Castles and Cashel 'n' Stuff (parte dos!)

The cake I was baking whilst writing part one of this post turned out wonderfully. Now I am taking full advantage of my kitchen to bake oatmeal bread, so yet again I have an hour to kill while my dough rises.

This is the cake. 'Twas a good cake.
Also my pretty roommates. 

I believe I left off as we were leaving the historical wonderment of Cahir castle.

We went for lunch at an adorable café-lunchroom-type-establishment literally across the road from the castle- this is unimportant, but I wanted to qualify the panini mentioned last time (query: Microsoft Word wants me to capitalize “Panini.” See, it just made it capitalized there! Is there an Italian city, town, or principality called Panini? Even more importantly, do they have excellent grilled sandwiches there? I shall investigate). After lunch, we hopped back on the bus and headed to Cashel.

The rock of Cashel is not, in fact, a rock. I suppose it is a rock in the purest sense, seeing as it sits atop a large escarpment in the middle of the countryside, but it is not the rock that causes tourists to flock to Cashel. Having done uncharacteristically little research on the rock, I was imagining it to be a large monolithic granite thing in the middle of a field. I was shocked and awed, then, to see this upon our arrival in the town of- you guessed it- Cashel:

that is not a rock

It’s a massive castle-cathedral that was once the seat of the king of Munster, Cormac McCarthy (not the author of “The Road-” a slightly older Cormac McCarthy, who also spelled his name Mac Carthaigh). The massive structure houses centuries of amazing artwork, including everything from beautiful frescoes to an ancient Cross of Saint Patrick to one gnarly sarcophagus. I should like to be buried in such a sarcophagus.

Tapestries too!

#fresco obsession

Add caption

Detail of my new favorite sarcophagus

This being a field trip, we had a tour guide. I have dubbed him Ronan the Controversial. I, for one, thought that Ronan (the Controversial) did an amazing job of explaining the complexities of Cashel’s history, although deathly boring, mean, prickly, standoffish, cold, and many worse adjectives were all thrown around by others on the tour. Ronan the Controversial had the most beautiful elocution I have ever heard. His spiel was like a Keats ode performed by Edwin Booth and incredibly smooth. It was as if he were reading from a well-written guidebook, not off-the-cuff lecturing, and I probably missed a good third of what he said trying to figure out just how he carried on so. If I could mellifluously declaim in such a manner, I would often and loudly.

If any of my charming readers come to visit me in Ireland, we are going to Cashel and requesting a tour from Ronan. It is not negotiable.

It seems that Ronan the Controversial tour guide has snuck into the corner of this photograph

Anyways, here are a series of awesome, austere pictures from Cashel. Its cathedral wing (built in the 12^th and 13^th centuries, dontcha know) has been surrounded by an imposing lattice of rebar and steel that supports an artificial roof designed to keep the creeping damps out, but really just makes one whole half of Cashel look like a futuristic dystopian industrial build-site of abandonment.

I like the juxtaposition of old and new rather a lot.

Cashel also has a beautiful cemetery knee-deep in Celtic crosses. It affords an amazing panorama of the surrounding countryside. We got to watch a rainstorm roll in from the South, and it was positively gorgeous.

I probably should have thought of a more appropriate phrase up there, as “positively gorgeous” is painfully generic, but my bread is all baked and I have some reading to do. I shall, then, make it brief.

After adventuring around the Rock for a while and jumping off of rocky outcroppings and/or ancient well bases, we piled back onto the bus and made a little trip to the Swiss Cottage. This is a lovely building that is both Swiss-looking and a cottage. Just like it says on the package.

The river Suir, pronunciation questionable

It is where the great and powerful Butler family- or, alternately, the mistress of a Butler patriarch- had a retreat back in the hills on the banks of the river Suir. It is lovely, but was closed off for the day by the time we arrived. Hence, our group took turns skulking around the spike-tipped fence surrounding the house, snapping pictures and looking innocent.

Then I took a very blurry picture of a white duck. It was a nice picture, but I have misplaced it.

Alas.

