The Angry Piper Lives.

Sort of.

It's been over 3 years since my last post and I'm betting no one is still showing up here. This blog may continue in a new form, over at angrypiper.com. Someday.

However, in the meantime, I have a small blog devoted to wargaming and other geekdom, if anyone's interested. Precious little anger, I'm afraid; but then again I've mellowed in recent years.

Here's the gaming blog.

8/7/07 Day 9: Glin Castle and Home

In the morning, we decided to take a last look around Galway before leaving. The party weekend was not kind to the city’s streets, and everywhere we looked we saw empty kegs and trash. There weren’t many people out and about so early, early in this case being about nine o’clock in the morning. We walked towards Galway Center. Along the way we passed the bronze statue of Oscar Wilde and Edouard Wilde (no relation; Ed was, in fact, Estonian), the two writers seemingly deep in conversation since at least 1999, when the statue was constructed. (In real life, the two never met.)

Sitting between them was this young lady, playing some jigs and reels on her flute. We listened for a few minutes, and then Dad wandered over to her flute case and dropped a handful of Euro coins inside. He returned to find me and Seth staring at him.
“What?” he asked. “She’s good!”
“She better be,” I said, “because I think you just gave her about twenty-six dollars.”
“I’m surprised she’s even finishing the tune,” Seth said. “If I was her, I’d pack my shit up now and leave before you could change your mind.”
(In the time since we were there, the statue developed a crack in the middle and needed to be fixed. I’m certain it had nothing to do with this woman sitting on it.)

In Galway Center, we hung out at the Galway Hooker Monument, a rust-colored statue/fountain that resembles a Galway Hooker, which, contrary to what you might assume based on its name, is a type of sailboat. (We had no idea what it was, actually; it just looked picture-worthy.) On our way out of town we stopped for about an hour or so at Galway Bay, where we looked out at the water and wished we could stay for one more day.

Instead we left Galway and took the N18 back through County Clare; bound, so Dad thought, for Shannon. We were supposed to stay our last night there and fly out of Shannon airport the next day. What Dad didn’t know (surprise!) is that Seth and I planned our best accommodations for our last night in Ireland. Our destination wasn’t Shannon; it was Glin Castle, about an hour’s drive east (then west) of the airport. We broke the news to Dad over lunch in Limerick (we had to drive through Shannon to get back there), but didn’t tell him where we were going.
Located between the towns of Foynes and Tarbert on the banks of the River Shannon, Glin village is so small, you would think something as large as a castle would be easy to spot. After several trips back and forth between Foynes and Tarbert without so much as a sign pointing the way, we began to suspect Glin Castle didn’t really exist. Dad wasn’t much help, berating us from the back seat.
“You losers got lost, didn’t you? You both have no idea where the hell we are.”
“Sure we do,” I said.
“Yeah,” Seth said. “We’re in Foynes. Or maybe Tarbert.” Seth looked at me. “Where the hell are we?”
“Seems to me we’ve been wherever here is about three times already,” Dad said. “Wake me up when we get wherever we’re supposed to be.”
Eventually, we got directions to the castle at a restaurant in Tarbert. We had driven past it about four times. At last we took the long private drive through the woods up to the castle, passing a tractor along the way.
Glin Castle has been owned by the FitzGerald family, the hereditary Knights of Glin, for over 700 years. The current Knight of Glin is Desmond FitzGerald, an obscenely wealthy guy who is the president of the Georgian Society and who used to work for Christie’s as an antiquities buyer when he wasn’t hanging out on his five-hundred woodland acre estate. He has no male children and he’s in his seventies and married, so it’s likely he’ll be the last Knight of Glin.
The castle has an interesting history. It’s not the original castle; that was destroyed in a battle with Elizabeth’s forces in 1600. The new castle is a Georgian mansion constructed sometime in the eighteenth century and slowly completed over the course of the next two hundred-plus years. In the 1920’s shortly after the Irish War of Independence, the IRA paid the (then) Knight a visit and told him his lands were forfeit, as no one who owed their title to the English Crown could keep their lands. The Knight gave them a document in Latin written by the Duke of Normandy that indicated his title was not granted by the English Monarchy, so the IRA left the Knight alone and let him keep his lands and title, which he holds to this day.
Two servants awaited us in front of the castle. Dad drew the first logical conclusion that entered his mind when faced with a sprawling manor house at the end of a long, private drive, complete with an immaculately-groomed lawn and gardens and a smiling, non-threatening staff. “What the hell is this place, a mental hospital?”

