Irish castles

---

When Partner and I went to Ireland in 2007, we saw (and clambered through) no less than three castles in our seven short days there:

 

 

• King John's Castle in Limerick. Early 13^th century, honeycombed with tiny staircases and wee little low-ceilinged rooms. (People were evidently mighty small in King John's day.) Lots of dungeons, of course; you can never have enough dungeons. And a nice young handsome well-muscled Irishman was forging coins down in the Mint, and made both of us a Limerick shilling on the spot, for a couple of euros.

• Cahir Castle, in Carrick-on-Suir. We passed through Carrick en route to Cashel, and had a couple of hours to kill, and – well, wasn't there a castle right over there? Cahir Castle is lovely. Mostly 15^th - 16^th century, with a few earlier bits. A nice big rack of Irish elk antlers on the hunting lodge wall. (The Irish elk was a monstrously big fellow, with antlers the size of the average modern playground jungle gym, who got hunted to extinction.) The castle has iron gates, and a big ugly iron eagle on one of the parapets. We had a wonderful time tromping around on around the ramparts and looking down on the town of Carrick, which is itself a charming little Irish town. (Here's a tip, though: we made the mistake of eating in an Italian restaurant there. Do not make the same mistake we made.)

• Cashel. The Rock of Cashel is something out of Tolkien: a gigantic crag in the middle of the green valleys of Tipperary. A castle – actually a whole bunch of castles, built over centuries – guard the top of it. We wandered through them, and saw St. Patrick's Cross, and I picked a shamrock from the grass. (But, frankly, the Rock looks better from a distance; close up, the buildings are in desperately bad shape – the guide told us that one of the chapels was full of poisonous mold. )

   

 

One last tip: if you go to Ireland, you will do well to stay off the beaten path. The little towns are really the best. I'd never heard of Carrick before we went to Ireland, and I ended up having a lovely time there.

 

 

Just don't go to the Italian restaurant down the street from the castle.

 

---

 

 

Good Friday blog: The Crucifixion

---

For Good Friday: a very old Irish poem by an unknown author, as set to music by Samuel Barber in his “Hermit Songs.”

 

 

The remarkable thing here is that Christ suffers more in thinking about his mother’s grief than over his own crucifixion!

 

*

 

At the cry of the first bird

They began to crucify Thee, o Swan.

Never shall lament cease because of that!

It was like the parting of day from night.

O sore was the suffering borne by the body of Mary's Son.

But sorer still to Him was the grief

That for His sake

Came upon His mother.

 

---

 

 

Land of saints and scholars

---

Partner and I spent a week in the west of Ireland back in 2007. We still daydream about it. We saw some of the tourist sights – the Cliffs of Moher, the Rock of Cashel – but we also spent time knocking around big towns and small towns, walking, taking in the sights, talking to people.

 

 

Highlights of the trip:

 

 

• Our flight got in early, and we rode from the airport to Limerick, watching the sun rise over the Irish hills.  The cabdriver never shut up. We weren't used to the accent yet, so all we could make out was golf blah blah, son-in-law blah blah. Then, just as we get to the city limits of Limerick, traffic slowed. Three huge white swans were in the middle of the road, their backs to the traffic, meandering from one side of the road to the other. “Jaisus!” the cabdriver grunted. “Fecking swans! In the middle of the road!”

• Our bus driver from Limerick to Moher was a short balding peppery guy with a short fuse. Somewhere en route, a querulous old lady got on the bus, on her way to visit a friend. She asked the driver over and over in a tearful voice how long it would take to get there, how she'd know when they got there, how she was going to get back. Finally he roared at her: “WOMAN! You've ASKED me three TIMES now how you'll know when you're there! Sit DOWN and shut UP! I'll TELL you when we GET there!” It didn't shut her up, though; she kept moaning and chattering the whole way there (to the great entertainment of the Irish people on the bus around us). She got off in Ennistymon, at what looked like a convent, and the driver was firm with her when she got off the bus: “Now, I'll be BACK through here at FIVE this afternoon. NO LATER! If you're not here, you'll NOT see the bus, and I DON'T know what you'll do then. So FIVE O'CLOCK!” We didn't see her that afternoon on the return trip. I hope she had a nice tearful visit with her friend.

• Another cab driver in Limerick: “This afternoon on the radio, they asked this old countryman from the Dingle if he was going to listen to the Kerry-Cork football game. And he said he was too busy with the cows to listen to the radio! The Dingle! The arsehole of County Kerry!”

• Street market in Limerick. Very sweet little old lady running a junk shop. Partner tells her that he's half-Irish, that his mother's name was Malloy. “Ah, Malloy!” the old lady said. “From up north! They're known for being . . . very canny people!” Well, naturally, we had to buy something from her after that.

 

 

We're going back at our earliest opportunity, canny people that we are.

 

---