The drive home was rainy and peaceful as could be. I was frittered from a long day of gallivanting about the countryside, and was lulled to sleep by Liam the bus driver’s singing for us a selection of ballads and rousing drinking songs. My favorite was one simply titled “A Father’s Lament,” incredibly sad and about a father travelling to Dublin to claim his son’s body after the Easter Rising (or was it the Civil War of the ‘20s? Just know that Ireland’s history is full to bursting with sad tales of massacres, bombs, battles, and riots). At any rate, Liam’s sang us all the way back to Leeside (encouraging group participation on those songs we know by heart such as “Star of the County Down” and the Irish national anthem… except this last was in Irish, so nobody was able to keep pace).

Before my bread burns, I will conclude by giving five solid, shiny gold stars to Cahir and Cashel.

Until next time!  

The Castles and Crags of Cahir and Cashel (parte uno)

Ah, blog! It has been too long!

Today I will tell the tale of my weekend, a tale involving wind, rain, old buildings, older buildings, ancient ruins of buildings, rocks with sheer drops, history, greenery, scenery, lots of roundabouts, attack pigeons, and also a really delicious panini.

I could just leave it at that, but I have resolved to write more often than I have been of late- which has been not at all. There’s certainly room for improvement.

Also, I am waiting for a cake to bake, so I have some time to kill.

Yesterday I woke up fairly early for a Saturday and suited up for an excursion to Cahir Castle and the Rock of Cashel (which could have a more informative name, as shall soon be described) in county Tipperary. It is not too long a way to Tipperary (from Cork at least), but I was still a touch queasy thanks to the skinny little roads and frequent roundabouts between the two. Needless to say I was quite delighted to be met with a brisk bracing chilly and/or icy breeze upon diembarkating the bus at Cahir Castle in the aptly named town of Cahir (pronounced like “care”).

This excursion (I should note) was organized by the lovely folks at USAC, which just happens to be the program that brought me here to Cork. Myself and about fifteen other students from all over the US of A are thusly lucky to have Mary Steele, USAC’s contact at UCC, as our advisor, trip leader, and quasi-mother-figure for our five months abroad. Mary, besides giving me advice on classes and providing our group with Cadbury bars, was thoughtful enough to find us a bus driver who was practically a brogueing, lament-singing Simon Schama. Liam (the aforementioned bus driver) most wondrously condensed all of Irish history into a twenty-minute lecture, delivered as he navigated Tipperary’s turnpikes and tollbooths and roundabouts (so many roundabouts!) with much skill. In all six of my upper division history and government classes, three weeks have hardly contained the breadth of information provided by the good Mr. Liam. It was quite impressive.

At any rate, we reached Cahir around 11 o’clock and made for the castle. Our tour featured the following highlights:

1.      There is in the outer wall of the castle a cannonball that has been embedded there for a solid four hundred-odd years. Queen Elizabeth’s forces under Essex put it there with one of two cannons that accompanied their force of 20,000 infantrymen and 2,000 cavalry in 1599. Why these numbers stick in my head is a strange and marvelous mystery.

2.      The castle features a ridiculous amount of defensive measures. I must say that my respect for Early Medieval architects has grown exponentially. There exist within the walls of Cahir castle such things as machiolations, which are specially-designed openings in the castle walls used to pour boiling oil, tar, sand, or quicklime onto attackers; air-lock-type rooms between layers of castle that could be sealed off and collapsed with the enemy inside in the event of an attack; arrow slots everywhere, later converted to fit guns; gnarly portcullises; stairs built purposely of odd and mismatched heights so that attackers would stumble whereas defending local soldiers, familiar with the castle, would know the lay of the ground; low ceilings that force anyone coming through the duck, making visibility difficult; and, lastly, a plethora of spiral staircases turning clockwise, which would force right-handed soldiers (and all soldiers were right-handed, since the left hand was still associated with the devil) to switch their swords to their left hands as they ascended. Defending soldiers would have the right-hand advantage coming down the stairs. SO BRILLIANT.

3.      The one of the last people to nominally live in Cahir castle was, technically, Oliver Cromwell, possibly the most hated historical figure in all of history other than Hitler. He (Cromwell, that is) took a liking to it whilst on campaign and ousted the Butlers (Earls of Ormond, for anyone who cares about that sort of thing) from their ancestral home. They eventually regained it, but it gave the historian in me the creeping chills to think about that.

