On our entry to the UK, while we were standing at the head of the line to be checked through by UK passport control, one of the officers was going from booth to booth and all interviews and processing ceased for a short while as there was an unintelligible announcement on the PA system. Turns out that across the UK, government and other offices engaged in 72 seconds of silence in memory of the 72 victims who died in the Grenfell Tower fire in London one year ago.
The evening is devoted to drinks and dinner. For some, an early retreat to treat jetlag or to rearrange their packing, while others chat late, renewing or forming acquaintances for the coming days. Tomorrow will involve bus, ferries and activities, probably the longest day of the tour.
Tour begins on June 15, and folks gather 1-3 days in advance at the Glasgow Airport Holiday Inn, literally just across the driveway from the airport’s international arrivals door.
We await a friend from previous tours.
Other passengers get liveried chauffeur service. We suspect this one for Mr. Armstrong is more expensive.
It’s been a while since our last Scotland trip., but we’re here once more, this time for a tour to Tarbert, Inverary, and surroundings.
Of course we have to fly over Ireland to land at Glasgow, so Ireland and Inishbofin (below the silhouette) get some space on this post
This is a 13th century abbey now in ruin, but much of the walls still stand, due to restoration projects in the 19th century. No current pix since we didn’t go along on Friday. It is interesting because of an indirect connection to Bram Stoker and Dracula. When Stoker was a child and often ill, his mother told him told tales of the period in 1832 when the local area was hard hit by cholera, and people were dying at a rate of fifty to a hundred a day, so that burials in the churches’ graveyards were frequent and hasty and shallow, including mass graves, into which bodies from the asylum and workhouse would be rolled wrapped in pitch-coated cloth in an attempt to contain the contagion. Legend claims that bodies were pushed into the graves with poles and some of the burials were of not-yet-dead, so anxious were people to avoid contact with the disease. The result was that body parts would sometimes re-emerge from below, given rise to the concept of the undead.
The group boards the bus and goes to Parke’s Castle and Lough Gill. Paula and I have done this day’s excursion twice before, so we stay behind.
The castle is from the Elizabethan era when English were granted lands in Ireland to shore up English rule after the Irish nobility were crushed or expelled or fled to Spain. The English process was called plantation, not involving agriculture but planting English to exercise authority over the Irish locals. Parke built a secure castle enclosure to house his family and protect them from the locals. And the building and enclosing walls are still in good shape, so the castle is a very good example of architecture and fortification, living quarters, and demonstration of building techniques.
Below the castle is a dock on Lough Gill where an excursion ship moors, the Rose of Innisfree. The trip on the Lough is about 90 minutes out to the island of Innisfree, made famous by poetry of W.B. Years. No stop, just a cruise. The small ship was formerly captained by George, now by his son, but who still does the commentary and recites Yeats poetry in a fine trained voice. The ship also provides lunch.
Afterwards the group goes to Sligo Abbey which ties into Bram Stoker and Dracula, and rounds out the day with a stop at the church where Yeats is buried. This is mostly Yeats country, with a museum, house, festivals, contests, theater, and celebrations. More about that tomorrow.
Paula and I spend the day lounging about the hotel and watching preparations for a large (300+) wedding reception in the evening, rumor has it for some footballer and wife. We talk about mischief, like signing the guest book from Wisconsin or putting a card in the card well, but we don’t follow through. Our dinner is buffet style in the restaurant as the kitchen, servers and runners are flitting about coping with the demands of the wedding crowd. Kudos to our tour leaders who had ensured that none of our group are rooming above the ballroom.
The wedding appears to be very upscale, lots of very tailored dresses, fascinator headwear, very high heels, and men in tailored suits, formal wear with fancy vests. The staff say next morning that the dancing and band went until 4.
Paula and Lexi bid fair to crash the reception as the wedding party makes it’s grand entry.
Before dinner, a pint of Orchard Thieves Irish cider in the hotel lobby.
After dinner we have a one-hour concert in one of the hotel meeting rooms. James and Donnie are joined by their longtime friends Joe, Roddy, Seamus, and Theresa for a session before they all head out to the music locales for sessions in the pubs. An Irish session or seisiún is an informal, round-robin musical gathering for instrumental or vocal tunes, frequently in a pub.
In the picture, Joe hasn’t arrived yet. James’ birthday is today, and although he has hoped to escape notice, we interrupt the concert with a heartfelt happy birthday song.
Donnie on the left end, James on the right end. Next day, Paul Smith (80+ years old) who went out pub crawling with them after the concert, said that Seamus (with the concertina) doesn’t hit his musical stride until after 11.
The hotel is hosting a wedding reception on Friday and preparations are ongoing in the lobby. Table assignments are posted, looks like dinner for 290 plus the wedding party and parents. The joint’ll be jumpin’ Friday evening.
Two extra pix from the cemetery.
This is a poem written by an Irish corporal in the British army, Francis Ledwidge, while home on leave in 1916, a Lament for Thomas MacDonagh, a close friend and fellow Irish poet about to be executed by a British army firing squad for his participation in the Easter Rising. It’s the sort of short poem school children learn to recite, featuring the dark cow of foreboding and death and the pleasant mead(ows) of the next life. It is considered one of the best poems of the English language and is part of funerary traditions quite aside from military honors.
Another tradition, but outside the walls enclosing the consecrated ground of a cemetery, a burial site and memorial for children of the parish who died before the could be baptised.
Paula descends from the bus in Galway putting on her coat amid rain and wind, and an older woman, under 5 ft. tall, tiny face, long black wool coat, pillbox hat and shopping bag, stops, taps Paula on the arm, and says sympathetically, “This is what we call old cow weather.” She smiles and walks on. Meaning what?
Irish legends say that the old brindle cow laughed and bragged that even the harsh storms of March couldn’t kill her. Thereupon, March borrowed some days from the beginning of April and extended his fury. So old cow weather is those days in April that are more like March.
One of our tour members is a USMC Vietnam veteran who did his tour in 1967. A month before he arrived in country, a young fellow was killed in a firefight. His name was Patrick Gallagher, born in Ballyhaunis, County Mayo. He emigrated, followed his cousin into the Marine Corps, and was awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary valor. When several grenades were tossed into a group, he tossed one out, kicked another out, and threw himself on to a third to protect his mates. The third did not explode, so he survived, but was killed a week later in a firefight. A missile destroyer ship will be named for him in the near future.
His cousin accompanied Patrick’s body back to Ballyhaunis, presented his flag and Navy Cross to his mother, and the whole town turned out for the funeral procession and graveside service. A standard issue US military gavestone is placed on the site, and veteran flag markers on the front corners, along with his parents’ more ornate marker.
The vet in our group, a retired firefighter from Petaluma and one of three on our tour, wants to visit the grave to honor the hero, read a poem, and place a veteran’s recognition pin that he had received in a recent thanks event. Our leaders have arranged for a brief detour off the highway and Martin, our bus driver, masterfully negotiates the secondary and tertiary roads and backs the bus into the small cemetery parking lot. The whole bus unloads and walks to the grave at the back of the acre or so, a fairly modern and tidy place, to witness the ceremony. Ed makes a little speech, lays the pin in honor of all those who did not survive to receive the current recognition for their service, and chokes up, attributing his own devotion to survivors guilt.
Our bus departs at 10:03 on Thursday with us in seats at the rear of the bus. Our first stop is downtown Galway. The city has a long pedestrian mall lined cheek by jowl with small shops. Buskers sing, dance, and perform puppetry, artists offer their pieces, and the whole length is crowded.
Galway is an old city, built for horse and carriage traffic, so the streets are very narrow and twisty. Traffic is heavy, slow and confusing, with one-ways, side alleys, merging streets, and few traffic lights. Population has doubled just in the past ten years, and our leader James who lived here years ago, says traffic was wild even back in those days. There are precious few large or modern stores downtown, even around the central Eyre Square.
