Here I am in Castletown, Isle of Man…stuck with no internet connection. It’s hard to believe that a private boarding school has no 21st century amenities. I bet they have wi-fi at Hogwarts, damnit.
Day 11: The journey to Ireland went well, and we landed in Belfast on Wednesday afternoon. It was a bit gray and rainy, but as our cabbie said on the way from the ferry terminal to the hotel, “If you don’t like the weather now, wait 5 minutes.” So true! We checked in to the hotel and headed out to explore the neighborhood. The cabbie had suggested a pub right around the corner called the Duke of York, so we thought we’d start there (cabbies always seem to know the best spots). Well, the place was straight out of Hollywood. It was THE perfect Irish pub: cozy, quaint, walls and ceilings covered with yellowing ads for local whiskeys and beers, autographed pics of local boxers hanging behind the bar, wooden benches and hammered copped tables; it was heavenly. Not only that, they served a wonderful lunch menu that was almost the cheapest food I’ve had since coming overseas; cheap and excellent. It was at that spot that I fell in love with a cranberry, brie, and rocket bap. I had at least one a day while we were in Ireland. To truly immerse ourselves in the moment, we all ordered Redbreast whisky for dessert, as one member of our group described it, “the Rolls Royce of Irish whisky.” He did not tell a lie; it was wonderful…and I hate whisky, just ask Josh.
After lunch I schlepped around town to the bus and train stations, securing group tickets for the trip to Dublin, then visited another spot called The Spaniard, which was an Irish pub very oddly dedicated to Salvidor Dali. We tried to eat dinner at one spot that refused to seat us because two people in the group were wearing tennis shoes. This was no classy joint; they actually had panties hanging from the ceiling as part of the decor. I couldn’t figure out why they thought we were so shockingly tacky. We ended up at a pub called Farrington’s instead where I had a wonderful veggie lasagna.
We had a class session in the evening to discuss the Mabinogi, then we headed back out to the Duke of York for evening drinks. For a Wednesday night, the place was packed; it looked like a Friday or Saturday night out anywhere else.
Day 12: Thursday we got up, had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel, then cabbed out to Armagh, the site of Emhain Macha. The journey there was really interesting; apparently Armagh was the site of a major IRA bombing during the Troubles, and there is still much tension there, despite recent peace agreements and disarmament. It was the first place where I saw IRA graffiti (The War is NOT Over, IRA-CIRA), this of course, spray painted on one of the brick walls, topped with barbed wire, that separated the Catholic part of town from the rest. Our trip to Emhain Macha itself was really terrific; an archaeologist named J.P. Mallory met us there and walked us through the site, explaining how it was tied to The Tain and the mythological past of Ireland. When we got back to Belfast, it was time to head to the train station. The journey from Belfast to Dublin took about 2 hours, and it was really lovely. (Again, we got to see a good bit of the countryside, and several other cities infamous during the Troubles. It was a bit unnerving because the last two days we were there was the annual Orangemen Parade, and there had been bomb threats and attacks on churches and other sites all week long. Belfast was the site of the largest parade on the 12th, the day we were leaving. Clearly, nothing happened to us, but it did worry me to know that when we pulled back in to the Belfast train station from Dublin, that it had been closed the day before due to a bomb scare.)
After we arrived in Dublin, walked to our hostel, which I dare not recall here for fear of re-living the horror of that shower, we headed out into the night. One of the guys in our group had a friend in Dublin who arranged a private room for us to have dinner at the Brazen Head, the oldest pub in all of Ireland. We had Irish stew, had some lovely conversation, and then Seamus sang some traditional folk songs for us. It was a great welcome to Dublin.
That’s all I can do now; I’ll fill in the rest of the blanks later! Pics on Facebook, if this network will allow me to do that!
Well I finally got to view your blog. You had too much fun. I take it you are back in MS now. We had nothing but rain so far this summer. Broke records for mosy=t consecutive daya with no sun. Tomatoe crop is just now putting on some fruit. Sue is busy I am cutting grass when it dry up a little.
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