Last day, catching up

Next day (Wed 9/13) , we had our last great breakfast — Kris, wonderful chef and travel planner extraordinaire, made us gorgeous b’fasts every morning and what she called “snacks” and I called dinner every evening (with fantastic wine, of course). One last huge, heartfelt hug with my friend Judyth, our poetry guru, before she left to taxi to airport. We all dragged our suitcases outside and Dave, our lovely driver, loaded them and us and we waved a sad goodbye to the Manor. And to the sunny weather we had mostly been having. After dropping off folks at train station, our smaller band of five looked ahead to more of the Burren and Cork. The farm I told you about above, is a 500 acre beef farm that has three archaeological national monuments. Cathal and Rona were lovely people — like all the folks we interacted with — excited to tell us about their farm and what they do and how they do it. We rode around to a couple of spots, one of the monuments, which they use for weddings sometimes — but, the rain dampened our desire for tramping around. On the road again, we toured a woolen mill (really a weaving shop), VERY interesting, and stopped at a chocolate factory, but that day was a chocolate packaging day so we didn’t get a tour, though we did get some chocolate. We arrived in Cork after a very long trip and later than expected — rain and time-on-van did not encourage the use of “free evening” time. Ramona, Marti, Laird and I just went into the bar for light dinner (mussels and soup for me, and Irish gin, of course. Laird ordered the mushroom croquettes, but had to relinquish the last plate of them to Marti and ordered somewhat indifferent “prawns””) and hit the lovely beds.

Up and at’em next morning to drive to Kinsale, the gourmet (gormand?) capital of Ireland (Cork is known as the culinary capital of Ireland) First stop, a fairly well-maintained ruin of Fort George (most walls remain, but no roofs except for exhibition building and a couple others), a 17th century star-shaped military fort on the headland into the Kinsale harbor — Fort James is on the other side. It was built on the ruins of earlier fortifications and was one of the largest military forts in the country, built in 1677-1682. Our driver said something about the Jacobite rebellion (mostly Scotland, but Ireland supported and sent fighters to France, which also supported (how not, given France’s inclination against England?)). It also played a role in  the Williamite War in 1690 and the Irish Civil War of 1922-23. Charles Fort remained garrisoned by the British army until 1922. Gorgeous location!

Ohhh, Kinsale, what a beautiful town, narrow windy streets. Sometime in recent memory, the city wanted to spruce up things so it gave away paint to shop and home owners, so buildingscapes are very colorful. We met with Valerie, our guide for a walking tour; first stop, to get an Irish coffee. We stopped at a yummy bakery and had samples of their breads and then went to Fishy Fishy, famous Kinsale restaurant, which might have been started by the chef who started the whole food scene circa 1999. Seafood platters for everyone! Sea vegetable salad (or I think it was; it might just have been land salad), the yummiest fish pie (I wanted more of that!), indifferent sushi (Japanese would have been appalled by the gummy rice), salmon (always good in Ireland, I believe) an oyster and somethings I don’t remember. Luckily, the van was near at hand and we loaded up and started back to Cork. But one more stop, a mead distillery. That was very interesting and nothing like what I drank once a fair while ago that was sold as mead. We had a honey tasting and then went through the steps of making mead and ended with a mead tasting. I have the card of a distributor that ships to US, so I might get some. We tasted four, two reds and two whites — their color comes from the oak wine casks they are finished in (merlot for reds and sauterne for white). We tasted Kinsale Wild Red, our favorite; Hazy Summer, also a red; Atlantic dry and Irish Wildflower, the whites. The problem with mead is that it doesn’t last long; once opened, it goes off a bit after a few days — he said like wine, but I cork and keep red wine for much longer than he talked about, so I don’t know. Obviously, it’s a bit expensive because they have to buy honey (all from Spain except Irish wildflower (my choice of whites, I think), which comes from Ireland and is made in very small batches) — and, for me, it would never take the place of wine or gin, so I’d have a couple of small glasses, share with whoever was around at the time and that would be all I’d be interested in. But, still, I might order some because he was a lovely man. He and his wife lived in ABQ for awhile; he didn’t say why — one of his daughters was born there.

Raining too much and too much walking so we all agreed to skip walking around the ruins of Tiimoleague Abbey — and, really, once you see Kylemore Abbey, why tromp wetly around another?

Laird will tell you about the walking tour of Cork — I stayed back because my body is pretty wrecked and I have started dreading the loooong bus ride to Dublin and the plane ride back to Dallas and home. But soon, we’re going to high tea and then to Jameson distillery and our last, our farewell Ireland, dinner at Ballymaloe, the farm and restaurant that inspired Ireland’s food renaissance. I’ll write about when we get back home.

Laird: I very much enjoyed the perspective and enthusiasm of Kerry, our walking tour guide. She is a visual artist who takes gigs as a tour guide. We did meet up with a dustbin removal worker (we know these fellows in the states as a garbageman) who identified himself as a visual artist specializing in building and landscape views of Cork and quickly shared his facebook page. I think I might like to look at some of his stuff. My photos are quite disappointing for two reasons: flat, gray skies so no shadows or highlights; and an incredible profusion of cars, people and overhead wires. I may have some pics I can work with in software. If so, I’ll mount them on this blog.

Overall impression is that Ireland is well on its way to transform the economy and will soar up the per-cap income comparisons. There is a very apparent entrepreneurial energy everywhere you look. Many of the people we have met have transitioned from employee status to entrepreneur. We may be cherry-picking, but I think this perception is real.

Me: I am inserting an advertisement here: Go google deliciousexpeditions.com — this is Kris Rudolph’s website and she does AMAZING, AMAZING culinary tours, some of which she combines with Judyth Hill’s poetry workshops (google eatwritetravel.com). This is the third one I’ve done, two in Slovenia and one here in Ireland — and I have also done a couple in Taos that are writing retreats with Judyth, with activities planned by Kris on off-writing times. I so very badly want to go to France, Basque country, Venice and Croatia with Kris! You cannot go wrong with any of the tours Kris does — and if you are or want to be a writer, you can’t go wrong with workshops or retreats with Judyth. Absolutely the best, both of them!