Advertisement
Day 33: Glencar-Killarney
A road trip today, down the Clare coast. We stopped at a beach that you can drive on in an ordinary car (we didn’t). We walked around the little tourist town of Dingle, famous for (i) a resident dolphin and (ii) that Marie Antoinette nearly fled there, but didn’t. I had a haircut/beard trim/eyebrow clip there for the princely sum of 11 euros (about $16). Visited another clifftop fort, a small one – Bronze Age, I think it was which was – patrolled by sheep and a Doberman named Roxy, which is suitable for a place with a lot of rocks. Some superb sea views, of course, and finally a two-way mountain view at Con(n)or Pass (like many other places here, it has alternative spellings).
Liam at Glencar had looked up the local Gaelic football fixture for us and found us a game to go to at night, at Dr Croke’s – that, mysteriously, is the name of the ground and the team. Only a couple of hundred others and us were there, at a sub-county level game where (one of the locals told us) no top-line players were present because there was an inter-county match
on … in nine days’ time! Either they have a long recovery time or a very risk-averse approach to important games. The game was entertaining enough, quite close for most of the time. We were struck by the fact that no alcohol was in evidence at the ground – presumably a local or maybe a Gaelic Athletic Association policy. We won’t be able to get to a game of hurling, sadly – have only seen it on TV.
The hotel here, Earls Court House, is about as flash as we will get for the whole tour – beautifully furnished, a roomy room, great service, no noise and perfect blackout from the curtains. And a big bath.
Day 34: Killarney
A quiet day today, with only one outing, to Muckross House, not far from Killarney. It’s a stately home of the nineteenth-century British aristocracy that briefly passed into American hands. We took a guided tour of the interior, which was exceptional in that – though of course one wasn’t allowed to touch things – they were not roped off and could be closely examined and better appreciated. Opulent carved furniture, plasterwork, glassware, pottery and hangings, wonderful old
books, etc. We were told that about 70% of the appointments were 19th-century. The gardens are extensive, in the formal English style, and the rhododendrons are out in bloom now.
The rhodies are now a roadside weed, infesting many hedgerows in the countryside – you know you’re near an old stately home site when the purple flowers start appearing. There are also many bright patches of fuchsias, which – surprisingly – are native.
At Muckross I was accosted by a total stranger, who told me, “You blokes were lucky last Friday.” After more than a month of keeping me warm on cold days my Geelong scarf had finally been identified by, serendipitously, a Collingwood barracker. We all had a bit of a yarn, insincerely wished each other good luck for the rest of the season, and went on our way.
An afternoon snooze gave us enough energy to stay after dinner at a pub in town to enjoy a bit of music, but it was less enjoyable than the Doolin session – an odd combination of piano accordion, acoustic guitar and electric bass playing an odder mixture of traditional, C&W and standards, not enough of any of
them to really please anyone.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.13s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 16; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0784s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb