AROUND THE UK AND IRELAND: Part Two

Boats, Birds, and Caves

I woke up to a nice day, a little cloudy, but threatening sunshine. The Trennish Isles and the Isle of Staffa are uninhabited and lie about an hour away from Iona. Our little boat was crowded but congenial, boarded mostly by birders as the Isles are home to large nesting colonies. At the first landing our dock turned out to be a rock. As the boat bobbed up and down in a heavy swell, we all timed our leaps and prayed. Everyone made it: old ladies in walkers, men in wheelchairs, mothers nursing their babies; the lame, the halt, the blind. Never in America: there would be a Congressional sub-committee holding hearings--appropriately--on the poop deck.

Birds were everywhere, nesting on the cliffs and in the tall grasses. I will list them for you ornithologists. There were some fairly big ones, some middling sized ones, and some smaller ones. There may have been others, but those were the only ones I positively identified. I had always thought of birders as little old ladies (some of them men) standing around in gaggles and arguing over whether they had just spotted a rustfooted boobyhatch or a nutchested finchburger (or, if in a whimsical mood, whether or not male titmice should wear brasseries), anyway, not exactly a hardy bunch. But I was wrong. After following some of the group along goat trails over treacherous cliffs above dizzying drops falling sheer into haddock infested waters, I know better. And you have to be brave in other ways: aggregations of birds in these numbers smell—nay, they reek. It was interesting for a while, but this is one time it can be safely said that once you’ve seen ten million, you’ve....

So I peeled off and clambered up the cliff like an arthritic goat. From the top I could see islands everywhere and the mountains of Mull looming in the distance. Simply a gorgeous day: I’m really lucking out; it seems that every time I have an outing planned, the sun shines, and every time I have a travel day, it rains.

I found a half dozen ruined stone houses on the north slope, vintage unknown, but only the walls were left. What would it have been like to live in such a place? I can’t really imagine, but I feel more than a touch of envy. When I find places like this, I begin to have visions of living alone in them for at least a year. Could I do it? I don’t know, of course, but I think maybe I could. Would there be any epiphanies of self, God, and the universe; or would I come back a little odder, but none the wiser? If you would like to find out, someone start a fund; and I’ll give it a whirl.

We stayed in bird land for a couple of hours, reboarded the boat without loss of life, and headed for Staffa. The wonders on that island are caves and unusual rock formations. As we approached, we saw a great cliff face made up of basaltic, hexagonal columns pockmarked by caves large and small. The biggest is Fingal’s Cave, named after a giant who had a quarrel with a fellow hulk on the coast of Northern Ireland where there are similar formations. Anyway, they started slinging rocks at one another, and—I forget the rest of the details, but there you have it—or do you? Fingal’s Cave is two hundred and forty feet deep, eighty feet high, and narrows from a fifty foot wide entrance. After landing we made our way along the rock wall and about halfway into the cave before the ledges became too narrow and slippery to continue. Felix Mendelssohn came, was inspired, and wrote a piece to commemorate his visit. No, I’ve never heard it; have you?

Glasgow Bound

I woke up to a blustery, drizzly morning; I had thought I might stay another day and walk Iona, but it was so cold and windy, I decided to move on. I am on the ferry going from Mull to the mainland, trying to work out a new route to Ireland now that my ferry has gone belly up.

(Late afternoon) Well, it ain’t Ireland; it’s Glasgow. There’s a ferry that goes from a town called Stanraer (a red pin) to Belfast (yellow would be nice), but my bus was late getting into Glasgow (purple, maybe), and I just missed connections. I’m staying the night at, of all things, a Holiday Inn. It’s only a block from the bus station, and I wasn’t in the mood to go BB hunting. I wasn’t planning to come to Glasgow at all, but with my original ferry moribund and more, all sea routes to Ireland come through here. The ride from Oban to Glasgow was—surprise—spectacular: rugged mountains, green valleys, and lochs. Just so you’ll know there is an occasional down side, and so I can take on the air of a jaded world traveler, I am beginning to think that the motif of the crumbling castle on the deserted lakeshore is becoming a trifle clichéd. We all have a finite supply of “oohs,” “aahs,” and “lovelys”—Mrs. Hourston being the one exception—and I’ve about used up my ruined castle quota.

