The hostel we were supposed to stay at is full, as are the next two, but I finally find one with vacancies, this one run by a surly Australian who enthusiastically voices his displeasure at Germans (“Fucking no good Krauts. I hate ‘em all. No fucking Nazis are gonna stay in this place, that’s for damned sure.”) Surprisingly, I manage to slide by without harassment – apparently my last name isn’t a blatant enough sign for his keen Kraut detector. Maybe if I’d been eating a sausage and trying to add umlauts to everything, then he’d have figured it out... .
I ditch my bags and then head out for a night on the town in the touristy Temple Bar area of town. This is chock full of Irish pubs, and we settle on a little place called Fitzsimmon’s which kindly serves us ice cold Guinnesses all night and live Irish music to listen to (they even have the authentic Irish set dancers going at it – three chicks river dancing the night away. Quite fun.) After stopping at the Foggy Dew (is this the coolest name for a pub, or is it just me?) for some more beers, a little pissed and extremely tired, I cross the River Liffey again, get back to the hostel (“Fuckin’ krauts!”) and fall asleep.
We make a quick trip through Dublin, learning that the north side of the Liffey is known as the poor side (the side with Temple Bar) while the south side is the posh place, a fact the two sides are constantly fighting over. That’s about the extent of our Dublin education, and we fight the early morning traffic for a little bit more before we eventually get to our first stop -- Glendalough, a small town whose little lake and forest were made famous by St. Kevin.
Kevin was a rather pious man who decided to found a church for the town, but he was forever being pestered by the women, (sounds eerily like me...) so he decided to live in a cave to avoid their advances. One of the women, a persistent lassie named Kathryn, wouldn’t take no for an answer, though, and kept taking her rowboat out to visit Kev in the cave.
Well one time she went out there to see him and she interrupted a terrible dream he was having about the devil. Kevin woke up with a start, saw the silhouette of a person standing in the doorway and approaching him, and, thinking his dream was coming true, he freaked out and tackled it, knocking the form into the lake and drowning it. It wasn’t until the next day that Kev realized who he had offed – it wasn’t the devil at all, only a woman (and I know what you’re thinking – aren’t these one and the same?) He was so distraught at having killed someone, a person he was quite fond of, no less, that he lived out the rest of his days in the cave, a place where some say you can still hear his sobs of sorrow and guilt.
Before good old Kev went Howard Hughes, he managed to found the town’s first church, a wee thing called Reefert Church, which sits at the base of the lovely Poulanass waterfall. The town eventually burgeoned around this church, which is typical of cities in Europe – they either grew up around a castle or a church. (In Ireland, if they grow up around the former, their name usually begins with “dunn” as in Dunamase. If it’s the latter, they usually start out with “kill” as in Killarney. So how do you explain Glendalough? As always, there are exceptions to everything...)
We wander around for a bit, two of our members get lost while hiking on the hill, so we wait around for an hour for them, and then we head over to the graveyard down the road which houses Kevin’s cross. This is a big Celtic cross standing over some grave, and legend has it that if you can fit your arms around it and have your hands touch on the other side, then you’re destined to be married within the year. All of the girls on the trip failed (except for the seven foot tall she-beast who could probably go toe to toe with Tyson and come out on top), but two of the guys, myself included, passed the test. This means that in the coming months, I will stop being revolting to the female population and become utterly irresistable to them, I will fool one of their minions into liking me and spending time with me (preferably more time than it takes to say “Leave me alone” or “Jerk”) and then, for the coup de grace, I will trick her into thinking she can’t live without me and that she wants to spend the rest of her life with me. Right – and this is the year the Cubs will win the pennant...
Nobody having gone AWOL, we pile back on the bus and Aoife tells us a little bit more about Ireland -- there are 32 counties in four provinces in Ireland and it is an independent country from the UK – only the northern part is considered UK. (Oops. Maybe I’ll need my passport after all. Good thing I didn’t bring it...) After story time is over, we stop at the Dunamase castle, not much more than a pile of rubble, but a pretty pile nonetheless. This castle was originally owned by Princess Aoife (no wonder she wanted us to come here) and she was then married off to Lord Strongbow, the man who gave his name to the present day cider (apple-y beer, to us Yanks), when the Normans came over in 1066.