We were greeted by the two servants. The first was an attractive girl of Czech descent, who called herself Michele. The second was a German whose name—I shit you not—was Fritz, although Dad, for reasons known only to him, decided to call him Raoul for the entire time we were guests of the Knight. (This did little to endear him to Fritz.)
Although there were undoubtedly many unseen servants prowling around, these two were the only ones we would see during our stay. (We didn’t actually see the Knight, of course.)
Fritz grabbed our bags while Michele led us inside. She confirmed our reservation and gave us the quick rundown of the castle services. Around this time, Seth and I noticed Dad had disappeared. We called out and looked around, but couldn’t find him.
“Where the hell is Dad?” Seth asked.
I eyed a suit of armor with suspicion. “Do you have any secret passages or trapdoors he could have fallen into?” I asked Michele.
The old man wandered back into the main hall just in time to get his room key. He had been taking a look around.
“Holy shit,” he said.
Fritz led us upstairs and showed us around our suites. Seth and I bunked together and gave Dad his own room, which looked out on the castle’s “back yard”.

We took some time to rest up and explore the castle and the grounds. I could describe everything, but why bother? Here’s some pictures.

As stated previously, the Knight is an antiques dealer, and the rooms he lets his guests hang out in are full of lots of stuff. While in general it’s a bit too cluttered for my refined taste, he castle was still damn cool. We were assured that if we needed anything at all, we should simply ask and the staff would do their best to accommodate us.
Seth, of course, wanted a Guinness. He had to settle for a can of Murphy’s instead. It also cost him €10. I wanted a martini, and Glin Castle actually looked promising in this respect, but when Michele told me it would cost me €16, I said no thanks.

It was fast approaching dinner time and we hadn’t eaten for hours. Breakfast was included with our stay, but dinner was not; in other words if we wanted to eat the Knight’s food, we had to pay for it. Everything at the castle is prepared with the herbs and vegetables grown in an enormous walled garden outside. We had just wandered down the garden paths, dodging bees the size of golf balls, for the past hour or so. Everything out there looked amazing. But then we caught a glimpse of what the Knight charges for dinner, and we decided we’d eat in town.
Unfortunately, there’s no place to eat in Glin. From what we could tell, Glin village contains about three streets, two churches, a couple of bars and a castle. While beautiful, Glin was a pretty boring town. I felt sorry for a pair of teenage girls we ran into. They practically assaulted Seth trying to bum a smoke. Seth, being a responsible adult, didn’t give them any cigarettes. (Of course, he was almost out, too, and American cigarettes are even more expensive in Ireland, so they were shit out of luck any way you look at it.) We drove back to where we asked directions in Tarbert and ate there. Then we decided to visit the pub in Glin and get royally shitfaced on our last night in Ireland.
Ireland’s Blue Book, which is a guide to historic Irish houses and castles I picked up at Glin Castle, states that Glin village “boasts the most traditional pub in Ireland.” I do not believe any of us found the pub in Glin to be any more “traditional” than most of the other pubs we patronized. Aside from the bartenders and one local fellow, the three of us were the only patrons of the pub that night. I chatted with one of the bartenders and casually mentioned we were guests of the Knight. Seeing how Glin Castle is the only place to stay in Glin, this didn’t come as a surprise to him, nor was he impressed. According to him, “the Knight has a bit too much of an English accent for my tastes to be considered Irish nobility.”
Over the next couple of hours, I got wrecked on pear cider and Bushmills. Seth drank lots of Guinness. Dad had a gin and tonic and nursed it all night, and at some point we all had to dodge an enormous mastiff hound on the way to the bathroom. (He—for there was no mistaking it was a he, trust me on this—was friendly. Thank Christ.)
Back at the castle, Dad and I went straight to bed while Seth decided to stay up and drink more of the Knight’s private stock of canned Murphy’s. We all met up for breakfast downstairs in the morning.
We were all so sick of the standard Irish breakfast buffet food by this point that we couldn’t even think about eating it, but there was no standard buffet fare to be found. Like dinner, breakfast is cooked to order. In other words, tell them what you want and they’ll make it for you from all the freshest ingredients available. (Want ham and eggs? The pig was probably killed yesterday and the eggs game from the chickens outside.) Despite this, none of us took advantage of the no-doubt excellent food. We just couldn’t eat anymore.
I ate a few bites of smoked salmon that tasted like a cat’s breath (ok, so not everything was excellent). Then I switched to toast and coffee. Dad and Seth did pretty much the same. Fritz, a.k.a. Raoul, brought our bags and we bid farewell to Glin Castle.
The ride between the castle and the airport seemed a lot shorter than it was the day before, but that’s probably because we didn’t want to leave. We checked our luggage and did some last minute shopping for Mom. Then we had one last Guinness at the airport bar before flying home.

