There is a shamrock in my beer

It was more than a year ago that we drove around Scotland with Weisie’s folks. It did not seem that long though. The comfy closeness of our hire car was very familiar (in fact, it was the same make and model). There was, however, a little more room this time as Paul was not with us but somehow Weisie ended up in the boot again.

During the previous week, Tony and Eny stayed with us in London. Our flat in Fulham is tiny so it was lovely to spend a few days in a three-bedroom apartment beside a marina on the River Shannon (pictured below). The town we were based in was named Killaloe (“Kill-a-loo”, apparently), which was not far from the equally murderous sounding towns of Kilfenora, Killadysert and Kilinaboy.




Unbeknownst to us, it is illegal to sell alcohol on Good Friday. Our hopes of a traditional Irish pub lunch on the first day were dashed but we accepted the news with grace and humility. It was a real lesson in faith, because just as with the miraculous surplus of fish in the face of shortage, we sat down for dinner with a surplus of booze (our prayers were answered by a friendly neighbour).

The next day we piled into the car for Waterford. The portside town and its famous crystal factory were interesting, and the glass sparkled prettily.




After Waterford, we threw down some Scottish sandwiches and made the rather long way home. Did I mention that it was a long way?




We headed south again for our third day to the harbour city of Cork where we had our first genuine Guinness experience over lunch, followed by whippies in Kinsale and a drive along the rolling coast. On the way to Cork, we stopped at Blarney to visit its castle.




The Blarney Stone, a rectangular piece of stone of dubious provenance, is named after an ostensibly eloquent individual from the time of Queen Elizabeth I. The stone is now set underneath part of the battlements of Blarney Castle, 83 feet above the ground. Someone once said, “Hey, let’s see if we can hang up-side-down and kiss this thing,” and they survived to tell the tale. Thus, a tradition was born and since then many thousands of fools have queued to repeat the feat.




The highlight of the day, however, was the Ballybeg ruins, which we visited in the morning. We had stopped to talk to a man about a wallaby but fortuned upon the remains of a priory and the best preserved mediaeval dovecot in Ireland. We pottered around the ruins, under the watchful eye of the owner (it was private property, we learned), which now serve as a paddock for cattle and horses.




On our fourth and penultimate day in Ireland we took a circuitous route through the Burren, a limestone plateau in Northwest County Clare. The area was strewn with rocks, which served well as building materials for forts, farms and boundary walls. It was quite different to the lush greenery and deep soils we had seen during the preceding days.

We lunched in a pub in Doolin before driving on to the marvellous cliffs of Moher, a premier tourist trap that evidently does not claim enough lives. The soft edged drop offs were perilous but not vertiginous enough to dissuade hundreds of people from peering over the brink to the rocks and waves below. In spite of the considerable height, the brisk and frigid wind fanned seaspray up the cliffs and showered us lightly. A multitude of nesting sea birds, a well positioned castle and a slight haze made the sight quite splendid.




The next few days would see us travel the circumference of the globe. Our beloved Joan, my wonderful grandmother, had passed away during our time in Ireland. We decided to make the trip back to Sydney to pay our respects. We flew to Australia the same day we returned from Ireland and, although it was wonderful to see so many family members, it was a sombre and tiring few days. After spending less than 72 hours in Sydney, we were back on a plane to London from where we flew to Montpellier to rejoin Luke, Eny and Tony for a week travelling around the south of France and Spain.