This was an arranged marriage, and this meant Strongbow would take control over all of Aoife’s land upon marriage, and this marked the first time that England controlled Ireland (since Strongbow was friends with Henry V, the King of England at the time, his inheritance of this Princess’ land was a big deal – it meant the two were almost working in cahoots.) It’s a pretty place, perched up on this little hill, and it’s surrounded by wonderfully flat farmland on all sides. You can see for miles when sitting in the thick, shaggy grass on the hill, and it’s really quite breathtaking.
Once we’re all safely back on the bus, it’s time for a little Irish folklore, and Aoife dishes some good stuff out: * St. Patrick, the pioneer of Catholicism in Ireland, chose the shamrock as his symbol because each of the three leaves stood for a different section of the Holy Trinity. * Banshees are female spirits whose cries foretold the imminence of death to any who could hear the sounds. * A pooka is a changeling, one whose main form was that of a dirty black horse with red eyes. He would wander around the countryside looking to capture and kill people, but he could only do so upon victims who were drunk or out to do evil themselves (so that’s why there are no college students or politicians in this country...) * Dalahan is the headless horseman who is said to ride through these parts. He is usually only visible after dark, but he is often seen at sunset on a hill, rearing back on his horse and calling out a name. If you hear the name he calls, you will soon die. Thus, the only way to prevent this is to cover your ears at sunset, assuring yourself to live another day (that’s if the pooka doesn’t get you...)
And the final story she tells us is that of Finn Yeagus and Finn MacCool. Finn Yeagus was a bigshot in the area, a really rich and powerful man. He was fishing with MacCool and they caught a salmon, but right away they could tell this was a special fish – it was the storied fish of knowledge. Yeagus got really excited – he knew whoever tasted the fish first was blessed with infinite knowledge, but he didn’t have anything to eat with the fish, so after he placed it on the fire, he ran off to grab some bread (for those of you who haven’t traveled in Europe, bread is more important than the main meal. If you don’t have a roll, a bap, a baguette – something – the meal isn’t worth eating. Nothing like a regular, hearty helping of unnecessary carbohydrates and starches...)
Before he left, he told MacCool, “Don’t you even think about eating that fish. That’s my fish. I spent half the day standing in that river trying to catch something and I finally did. Now I’m hungry, I’m tired, and I’m going to eat myself silly on that fish. Don’t smell it, don’t touch it, don’t even look at it. Got me?”
Finn MacCool understood and didn’t want anything to do with the fish. He turned his back and tried to ignore the thoughts of the meal cooking on the fire. He was hungry, too – he had spent the day in the river right next to Yeagus, after all, but he didn’t want to infuriate his hero, so he tried to ignore the rumblings in his stomach.
He was going well for a few minutes. He started thinking about everything but the fish – cricket, horses, shoe horns – but then he heard the crackling and sizzling getting louder behind him, so he turned around to make sure everything was alright. It was – the fish looked and smelled glorious. The skin was getting crisp and MacCool could imagine it crumbling in his mouth. Then he noticed a little bubble rising off the side of the skin. He thought nothing of it, but then it kept getting bigger. The heat bubble kept growing and growing, until it was almost the size of an orange.
MacCool started to panic; the bubble was still swelling and looked ripe to burst. If it did that, it would probably ruin the fish and infuriate his hero, Finn Yeagus. MacCool didn’t know what to do – he knew Finn Yeagus had told him not to touch the fish, but he had seemed so excited about eating it. If it was ruined, it would ruin his day and he’d probably be furious with MacCool. So, he decided to save the fish and his hero’s meal, and he plunged his thumb into the heat bubble and popped it.
Finn MacCool felt pretty good about himself – he saved his hero’s meal and would probably be basking in the glory of his praise any minute now – but when Yeagus came back, Yeagus could tell right away something was wrong.
“You touched the fish, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes. You see, there was this bubble, and it looked like it was going to explode and ruin the fish, and I knew how much you wanted to eat the fish, and so I plunged my thumb –“ “I thought I told you not to touch the fish.”
