Not that long a way to Tipperary

 Wednesday 22 May

Eastbound now from Cork to Cashel (pronouned Cashle, not Cash-ell, as in Sacherel - a familiar name to fellow fans of Victoria Wood), the countryside gradually becoming less dramatic and hilly, until we approached the Rock of Cashel en haut - the ruin of a medieval cathedral which strangely looks more impressive from a distance than it does close up. 

It was very windy and touristy up there (car park full of tourist coaches) - it's not really surprising that it was abandoned by the archbishop and his mates when they got a bit fed up with the conditions. Our visit was somewhat marred by the site's insistence on our downloading a pdf via a QR code that was a very muddled guide to the Rock and which wasn't backed up by any kind of legend at all - so we didn't really know what part of the building we were in at any one time! The AV presentation at the end at least gave us the background we needed, but it was a somewhat confusing visitor experience, and on a cold and blustery day, it was a bit bleak...

We had a little stroll around Cashel - not much to see to be honest - and then met friend Helena's sister Maria, who lives up the road in Thurles, for lunch at Feehans, which was very pleasant. We then set off for our overnight stop in Clonmel, allegedly the largest town in Tipperary. We'd decided to stay there as a cheaper option to Cashel.

Clonmel isn't especially pretty though it does have some notable buildings, such as the Main Guard, previousl a court house. and the Franciscan monks' church, which has some gorgeous graphic stained glass window, and  an enormous, and very grand Catholic church which seemed somewhat out of place in a small town.

Clonmel's probably more important as a shopping and services hub. The fast-flowing river Suil runs through it and when we visited it was completely muddy brown. After the freedom of Kerry, parking was also a bit of a challenge involving moving the car and feeding a meter at the appropriate time. 

Our accommodation was the Befani guesthouse, above a Mediterranean restaurant, and it was clean and comfortable. Sadly the restaurant only opens Thursday - Sunday, but we had a nice meal in Mulcahy's pub, where I indulged in yet more chowder. It was a good pitstop en route for our last port of call, Dublin's fair city.

Not all it's Corked up to be...

 

Tuesday 21 May

We'd been looking forward to our guided walk in Cork but sadly it was cancelled the night before. We found a route in our guide book and negotiated the 220 bus into the city centrre - quite some distance, but it's always good to see your surroundings from the top of a double decker (and yes we sat in the front!)

We alighted close to the English Market (now I know where the word Sasenach comes from, it's Gaelic), noted it for reference and walked up to the Elizabeth Fort (named after Lizzie I of course). When built, Cork was a walled city under English rule, so the fort was intended to provide the city with protection against the Irish chieftains still in power in other parts of Ireland. The fort was attacked by its citizens, concerned for further Catholic oppression, in 1603 when James I succeeded Elizabeth. 

It's free admission, and with informative legends about the fort and the conflicts which determined its status. Neily enjoyed interacting with statues, and ensuring I went into the stocks for a photo opportunity...

Did you know - that a cannonball was fired at just shy of the speed of sound?? There was also an excellent  little exhbition about the role of the fort in the 19th century as a convict depot for women (and their children) convicted of minor thefts, before transportation out to Australia and Tasmania, where there was one woman to every ten men - very few returned.

After a coffee, we wanted to take a look around St Finnbare's Protestant cathedral, 

but baulked at the hefty entrance fee and continued on to the Glucksman gallery on the UCC campus - not very accessible works to be honest. We walked on the the English Market, enjoyed a delicious soupy lunch in the Farmgate balcony bar, and then picked out some fish pie for our eat-in dinner later.

We moved on to the Crawford Gallery which was small (pending refurishment closure) with some nice pieces, but it did make us apprecite the breadth of the collections we enjoy in London at the Tates, Royal Academy and so on. 

We tthen split up for a while and I did a bit of shopping while Neily went for Guinness! We met up at Murphy's for more of their amazing ice cream, then went for a drink outside a bar amid rolls of thunder. Thankfully, the rain held off until we were waiting (for a looooong time!) for the bus back to Classes Lake and another eat-in dinner with a nice bottle of wine from M&S, where prices more or less align with UK. 

So we were somewhat underwhelmed by Cork. It's billed as the food capital of Ireland, but apart from the excellent English Market, we couldn't really see why as we could see no interesting restaurants (maybe we weren't looking in the right places). It struck us as rather scruffy and down at heel, (many many closed units)

and there appeared to be less warmth in the greeting of service people compared to outlets further west (with the exception of the wonderful kids at Murphy's, who have been charming wherever we encountered them). The shops were pretty mainstream, of the high street chain variety, and we just felt less of a vibe about the place. So unless you can prove us otherwise, Cork, we won't be rushing back,

 

Dallying in Dingle

 

Monday 20 May

Another lovely day so we packed up the car early and resumed our journey down the Wild Atlantic Way, bound for the Dingle Peninsula. We'd worked out that sadly it just wasn't going to be possible for us to fit in touring the Ring of Kerry as well before arriving at our next overnight in Cork, so we planned a route to Dingle with a brief pitstop in Tralee (bit dull) but boy, those Kerry landscape views over the Connor Pass did not disappoint - so green, so breathtaking, with some low cloud over the high peaks making it even more dramatic.