The flight back seemed a lot shorter, too.

8/6/07 Day 8: The Cliffs of Moher and The Burren

I was up early. I decided to read a little while I waited for Dad to regain consciousness. Seth was across the hall in a room all by himself, so I didn’t know if he was awake or not, and quite frankly I’d seen a lot of Seth lately, so I wasn’t in much of a hurry to find out. After about ten minutes or so I finished my book and stared at Dad. The old man was still asleep.
Throughout my childhood and into my teenage years, my father liked to amuse himself with a game he invented called “Fling the Pig.” The “pig”, dear readers, was me. The game, such as it was, had very simple rules. In order to play, the pig needed to be in a sound sleep, much like the one my father was in now. Then, without warning, Dad would burst into my bedroom, making as much noise as possible, often bellowing “It’s time… to FLING! THE! PIG!!!” Of course, the pig would instantly awaken, startled and confused, only to blink bleary-eyed as Dad proceeded to do a little shuffling dance back and forth, slowly making his way towards the bed. (Think Michael Madsen in Reservoir Dogs, just before he slices off the cop’s ear with a straight razor. That kind of dance.) When he at last got to the bed, he would seize the pig by an arm or an ankle—whatever he could grab that was outside the covers—and drag the pig out of bed, depositing him unceremoniously on the floor. If none of the pig’s limbs were outside the covers, Dad would simply rip the covers off first.
For the pig, you might imagine returning to sleep after such maltreatment was impossible. And you would be correct.
And so it was with malicious intent that I eyed my snoring father, many years later and thousands of miles away from home. Stealthily I crept out of my own bed and began to approach Dad. I had to stop twice to laugh silently. And then, I stood over him and reached for a protruding ankle.
There was a knock at the door. Dad’s eyes opened and he looked up at me. He blinked a few times. “You gonna answer that?” he said.
He has no idea how close he came to being the pig for once. But that’s ok. One day my Dad will be old and frail and will likely sleep a lot.
It was Seth, of course. “You losers awake or what? We have a long trip. I’ve already been outside to smoke a butt.”

After breakfast—the usual buffet fare that we were completely sick of by now—we hit the road, taking the N6 South to the N67 through County Clare, bound for one of Ireland’s most famous scenic locales, the Cliffs of Moher (pronounced "More", not "Mohair", as Seth would say). Less than an hour on the road, we pulled over in Kinvarra when we saw Dunguare (pronounced Dungory) Castle just sitting by the roadside, as castles in Ireland are wont to do. We took a quick look around the outside, snapped some pictures and visited the gift shop upstairs. We could have taken a tour of the castle for an extra €10 or so, but the castle isn’t that big and we found the price a bit steep. Instead we decided to get back on the road, driving along the coast of Galway Bay through Ballyvaughn.