“You did, but the bubble. It was swelling and going to explode –“
“I don’t want to hear it. You know what this means? That is the fish of knowledge. Whoever touches that first is blessed with infinite knowledge. I was going to be the richest, most powerful, and smartest man in the entire country. But you had to go and touch it...”
And so it went. Yeagus left MacCool behind, and as the years passed, MacCool became a powerful leader on the basis of his knowledge. Nobody but Yeagus knew the source of it all, and whenever MacCool didn’t know the answer to something or was confused over what to do, he would just pop his thumb in his mouth and the answer would come to him, quick as can be.
Story time again finished, we pull into the small town of Portumna, a wee little village that despite its miniscule population still manages to have 22 pubs (are you starting to get a picture of the Irish people’s priorities?) It’s a nice little town – I walk around for a while, have an amazing pizza at the Beehive, a little diner in town, and then sit in the small, uninhabited harbor and watch the sun set. It’s beautiful, and after a night of many Guinnesses and some more authentic Irish music (including an old woman from the crowd who gets up and plays the spoons) I return to the hostel to crash.
She looked over the men, pondered her decision for a spot, and then made a selection. Moira married her first husband right there in the station and things went well for a bit -- a couple of hours, in fact -- but then dear Moira decided she made the wrong decision and opted to rectify the situation by slitting the chap’s throat.
Heartbroken at being single again, she goes back to the police station and tells the chief that her husband – God rest his soul – had a terrible accident, tripping and falling on a knife that she had carelessly left lying around. The chief’s a bit taken aback, but he looks Moira over and doesn’t deem homicide to be in her blood, so he assembles the men again and allows her to pick another mate.
This poor bloke lasts an even shorter amount of time than the previous one. He was pretty excited at being able to live in this huge house (houses of this time were tall, narrow rectangles, somewhat resembling those hose drying houses that firemen have today) and he went up to the top of the building to look over all his new property. He stands there taking in the orchard, the stables, the sprawling lawns all around, and he’s so into the view that he doesn’t hear Moira come up behind him. She’s not up there for a little rooftop love, but rather to push him off (the lawn really does look better up close...) and send him falling to his death.
Heartbroken again (yeah, right) she goes back to the police station, tells the chief about the uncanny accident her second husband has had (“He really was head over heels for me...”), slipping and falling to his death from the top of her manor. The chief’s a bit more skeptical now, but there still is the shred of believability to her story, so he accepts her explanation, rounds up the men again, and allows her to make yet another selection (Apparently Barney Fife was based on an old Irish bloke...).
By this time the mass of men are starting to get a little worried – Moira’s past two husbands have all died mysterious deaths on the same day, and these guys don’t want to become number three on the victims list (they may be down and out drunks, but they’re not stupid...)
And while Moira may have caught her previous two beaus unprepared, her third selection is a crafty devil, and he prepares himself for the worst. He keeps his guard up and realizes once they get to her house that she’s probably going to try something soon, and sure enough, she does. Moira tells Lucky No. 3 to hop in the family carriage and ride out to the beautiful cliffs of Moher. He sees this to be a trick, but he plays along, hopping into the horsedrawn carriage and riding out to the cliffs. Well, sure enough, as soon as they’re out of view of the house, the horse goes nutty and it charges off towards the edge of the cliffs, the frightened hubby in the back. No. 3 bides his time, sees his opening, and jumps off at the last minute, holding on to the reins to try and bring back the horse. The horse comes, but the force of his pull was so great that it broke its jaw.
Well this just sends Moira over the edge. Not only was her plan not properly – ahem – executed, but the horse ends up starving to death because of the broken jaw. This drives her crazy – it was her favorite horse, after all -- and legend has it that she went on a killing spree to atone for its death, killing anywhere in the neighborhood of 25-45 people, depending on who you ask.
One thing that is known for sure, though, was the fact that Moira, in her bitter and angry later years, evicted a widow that was living in her manor. Rather than be understanding and civil about it – it was the day before Christmas, for crying out loud -- Moira was petty and sadistic, mocking the woman as she left the house. Well, the widow would have none of this, and she placed a curse on Moira, telling her that her fate was to be stranded with her head between the ground and the sky.