Dingle is sooo pretty - a clean and tidy little port, with collections of brightly-coloured houses, shops and bars stretching along the front and up the hill into the town - just gorgeous. 

We wished we'd factored in longer there, but after a wander we ate sandwiches looking out over the harbour and then got back into the car (an added bonus of free parking) to set off for Inch Beach, another recommendation. We were lucky only to have encountered the aftermath of a nasty car smash just outside the town centre, with the wreck blocking the opposite side of the road so that the oncoming traffic was held up by the Garda for far longer than those of us heading out of town.

Inch Beach is a 5km spit of golden sand just outside AnnascaulRyan's Daughter was filmed there, and it's just lovely. We took off our socks and shoes, walked along the shore and had a paddle in the Atlantic and it felt so good - the sea air was so refreshing and balmy, it felt good to be alive - a definite highlight. 

By then it was mid-afternoon and we had to be on our way to Cork, but we had a further pitstop in attractive but very touristy Kilarney where we once again indulged in Murphy's ice cream and Neily bought a souvenir hoodie.

The drive on to Cork was again through beautiful countryside - this time the Kilarney National Park with myriad trees in varying shades of green, red and gold formed the backdrop to a fast quiet N road (equivalent of English A roads, with R for B roads and L for - well, other ones)  that was a great alternative to the monotony of the motorway. We reached our destination - a clean and tidy housing estate called the Classes Lakes outside Ballincollig. a Cork suburb. 

A really great apartment, nicely decorated with all creature comforts, a well-equipped kitchen - and a black bathroom. Every inch of it apart from the toilet paper and the towels was black. Well, with water this soft there ain't no limescale to ruin it. We'd bought food along the way as schlepping out to find a restaurant was the last thing we wanted to do - so it was dinner in, some nice Merlot and a rather disturbing Netflix sci-fi thriller, 3-Body Problem. 

Bunratty bimbling about

 

Sunday 19 May

Woke up to glorious sunshine in the country pile of Turret Lodge 

and after a good breakfast we drove for about half an hour into Limerick and parked up near the riverside on Harvey Quay, near the spot where Terry Wogan has been immortalised in bronze (somewhat badly - for a start he's not wearing a tie)

Limerick was very pleasant if somewhat closed. We walked along the riverside, took a look at the outside of the castle and the cathedral ( the latter was a bit busy with Sunday Mass, which not being Catholics we declined to partake), admired varying pieces of street art, strolled around the People's Park with a Nelson's-column type memorial to an MP from long ago, and spent some time looking at the rather eclectic (Neily called it a rummage) art collection at the Limerick Art Gallery. It presented no challenge to Tate Modern., but I liked the tall block covered in Aran knitwear, and I enjoyed the street art in the city and the way that wild flowers grow out of the limestone cracks.

 

We had a little lunch there before going back to Bunratty, parking the car back at base and setting out on foot down the road to Bunratty castle and Folk Park - still in beautiful sunshine. After an ice cream at Jilly & Joe's mahoosive food court across the road from the castle, we went inside the complex. 

We were concerned that it might be a bit of a tourist trap, though a couple of people had recommended it to me - and there were quite a few tour groups there, lots of French and Danish folks! - but apart from the castle bit itself where there are the usual narrow staircases with people trying to go up and come down at the same time - it was actually fine and considering it was a Sunday, not too crowded at all. The castle itself has had lots of additions of appropriate period decorations to liven it up and make it look more lived in - all very well done.

The folk park bit is "immersive" - farmer/fisherman/blacksmith cottages, schoolroom etc have been transplanted from other parts of Ireland and rebuilt, again with authentic decoration and furnishings. All reeked of woodsmoke, and there were a couple of lovely ladies who demonstrated making butter and apple pie in a traditional kitchen (sadly we missed that bit, but we had a chat!) The shops also contain authentic signage and artefacts as well as selling contemporary merchandise - there was a lot of loving recreation going on.

There was also a lovely walled garden, and the view of the adjoining countryside from the end of the estate was beautiful. I also really enjoyed the eccentric and bonkers Medieval Fight Club, where teams of 3 blokes dressed up in proper armour and brandishing fake weapons and shields, briefly beat the living daylights out of each other. I say briefly because the fights didn't last long - as soon as a man was down he was out, so there was quite a lot of wrestling as well as bashing. Such fun (sorry photos taken over/through a very high fence). And there were baby goats, in the next enclosure, obvs. 

As we were leaving there was a whole crowd of people lining up to enjoy the famed Bunratty Medieval Banquet - we'd given it a miss as it was quite pricey. We had a quick poke around the very tasteful gift shop and then headed for the nearby, very ancient pub Durty Nelly's for some dinner. The food was hearty and relatively cheap, and we also enjoyed a nice bottle of rose as the sun was still shining.

A couple of old geezers (our age of course) strummed guitars and sang were what appeared to be the entire Eagles back catalogue from a vantage point above the outdoor dining area so we couldn't really avoid them, though it was pleasant enough background music until they switched to Oasis covers.

We then walked/staggered briskly back to Turret Lodge (how come it took so much longer??), drank some more wine, caught up on blog (well at least to be only one day behind) and ate cake. Having walked 22000+ steps that day, an early night was beckoning.