8/5/07 Day 7: Killarney to Galway

One year ago today, this is where I was:

After breakfast, we hit the road, not North towards Galway, as you might expect; but South. We had to make a stop first at Muckross House and Gardens.
Situated in the middle of Killarney National Park, Muckross House is a fairly popular tourist destination because of its renowned gardens full of exotic plants and trees. There are three traditionally-worked farms nearby that recreate what Irish life was like before modern convenience, but we didn’t go to any of them. Muckross House is a full two miles away from the main road, and there are horses and buggies for hire in the parking lot for those who don’t want to walk through the woods to get there. But since that’s why we went there in the first place, we elected to walk on the unpaved road.
Well, Seth did. I complained the entire way.
The first building we came to was the ruined Muckross Abbey. Not much is left now, only a square tower and a skeletal window overlooking a small graveyard. From there we began the long walk to the house.

The pedestrian path and the road the horses use are one and the same, and it soon became apparent that it wasn’t mud we were walking through. Lucky for us, the worst of it was in easily avoidable piles.There’s really not a lot to say about the path to Muckross House that these pictures can’t convey. The road wended its way through pastures and farmland into areas of forest so dense and humid and beautiful that, but for the road, we could have believed we were in something out of a fairy tale.

“Oh, I do so hope I see some fairies! It would make me ever so happy!” I clapped my hands eagerly.

“Fuck you,” Seth said.
“You’ll tell, me, Seth, if you see any, won’t you? Oh, say you will!”
Seth looked at me. “I think I see one now.”
Muckross House is a huge Victorian mansion with lots of chimneys and peaked gables, home to many a murder of ravens. Ravens had been dogging our steps during the entire trip, something a more superstitious person might consider an ill-omen. Whenever we saw one, I would lean in close to Seth and whisper, “Death follows ye, laddie! Death!” Each time I said it, Seth loved it more and more.
Approaching the house, Dad paused to take a picture, unwittingly stepping in front of a woman who was filming her family. And a large family it was. We had been walking behind them for most of the two mile trip to the house.

“Dad,” I said, grabbing his arm and pulling him out of her picture, “watch out. You’re in this woman’s way.”
Dad shuffled off to the side, which would have been fine had it ended right then. But apparently Dad felt a deep sense of shame and remorse for ruining the woman’s shot and felt he needed to say he was sorry. So he walked back into her shot, directly in front of her camera lens, and apologized. Twice.
Seth and I stared at him in disbelief.
“Dad, you just did it again!” Seth said.
“What he hell is wrong with you?” I asked.

The rest of our time at Muckross House was spent admiring the plants and worrying that Dad was going to drop dead. He was laughing so hard about blundering into that woman’s shot (and then doing it again) that he literally had to stop every few feet to catch his breath.
Eventually we left and drove through County Kerry, picking up the N21in Abbeyfeale, driving through Newcastle and Rathkeale before taking a break in Limerick. By this time it was well into late afternoon, so we stopped for a drink. There isn’t much to say about Limerick. We didn’t stay there long, and we didn’t leave the N21. This was the only picture I took in Limerick, but it says volumes.