Still in Glasgow, Beware the Underwear

This town is like the Hotel California; you can check in, but you can’t check out. Actually, I do have a ferry reservation at Stanraer for 4 p.m., which means I’ll be getting into Belfast around 10 p.m. Glasgow is big, about a million people, and it’s harder to pin down and take in than was Edinburgh, especially in the short time I have. I walked down to George Square this morning and listened for a while to a jazz band, a rather surreal experience with all the old buildings looming around. There’s a bronze William Gladstone in the center of the square; I wonder what he would have thought of the music—probably he would have blamed it on Disraeli.

Glasgow was once known as being somewhat pugnacious, but it is now a friendly tourist town. The square had all kinds of things going on: puppet shows, gold body-coated angels with gossamer wings, and assorted other Disney-type characters. I don’t know if this was a usual thing, or if it was all being done in my honor.

Next, I strolled a mile or so to Glasgow Cathedral, a sooty old thing, but impressive nonetheless. In the center of the church, there was a strange sculpture, consisting of cardboard cutouts, some three-dimensional, some not. The figures weren’t cartoonish, more like realistic comic book types. I asked three older ladies at a booth what the thing represented. Quite vehemently, and all at once, they assured me they didn’t like it in the least and had had absolutely no say in it being there. After they calmed down, they explained that it was “supposed” to represent the resurrection...maybe so. I left them muttering darkly and went to visit the tomb of St. Mungo. Who is St. Mungo, you ask? You’re asking the wrong person. However, I did some quick research in my guidebook and found out he is the person buried in St. Mungo’s tomb. If some of you have detected a somewhat cavalier (or is it roundhead?) attitude toward historical details, it’s not really so. It’s just that there is so much, and any attempt to take it all in would interfere with what I’m trying to do—which is to try to soak in the atmosphere of this marvelous country.

And since this is a slow day, I will now give you my Wicked Wicking report. First, I want to thank you for your patience. I know that some of you have been waiting with bated breath (no, don’t tell me what you baited it with!) for the long promised dissertation on the drying properties of my underwear. It’s not as if any of you have asked via email, but I put that down to your politeness and restraint. Without doubt, these are the lightest, most comfortable clothes I’ve ever worn. They are so light and unobtrusive that I go about in constant fear that I’m not wearing them—and an even worse fear that nobody will notice or care. However, you want to know about the clothes and not my psychological quirks, so here goes.

The shirts are simply amazing; they don’t wrinkle (if I see wrinkles, I know I forgot to put one on); and they go from damp to dust in a twinkling. The pants take only a little longer to dry, mostly because of the waistband. One of the pants is convertible and can be transformed into shorts in an instant by a simple zip of the zippers.

Let us now delve into the nether world of the underwear. I have two kinds; one is Coolmax, and they dry about as well as the pants and shirts. And then there is the other kind, the crinoline ones. No, I don’t mean “crinoline,” I mean “capilene.” I get mixed up because of the ruffles. No, “ruffles” isn’t exactly what I mean either...I need to slow down and admit something. (Excuse me, while I take a deep breath.) These particular underwear confuse and trouble me. The word “voluminous” springs to mind, but it is completely inadequate. I don’t understand the amount of material as it relates to the intended purpose. While I can’t say there are ruffles, there are folds, plaits, creases, swathes, crenellations, and, yes, caverns, and maybe chasms. These features make a certain object difficult to locate especially under pressure. Of course, one can always explore upstream to the source, but by then it is too late. The waistband is normal, but after that it is one size fits all—and I mean collectively, not individually. I now have a better concept of the expanding universe. I wish I had kept the original packaging—the part where it explains how the underwear can double as a portable carport or a parachute.

Sadly, I must turn to the socks. The salesman assured me they were quick drying. He lied. Or else he was a former geologist and was thinking in a completely different time frame. I wring those suckers out at night until not a whimper of moisture remains. Then in the morning, I wring them again; and they flow like Niagara. They actually seem to draw water out of the atmosphere (perhaps the marketing people missed the mark; they should have been sold as dehumidifiers). In truth, I think they may be some kind of predatory sponge, disguised as common socks, so they can attract some poor, unsuspecting sole. Actually, I think the problem is they are not truly and fully “technical.” Somehow some miscegenated cotton or wool got mixed in.

