The Beara Necessities

Five day working weeks are tough. Very tough. We considered lobbying the government to reduce the working week but decided alot less effort was required in taking a day off and heading for the hills. So with a three day weekend we picked one of the furthest points from the capital. West Cork is my favourite place in Ireland, amazingly it still holds its magic for me despite being dragged around it for "Sunday Spins" as a child. This past couple of weeks it holds even more magical potential for some. Two weeks ago in a very Oirish turn of events, a little bay close to Bantry became the scene of the largest drugs bust ever in the Irish state. A couple of boyos took to sea in a rubber dinghy, like one you would buy from Lidl, to rendezvous with a "Mother Ship" from the Caribbean. To cut along story short over 100 million Euro worth of Coke ended up bobbing about in the Atlantic. Resulting in some very happy fish, a redfaced Drug Squad and Bord Failte (the tourism board) looking for a new signature tune. "All these highs and lows" just doesn't seem quite the same.

West Cork however doesn't need any publicity to put it on the map. It's scenery and remote location has made it home to many arty types and manages to draw tourists from all over the world all year round despite the usual abysmal weather. We picked Glengarriff for our mini adventure. This is pretty much as far West as you can go without crossing the "border" to Kerry, its also the gateway to Garinish Island and the Beara Peninsula. We ate seafood in glorious sunshine, knocked back pint bottles of Bulmers and strolled around the bizarre but beautiful Garinish Island.

The Gods were with us and we had one full day of glorious sunshine. For a second there it felt like summer. Here in Ireland we are suffering from SAD, normally a disease encountered in Lapland and other such areas deprived of sunshine for long periods of time. In Ireland when conversing with strangers there is one topic we hold especially close to our hearts...weather. Like the Inuit who have about 20 words to describe snow, we must have 20 to describe different sorts of rain. Ed and I returned from Asia last January saying how really we had very little to complain about in our cool temperate oceanic climate...enough rain, little snow, enough sunshine. We must have been dillussional. It has rained in Ireland every day for over a month. Soft rain, hard rain, torrential rain, wet rain, dry rain?, misty rain, monsoon rain and then just rain. This made the brief interlude with sunshine all the more special. We returned home refreshed, a little hungover and after our brief brush with summer spent the week frantically looking for cheap package holidays on the web.

Everyone should visit West Cork, just have a few words with the man above first and see if you can make a deal on the weather.

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