In Lisdoonvarna, we made a pit-stop at The Burren Smokehouse. I went in to use the facilities while Dad and Seth waited in the car. Inside I found all manner of smoked goods: meats, cheeses and fish. I thought about how cool it would be to buy a bunch of food and a bottle of wine or ale, drive a little farther around The Burren, and pull over someplace breathtaking for lunch. Then I remembered I’d have Seth and Dad with me, neither of whom seemed to me to be the type to enjoy smoked anything, which meant we’d be stopping at a pub for lunch. Undaunted, I bought a package of smoked mackerel.
I must have taken longer than I was supposed to, because after a while my brother came looking for me. “Dude, let’s go,” he said. “How long does it take to take a piss?” I looked apologetically at the proprietor and followed my brother out to the car.
“Want to see what I bought?” I asked, waving the bag in front of Seth.
“No.”
“Well, too bad. Look.” I showed him the mackerel. He gave me the now-familiar look that said I was the stupidest man on earth.
“What the hell are you going to do with that?” he said.
“Eat it,” I replied. “I was going to buy some smoked salmon. I tried some in there. It was awesome.”
Seth shook his head, clearly disgusted.
“I decided on the mackerel though. It was cheaper than the salmon.”
“Great,” he said.
“They have wild salmon in there. Not just the farm-raised salmon. Supposedly the wild salmon tastes much better.”
Seth stared straight ahead, willing me to shut up.
“I think I had wild salmon in there, because it was great. It’s way more expensive than farmed salmon, though. And the mackerel was cheaper than both of them.”
The sound of Seth’s clenched teeth was audible.
“I like mackerel, too,” I said.
“Who fucking cares?!!” Seth exploded.
About half an hour more in the car and we arrived at The Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs are 5 miles of stunning coastline: 200 meters high, covered with wildflowers, and understandably packed with tourists. They are a protected wildlife reserve and home to the largest mainland seabird nesting colonies in Ireland. Puffins, peregrine falcons and, of course, seagulls abound; and the Cliffs are bordered by private farms to the north and south, where we saw sheep and wild goats grazing. A walkway complete with viewing platforms runs south to north from Hag’s Head Path to O’Brien’s Tower. The cliffs are constantly eroding, and every dozen feet or so are signs warning you to stay away from the edge.
We heeded the warnings and took a ton of pictures, including what we all agreed was the best picture ever taken of the three of us. While I’m not showing you that one, here are a few pictures of the Cliffs.
We spent a couple of hours at the Cliffs, just staring. Eventually, we made it back to the car and began our drive back to Galway, through The Burren National Park. The Burren is a hilly expanse of rocky, grey limestone, dotted here and there by ancient ruined tombs and dolmens. Its bleakness is offset by beautiful wildflowers that grow in the cracks and fissures of the rock, and plants that wouldn’t normally grow anywhere near each other thrive side by side in this unique environment. We got out of the car and wandered around for about an hour, each of us taking some time to be alone and just absorb what we saw. It was rough going; Seth and I were convinced Dad was going to break an ankle or a hip (he’s old), but we all avoided any mishap. Nonetheless, I was happy for the heavy walking shoes I bought in preparation for the trip.
By the time we were done we were pretty hungry, so we stopped in Ballyvaughn for lunch at Logue’s Lodge. I had chicken stuffed with salmon and bleu cheese. Not exactly Irish fare, but it was good anyway.

Back in Galway, Dad decided to join Seth and I in seeing the town. We took him to all the places we went the night before, including the best pub in the world, Freeney’s. Dad wasn’t as impressed as we were. (I have no idea who this dude in the picture is.) We had dinner at a family restaurant that made some terrific stew (not as good as Madigan’s, but I wasn’t kidding when I said Madigan's was the best stew I’ve ever had in my life.)

Dad got to see (and hear) some street drummers, but many of the bizarre performers of the night before weren’t around, including my new piper friend, who was hopefully still sleeping it off. Sleep sounded like a good idea. Tomorrow, we would be leaving Galway for Shannon, where we would spend our last night in Ireland.
Or so Dad thought.

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.

Happy Birthday, Dad

My father, One Filthy Mick, has reached the venerable old age of 79 today.

Happy Birthday, Pops.

Promise I'll finish the Ireland thing soon.

Maybe.

Love ya, you old sonovagun.

8/4/07 Day 6: The Ring of Kerry

After breakfast, we returned to my room to decide what we were going to do. Dad lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. After a while, Seth came in.
“After you guys left I went to the hotel bar and I met this guy,” Seth said. “He bummed a cigarette off me and asked where I was from, so I told him we were all here from Boston. He told me all about places we should go on the Ring of Kerry and here in Killarney.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah. He said we should definitely check out Muckross House and Gardens. He says it’s beautiful landscaping. I’d like to go there.”
“Sure, we can do that” Dad said.
“You talked to this guy for a while, huh?” I asked.
“So what?”
“So it sounds like he wanted to give you a tour.”
“Whatever.”
“A tour of his pants.”
Seth glared at me. I thought Dad was going to die laughing. “I really don’t give a shit if you go or not. I’ve got the car keys, asshole.”
We took a quick look at the map and decided to proceed counterclockwise around the Ring, starting in Killorglin and circling the Kerry peninsula. We figured it would take all day, and it did. Along the way we hit about fifteen towns, so I’ll just relay the highlights here.