Okay, end of report: from now on, unless there’s a ripping good reason, I’ll leave the underwear where it belongs—acting as a tent for some Midwest revival meeting.

Some of you have asked me about the food. For the most part it has been good, if not remarkable. Breakfast at the BBs always consists of eggs and pork; each person gets a whole pig. The portions are not those curled up, cinderized, get-lost-in-a-cavity slices of bacon that are served in America; we’re talking slabs of porkified sheetrock accompanied by logs of sausages.

The eggs come any way one likes: poached, pilfered, stolen, borrowed, filched, and confiscated, to name a few. Along with the eggs and pork, one can order tomatoes, mushrooms, haggis, and, occasionally, the “I’ll-come-back-to-haunt-you kippers.” Toast with jam, and tea or coffee is mandatory; and there are assorted juices and fruit, mostly canned but sometimes fresh—oh, and various dry cereals with yoghurt. I usually eat two meals a day, supplemented with oatcakes when I travel. Since I’ve been close to the sea, I’ve had lots of fish for dinner; but steak or lamb is commonly served. In most places there is at least one vegetarian dish, and one can always order a plate of vegetables. Salads are, well, adequate; but the soups and stews have been universally good.

I love to sit in a restaurant and watch the British eat. They all seem to be conducting a two-handed symphony as knife and fork cut graceful arcs through the air. Beethoven’s Ninth seems very popular, and I often find myself humming along. It’s fascinating to watch an older couple; they are often on the same note. There are a few people who seem to feel they must subdue their food before eating it. They attack with relish, using rapier-like thrusts and ripostes.

When Brits eat soup or ice cream, they often seem a little nervous; as if afraid the idle hand is going to do something naughty. I am amazed and jealous at the way even small children can shove peas on the back of the fork tines and mash the little green marbles before they can escape. Then they eat them as if this were a normal human activity. I tried it, but my peas fled to the far corners of the room and hid.
I’m in Stanraer awaiting the ferry to Belfast. I’ve seen the first signs of security since I left America; it’s minimal, but it lets one know he is entering Northern Ireland. The ride down from Glasgow was uneventful and unspectacular. Off in the distance I could see Arran and Kintyre, the last bits and pieces of Scotland, still exerting their siren call. Reluctantly, I’ve put away my guide and map of Scotland, but, with anticipation, have replaced them with their counterparts for Ireland.

For you history buffs, here’s a suddenly recalled snippet of Scottish history. There are over forty kings of Scotland buried at Iona, including Macbeth and the predecessor he murdered, Duncan. I don’t know Mrs. Macbeth’s present whereabouts, but I suspect she is in a much warmer clime than Iona.

(On board the ferry) Finally we’re moving—or the shore is. Did I say ferry? Strike that; floating palace is more like it. It’s huge, holding 1500 passengers and 375 vehicles. There are bars, game rooms, restaurants, and who knows what else. I’m going to find a seat, plop down, and coast. I’ve run out of oatcakes, but this baby isn’t going to quiver in anything less than a Category Five hurricane. I’ll let you know later if I survive the rigors of the crossing.

Anyway, we’re gliding across a calm Irish sea; I’m watching the sun slowly set, thinking of home, and wondering what the morrow will bring. May God’s blessing, or the blessing of whatever you believe in, be with you.

Barely in Belfast

I have almost nothing to say about Belfast (originally, I had not planned to be here at all). I arrived after ten p.m. last night, and was gone by eight this morning. I have an impression—maybe not fair—of empty streets and silent people behind shuttered windows. The town seems depressed—or was that me? In any case, I fled at the first bus opportunity, heading south for Dublin.

Dublin

I walked a million miles today—well, sometimes I exaggerate, so you can cut that in half. I did see a lot of Dublin, some of it inadvertently. I was looking for a modem adaptor for my handheld, and it wasn’t easy to find. I covered most of the miles on foot, a few of them by city bus. Unless you have a long way to go or have reached an advanced state of poopidity (which I finally did); it’s probably as fast or faster to travel on foot. This is an absolutely wonderful old town: such a hustly-bustly chaotic madness of pedestrians, cars, buses, and lorries. The confusion lessens some, but not much, as you get away from the city center, which takes in both sides of the River Liffey. There’s an ongoing game of “I dare you” between walkers and drivers; I don’t know why the streets aren’t littered with bodies.

