Birdsong's Trip to the UK and Ireland

Oct. 19 - Westport, County Mayo

Galway to Westport. 1 ½ hours by bus. Buses are clean and on time. Every bus station has an electronic sign announcing the departure time of each bus. Most bus stops have an electric sign saying how long before your bus will arrive. ½ block to Mill Times Hotel. Large bar and restaurant. It was formerly a grocery store that has been converted to an ornate, plush hotel with large bar and restaurant.

Westport is small! About the size of downtown Nevada City, it has three main streets with a circle at the top with a big clock in the center. Visited the Manor House walking distance from the town. The 1730 era manor house was built on the castle site of an ancestor, Grace O’Malley, from a wealthy clan of traders who became a pirate! She joined the O’Malley and O’Flaherty clans (both wealthy) by marriage. Marriage was not in a Christian church, but under old Irish law. When she wanted to divorce her husband, all she had to do was say, “I dismiss you.” Under old Irish law, she owned her own dowry, and took it with her when she left. She married several times more. She was respected as defender of the Catholic faith against the English Tudors who were destroying churches and instilling the domination of Elizabeth 1st. Elizabeth expressed respect for Grace. Grace’s great granddaughter built the current house in 1730. The property is huge – several square miles, reaching down to the little port and inland. The Georgian style manor house now has a huge, flat expanse of “front yard,” a meadow. As the manor was being built, a town grew up in that space with huts of locals. The Browne family didn’t like the town there, so they build a new town a little farther away, which is the current town. It was a planned community, the first in Ireland, planned by James Wyatt, English architect (1448-1514) who built many planned communities in England. The plan included diverting part of a river to flow by the bottom of the town in a pretty tree- lined canal.

Westport was a fishing port, and the town milled linen until English mills put them out of business. Other mills used to produce flour. The harbor is now silted in and only pleasure boats are there. Pharmaceuticals are a big business here now. Botox is made ONLY here!

Matt Molloy’s Tavern: Larry found from his Rick Steves that the pub is owned by Matt who is one of the Chieftans, famous Irish band. We dropped in early one afternoon, the only ones there, and visited with bar manager Shamus. He was interested in Larry’s blindness, as he has two sister who are Albino and have limited vision. There is “trad” music every night at Matt Malloy’s, and Shamus (who would not be on duty in the evening) promised to have the staff save us seats. When we arrived that evening, there was standing room only in the tiny room—but two seats RIGHT IN FRONT of the musicians. Amazing music! Guitar, banjo, fiddle, and two unusual players, blind ladies from Switzerland who come every year for a couple of weeks, one playing guitar and the other the Irish whistle. This evening was a highlight of our trip.

Tuesday, Oct. 20. Colder today and VERY windy, but no rain. We had heard the wind blasting the building all night. Clouds scuttling quickly across the sky. We started out on a walk in town and had barely gone a couple of blocks when we heard behind us, “Larry!” It was Shamus from Matt Malloy’s walking on his day off. I asked him where in town I might get a good view of St. Patrick’s mountain nearby. He said, “I’ll take you in my car.” We tried to protest, but he talked us into it. He drove us not only to the mountain, but on down the coast for wonderful views of Island Clare and wind-tossed surf, a tour of over an hour. We wanted to take him to lunch. He recommended the Helm at the Quay for the best seafood chowder, took us there, and went to get his wife Ann to join us. She does daycare for several kids but was off this day to join us. She sneaked away from the table and paid our tab! Larry gave him one of the Nevada City fake-gold tokens. We asked at the pub what his last name was (Garrity) so after we got home to Nevada City, I could write him a thank you, which I did. Searched and searched for the zip code Westport-- Ireland does not have zip codes! I wrote the note addressed c/o Matt Malloy’s, Westport, County Mayo.

Croag Patri is the Celtic name for St. Patrick’s mountain. St. Patrick spent Lent of 441 outdoors on the mountain. Each year for Lent, the faithful come and climb the mountain barefoot, returning with bleeding feet.

Many people talk to us about California, thinking it is all warm beaches. We explain how far from those beaches we live and how different the terrain. Larry calculated that you could fit FIVE Irelands into California! That impresses the Irish. (Me, too!)

We were calling the ancient Irish language Gaelic. Shamus gently corrected us to say the ancient language is called Irish, not Gaelic. “Gaelic is the ancient Scottish language,” he said. Kids are required to learn Irish in school.