Straight out of Killarney, we had a spectacular view of Lough Leane, Kerry’s largest lake. The first big town we hit was Killorglin, where we saw signs advertising the annual Puck festival, which either just happened or was just about to. Either way, we wouldn’t be around for it, which is too bad, because I since looked it up and it sounds kind of cool. Seems the Puck fair is presided over by a goat, and includes lots of dancing, drinking and general merrymaking over the course of a few days. I’m always down for some drinking and merrymaking, and Seth sure loves goats, so it really is too bad we missed it.

We drove the N70 through Glenbeigh and the surrounding small towns, pausing now and again to pull off the road and take pictures. Let me just get this out of the way: The Ring of Kerry was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been in my life. For every picture you see here, there were dozens of other pictures you’re not seeing because of bandwidth, or that could not be taken because there was no place to pull off the road. I dearly wished for a wide-angle lens, because even the best picture you see here is only about one-fifth of the view we were seeing when it was taken. It was, for all three of us, our favorite part of the entire trip. (Since we’ve returned, Dad has made it clear that upon his death, he wants to be cremated and scattered somewhere around the Ring. “I don’t think they’ll just let us into the country with human remains, no matter romantic the notion,” I said; to which Dad replied, “Well, that won’t really be my problem, now will it?”)

Driving along the N70, we saw lots of houses that were in various stages of completion. In fact, most were little more than foundations and/or a few skeletal beams put together far off the main road with no visible means of access. We were reminded of our Dublin bus driver, who told us that the average house in Ireland was around €490,000, or roughly $720,000 at the time of our trip (more like €700,000, or $1,036,000 in Dublin), and that many people owned their own homes “in close association with the bank of Ireland”. The reason for so many unfinished houses was simple: the owners didn’t have the money to complete them—yet. It’s a common practice in Ireland to build a home over the course of several years, piece by piece. When you have enough money to start the next step, you proceed; until then your partially-finished home sits there. It’s not like it’s going anywhere.

Somewhere between Lough Leane and Glenbeigh we pulled off the road at this scenic overlook above, and met this guy. Of course he was pandering to the tourists who stop there to take pictures, but that doesn’t make him any less cool.

Of course, Dad and I never let slip an opportunity to harass Seth about his driving, which, in all fairness, was spectacular. There are points on the Ring where the road is so narrow it was tough to keep our Ford Focus from driving onto the embankment (or off a cliff). When you consider the Ring of Kerry is second only to the Cliffs of Moher for scenic Irish tourist attractions, my brother’s driving was praiseworthy indeed. I know I wouldn’t want to try negotiating some of those narrow hairpin turns when an enormous tour bus coming the other way decided to play chicken, but that’s exactly what Seth did —too many times to count—all while driving on the left side of the road and the right side of the car.
Still, this was a typical exchange between the three of us after being awestruck by some amazingly beautiful scenery that Seth couldn’t pay attention to because he was trying not to get us all killed.
“Jesus, Dad, look at that,” I said.
“Wow,” Dad replied. “Holy shit. This is amazing. Look, Seth.”
“I can’t!”
“Oh, well, it’s too late now.”
“Yeah, but that was beautiful, wasn’t it?” I said.
“Sure was.”
“Would have been nice to take some pictures of that, I bet.”
“I didn’t have any place to pull off!” Seth yelled. “You see any place to pull off around here? Because if you see any place to pull off, let me know!”
“That’s OK, son. I’m sure well see some other beautiful scenery. Don’t worry, you’re doing fine.”
“Yeah, good job, bro," I said.
“Still, would have been nice…”
“Yeah…”

