This was an absolutely brilliant trip. I’d always wanted to get to Skellig Michael as it’s the last of the UNESCO sites in Ireland that I’d not seen. It’s a very long way from Dublin to Skellig Michael. At least in Irish Terms anyway. It’s about 6 hours drive down to where you catch the boat, and another hour on the boat from there. I’m not sure where a further point from Dublin might be.
On the way down we were lucky to be able to go via Birr (Co. Offaly). A good friend from college (Angelica) is living there – and has just had a baby (Eamonn)…
It really was a very quick drop in to say “hi and bye” as her sister was arriving for a picnic.
After dropping in to see Ang, we were lucky enough to have a cuppa coffee with my Dads second cousin who was Alison (Cook-Hurle (grandfather was Davey)) – and married the Earl of Rosse. They live in Birr Castle. I vividly remember going there for a visit as a 6 year old. There were secret passageways everywhere, and a dungeon, and and and.. everything. It was amazing.
This time we had great chats about Skellig Michael (Birr is hoping to become a UNESCO site because of the Leviathan of Parsonstown which was a 1.8m diameter reflecting telescope built in 1845 by the Third Earl of Rosse (a former President of the Royal Society), and the biggest telescope in the world until 1917. It was great to drop in – and now I must get round to reading “The Gallant Little Campeador” which is a WW2 story about some older gentlemen (specifically our mutual great (great?!) Uncle Charlie) who wanted to help with his yacht in the war. The Admiralty told them to go away as they were too old – and they wrote to Churchill, who then wrote the admiralty a note saying “Age will be served” – and off they went.
I seem to be wandering. Here is a picture of Birr Castle – with the Earl and Countess of Rosse.
Next it was on down to Portmagee (Kerry) which is where the boat to Skellig Michael goes from.
It’s a beautiful part of Ireland and well worth the trip if you’re in the country for a while. The people are far more relaxed (dare I say it, Kiwilike?). I’d arranged a house to stay in (€150 for the house for two nights! – bargain!) through the boat people. Our landlady gave us these instructions:
Turn left at Fishermans Pub (all Irish directions must include a pub)
At the school bear right
5th house past “the bend”
Almost found it perfectly, but missed “the bend”. Anyways, Mary came out and leaned in through the window and shook each of us by the hand saying “welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome”. It was really warming.
Chris and Matt (brothers) drove down from Dublin that evening and it meant a lot to have them down there for the trip out to the Island. The only thing that was missing (besides my sister) was the whiskey bottle. But then that might have been a fortuitous omission for the boat ride the next day…
We were lucky to be invited to the wedding of my primary school friend (Keith Lambkin)’s wedding. He was marrying another friend (Aisling) whom I met in secondary school – and Keith properly met in college.
It was a really lovely wedding – and great to catch up with a few other friends (Ben, Barry) at the shindig. Keith is now the ‘Chief Scientist’ down in Valentia where he runs the MET Service’s meteorological weather observatory. Sounds really interesting – and he’s definitely loving it down there. Aisling is going to move down there now that they’re married – and hopefully she’ll be able to find interesting work. Still, it’s a beautiful part of the world.
At Irish weddings (I wasn’t aware of this to date), there are bets taken on how long the speeches will go on for… I think it was 37 minutes all up? – I’ve put the audio to most of the best man’s speech (Ian, Keiths brother) up here (click to play). And we were put at ‘Abel Tasman’ table too – quite appropriate I thought :)
It was great to be there – I’m sure they’ll have a lovely happy life together.
The next morning (Weds) Maaike and I headed back to Dublin – via Mount Usher gardens (just a small gardens in Wicklow – but lovely in spring). Maaike is hiding in one of these pictures. Postcard to the first correct poster (not a hard one I think).
Well.. it’s 36 hours door to door – and knackered upon arrival. It’s been hectic and fun being back in Ireland – but certainly haven’t had the easiest time of getting over the jetlag. It’s hard when you’re up chatting until midnight or later most nights.
Just going to put a slideshow up – there’s not enough hours in the day to write everything up properly… but .. highlights / observations so far:
LA from overhead is a monstrous amount of concrete
American Department of Homeland security (theatre) has become even more intrusive
Easter egg hunts are still fun
These pictures are from Easter Sunday lunch – and a trip down to Glendalough. There’s still snow on the ground (which is not very like Ireland!).
One thing I will say – we went to Easter Vigil mass (9pm on the Sat) and the priest gave an amazingly heartfelt and personal sermon. The entire place erupted into spontaneous applause when he finished. Basically he said that everyone had been entirely let down by the bureaucracy of the church – and that he and others were extremely disappointed.
We’ll see, as in the words of our B&B Landlady (for Keiths Wedding.. another story to come) Ireland has had a crisis in the government, the church, the economy and the really awful winter. Still, perhaps some reinventing of the “way things are” will come out of it all.
So Heather (Mike Carrigans Fiancée) has just graduated after a long and involved degree (humanities) mostly by correspondence. Mike organised a surprise dinner and beach party for her (and the weather too). Heather looked deservedly chuffed :)
Dinner was yum – and the beer was fantastic. I’d forgotten quite how good The Brew Moon is. Then afterwards we camped at the beach a couple of kilometres south of the pub.
I slept in my van – quite soundly until at 01:30 some lousy drunks (Mike and Mikkel) started shaking the van. Took me a little while to get back to sleep after that – and was then woken at 7am ish by some horsey people arriving to ride on the beach. Peering out through my curtains I saw that there was a decent pink glow in the East – so decided to go take some pictures.
For the last few years there has been a really excellent rogaine series in the Spring and Autumn months (roughly November and March).
Rogaining is like orienteering, except there’s no fixed route. You have a map, maybe 40 to 50 controls to choose from – and away you go. This latest one was in Sumner – which is a beautiful suburb of Christchurch – it’s very much its own little community.
The weather started out nice and warm, and then gradually got colder and colder – until we saw this rather ominous front moving in. Katrina (my scrabble nemesis – she thrashes me practically every Tuesday) is pictured here.
About – oh, 5 minutes after this picture was taken it got very cold, started raining, and then about a minute later started hailstoning. We were all in shorts – and those hailstones sting. Lots. So we sheltered in.. a shelter. With a tin roof and metal beams for supports. Always fun when the lightning had about.. oh, 1/2 second, if that, delay between flash and boom.
So we sheltered, our Nemeses (pictured at the start of the evening planning their route – Amy and Michelle who have beaten us in every rogaine to date (and probably this one too)), sheltered for about 4 minutes – and then headed out into the hailstones. That’s dedication.
After a while though it did clear up, and we had some beautiful, beautiful views. An utterly stunning double rainbow. Bright and clear. Just stunning. Also a very nice sunset to boot.
As I only had my little camera – and it was hailing, and my wee fingers were cold – it wasn’t really possible to get a decent panorama or wide-angle shot. However, I did take a very short video – so you can hopefully see just how stunning it was.
So, that’s it for us – will be packing next Wednesday for the 7 weeks of holiday. It really is a tough, tough life sometimes.
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