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Irish houses: After looking and and photographing many Irish houses, old and new, it occurred to me that they have a certain similarity. From the simple old thatched hut to the Georgian style, all are rectangular in shape, have the front door at the center of the front, with windows evenly spaced on either side. The larger houses have more windows on each side, or one or more stories above, but nearly all have that same symmetry, even houses in a newly built subdivision.

Irish girls: The “real” Irish girl is not the red-headed Maureen O’Hara from our Hollywood ---. Native Irish are curly black haired and blue eyed with milk-white skin. Many men and women have these traits, especially as we travelled north. The red hair came with the invasions of the Vikings, starting in 800, and they invaded all coasts at one time or another.

The youngest people we met in Ireland were bartenders, several of whom were only 18, and all students.

Oct. 22 - Sligo

Train to Sligo. The terrain here is the picture of what we imagine Ireland to be – green rolling hills, pastures separated from one another by stone walls, many sheep and fewer cows. Very few crops. Green mountains in the distance, but no forests on the mountains… just green grass and shrubs. Little towns surrounding the railway station. As we went further north, the terrain became much more rocky. Mountains now had crags, and there were patches of pine trees. We began to follow the Western coastline, where the land gently sloped to the sea, with green pastures of sheep going all the way to the beach. Further north, there were cliffs that reminded me of the California coast.

Sligo is a city on the estuary at the end of the Garavogue River. The Benfulben “mountain” is beyond. It looks more like a mesa to me, not very tall, oblong in shape and flat on top. Something like Diamond Head. The weather is cloudy and showery, but not too cold. As soon as you get your raincoat on, the rain stops. Better to duck into a pub… We walked along the river front in a redeveloped area formerly warehouses, now shops and restaurants. Larry’s look at Yelp showed good reviews for Regantino’s, a tiny place with excellent Italian food and a great Sangiovese. I had divine veal with Procuitto.

The pub just across the street from the hotel, The Harp, was the oldest in Sligo, 1650. Met a young local, Zak , who disparaged the Irish government and taxation. He has houses and business in the Czech Republic “because of the Irish economy.” Larry said, “Like Bono?” He gave us his name and phone, wanting to take us on a tour the next morning, but it had to be early. We would have loved to, except for the “early.” We ended up calling the taxi driver who brought us from the train and offered touring services. Turns out Pat was from Westport, a retired policeman. He drove us out of town to Yeat’s grave. (We had gotten a Yeats update visiting a museum the day before.) We saw the “mountains” and a beautiful waterfall that Yeats loved and wrote about. Then he drove us out to a beach resort. Unfortunately, it was drizzly and overcast. Not good for photos. He pointed out Coney Island a little distant beyond the bay. (Guess what was named after THAT?) He said at low tide cars can DRIVE there. Signs advertised “seaweed baths.”

Larry had been making some funny puns, most of which I can’t remember. Referring to my dragging him around, he said, “So..he ain’t heavy… he’s my honey?” On the bus whose final destination was Derry, he said those passengers must be going for the air. When I was confused, he shared: “Darriere.” A pub had cockaleekie soup, and he said he fear it might give him a leaky cock. He often said to people we met, “Gladys is very persuasive. She can convince a blind guy to go sightseeing.”

Local speech: People say you, singular, and for the plural “yous,” like “y’all.” That’s where similar speech in Chicago and Boston came from! They use “wee” for small

Last night at the Harp pub, they asked us where we were going next. Larry said, Donegal, then back toward Dublin with a stop at Carrick-on-Shannon. The male nurse, Colin, was from there. He asked if we knew which train we would be arriving on there a few days ahead. He said he had a friend who was a taxi driver there. Stay tuned…

Oct. 24 - Donegal

One hour by bus to Donegal, all inland. Many people on the bus know each other. Seems they work elsewhere and go home to Donegal on the weekends. Central Hotel is on a square that is really a diamond in shape. It was cloudy and VERY windy. As we rounded the building and got the full force of the wind off the bay it nearly bowled us over.

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Visitied Donegal Castle, just steps from the square and our hotel. It is really a tower house first built in 1474 by Red Hugh O’Donnel, who also built the nearby Abbey. The tower house was renovated in 1500’s. Unlike most other castles we visited, which were built buy invading Anglos fearing the locals, this was built by a local in defense AGAINST invading Anglos. After nine years, they lost to the Anglos and left Ireland. English captain Basil Brook was “given” the building, and they held it until 1898 when they donated it to the government.