Moira laughed this off, but her servants who had overheard this begged her to go and apologize to the widow because being cursed by a widow is one of the most feared things in Irish lore. Moira, headstrong as ever, would have none of this and refused to rescind her rebukes. Time passed and nothing happened, so the servants thought Moira had dodged a bullet, but then one day she went fox hunting in the forest next to her house.
She was chasing after this one fox on horseback, dodging tree branch after tree branch and trying to snag the elusive animal, getting deeper and deeper into the forest in her pursuit. Suddenly, she heard a noise off to one side and turned to see what it was, taking her head off her prey for a moment and when she turned her head back, wham!
No one heard from Moira for the rest of the day, and finally her servants went into the woods to see what had happened. They couldn’t find her for hours, and just before nightfall, they saw a silhouette up ahead. They called to it, but there was no response. The reason why was soon evident – Moira was impaled on a tree branch, her feet dangling below her, her head stranded between the ground and the sky. So there you go – never eat creamed spinach on a Tuesday, and never piss off a widow.
After this dalliance with madness, we head just down the street to see the memorial to those who died during the potato famine. This astoundingly started in 1843, much more recently than I had thought, and the worst year was in ’47, or Black ’47 as they call it around here. The population of Ireland was roughly 8 million in the early 1840s and it was 4 million in the early ‘50s. Almost two million people died of the plague, while another two million emigrated to the US and Canada. This whole mess was caused by a disease that first affects the potato plant and then travels down to the potato itself turning the whole thing into a rancid mush, one that can’t even be fed to the livestock.
Because of this, people began starving and farmers began losing money since they couldn’t sell their crops. So people were forced to go work in workhouses, places that were almost like prisons – you went in for a certain amount of time, you said goodbye to your family and your possessions and said hello to hard labor and even harder living conditions. Women and children were also forced to work in these horrible places and a good many of them died, one of the latter of which is commemorated on the roadside memorial, a little kid struggling to reach the doorknob of the workhouse.
I play with a crazy dog that’s at the side of the road – it runs around like a Tasmanian Devil and fetches rocks that you throw – and then get on the bus to hear the story of the magpie. These are big black and white birds that you see all over the place and they inspired the rhyme, “One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told.” The numbers in the rhyme correspond to the number of magpies you see at any time. So basically you’re OK as long as you don’t see just one (which, of course, I did). If you do see just one, though, to dodge the impending sorrow you can pass it off in one of two ways – spit on the ground, or touch a person wearing black (or be an idiot like me and spit on a person wearing black. Maybe I should pay more attention to people when they’re talking...)
Besides having the rhyme named after them, there is a legend as to their coloring. These birds have a caw that sounds like a laugh, and when they were at the crucifixion of Christ, people heard these laughing sounds and traced them to the birds. The only way they could be laughing, they reasoned, was if they were friends with the devil, and so the black portion of their coloring is said to be resultant from the devil’s blood that runs in their veins. So watch out – if you see just one, sit there for a bit until you see another one, otherwise the devil will get you...
Story time over, we stop in the town of Lahinch, a small town known for its surfing. We get out and run around on the beach for a while, and I can’t tell you how good it feels. We’re kicking the soccer ball around barefoot, stomping in the cold waves, playing with these two stray dogs that are running around. It’s just great. After getting rid of some energy, we pile back in the bus for a few minutes to catch our breath before our next stop: the aforementioned cliffs of Moher.
These are unbelievably beautiful cliffs 600-700 feet above the ground that drop off at right angles to the shore. They’re some of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, and we climb around on them and take pictures for a good hour, watching the water crash up on the rocks far below. They’re pretty flat in some places, and if you disregard the signs saying, “Loose rocks. Do not pass signs. Not responsible for people who fall over edge” you can lie prostrate and have your head hang over the edge so you can see straight down to the shore below. It’s pretty intense.