4.      I haven’t the patience to write all about Irish Elk/Giant Irish Deer/Megalocerus giganteus at the moment, for there is very much to tell about them, but I will mention that there was an admirable rack of Irish Elk horns/antlers/??? in the great dining hall at Cahir. 

Those things are approximately 10,500 years old, and that, my friends, is very old indeed.

My apologies if this has offended the delicate sensibilities of my discerning and gracious readers.

5.      To return to the pouring-hot-nasty-liquids-upon-thine-enemies tack from #2, our tour guide informed us that up until the advent of the firearm the Irish thought it cowardly to wear armor. They would go to war in their shirtsleeves while their enemies where covered in a good many layers of chain, leather, and metal. This meant that when the hot nasty liquids were poured on them, the armour melted and had the same effect as tarring someone. Brutal. And also badass (if you’ll excuse my French) of the Irish, doing battle in plainclothes and all. Reminds me somewhat of their dueling rules. Honor! Glory! Rules.

6.      We were allowed a leisurely time for walking about and exploring the castle after the tour, and a few of the towers (used as bathrooms, where ammonia gas from the toilet pits would be used to disinfect clothing hung above the john. Again, extremely clever) were open. The top of one was home to an attack pigeon (one friend submits that it was, instead, a pterodactyl) which became trapped between myself and my fellow intrepid explorers and a locked door; its fright was nothing compared to ours, and a near-death experience was had by all.

The river Suir from the pigeon tower. Cahir Castle is on an island in the river, ergo the whole thing is like a moat. Sooooo clever.

7.      Speaking of death, it was sobering to realize just how many people- Irish, English, Butlers, soldiers, civilians- had been killed through the centuries on the ground of Cahir castle. Compared to the Old Penitentiary (where, for those who don’t know, I interned this past summer) and its relative deaths, which can be counted on digits with your shoes off, the human cost of keeping Cahir castle was staggering.

On that morbid note I shall end this post, as my cake is baked and it’s time to prepare for a presentation in one of my classes. I’ll be writing on the Rock of Cashel sometime soon!   

The Sage of Ballycotton

Has it really been a week since I last posted? I mean dayyyyum son. The time does fly. 

This past week has been full of adventures, from getting lost in the city for the first time to experiencing my first club to taking a trip out to the coast to classes, classes, classes. SO many classes. Too many? Since international students don’t register until January 15th, we have the privilege of “shopping ‘round” for classes for the first week and a half, and I have been doing my darndest to take all of them. 


But that’s not what this blog post is about! I feel compelled to share with the one person who reads my blog (Hi!) an anecdote that occurred in the tiny fishing village of Ballycotton. 

One of my dear roommates, Allison, randomly chose Ballycotton out of the many small, uncharted coastal villages within a bus ride of Cork city. So, early on Saturday morning, it was to Ballycotton we did go, despite protests by various Irish people that there was “nothin’ there.” 

We stepped off the bus to galeforce winds and bracing sea air. I was in raptures. We took a hike down to the low-tide line and then up across some gorgeously treacherous cliffs that looked much like something straight out of Middle Earth. 

Cue epic theme

At any rate, after a good four hours of exploring we were chilled to the bone. We ate at a swank little restaurant in town and, after wearing out our welcome there, took a second hike before heading a few doors down to the Schooner bar for some hot whiskey (new favorite beverage). It was there that we encountered the Sage of Ballycotton. 

Whhhiskey

We had been warming our hands on our boiling hot whiskies for a few minutes and chatting with the bartender about a movie with Marlon Brando that was partially filmed in Ballycotton, before the funding for it went under, when an old man staggered into the pub. He was visibly inebriated and sported a mustache of crusted Guinness foam.

The man marched up to our table and asked, in a roar,

“Do ye believe in God?”

We replied, giving the Sage an entrance to begin his lecture.

“Now I’m no professor,” (he began), “but I know a thing or two and I know this: when you’re pissed off, when you’re hating the world, you take a walk down the road,
And you listen to the birds sing
And if you see a cat,
Or a dog,
You pick ‘em up and you love ‘em,
Because that’s nature,
And nature is good.
You respect nature.”


