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Wexford

Wexford

Some 6 or 7 years ago, Claire and I decided to get out of Durham for 4th of July and go somewhere different to watch fireworks. After a quick run through the local papers and websites, we decided on Butner, about 20 miles or so north. A town more famous for its variety of prison facilities, including the federally run minimum security establishment that housed Bernie Madoff, among others.

We quickly found the lake where the fireworks were supposed to be held, but we were practically the only people there. We got directions to a different lake. Same story. After a couple of hours and a glorious sunset, we went home, eventually to learn that Butner’s fireworks display had been held the weekend before. That’s forgivable on those occasions when July 4th falls on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, but not when it’s already on the weekend. Butner quickly became a running joke in our household, and then a simple punchline that needed to introduction. We’d just look at one another and say, “Butner!” without any obvious prompt. Always funny.

Wexford kinda filled that niche for us in Ireland, for a different reason. We’ve planned numerous trips to Wexford on our various visits, but somehow none of them ever came off. For our anniversary this past weekend we talked about trying again, but had to hold off till the last minute because we’re still waiting on the arrival of our main shipment of goods from the states. I expect every morning to receive a call from the shipping company to arrange a time for delivery that day, and every morning so far I’ve been disappointed. So Thursday night we cashed in a Hotels.com voucher and booked a room at the Crown Quarter on Wexford’s main quay for Friday night. A second night was unavailable, so we planned a busy day Saturday, and figured on catching the latest bus back to Youghal through Waterford.

Wexford Harbor

When we checked in the woman at the desk warned us that there’s a disco on the ground floor on Friday nights, and we might get some of the bass coming through the floor, but that it would end by 12:30.

Pro tip: The disco at the Crown Quarter on the weekend runs right up to the legal 1 am limit, and is outside in the courtyard, where the sound carries extremely well into the rooms. Possibly even the best seat in the house. On the plus side, we heard both Come On Eileen and the Weezer cover of Toto’s Africa. So, a successful mini-vacation on that front.

Waterford itself is a quite lively place, lots of pedestrian activity along the narrow Viking era streets that make up the commercial district. Outdoor dining options everywhere, from cafes to white linen restaurants. We had dinner at the Thomas Moore Tavern where I ate some of the best mussels I’ve ever had, and Claire enjoyed the daily special of a local cod and spinach fritter with a beetroot carpaccio, which even I was able to take a bite of, and I despise beets. Even with appetisers, drinks, and dessert, the bill was only €80. We also had coffee and scones at Franks Place, and a quick lunch while waiting for the bus at Mi Asian street food.

The old church
One of several castles

Our big excursion for the day was the Irish National Heritage Park, a 100 acre site about 10 minutes out of town by bus. The walking tour of the park takes you through the various stages of Irish habitation, from the Neo-lithic era through the Norman settlements of about 900 years ago. Relatively educational, and not very strenuous. I confess I wasn’t paying attention to wheelchair accessibility. The park’s website states “The woods, paths and trails that lead through The Irish National Heritage Park are maintained as close to their natural state as possible, in keeping with the landscape as it would have been historically. Surfaces are therefore uneven and unpaved in parts. The installations and reconstructions themselves, are designed to reflect the actual experience of ancient and historical buildings. Care should be taken when accessing some of the low dwellings, the Ringfort stairways and all steps.”

Dolmen at the Heritage Park
Viking graffiti (a recreation)
Viking long boat

The funniest part of our trip happened on the bus back, between Waterford and Dungarvan. A group of four teenage boys boarded, possibly at the Waterford Tech stop, possibly the one after. They sat in the back and were fairly loud. But shortly before disembarking at Crotty’s Pub stop outside Dungarvan to meet their girlfriends, they decided that a contest over who could say the word “penis” the loudest was going to be the most important thing ever. An utterly hilarious 5 minutes that I may never forget.

Claire and I agreed that we were glad not to have visited Wexford prior to our choice of settling in Youghal, because it would have been a tempting alternative. But living so far away from the bigger city of Cork, not to mention the likelihood of not having an ocean view, would have been second best. But we’ll definitely be back. But not to the Crown Quarter.

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Buses Ireland Kinsale Traveling

Kinsale

We took the bus down to Kinsale the other day. It’s a picturesque port town near the mouth of the River Bandon, accessible via a 45 minute bus ride from downtown Cork. It probably caters a little more to the tourist trade than either Cobh or Midleton, despite not having a major specific draw like the distillery or the Heritage Center. Even so, enough of the restaurants and coffee shops were open, to make a full day of it. And it turned out to be a pretty nice day for taking pictures, so I did a lot of that.

We started with coffee and pastries at The Poet’s Corner bookshop and cafe. And, seriously, their scones were the best I’ve had on this visit. And I’ve had more than my share the past 5 weeks.

I’m going to divide the pictures up into waterfront, and town, and mostly post them without comment.

Lobster boat
Kinsale harbor from The Ramparts

We had fantastic skies most of the day.

Like most Irish towns, Kinsale has old churches and castles, not to mention some old pubs. Not all of them were opened on our visit, though.

St. Multose, Church of Ireland
Some people think that’s the best kind
Your basic 330 year old pub, sadly, not open for business this early in the day

Houses and house names in Kinsale seemed to me to exhibit more of a sense of humor than some of the others I’ve seen.