The modern and the ancient blend in quite nicely, and monumental buildings are everywhere. I took in two cathedrals, strangely neither one Catholic in this Catholic country. The first was St. Patrick’s (and the man himself was said to have baptized converts on its grounds). Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels) was dean for many years and is buried there. The other church, only a few blocks away, has a wonderfully spooky old crypt running under the nave.

I also went to Trinity College, a huge walled-in block in the middle of the city. One of the wonders of the Western world resides there, the Book of Kells that originated on Iona. It is a beautifully illuminated (illustrated) volume of the four gospels that was begun around 800. It’s done on vellum (about 185 calves worth) and is in remarkably good condition; today it was turned to the illustration of Christ’s temptations. It’s called the Book of Kells because it was taken to that monastery after Iona. Later Kells was destroyed and the book disappeared for a while. After it was recovered, it was taken to Trinity for safekeeping. It really is a marvelous, beautiful old thing, and I feel privileged to have seen it.

Upstairs is a room that took my breath away; it is without doubt the most remarkable room I’ve ever seen—and that includes those in such places as Versailles. For some reason it brought a lump to my throat. It’s called the Long Room, and it contains 250,000 of the oldest books the college owns. They are shelved in two-story alcoves lined on the lower level with the busts of famous people I don’t know. Each alcove, upper and lower, is about fifteen feet high and has a ladder to reach the top shelves. It’s a working library, and I was simply overwhelmed.

(Later) I wandered back to my hotel and then ate at a Thai restaurant. It was a nice, little place, playing early Bob Dylan in the background—go figure. My last three meals have been Italian, Chinese, and Thai; I’m not sure if there is a distinctive Irish cuisine—pub food, or maybe meat pies, stews, and surely potatoes. Actually, now that I think about it and judging by the number of establishments, it’s probably Guinness.

I’ve pretty much decided that I’m going to rent a car for the rest of my time in Ireland. Public transportation is just too spotty and unreliable, and right now the trains are on strike. I can’t believe that my time is already half over. Keep me in mind and maybe pray about my driving on the other side of the road.

Connemara Here I Come

I called my daughter (a travel agent); and she arranged a car for me, a forest green Ford Fiesta. I left Dublin around ten this morning, and I must admit to some degree of trepidation as I squirmed behind the wheel. My main fear was that I would find myself driving down the wrong side of the road with a lorry bearing down on me—the stuff of nightmares. Besides the wrong side issue, shifting the manual transmission with my left hand took some getting used to. However the hardest thing to deal with at first was simply knowing where the left side of the car was situated in space. I finally quit thinking about that and concentrated on how close I was to cars passing on the right. That seemed to help, and I quit nicking the curb, berms, dogs, and people in wheelchairs.

Motoring out of Dublin, I found myself on a highway heading much farther south than I had intended. After a few miles, I felt confident enough to take on secondary roads, so I cut back north through the Slieve Bloom Mountains. Naturally, I got lost...well, hold on just a minute; that L word is a little hard on my delicate male ego. I will admit that I had no idea where I was, hadn’t the foggiest notion of how to get where I was going, and had only a rudimentary grasp of how I had gotten to my present location. But come on: Lost! That’s harsh. Maybe we could say that I was temporarily whereabouts challenged.

I finally made it through the blooming mountains—actually more like hills by California standards. It was wild country though; for miles I saw no houses and only a few cars. I eventually got on a road to Galway, and coming into that city, I had my first real encounter with roundabouts. On main roads in this part of the world, there are seldom intersections; instead the driver rides a carousel. The rules are simple: go around clockwise and yield to the vehicle on the right. A few are controlled by lights, but most are self-regulated and work amazingly well. The first few go rounds were exciting, however; there were about ten of them getting into Galway, and they kept trying to hurl me off into the vortex of the city center. I resisted bravely; and through skill, determination, and lightning-quick reflexes (read luck and the grace of God), I managed to stay out of the black hole of Galway. Finally, I was through and on my way to Connemara.