Besides seeing the water far below and the lookout tower on the highest cliff (this is the O’Brien tower, named after a notorious ladies’ man who was always inviting women up to the tower to win their hearts, but it apparently never worked as he died a single man. I tell you what – with the view up there as good as it is, I think I’d give it up for O’Brien and get hitched.) I also see a dead dog (it apparently got too close to the edge and fell all the way down to the beach below, and it now lies on the shore more twisted than the alibis of a compulsive liar. Ech...) and homosexual horse sex (don’t even ask...)
After this, we stop in the town of Doolin, a small town renowned for its live music (which isn’t playing now, of course) and have a bite to eat (authentic Irish stew – mmm...) before setting off for the Burren, a region higher up on the coast. Burren means “rocky place” and once we stop you can see why – there’s rocks everywhere sticking up from the surface, as far as the eye can see. They’re seriously everywhere – it’s just like being on the face of the moon (without the vacuum and subzero temperatures, of course...) Despite the inhospitable appearance, in the midst of all these rocks is 80% of the plant species in the entire country. (Which explains why they also call this area the “fertile rock.”)
Before setting off again I see another dead dog (where the hell am I, Vietnam?) and after another short drive, we stop at Poulnabrone, the well of sorrow. This is 7800 years old and is an ancient burial ground, the final resting place for 22 people from the age of the Druids. The central gravestone looks like one portion of Stonehenge, a pair of rocks crossed by another on top of it, and it’s pretty eerie in the midst of this rocky wasteland.
After this we stop in Galway for the night, check into the hostel, walk around the town (allegedly it’s a college town, but all of the restaurants cost 10 bucks or more a person. If the college kids here can afford this stuff, I want in), chill in a pub (the King’s Head – just like the one back in London), drink some more Guinness and listen to some more live music before crashing back at the hostel.
The place was founded by St. Ciaran and destroyed several times since the 1500s – by Irish revolutionaries, by Vikings, and by English soldiers. It is home to the giant Cross of Scripture, a ten foot high Celtic cross showing the scenes of the Old Testament (an interesting thing about the Celtic crosses is the characteristic wheel shape that encircles the cross – this is meant to show the victory of Christianity over paganism). MacCarthy’s Tower is also there, a cylindrical tower with a pointed cap (the cap is original and thus highly rare, but the interesting thing about the towers is that they have windows spiraling up from the ground, but the first window is about seven feet above the ground. This is because when the town was under attack, people would climb into these windows via a ladder and cram into the towers for protection. They would then pull up the ladder and ride out the storm in the concrete confines within.)
After all this piety and education, we decided to continue the trend and stop at Locke’s Whiskey distillery for a tour of the old plant. It was rather interesting to see how it was done – they heat the river water, add the grain (barley, wheat, and oats), let it soak for a couple of hours and then cool it in the river (they do this by running the pipes directly into the river outside. Pretty cool.) After this, they add the yeast, heat it up again, this time to get the alcohol to evaporate, and then they condense the alcohol vapors and voila! You’ve got Irish whiskey (actually, you have to repeat the heating and cooling process two more times since Irish whiskey is distilled three times.)
Now that we knew how it was made, we all wanted to see how it tasted upon completion, and we all got free shots of whiskey. (And since there were a lot of girls on the trip, hardly any of them wanted to do a shot of whiskey, so us chaps got two or three a piece. It was great – three shots in as many minutes. Let me just say the bus ride afterward was a little more bearable...) The whiskey was strong and flavorful, and it didn’t taste like rubbing alcohol like the hodge podge whiskey we have in the States. (That’s because Irish whiskeys (and Scottish, too, for that matter) have a single flavor – those we have back home are a blend of several different flavors.)
Other random facts we’re given: *The whiskey takes about ten days to make and then five or six years to age in the kegs before it can be served. *Before the evaporation process the liquid is roughly 80% alcohol, so when the day was dragging, the workers would dip jam jars into the liquid and drink it straight. They called this toxic liquid pig’s ale (I just call it nasty) and were outlawed from doing it because they were all getting too drunk (not that it stopped any of them from partaking -- they just had to be a little more subtle about it. “Mc O’ Henry! Are you drunk again? You’re stumbling all over the place.” “That’s because I have a perforated inner ear drum which wreaks havoc with my equilibrium, sir.” “Well why does your breath stink so bad? You smell worse than sun-dried sauerkraut.” “I’m sorry, sir. My family is plagued by unruly halitosis. Rumor has it it started when my great grandfather discovered the charms of sun-dried boiled cabbage.” “Are you getting fresh with me, boy? Johnson over there says he saw you drink five jars full of the pig. You calling him a liar?” “No, sir. But if I really drank that much, I’d be absolutely hammered right now. I’d be so drunk I’d be wetting my pants and hitting on your wife, and we all know that hasn’t happened for a couple of weeks now...” (Apologies to the rambling reenactment. Scenario reprinted with permission of Locke’s Distillery, Anytown, Ireland...)
*When they stored the liquid in the kegs and opened them up after the aging process, some was always gone – due to evaporation, of course – but the workers attributed this to something mystical and called it the angel’s share, thinking the angels had taken a nip of the drink while it was aging. And the prize for top random fact goes to this contestant, discussing the kegs they age the whiskey in: One, they don’t leak because of the long, slender reeds that are put in between the wooden slats (I never knew that). And two, the coopers scorch the insides of the kegs to seal them off, and this scorching is what gives the whiskey its brown color. It is actually clear like vodka or gin, but the residual ash turns the whiskey brown when it is aging. Cool, huh? (Winner will receive a weekend trip to Tahiti, an automatic Mr. Coffee, and a copy of the home game.)
The trip almost over, we stop by the Trim Castle, one used several times in Braveheart, and then learn about the Irish flag just before the trip is over. As you all know, the Irish flag has three bands of color – green, white, and orange. The orange is for William of Orange, a well-known Protestant (remember him from the Scottish section?) and the green is for the Catholic English king, and the white band in the middle is for peace between the two neighboring sections. This is a pretty nifty way to end the trip, and we abandon the bus to retrieve our things, but I’m not quite finished with the weekend yet.
Having some spare time, we head off to the Guinness brewery before it closes for the grand tour. Here’s what we learn: 10 million pints of Guinness are consumed each day, it isn’t brewed in the US (but it is in Canada, the Bahamas, and the Congo – go figure). It takes ten days to make (21 in the past), it uses three types of barley – malt, milled, and roast, the latter of which gives it its characteristic color (this last type was added when Arthur Guinness burned a batch of barley he was going to use, but rather than waste it and throw it away, he decided to give it a try and out came the wonderful brew that we know and love today. Lucky us...)
For every pint of Guinness, there are five pints of water used to make it, four million gallons of beer can be made a day, and two million gallons of water are used a day. (This used to be free for the plant– they just used the town’s supply, but as their volume increased, the mayor wanted to start charging the brewery a tax. Good old Arthur wouldn’t have any of it, though, and when the mayor came to discuss it, Arthur chased him off the grounds with a baseball bat. Needless to say, he never came around again, but the two settled on paying 10 pounds a year (what a deal! 17 bucks for unlimited water!) but now the plant uses spring water from nearby mountains (why pay for milk when you can whore out Mother Nature’s free cow back home?)
Every worker at the plant gets two free pints of beer a day (I tried to apply, but they weren’t accepting applications. Something about a visa...), the coopers who make the kegs use no measuring tools to make the barrels – they do it all by eye (It’s frigging amazing to see them go. They have an old video on a guy making one, and it’s just cool as hell. Barrel makers must get all the ladies...) The excess CO2 that is produced by the fermentation process is bottled and sold to cola companies, and a small amount of yeast is saved from every batch and used in the next one so they all taste the same – they’ve been doing this since the beginning and that’s why Guinness brewed elsewhere just doesn’t taste the same (and it tastes amazing here. You get a free pint with the tour, and we walk around looking for people who didn’t want theirs, but everyone was drinking, even the group of senior citizens. By the time they were finished they were falling all over their canes and walkers. It was ugly...)
A fine weekend complete, I hop on Aer “Cunni” again and get back into England unscathed.