I understand you need a special invitation to spend the night here
Nobody knows what goes on behind this one

And just an amazing little street that we happened to turn up on our walk.

I’m hoping we’ll get another opportunity to go back and spend some more time in Kinsale before the month is out.

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Buses Crosshaven Ireland

Crosshaven

Days slip past easily in Cork. We’re exploring something new almost daily, and, when we’re not, we’re recovering from our explorations. Sunday, mostly on the recommendation of some folks we’ve met here, we took the bus down to Crosshaven. Tuesday we put on our tourist hats and took a bus around the ring of Kerry. Today’s been a successful day of errands, including repairing a camera lens, printing out some travel documents, tracking down hard to find vitamins, and topping up our mobile plan.

Here’s a little bit from our Sunday trip. Crosshaven was our longest ride on Bus Eirann so far, about 45 minutes from town. We passed the first 1960s syle car based suburb of the trip, outside of Carrigaline. As a friend back home pointed out, it’s still got narrow lanes, bike lanes, and sidewalks, but it’s also not a convenient bus ride or walk to shopping. As a result, the roads get pretty congested, especially during rush hours. Old town Carrigaline, on the other hand, was charming, but congested. Of course, i made the expected joke about catching the 220 bus on our next trip. Whatever it takes.

But, you go to Crosshaven for the harbor views, and they are worth the trip.

I assume the outdoor section of the arcade/amusement park is operational in season, but there’s something about on in the off-season that fascinates me. Occasionally, we visit the Jefferson Pools, in Bath County, Virginia. Across the road, is the Warm Springs Inn. The Inn was run, and may still be, it’s been a few years since we’ve been there as the Pools have been closed for renovations for a while, by a couple who have traveled with various carnivals. They kept some rides and stuff behind the inn, and I loved walking around back there.

We climbed to the top of the hill behind the town, where Camden Fort Meagher sits adjacent to the GAA fields. It was closed for the season as well. We’d been told that the far side of the peninsula, Church Bay, was the really pretty part. Sadly, we weren’t up to the extra mile or so of trekking, as it would have meant a long hike back up the hill. Maybe next time.

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Cork City Ireland St. Luke Victorian Quarter

Harbors, Trains, St. Luke’s Cross, & an Observation

Yesterday was blustery, and rainy in patches. We decided to explore the east side of town across the river, past the first (last) bridge where the big ships are still able to dock.

I believe the buildings on the right are part of the bonded warehouses.

There’s a fair bit of new construction in the area, hundreds of thousands of square feet of “a new kind of work space for a new kind of work,” or some such nonsense. I suppose it will be interesting to see how that turns out in 4 years or so.

Continuing a few blocks east, we found ourselves at the train station. We plan on taking the train to Cobh and Midleton over the next few weeks, so we spent some time there.

Got into a long talk with one of the senior attendants at the station, a man roughly my age. I guess he was looking for a break, without seeming to be taking one. He showed us some of the less obvious historical features of the station. He also had some interesting ideas about the US Civil War, about which i’ll ruminate later in this post.

After the station, we decided to walk up the hill to the neighborhood called St. Luke’s Cross. The steeple of the namesake church is the most prominent landmark of the neighborhood, though it can’t be seen from our apartment. We made our way there. The neighborhood gets posher the higher up the hill you get.

Up the hill to the church.

And the church itself.

We kept popping in and out of rain squalls, so we ended up ducking into a coffee shop across the street called Rant. First time i’ve seen people i’d describe as old hippies in Ireland, and a little research helps to understand why.

We walked back into town along the Lower Glanmire Road, till it connected to Summer Hill, and then into the Victorian Quarter. It’s a bit of a high street along that stretch.

Afterwards, we ducked out of yet another squall and into the Crawford Art Gallery, the municipal museum in the heart of town. It’s located in the old Custom House, from when the docks extended further upriver. I was pleased to discover there are Pastafarians in Ireland.

But i had mentioned earlier a conversation in the train station. A couple of weeks back, on our way down to Cork from Athlone, we stopped in Cashel, to visit the Rock of Cashel, which isn’t really a rock. We ended up walking through a private “museum” of sorts. Basically, just a collection of random artifacts down the hill from the castle, organized into a semblance of a narrative of Irish history over the past couple of hundred years. The proprietor expressed some dissatisfaction with the stories from the States about Confederate statues being removed from the public square, because, you know, history. I was kinda caught out, not expecting to have these conversations here, so i basically disagreed with him, and changed the subject back to Irish history. But i made some mental notes about my response if i encountered that again.

And sure enough, the guy in the train station made almost exactly the same comment. Apparently, the rebel nature of the Confederacy appeals to some segment of the population here, who also consider themselves rebels and the children of rebels.

And it occurs to me that the great con of the Confederacy is claiming the mantle of rebellion for itself. If the Confederacy was about anything, it was about maintaining the status quo of the elites of the day in the face of the mounting anti-slavery rebellion. Slavery had been enshrined in the new country from its founding. The anti-slavery movement began immediately. It represented the change. The reactionaries were pro-slavery. John Brown represented the rebellion. Harriet Tubman represented the rebellion. Sojourner Truth represented the rebellion. In Star Wars terms, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee were the Emperor and Darth Vader.

And how they’ve managed to portray themselves, over 150 years after their deaths, as rebels to a people 4000 miles away remains one of life’s mysteries. But if we do settle here, i know what one of my tasks will be.

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