Our bus parks along a narrow canyon street two blocks off the pedestrian street. Across the street is a vintage resale shop with some items hanging outside. The place is a whitewashed hole in the wall shop in an old stone building, might have been a one-time coal bunker for the building, heated by a small electric fan heater. The front room contains racks of overcoats, and the second room is racks of dresses, suits and jackets for women. Paula simply has to check out a coat she saw from the bus and winds up buying it before we head for the street to find some fish and chips. The coat is visible in the picture.
Sorry, no pix of the fish and chips.They were good, but kinda oily. The tartar sauce was great, though.
After lunch and some other unsuccessful shopping, we head back toward the bus with another stop at the vintage store, mostly just to kill a few minutes. Paula’s sister Nancy has a fundraiser gala at the end of the month with a circus theme and inquires without anticipation. The shop owner waves her to the left rear corner of the second room, and Nancy finds the perfect outfit needing only accessories. Pictures are embargoed until next month.
Dinner is served. Selection of beef, chicken, hake, and something vegetarian. The important part is getting to know your neighbors, swapping stories of other trips, and regaling newbies with the coming glories of Rathmullan House.
Luggage tags are distributed, four for each couple, except we need five, an extra for my CPAP case. Bags in the hall at 8:30, bus departure at 10. Galway by noon, then on to Ballyhaunis and then to Sligo. No music tonight, as all are in various stages of time zone adjustment. A group may stay late in the bar, but we head for our room to reorganize and prepare for the morrow.
At 6 PM we follow the cacaphony of raised voices into the bar where old friends greet each other and introduce themselves to new friends they haven’t met yet.
One of the preparatory phases of the tour is for our leaders to gather brief bios, 2-4 paragraphs written by each and every tour member, but no pictures, assemble them, and send them back out to the whole group as a snail mailed document to be brought along on the tour, so we can study up in advance and review as we go along. This whets the interest to know about tour member tidbits and details, and a function of the first meeting and dinner together is to start associating faces with names and backgrounds. Then through the tour folks go back to the bios after dinner to review and reinforce.
Paula’s goal is to know every name and associated face as early in the tour as she can, and to sit with every person on the tour at one or more meals. My personal goal is to hear anything amid the hubbub.
Bisque birds make up the clock in the hotel lounge where we play some cards with fellow travelers while waiting for the official start.
As we check in at the hotel we spot one familiar figure walking away up the stair to the second level. Paula’s sister will arrive at the airport in the early afternoon. And as we sit in the hotel pub we watch people arrive and look around, as we wonder who among them is a tour companion. Later in the afternoon some of the usual suspects appear and start to recognize others, as there are several frequent flyers in the group who recognize each other from previous tours. Soon there is a small collection of souls sharing beverage and sympathy over travel hiccups, storm delays, re-routings, airports, and capricious airlines. More experienced hands know to fly at least a day early if not more, to allow for time zone adjustment before the tour gets started, and for spring and fall storms and domino-effect delays.
Nancy arrives as scheduled despite re-routings. Donnie, James, and Bronagh, tour leaders, appear. About half of the tour group arrives on Tuesday and the rest have arrived by mid-afternoon on Wednesday. We’re all just marking time until the official tour start on Wednesday evening in the lounge at the hotel. Some take the bus into Ennis on Wednesday if for no other purpose than to walk around, as there is vanishingly little to do near the airport. Shannon town has Bunratty Castle and little else, not even a Tesco.
The gathering process completes with the official start: drinks and introductions in the lounge and dinner in the dining room. Beef, chicken, fish or vegetarian for dinner. The tour bus will leave at 10 on Thursday, suitcases in the hall by 8:30. None of this 7 AM stuff!
Tuesday we have short ramble across the Liffey to catch an 11 AM train. Rain was predicted for the morning and it followed through obediently in the earlier morning, but by 10:15 it has ceased. We already have our train tickets in hand and we know that they open the gate to the platform about a half hour before departure. Check-out proceeds apace, and we cross the river just at 10:30. A homeless person with a sleeping bag and a proffered donation cup is camped on the bridge’s sidewalk. The trams cross the river here, and it being a narrow bridge, pedestrian progress is delayed as a tram passes, leaving no room between the oncoming tram and the camper.