And we nodded at this very sensible wisdom.

“Now I’m no professor,” (continued the Sage), “but I know a thing or two and I know this:”

And here, hyphenated for your reading convenience, is a summary of the three-hour lecture deliver to us by Mícheál Russell, the Sage of Ballycotton:



“
The men up in the government, they’re all wankers - all they care for is power and money - You mustn’t care for just power and money, and if you do, you won’t be happy - the men in the government don’t know how to be happy - they just need to walk down along the road, and listen to the birds sing - and if they see a dog or a cat, they need to pick that animal up and love it, because that’s nature - and you must respect nature, and nature is good - I left school at fourteen years old - my father died when he was thirty-eight - and I love my mother.

The men up in government, they’ll try to tell you how to live your life - professors at school, they will too - now it’s good that all you girls are going to school, and I like to see people gettin’ on in the world - but don’t you let those professors tell you how to live your life - they don’t know nothin’ - they don’t know how to be happy - now I’m no professor, but I know how to be happy - I just walk down the road, and listen to the birds sing - because that’s nature, and you’ve got to respect nature.

These times, they’re different from when I was growing up - I left school at fourteen - and I’m no professor, but I like to see people getting’ on in the world - and sometimes you might get pissed off - you might get tired of people telling you how to live your life - and if that happens, you just walk down along the road - and listen to the birds sing - and if you a cat or a dog, you pick it up and you love it - because that’s nature - and you need to love nature - and then you will be happy.
”


And then he bought us drinks, in a very kind gesture, because he like to see people gettin’ on in the world.

And then he wandered away from the Schooner bar, into the freezing wind and fog that had rolled in off the sea.



The bartender hurried over and apologized profusely. “He’s not from around here,” he said sheepishly. “He only wanders into town every two months or so, gets drunk, and then leaves.”

And so, we had the dubious honor of being in Ballycotton on the same day as Mícheál Russell and his wisdom.
Much refreshed, we hiked out to see the light in the lighthouse (one of the few still functioning, as most have been shut down in favor of radar systems) and bid our farewells to Ballycotton.

Now my lymph nodes feel like pillows and I will probably contract a whooping cough in the next few days, but the trip was absolutely worth it.

Until next time ~

KB

Of Gaol, Sessions, and Oliver Plunkett

As I said at this time last time, blogging is not my strong suit, but I’m sure that we’ll carry on bravely nonetheless.

I believe I left off at orientation, which was lengthy, tedious, and chilly, as orientations are wont to be. Still, there are some awesome individuals hailing from both sides of the Atlantic studying at this university, and I loved getting to meet a good many of them. Following, there was a social of sorts at yet another pub (who'd 'a thunk?), where the kind people of UCC tried to make us poor Americans feel at home.

This is a thing.

The next morning (Saturday) the University Studies Abroad Consortium, better known as “USAC” (and pronounced phonetically) held a scavenger hunt for its members. Our destinations were various businesses, pubs (always pubs), and monuments around Cork city, most of which we had located during the past few days during our sightseeing walkabouts. I am extremely proud to say that my team won, if only by a fraction. Our prizes were money cards to be used at Tesco, a grocery store of sorts, and we immediately rushed over there to stock up on foodstuffs. Free food is always a good thing. We also took a stroll around Cork’s famous English Market, an indoor farmers’ and artisans’ market of sorts that I can’t wait to go back to. Heck, the Queen Mother herself visited there last year to buy some fish (or so this picture would submit):

She is just the cutest. Look at that hat.

Another location in which to live when I am rich

The afternoon was spent hiking up to the Sundays Well district on the North slope just across the river from my apartment. Besides beautiful houses and brilliant private gardens, Sundays Well also houses the old Cork Gaol, which brought me back to the warm, dry days that I spent interning at the Old Idaho Penitentiary this summer.

But pretty, executions and all notwithstanding

Gimme that bag, Mary Sullivan

The Cork Gaol is rather a different story. Its dreary, dark halls are full of creepy mannequins arranged in poses most grotesque and a soundtrack of echoing footsteps, clinking irons, and bloodcurdling screams (NOT cute) that repeats throughout the tour.  

