The four green fields blog: Touchdown at shannon to Kenmare
[The shortest distance between two points is a curved line (when The Great Circle is in play). Photo is mine.]
To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart.
~~Old Irish Saying
Five hours and fifty some minutes separated us from New York City and Shannon Airport. Round it up…six hours. Not many hours, not too many miles, but a thousand worlds apart. Does that make any sense? The roar, energy and sweet chaos of Manhattan somehow morphs into a languid quiet and gentle pace of, what many call The Old Country or The Old Sod. But over here, across the cold Atlantic, all the countries are old. Very old.
But that’s another meditation all together.
We picked up our rent car about 9 AM. We should have taken names and phone numbers. Not ten miles down the road, I felt that we made a mistake.
Me: “The indicator light says the tires need to be checked.”
The guy: “Oh, that just the sensor. The tires are just fine. They’ve been checked.”
Needless to say we are going to give the company a lot of grief when we drop the Hyundai off in Dublin. Enough said about that. So far, everything is going well.
At 1 PM, we arrived at the Killarney Towers Hotel in Killarney. The town was far larger than I remember it was when I first visited in the mid-1970s. The shops that lined High Street stocked more woolen goods than I thought possible. Where did it all come from? Are there that many sheep here? I was very impressed, so much so that I bought the second wool sweater that I laid my eyes on. And of course, a set of Egan Clan coasters, emblazoned with our coat of arms. But the wool. There’s something about wool that I find fascinating. The smell of the lanolin, the warmth, the colors…
[The skeins. Oh the skeins. Photo is mine.]
I’m a little hesitant to post a photo of the sweater I purchased at the Aran Wool Shop because it seems, I don’t know it seems a little trivial. There is so much to say about this this journey, what’s so important about a wee little sweater? But here it is anyway:
[Nice choice, eh? Photo is mine.]
After sleeping the sleep of the truly exhausted, I was up early and off to find a berry scone and an Americano. The Celtic Coffee Shop had it all and more. Then off to the bookstore to buy The Irish Times and the Guardian. Plenty of reading for the evening. But, the first major event of our two-month trip was to take a boat ride on one of the fabled lakes of Killarney. We found the place to board the small boat at the shore beneath Ross Castle. This was a well fortified castle but all the ramparts and moats failed to keep it safe from Oliver Cromwell. It was the last castle to fall to him in 1503.
[Mariam strolls the ground of Ross Castle. Photo is mine.]
Dinner (the buffet at the hotel) and a stroll along College Street. The number of pubs boggled the mind. And most of them had Iive Irish music. As we walked down the street, it was Molly Malone one one side, followed by Whiskey in the Jar, on the other. Our hotel pub, Donoghues had two mates belting out The Long Black Veil and The Wild Rover. It was all catching up on me halfway through Come Out Ye Blacks and Tans…I needed to settle in and read and then sleep.
Read? I made it through one page of “The Gathering” by Anne Enright. Awesome book but the cool Irish air lulled me to a sweet slumber.
We decided that another week in Killarney might have been a better choice, but we had miles to go.
Today, August 9, we began our journey in earnest. We found the N71 and pointed the car toward Kenmare. The lakes drifted past on our right. The large coach busses filled with tourists took up much of the narrow road. More than once we had to give way to the big boys. But, soon the views of the Reeks came upon us. I could feel the presence of my father on this road. The scenery I saw today was the same photos I saw in 1970 when he made his first trip to Ireland.
Here are just a few of the places we stopped beside during our drive from Killarney to Kenmare:
[At the edge of the Macgillcuddy’s Reeks. Photo is mine.]
[En route to Kenmare between Muckross Lake and Upper Lake. Photo is mine.]
[Never had the chance to look up the name of this little wind blown flower. Mariam had to hold the stem to steady it. Still didn’t work. Photo is mine.]
In the weeks to come, there will be many more illustrations in this blog series that will attempt to find something interesting and out of the ordinary for you to consider.
Meanwhile, as I drive, through quiet wooded sections, or open fields of rock and gorse, I hope to take long moments to try to walk in many footsteps (those who came before me) like my father of several decades ago. And further back, to retrace the pathways of the bards, those storytellers who made it their lives to keep the oral traditions alive, the Traveling People, the an lucht siuil, the itinerant educators who would teach the children of the village in exchange for a place to sleep and a few meals…before moving on.
But my greatest hope is to follow in the steps of the poets that wandered the West Country, men like Antoire O’ Raifteriri, a famous blind poet who is known for the poem, Mary Hynes, in which he describes Mary, a fair beauty, he writes of her beauty, even though he has never seen her…and never will.
Slan…