Walking into the station we stop to read the electronic signs that announce the departure platform, and as we pause the sign changes to designate platform 5. Humanity surges toward the turnstiles, where you insert your ticket, collect it, and pass through. The turnstile rejects our tickets. An attendant waves us over to another turnstile, the tickets are accepted, and we follow the crowd down the platform. Ours are reserved seats, so there is no need to race, although a couple of older, toddling passengers slow even our leisurely pace.
Once aboard the assigned train car C, our reserved window seats have our names above in electronic readouts, so they are easy to find and claim. The seats have a table between them, and on the table an flyer reassures us that the snack trolley will come by shortly. What a relief after our large Irish breakfast!
One of the four seats around the table is similarly reserved, and our companion is a woman of slightly later vintage than we, toting a large, stuffed shopping bag. Being seated, she promptly falls asleep. We settle in as the train pulls out.
The snack trolley appears as promised before Portaloise, the first stop, and purveys snacks, fizzy drinks, tea and coffee, but nothing alcoholic. For that you have to walk back to car D. As I am busy blogging, Paula goes back to investigate and returns with a miniature of wine and a can of cider.
Our companion wakes up around Templemore, and we have a nice chat all the way to Limerick Junction. She has been to the States. She seems impressed that we know about Ireland’s history and we don’t sound like Americans.
At Limerick Junction we have to change to a shuttle train waiting for us. The train from Dublin will continue south to Cork, and the shuttle will take us a little further west to Limerick Colbert station downtown.
My brother Bill is a fan of the McCourt brothers (Angela’s Ashes, A Monk Swimming) and asked if we would be visiting the sites in Limerick. We are only in town for the transfer, and we understand that the locals are heartily tired of the infamy wrought by McCourt’s writings and tourist expectations. Limerick has had large infusions of EU money to upgrade infrastructure and community improvement. We’ll stop another time, and there will be other times.
We have done this before, and we know that very soon after the train arrives, the bus departs for Shannon Airport. We are prepared to exit the train, proceed to the bus ticket machine at 1:10, buy the tickets, and walk out to the bus departure bays, but we still ask to make sure we get on the right bus, one that doesn’t stop at every other real estate development on the way. The bus is waiting and we stow our luggage underneath. When the driver opens the entry door, we ask again just to make sure the other guy wasn’t “having us on.”
Departure is at 1:31. Ensconced on the bus, we look for the familiar roundabouts, landmarks, and industrial estates. As we pass Bunratty Castle, Shannon airport is not far and it’s time to start putting coats on. The bus pulls into the airport campus at 1:56 and stops between the departure and arrival doors, we retrieve our luggage, and the bus pulls away, headed for Ennis and Galway.
And across the parking lot is our destination hotel for two nights, the Park Inn Hotel by Radisson. We grab a luggage trolley, and push across the “car park” to check in, have a pint, and settle in.
We discovered the hotel online last year as being near to Heuston Station. It is indeed close, right across the river from it. Heuston is a train, tram, city bus, and airport bus point and it’s trains serve the West and south of Ireland. So the hotel really becomes a hub for tourists. Kind of upscale, nice rooms and beds, and the rooms we’ve had face across the Liffey River and overlook a small park. Bathtub, rain shower head, big towels, two sinks, and an electric towel warmer.
The hotel overlooks a small park with a reclining statue in a fountain dedicated to Anna Livia, a character in James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake and personification of the river. The fountain is often a target for bottles of washing up liquid (Dawn, Joy, etc.) and is locally known as the Floozy in the Jacuzzi.
The view to the southeast is of the Guinness operation. It is yu-uge. Bottom right beyond the river is the yard for receiving empty kegs.
We like this view equally. Guinness and Smithwicks.
The hotel’s mascot is dreadlocked sheep, both outdoors
and indoors.