Still, as far as historical prison tours go, this one was appropriately macabre. Four stars.

All that dank and morbidity made us altogether quite famished, so we went to dinner at a wonderful pubs called The Oliver Plunkett.

(A historical interlude, if you’re into that sort of thing: Oliver Plunkett was Archbishop of Armagh (which is, of course, is Ireland) during the regime of Charles II, throughout which, if you remember from eighth grade history class, England was in possession of Ireland, as usual, and was doing its best to bring to heel the Catholic church, as also usual. As part of the Popish plot, a most nefarious undertaking propagated by Titus Oates, Jesuits were to be blamed for a (fictitious) plot to assassinate the king. Plunkett and a number of other prominent Catholic figures were duly executed by a lame-duck Charles who, despite his rumored identity as a Catholic, had to preserve his throne in order to save himself from death. Plunkett, completely innocent of any infamous scandalous treasonous plot-making, is therefore one of Ireland’s notable saints and martyrs. His head is preserved as a relic in Drogheda’s cathedral. Take a look at his Wikipedia page should you want to read more about Saint Oliver, firstly because he was a very remarkable person and secondly because his head is pictured therein.)

Where were we?

Sooooo, we went for fish and chips at the Oliver Plunkett, which just happened to be hosting the best traditional Irish band that I have ever had the pleasure of hearing- and I’ve been lucky enough to hear some splendid ones over the past twenty years. We gained a new friend from UCC on the way downtown, and it was an evening well spent eating (surprisingly highbrow) fish and chips, getting to know our new acquaintance, and trying not to let my feet get the better of me and go tapping away all by their lonesome because the band was just. That. Good.

Should anyone ever be in Cork, I would behest at you (is behest a verb? I dunno. Is now) to seek out the Lee Sessions and hear them do their thang, because those brothas can PLAY.

Looking forward to continued adventures with good history, good food, good drink, good music, and good company.

Until we next meet~

K.B.

In Sum

I officially suck at blogging, and I haven’t even started yet.

I had half a page of elegant prose (this is a lie) sitting on my computer ever since I got it all set up in my apartment bedroom (which is, by the way, ridiculously huge. Sometimes I roll around on the floor and make floor angels. Or maybe I’m just used to sharing my quarters with five other people) but had to keep changing the dates and times since I haven’t had time to put down in writing yet just how much of everything I’ve experienced thus far.

SO, rather late in the third night or early in the fourth day of IRELAND 2013, I give you a brief summary, bulleted for parsimony.

1.      I did not die on the plane. It was, in fact, lovely, and I am permanently impressed by vegetarian plane food. They gave me curry. Mm-hmm.

And there were many clouds

2.      We flew over the Southern tip of Greenland. The Southern tip of Greenland. And then, circling Heathrow thrice due to traffic, I saw such landmarks as Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Hyde Park, Wembley Stadium, London Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, and Trafalgar Square not once, not twice, but thrice. I felt extremely accomplished and all I had to do was sit there.

3.      I passed out until we hit Irish soil at the Cork airport, and woke up to find myself in a vaguely sunny Ireland. Of course it began misting post-haste, but I can’t wait for the next clear day.

4.      I was neither detained nor deported by immigration

5.      Made it to the apartment. I have two wonderful and charming roommates and a fourth one who is either invisible or an Irish student who will be joining us on Sunday.

6.      Either way, my room has a floor-to ceiling window and a leeeeetle tiny balcony. Also it is permanently frosty in there, which makes me feel Spartan. I enjoy feeling Spartan.

7.      Pubs.
8.   We took a walk ‘round Cork to obtain provisions, see the city, acquire phones and/or SIM cards, and climb to the top of Shandon belfry yesterday. It looked like this: 

9.      And then today was orientation, which involved much brogue-ing and sightseeing and general edumacation on Corkonian subjects. Needless to say I’m psyched to start classes on Monday, and am currently trying to fit together a schedule to awe the ages.

And THAT, good sir and/or madam, has been my past three days in Cork. Now it is time to brave the MIRA, our frigid shower-type apparatus, which also makes me feel Spartan.

But as I said before, I like feeling Spartan.

Until we next speak,

K.B.