately for us, the next match is a few months down the road.

This sculpture, near where the railway road lets you off into town, is entitled Flock of Geese, or some such. Seems to me that “Halp!” would be more appropriate.

Midleton is, essentially, a single main street kind of town. It’s about 7 or 8 blocks long, with enough restaurants, bars, bake shops, etc., for a town thrice its size, and a decent number of shoe stores, clothing stores, & real estate offices as well. The alleys and side lanes hold a few surprises, too.

Adjacent to the distillery is a pollinator garden. It’s still winter (even if the pagan calendar says it’s early spring), so not much is blooming. Roughly double the normal amount of rain has fallen across the country this February, so every small creek is racing.

The Kindred Spirits memorial is in a small park, roughly a kilometer south of the town center. Enough has been said about the memorial elsewhere that i don’t need to add anything. It was a truly humbling experience. I hope some of my photos can convey that feeling.

Categories
Cork City Ireland Street Art

Miscellany

I’ve taken a lot of photos that haven’t found a home in any blog posts the past couple of weeks. Plenty of street art, but some other things as well. Here’s a catch-all post for some of them.

This escalator has no steps!
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Durham

What You Leave Behind

One of my neighbors sent a photo of our house in the snow storm yesterday. Thanks, Anne!

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Black Rock Castle Blackrock Cork City

Black Rock Castle

Claire’s post below covers the highlights of our trip to the Black Rock Castle observatory and science yesterday. We took advantage of some relative sunshine (only one hail storm!) and walked 4 miles up the Old Black Rock Road (formerly Black Road Road, now Black Rock Road; Irish street names being somewhat arbitrary) to the Castle.

Old (new?) Black Rock Road

It’s at least a two, possibly 3, convent walk.

And, as on our walk down to Douglas, once you get out of the city center and into the detached housing portion of the program, pretty much every house has its own name.

Some come with a sense of humor, and some should be invited to Durham for the Beaver Queen Pageant.

Also, monuments. This one from 150 years ago, to Alexander McCarthy.

The Black Rock Road also passes through the old village of Ballintemple, now a suburb of Cork, before ending at the pier of Black Rock. The Castle Road takes you the rest of the way there.

There’s a pretty good view of the port from the Castle Road.

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

And of course, a pretty good view of the castle.

Yonder lies . . . oh, hell, never mind.

Our tour guide gave us a pretty good sense of the history of the castle. It was never really intended to be a fortification for defense of the city. More built in the early 1600s to scare pirates away. The British turned it for a time into an actual battlement, but for most of its existence, it was a party room for Cork’s elite trading families. Accordingly, it was burned down a couple of times in drunken revelry, fell into disrepair, and ended up in the city’s hands around the beginning of the 21st century. The Cork Institute of Technology’s proposal to turn it into a science center was selected for implementation, and it opened a little over a decade ago.

The bottom portion is the oldest, and is maintained to show its original function.

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Uncategorized

Theater

Saw a charming and funny performance tonight at The Everyman Palace. A Holy Show is the slightly modified story of the May 1981 hijacking of an Aer Lingus flight headed from Dublin to London by a slightly disturbed former Trappist monk named Larry Downey.

I learned a lot about the miracles and secrets of Our Lady of Fatima, not to mention the secret of life, which i am unable to share with you, sadly.

A bit of a challenge getting the humor and references clearly aimed at an Irish Catholic audience, but not impossible. Recommended if it is performed near you.

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Douglas Turner's Cross

Douglas

Yesterday we headed south, up the hill and out of the river valley to Douglas, a suburb of Cork about 4 km down the road. We of course got squalled on, so the walk took a couple of hours, what with ducking into a pub or two to dry off.

Saw, for basically the first time here, a preponderance of single family detached houses, many of estate size, and all bearing charming names.

Douglas itself was small and clean, a 2 three block downtown areas separated by a park, with the Douglas River running between them. A handful of pubs and restaurants, including Barry’s, where we had a couple of bowls of soup and some stout. We’ve been favoring Murphy’s on this trip.