The view to the Southwest is to Heuston Station and Kilmainham where the infamous prison is located. The evening lighting is the colors of the Irish Republic flag.
Aside from the liquid velvet that is Irish beer and whiskey, along with others on offer, the hotel offers a sumptuous, if not downright fulsome, breakfast buffet. What we have been looking forward to, though, is the beef and Guinness pie topped with puff pastry and accompanied by chunky chips and shot of Guinness to wake up the pie’s underlying rosemary and thyme herbed stew. Also huge.
Because it is at a tourist hub, the hotel gets quite a bit of traffic from the airport, bleary-eyed transatlantic travelers hoping for an early check-in and a nap. We were such too, but the hotel has a noon check-out and a 4 PM check-in. So we often see couples and young families snoozing on the lobby and bar sofas as we did, waiting for the relief of a room and a bed to call their own.
Rainy days in Ireland? Who’d ‘a thunk it? We’re prepared with layers and waterproof. We’re also not far from Jameson and they have hot drinks on offer. Our morning starts late and breakfast and reconnoitering takes its time. Our train tickets for Tuesday were pre-ordered online, so we cross the river to Heuston Station, named for one of the executed leaders of the 1916 Rising, and punch in our confirmation code at the ticket machine. The tickets print and appear without hesitation or protest.
A two-stop tram ride and two block walk gets us to Jameson, where we have a couple of hot drinks involving whiskey – ginger infused whiskey, tawny port, apple cider, cinnamon, a section of tart apple, and a sprinkle of nutmeg. Just the thing to recommend to our friends and relatives shoveling out from 6-12 inches of heavy spring snow at home.
Jameson also provides a bottle for our own travels and travails, and a bottle for sharing on the tour bus when we set out on the tour on Thursday. We are old hands at these Men of Worth tours and we know what’s expected.
Due to the continuing rain, we pass on the Emigration Museum and famine ship. Another visit to Dublin is pretty much certain. Under the influence of a couple of hot whiskey drinks, we tram our way back to the hotel for nap, Irish cell phone setup, and unlocking the cryptex that is WordPress for blogging.
What’s with Pittsville WI, you ask? We met the proprietors of Baum Mercantile of Pittsville last summer on one of our Merrimac ferry cruises, took a bumper sticker from them, and resolved to post some travel pix.
The flight gets us into Dublin airport 55 minutes early thanks to vigorous tail winds. Our cabbie takes us ’round Robin Hood’s barn into the city to the Ashling Hotel. Novel and more circuitous route than in the past, but it brings us to the hotel through Phoenix Park , which is bigger than Central Park, 24 miles around, with great fields of daffodils and great herds of deer visible from our road. Pope Francis will hold mass to massive humanity at Croke Park Stadium and at Phoenix Park two days in August. Dublin will be nuts.
The park is not busy as on other, warmer Sundays. Of course it’s still church time on Easter Sunday, plus the cabbie tells us of two major sporting events in the city: Dublin v Galway in Gaelic football, and Dublin v some English team in Rugby. And after our arrival we learn of a downtown parade, large groups and families and traffic stoppage, turning out to watch commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising. And Easter egg hunts and egg rolls all over the city. Hot time in the old town all day, and the evening in Temple Bar will be up for grabs. Best to stay in.
Many stores are closed, but we found a Tesco and bought a couple of SIM cards for our primitive Ireland cell phones. But an hour and a half search and hike on concrete is a little much for us after 19 hours of travel. So it’s back to the hotel to wait for our room to be ready. And of course:
Our favorite law firm of Guinness and Smithwicks, Counselors and Comforters.
Our layover at O’Hare is almost four hours before a 9 PM flight, so our position in the departure lounge affords a view of the sun setting over the tail of our plane.
Once we are boarded, there’s not much to say about air travel these days, so we won’t, other than to say that the chicken entree wasn’t bad at all. And in honor of Easter, Paula provides the flight crew with small boxes of chocolates from Sweets on Third as we board. Such a bunny.