"Shut up!!!!" Seth yelled.
We had really good weather for our entire Ireland trip, but our Ring of Kerry day was one of the days it rained. Thankfully, the sun showed up every now and again, mainly when we were taking pictures, so it all worked out in the end.
What had been sporadic showers turned into a massive downpour somewhere near Cahersiveen. We passed a guy standing under an umbrella by a sign that read “Bikes 4 Rent.” “Look at that guy,” I said to Seth. “Who’s he going to rent a bike to in this weather, Aquaman?”
Seth said nothing.
“Actually, come to think of it, that’s kind of silly. Aquaman doesn’t ride a bike.”
Seth clenched his jaw, but remained silent.
“I mean, why would he need to? He swims everywhere. Besides, it’s not like riding a bike underwater is going to get you anywhere in a hurry. And—“
“Shut the fuck up!” Seth exploded.
Waterville was the next town southward on the N70. As you might infer from its name, Waterville is a beach town. There wasn’t a whole lot to see there aside from the rocky beach and a few shops and cafés. (There was, however, a disturbing and significant amount of dried blood on a wall outside one of the beachfront hotels, something that was quite the conversation piece for the next leg of the trip, although we were at a loss to explain it. By “significant amount”, think “arterial spray.”) We stayed in Waterville just long enough to take some pictures and find a bathroom, which we all three sorely needed, and then it was off southward again towards Derrynane, the small beach town that the shopgirl in Macroom had told us was a must-see.
One thing Ireland doesn’t lack is its share of revolutionary heroes, and Daniel O’Connell is high on that list. He was a staunch Catholic and an unwavering opponent of the Union. Dublin’s O’Connell St.—and the bridge upon it—bears his name, as well as his likeness: a huge statue right near the River Liffey, close to the bridge. O’Connell lived in Caherdaniel at Derrynane House, which is now open to the public and contains a museum and gardens.

We did not go there, but we did stop at The Blind Piper —a place with a name close to my heart and thus far the only "piper" I’d seen in Ireland—to stretch our legs and ask directions to Derrynane Beach.
We considered eating there, but decided against it when Seth reported a man in a passing car tried to sell crack to my Dad. We were a few miles down the road when I got the full story.
“So I’m having a cigarette, watching Dad here,” said Seth, “and this guy pulls up in a car and starts talking to him, and Dad all of a sudden jerks back and says, ‘Hell, no,’, and I’m like, what the hell is going on over there? And then the guy drives off. And I go ask Dad what’s wrong and he tells me the guy tried to sell him crack.”
Now, I am 100% certain that Ireland has its share of crack dealers, but the rural and scenic back roads of the Ring of Kerry hardly seem like a profitable place to set up shop if you’re looking to deal drugs. Dad was strangely silent.
“Are you sure that’s what he said?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Dad said. “I just heard crack and was like, No, thanks.”
“You sure he didn’t mean craic? It’s Gaelic. Means a good time, a party. You know, like when we’re at a pub like O’Neill’s, they’ll say the craic’s high. Or the craic’s about ninety.”
“Well, I guess that makes more sense. He asked me where I was from, I told him Boston and he said, good craic there, eh?”
Seth started laughing and did his best Dad impression. “Hell no! No wonder the guy drove off looking all puzzled and shit. He must have thought you were a jerk.”
“Sorry, I don’t speak Gaelic.”

We laughed all the way to Derrynane beach, where it started to rain again. I considered buying some crepes from a vendor in the parking lot, but she told me she wasn’t going to open for another half-hour or so, and we didn’t want to wait. Although the beach was lovely and offered a nice view of some ruins across the water, in the end it was a beach, and there were much more impressive things to see around the Ring.

Like Sneem.

Sneem is a small coast village of brightly painted houses like something out of a fairytale. I love the name: Sneem. My brother, on the other hand, would be happy if he never heard the name “Sneem” again, so often did I find any excuse to say it aloud. “Here we are in Sneem,” I would say, or “Wow, Sneem is really cool.” Or “Don’t you wish there were more towns like Sneem in America?” Or the simple, yet often-repeated “I love Sneem!”
Sneem is a funny-sounding place.
While in Sneem we had a late lunch in a small restaurant, where I discovered the Sneem interpretation on New England Clam Chowder is, in fact, nothing like the New England version at all. Behind the restaurant was a small overlook of the Kenmare River, a cool place to rest up for a while.