Took a slightly different route back to the city, passing through the Turner’s Cross neighborhood, where both the soccer and rugby stadia are located. The Six Nations tournament is taking place while we’re here. It’s probably getting some press in the States. But both the women and the U-20s are playing on similar tournaments at the same time, and the U-20s play here in Cork. We’ll be attending the match home to Italy on 6 March. It’s about a 2k walk from the apartment.

Here’s a few photos.

Couple of named estates on the Douglas Road.
The gateway to Douglas!
Street art
Couple of interesting blocks off the Douglas Road
Lunch at Barry’s, since 1771
And a couple of interesting marketing choices on the road to Douglas
Categories
Cobh Cork City Street Art

A Random Assortment of Street Art

Photos from the past 10 days. All from various parts of Cork City, except the butterfly mural, which is near the Cobh train station, and the soldiers mural, which is near Cobh town center.

Categories
Cork City Ireland The Lough

The Lough & St. Fin Barre’s

Another winter storm (Dennis) is sweeping through Cork today. Lots of wind and sideways rain blowing in from the west. Here’s some more photos of our walk up the hills on the south side of the city the other day.

Front and rear views of the cathedral. The sky was changing rapidly that day.
Some details of the cathedral
Dead people
Old Beamish brewery. The goldfish weathervane echoes the one above the Shandon Bells on the north side of the city
I felt like i could live in this neighborhood, but the real estate market is so hot here, that almost everything is sold before it’s listed. As outsiders, we’re not privy to those kinds of sales, and it will be difficult to get to that point in any reasonable period of time.
Wonder Woman as Kali, i guess
Categories
Cork City Ireland The Lough

Elizabeth Fort

Yesterday’s adventures featured a lengthy stroll through The Lough neighborhood, on the south bank of the River Lee. Featured attractions are St. Fin Barre’s (Finbar) Cathedral, and the 400 year old Elizabeth Fort. We also had our first group social event, meeting up with a few SF aficionados to discuss Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone’s recent novel This is How You Lose the Time War. The event was a success, not only because of the good company and lively, free-ranging conversation, but it was also the first appearance of Toto’s Africa on this trip, making it an official Barry holiday.

Some photos of the Fort below. Additional photos of the walkabout to follow.

  • St. Fin Barre’s, from the Fort.
  • Arrow slit, or loop hole, looking onto the Labyrinth at St. Fin Barre’s
Categories
Cobh Trains

Cobh

On Wednesday, we bought a couple of Leap Cards and took the train down to Cobh. Cobh is in the big part of Cork Harbor, and is a port of call for the big cruise ships like Norwegian, Cruise and Maritime, and Princess. That’s also part of its history – the Titanic stopped in Cobh after leaving Southampton UK on its way to New York, and the Lusitania was nearest the port on its way back to Liverpool from New York when it was torpedoed in 1915. Both events feature prominently in the memorials set up throughout the town.

A few views through a dirty train window. On the lower right is Fota Castle.

Many of the people we’ve met have encouraged a visit to Cobh. It’s a scenic enough town, but, at least when there are no cruise ships at dock, a lot of the restaurants are closed, and many of the bars have their kitchens closed as well. On leaving the train station, the first stop is the Heritage Center, which provides details on both the Titanic and Lusitania, as well as some of the history of Irish emigration.

This statue commemorates Annie Moore, the first immigrant to pass through the new Immigration Center at Ellis Island, in New York City, in 1892. My family arrived there at the beginning of the 20th century. Claire was able to find her grandfather’s embarkation records. He sailed on the Saxonia, which departed Queenstown (as it was known before Irish independence) in April 1906, and arrived in Boston on the 26th of the month.

It’s about a 20 minute walk from the Heritage Center through town and beyond, to the Titanic Memorial Garden.

Bottom right – view through the channel to the ocean from the garden.

Survivors and victims of the sinking of the Lusitania were brought to Cobh.

Like any number of towns we’ve visited, the dominant building in Cobh is the Cathedral. This one is St. Colman’s.

Like many great buildings, it’s bigger on the inside.

Yes, that’s a pipe organ.

Climb the hill past the school and the residential part of town, and the views of the countryside are pretty spectacular.

For me, though, the architecture, especially the old residences, was the most interesting thing in town. I could spend days there taking pictures in the changing light.

  • This line of laundry fascinated me
  • Maoist street art!
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