After a quick pint or two, we hit the road again, leaving by the N18 up to Galway. The trip was fairly uneventful; by this time we were all looking forward to getting off the road and settled in. We had no idea where our hotel was located in Galway. Our reservation said only “Taylor’s Hill”. No number. Our plan was much the same as in Cork—follow the main road and hope it led to the hotel. Only this time it didn’t.
It did, however, drive by the famous and beautiful Galway Bay, subject of many a song and poem. We didn’t have time to stop today, but we would before the trip was over. After asking directions from a local, we managed to find our hotel. It was a nice place with the best parking arrangements we had since Dublin. There was a wedding reception going on in the lobby during our arrival, and between that and the Galway Races, the hotel was solidly booked. We checked in and were given rooms in an older part of the hotel. Dad was bunking with me this time around, Seth had his own room. It was early evening and Seth and I were itching to see Galway, but Dad decided to stay in and get some sleep as we had another big day tomorrow. We left him at the hotel and drove to the center of town.
It was the last day of The Galway Races and the end of Bank Holiday weekend. Galway was one big party, complete with street performers and musicians aplenty. I wish I had pictures of Galway that night, but I left my camera back at the hotel, and Seth’s pictures mysteriously vanished. (Dad has some from tomorrow, they'll be up on the next post.)
The first thing we did was find a pub. Every pub in Galway was packed to the gills with people having a great time. We chose one at random, mainly because we had the good fortune to see two people get up from their stools at the same moment. We appropriated them for ourselves and ordered some pints. I took the opportunity to try Carlsberg beer, which was on draught at nearly every pub we’d been to so far. My opinion is that it sucks.
The festive atmosphere looked promising. The barman gave us our pints. Before he could leave, I spoke up. “Hi there. Do you know where we could go to hear some decent uilleann pipers?”
He gave us the names of two pubs a few blocks down the street. “Those two would be your best bet,” he said. “Try later tonight.”
He turned back to his taps. I took a sip of Carlsberg. Then he was back.
“Although, to tell you the truth,” he said, “I’ve never heard of a decent uilleann piper.”
I accepted this remark with good grace. Seth laughed his ass off.
After my shitty Carlsberg, I was in the mood to walk. Seth and I decided to take a look at some of the street life. A woman dressed as a fairy stood stock-still until I threw a €2 coin into a bowl at her feet, then she looked at me slyly, reached into her long sleeve, and withdrew a gold seashell. She pressed it into my hand and blew me a kiss, then became once again immobile. I looked at the shell in my hand. It was an ordinary scallop shell spray-painted gold. “Money well-spent,” Seth said.
“Maybe it’s magical,” I shrugged. “You don’t know for sure.”
“I know that chick probably spray-painted a hundred of those shells and she’s probably getting rich off morons like you.”
A few dozen yards down the block, another guy had a variation of the same act. He and the chair he occupied were covered in gray texture paint, resembling a statue. A few stuffed birds were perched on his chair. He didn’t move unless someone gave him some money. Then, depending on the amount, he would pull some levers and make the birds flap, or, for the truly generous, he would pull out some plates and spin them on a stick for a few minutes before resuming his statue act.
Not surprisingly, Seth and I wound up at another bar, Freeney’s, chosen by me for the wide variety of gin bottles in the window. Up until now, the only gin I had sampled in Ireland was called Cork Dry Gin, distilled in Cork and ubiquitous in every drinking establishment we’d been to thus far, hanging behind the bar in shot dispensers. It was my considered opinion that Cork Dry Gin was nothing special. In Freeney’s I sampled Crimson Gin (also made by Cork) and Geneva Gin, chosen for its weird bottle shape. Some bar hag three sheets to the wind looked at me like I was a disgusting drunk for drinking gin straight up. Although gin isn’t his drink (he hates it, in fact), I made Seth try some too. We thought the Crimson tasted like cinnamon mouthwash and the Geneva tasted like it was distilled with honeydew melons. Not exactly high praise for either. We stayed in Freeney’s long enough to catch a respectable buzz and then it was out into the crowds again.
Seth started talking about where to go next, but just then I heard a sound above the din of the crowd. I grabbed Seth by the arm and yanked him to a stop.
“Dude, what the hell is your problem?” he asked.
“Shut up!” I yelled. I had to be sure. I strained my ears, and there it was.
It was a piper.
I dragged Seth through the crowd until I found her. At first glance I could tell she was drunker than I had ever been in my life. The pharmacy wall she leaned against was the only thing keeping her semi-upright. She played a half-set of uilleann pipes, something even experienced pipers would prefer to do sitting down, as they are one of the most cumbersome and awkward instruments to hold, never mind play. I listened to her for a while. She wasn’t the best piper I’ve ever heard, but neither was she the worst. When she finished her tune I dropped a few euros in her case and walked over.
“You know,” I said, “you just made my night.”
She grinned at me. “Not a fussy one, are you?”

“I’ve been looking for pipers all over Ireland since I got here a week ago.”
“We’re a secret society,” she said. “Don’t tell anyone you saw me.”
“Do you mind if I take your picture?”
She considered this. “I’ll tell you what,” she said, “If you can name the next tune I play, I’ll let you take my picture.”
“Ok,” I said. “Get ready to say ‘cheese’.”

”I’ll get the camera ready,” Seth said, brimming with confidence in his older brother.
She started playing and I listened closely. Traditional Irish music is the most improvisational form of music next to American Jazz. Often the same tune may be known by different names depending on where or how it is played, and never is a tune played the same way twice. As I stood in that street in Galway listening to my new piper friend play, I felt it was a familiar tune that I should know. Nonetheless, I began to doubt that I could give the correct answer when I was asked to name it.
She finished, holding the last note for effect. Then she looked at me. “Well?”
I was unsure. I knew I should know it, but I couldn’t say definitely what it was. Perhaps I didn’t know as much about Irish music as I thought. Perhaps she was so drunk she butchered the reel. Perhaps it was a trick.
Seth was looking at me, waiting. She smiled.
“Was that How Much is that Doggie in the Window?”
“Correct!” she said. Not really an Irish tune, but whatever. I got my picture.
We talked to the drunken piper-lady and her friend for a while. She and I talked about pipers and piping, while her friend and Seth talked about the uncertain origin of our family name. Before long it was time to go back to the hotel. I asked the piper if she’d be there tomorrow night, as I wanted Dad to meet her, but she just shrugged and said she never planned that far ahead.
Tomorrow we had a big day indeed: The Cliffs of Moher.