My big nose led me into a quaint bakery across the street with the intent of buying bread, but I was charmed by the different kinds of hams, sausages and cheese in the deli counter. (That large fellow in the blue, being charmed, is me.) In the end, I had the lady behind the counter slice me about 2 inches worth of pepper-cured salami. It was delicious, and I figured the three of us could snack on it as we continued our drive around the Ring of Kerry. Dad and Seth were less than enthusiastic about it, however, and in the end I ate it all myself. I guess it didn’t help that I referred to it as my “Sneem salami”; it certainly didn’t endear itself to Seth with a name like that.
When we got back to Killarney I suggested we go out to a very nice restaurant instead of finding another pub. Our first stop was Gaby’s, a local seafood restaurant renowned for its lobster, but we didn’t have a reservation and they weren’t able to seat us. Our backup plan, once again suggested by me, was a place known as The Cooperage, which was listed as a recommended gourmet eatery in our guide book. Here is a direct quote: “A relaxing haven away from all the tourist bustle of Killarney…this is a charming restaurant where [the chef] produces delights such as…wild pheasant cooked in Irish cream liqueur.” Sounds adventurous, and I love fine dining, so why not? It would be a nice change from pub food (not that any of us was sick of pub food).
Turns out the restaurant was a block away from our hotel, down a small side street. It would have been a short walk if we were at the hotel, but of course we were at Gaby’s, across town. When we left it began raining pretty hard, so by the time we arrived at The Cooperage, we were all three of us soaked. Inside, The Cooperage was all subdued lighting and murmured conversation, despite the fact that there was a table of at least a dozen thirtysomething women wearing pink cowboy hats right inside the door. The waitress gave us a look like we had just pissed all over the carpet and acted like seating us was going to be physically painful.
I didn’t see what happened next, but Seth was all too happy to tell me about it once we were seated in the farthest corner of the restaurant. For Christmas last year, I got my father a genuine Donegal Tweed driving cap. He scarcely took it off the entire time we were in Ireland. As stated previously, it was raining and we were quite wet. One inside, Dad removed the cap and proceeded to vigorously shake it out, snapping it in much the same way as you would open a garbage bag, heedlessly soaking the pink cowboy-hat crowd in the process. After Dad made his apologies, the waitress seated us as far away from the remaining customers as possible and hastily cleared the extra place-sitting away from our four-top—a move that convinced my father that she was afraid he was going to steal the silverware. While Seth and I thought Dad was overreacting a tad, we certainly didn’t feel very welcome.
The prices were pretty steep, but we expected that. Dad ordered some andouille sausage, Seth had chicken something-or-other, and I—well, I broke one of the cardinal rules of dining out. I ordered the monkfish medallions, on special.
Never order fish if it’s on special. Anthony Bourdain taught me that in his landmark book, Kitchen Confidential. However, that’s exactly what I did, in part because Seth used to fish for monkfish and was curious to see how it was prepared in Ireland.
Well, I can’t speak for all of Ireland, but The Cooperage did a piss-poor job of it. My dinner arrived: three pieces of roasted monkfish, roughly the size of a silver dollar, on three slightly-larger disks of eggplant, garnished with a dab of some kind of cream with something vaguely herb-like sticking out of it. I took one bite and was, shall we say, unimpressed. “How’s the sausage?” I asked Dad.
“Honestly? It smells like so much like urine, I haven’t been able to eat it yet.”
Seth took a bite of my monkfish. “Frozen,” was all he said.
For €29.00 (about $43.00), I expected more than three bites of frozen, half-assedly prepared fish. At least the olive tapenade was good, but boy, did we leave The Cooperage disappointed.
Back at the hotel bar, I got fully drunk for the first time on the trip. We listened to a hotel band and sat with an older couple from Cork who were up visiting Killarney for the week. The man found the three of us, especially my brother and I, quite amusing, and the woman thought that taking our father to Ireland was the sweetest thing anyone in the world has ever done. They were two of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and that’s not just because I was plastered. Dad has since confirmed it, and he was barely drinking anything at all. After a couple of hours, Dad and I left Seth in the hotel bar and went to bed.

Tomorrow we’d be leaving Killarney, on a long trip north to Galway.

Watch This Space

OK, assuming I have any readers left at all, this is a message to let you know I'm still alive.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, by the way.

The Ireland trip will continue soon. The Ring of Kerry is next, followed by a couple of days in Galway, and finally finishing up the trip at a special place that is known to a few of you, but that was a well-kept secret from Dad until we ended up there.

Sorry for the delay in writing, for those who care. I have no real excuse, but soon I will let you know what I've been doing in the meantime. That will wait until after the trip is finished.

Really, I just can't stand having Seth bitching at me for not finishing blogging about the trip. Normally I'd ignore him, but this time he's actually entitled to bitch.

I'm off to drink a bottle of Bushmills alone in the dark, listening to the Beatles' Let it Be on repeat.

Slainte.