Along about Stanley WI, we realized we had come away without my black slacks. (Anyone remember that song by Joe Bennett and the Sparkletones?) So a stop in Hudson is needed. Target appears beneath our rearview mirror, and as we wander through the men’s section, what to our wandering eyes should appear but this:
We don’t take it personally, however, knowing this refers to fictional Hawkins, Indiana. It could refer to very real Hawkins, Wisconsin, though.
Mission accomplished insofar as slacks are concerned. The hotel in Bloomington is our parknfly option. Bofin, our car, will await our corporeal revenance patiently and through all weathers. A leisurely supper in the bar precedes the ceremony of de-tagging the new slacks and bedtime in preparation for the Saturday afternoon’s flight to ORD and then overnight to DUB, courtesy of the levitating leprechauns of Aer Lingus.
Thursday and Friday include last minute packing, checklists, errands, to-do list compromises, car loading, backtracking, and of course religious observances.
Thursday, our church service is led by our Fond du Lac diocesan bishop, Matt (I’m your supply priest for the evening) Gunter, and our choir adds an anthem to the Maundy Thursday service. Cool piece. As soon as service is over, we beat feet, or tires actually, out to CenterStage rehearsal for some reporting and exhorting (Get Your Membership Sheets Completed And Turned In!), then a quick supper at the Loading Zone, followed by more ante-penultimate prep, with Friday’s service music running through our heads. And a necessary late to bed.
Friday coffee, penultimate prep for the household transfer, and then it’s time to get to church for rehearsal and service, another cool and emotional piece involving the seven words: My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me? Father Jim Trainor is our celebrant. Bishop Gunter is a tough act to follow, but Fr. Trainor is up to the challenge. Our rough and ready choir of seven wishes us a safe journey and in a flash of light and a cloud of dust, we’re gone.
After services on Thursday and Friday, no sticking around for simple supper or contemplation. Too much yet to do with last minute notes to the house sitter, dishwashing, visit to Goodwill, and run to the bank. At 2:29 PM we pull out of the driveway, one minute before the projected ETD for Bloomington, with hopes of ducking the incoming meteorological uncertainties predicted from the West.
Once we are on Highway 29, we reach the point of no return. We can’t think of anything we’ve forgotten…until Stanley.
Once again, we are prepping for a trip to Ireland. Our furry housemates sense that something is up. Suitcases are out and being stuffed and re-stuffed as we try to minimize and balance the load. Adan, our almost calico cat, usually takes up a post on a suitcase, curling up either to delay and discourage our departure, or to lobby to come along. This time, Paula sets an empty case on the master bedroom bed as a decoy case. Kieran takes the bait and relaxes, while Paula completes the packing process in another room. Diabolically clever on both parts, wouldn’t you agree?
Heidi the Wonder dog, however, resigns herself to our departure and the Advent of her favorite caregiver, Scott. Mealtimes will vary, but there will be accompanied naps and mutual snoring on the loveseat in the family room while the deer and the antelope play along with the fish, birds, and hunters on the Outdoor channel. Heidi can dig that.
Connected with the James House in St. Joseph is an erstwhile luxury hotel called the Patee House after its founder, John Patee, built as part of the development of the Hannibal-St. Joseph Railroad and the eastern terminus of the Pony Express. One large room on the ground floor was the dispatch center. where for five dollars per half ounce one could post a letter to California. A rider, carefully recruited from among young, equestrian (preferably) orphan men, literally rode into the dispatch office, accepted his pouch, and set out for the setting sun at full gallop.
Remnants of the luxury hotel remain at the front end of the building, including ladies’ and gentlemen’s parlors, the grand ballroom, pianos, pump organs, and sample hotel rooms, but the back 3/4 of the building is devoted to a museum of the west, with strange and wonderful varieties of exhibits and artifacts, including telephones and telephone switching equipment, radio receivers, movie posters, fire engines, a steam locomotive and tender, train memorabilia, store mock-ups, spittoons, racing cars, and a tribute to Aunt Jemima and Quaker Oats, both having their start in St. Joseph.
travelntrouble 