(Later) A look at the map will tell you that a coast-to-coast drive in this part of Ireland is about a hundred and fifty miles. I did well over two hundred; but that’s okay: I did it my way. After Galway the scenery was pretty, but not spectacular (Scotland spoils you). Sheep are plentiful, but not ubiquitous as in Scotland. (Perhaps the same thing happened to them here as occurred in Turkey. There fifteen hundred of the dazed creatures suddenly decided they were lemmings and took a header off a cliff; a thousand or so survived as the pile got higher. I thought that counting them engaged in that activity might help me sleep at night; but it didn’t. It’s hard to doze off when one can’t stop chuckling.) I stopped at a small ruined castle, Aughnanure, built by the O’Flaherty clan around 1500. The main fortress has been well restored, but the rest is nicely crumbling. The O’Flaherty’s apparently got too big for their knee jerkins and were exiled somewhere. I figure a little history, very little, won’t hurt you.

A few miles after the castle the scenery picked up considerably as the Twelve Pins (Gaelic: Bins) a series of rugged granite peaks hove into view across an open valley dotted with lakes—honest-to-goodness mountains for a change. I finally came to my destination for the night, Clifden, a village sitting at the end of a sea inlet. I found a BB a few miles from town right on the edge of the water, a tranquil location. I went back into town for dinner and had the best meal of the trip so far: pan seared salmon with a dill sauce, simple but delicious. I was so inspired I had dessert, something I seldom do: ice cream and an excellent slice of apple pie.
It was just 8:30 when I was done, but I was tired; driving was a bigger strain than I realized. I filled up with gas; two hundred plus miles, and it came to sixteen pounds, about thirty dollars, and this is an economy car. There are some advantages to bus travel, but I feel so much freer with my own set of wheels. Public transportation worked out well in Scotland; because of all the ferries, a car would have been a problem. But here in Ireland, a vehicle of your own is the only way to go—or, Yuck, a tour bus.

Tomorrow I’ll finish up Connemara, try to sneak through Galway again (the only way to avoid it and go south is to detour by way of Scandinavia), then head for the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher.

(Later: some late evening ruminations) I’ve been thinking about that Long Room in Trinity College and my reaction to it. I suppose 250,000 is a lot of anything, sand grains and such excepted. But there is something else I’m having a hard time putting my finger on. All those old, old books—with how much effort over how many years have people tried to understand themselves and the world they live in? In some strange way I see those books as an antidote to 9/11, the Holocaust, and all those terrible sicknesses that we visit on each other and ourselves. The books contain the best we have to offer, or at least they are an attempt to understand and record what is best in us. I know they have lies, errors, and misconceptions, and some may have been written in plain bad faith; but the greater numbers of them are trying to tell the truth as the authors saw it. Of course, our truths are always partial and come at best in fits and staggers. Some of us may believe that the book in the room below, the Book of Kells, is all truth; but even it is not that: the Truth will always be beyond us. Anyway, the room gave me a sense of joy, a twinge of sadness, and a touch of pride in that spirit within us that is always striving for a clearer understanding of the world and of ourselves.

Inishmor

I wandered around Connemara, with some of those wanderings being completely involuntary. (Connemara is one of the Gaelic speaking centers of Ireland, and the road signs are in that language with English sometimes added as an afterthought—well, smarty pants, maybe you’d get lost, too.) I really don’t have a great sense of direction; I do all right with up and down and am passable with left and right; but after that, it’s a crapshoot. But eventually I seem to get where I am going which in this case was the Arran Islands. They are a group of three low lying rocks off the southern coast of Connemara. The main attraction for me was on Inishmor, the largest island, about forty minutes by ferry from the mainland. Dun Aengus, an old hill fort, was built there, the finest of its kind in Europe—do I sound like a guidebook? The island is about nine miles long and three wide, so I broke down and took a tour van. There are no buses: the roads are too narrow, seemingly having been built for snakes. The tour turned out fine as there was no guide, and the driver stayed behind while we walked a mile to the site. The fort is 2500 years old and looks every day of it. There are walls and a few preserved rooms, but the charm is in the location. It perches on the very edge of a three hundred foot cliff that falls sheer into the sea. The wind howls, the sea roars, but the silence of the ages drowns out everything else.

Inishmor itself is an island of stone: stone houses, ruined and inhabited; a warren, a maze, a labyrinth of stone fences; and stone, stone, stone every place else; great limestone slabs paving acres of the island interspersed with small avenues of green grass.

I made it through Galway, came to the little town of Kinvarra, had another great meal, and bedded down.

(continued)