Ireland 2011

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Please note the note in the issues section as part of an apology for the length of these following posts.

The flight to JFK was packed. At least, thanks to Cindi’s frequent flyer miles, we were in economy plus on United. This gave us a modicum more free room. In the departure lounge there was a nice screen informing us how far away we were from getting an upgrade, again thanks to Cindi, to first class. We were tenth on the list with only one first class seat remaining. I gave Cindi the devil’s choice of whether she would take the seat and leave me, if the opportunity arose.

At JFK, we got to ride the train to the International terminal where the Aer Lingus flight departed. Unexpectedly helpful New Yorkers told us where the proper terminal was located. The line through Security was harsh. They had the heater on. As part of a consistent theme for the trip, I started leaking water from my pores in copious amounts.

The plane to Shannon was half full. Rows around us were empty. Cindi and I looked forward to stretching out and sleeping during the flight. That was until we realized the armrest didn’t go fully up. You couldn’t clear them out of the way to make that comfy three seat bed.

One of the joys of the Aer Lingus flight, besides the little aluminum thing to hang your coat on the seat back in front of you, is the inflight entertainment. They have a ton of movies and TV shows that you can watch on demand. They also have games you can play using the playstation like controller in the arm rest. The problem is they had a lot of bad movies to choose from. I chose poorly in selecting Bridesmaids and Cars 2. One was supposed to be good. The other was supposed to be marginal. They were both bad.

The other thing the seat back provides (All hail the seatback) is up to the minute info about your flight. It tells you how fast you are flying, your altitude, and more importantly how long until you land. I like knowing how much longer I get to be in the flying tin can.

We were going to arrive early in Shannon. As in 6 o’clock early. Our hotel wouldn’t let us check in until noon. I decided we should take a little side trip to my favorite ruin in Ireland, Quin Abbey. Doesn’t everybody have a favorite ruin? Cindi and I had been there on our trip in 2001, but due to the Mad Cow disease epidemic, we weren’t allowed on the grounds. This would be Cindi’s first chance to get up close and personal with Quin and maybe make it her favorite ruin, too.

Yeah. We landed right on time. Turns out it’s really dark at 6am. And with no one at customs and the car rental desk, we were in the parking lot at 6:15. Still really dark. There wasn’t going to be a hint of sunshine until 8. I figured we might as well drive into Limerick to the hotel, rouse my Dad, and get some breakfast.

Part of the reason for the trip was to take my Dad. I think if he had his way, my father would never have left Ireland back in 1982. He would have bought this pub out in Parteen, which is near the main Rugby stadium in Limerick, and lived out his days there. But the woman wouldn’t sell and he came back to California. Where he soon found out that Verbatim didn’t really have a spot for him there, either.
Which is the long way of saying, I like to get my father to Ireland every chance I can get. He started his trip to Ireland from Boston where he was helping my mother give yet another talk on Steinbeck. Our schedules were a bit off, so he arrived in Ireland a couple of days earlier. He had made the great concession to stay at the same hotel as us. Thirty years ago he’d stayed at this hotel when it was a Jury’s Inn and hated it. I pointed out that was thirty years ago and they had done some upgrades since then.

They aren’t big believers in street lights on the freeways in Ireland. They believe you should be a big user of the high-beams. I couldn’t get the high beams on. Nor could I get the seat to lower to a point where I wasn’t brushing my head on the ceiling. Yes, I was back in manual land. Even though the steering wheel is on a different side, the pedals are in the same orientation as american cars. I don’t think my brain could deal with using different pedals as well as driving on the opposite side of the road.

The torture for Cindi on the trips to places I’ve visited and she hasn’t or at least not as much is I feel compelled to tell my stories about every branch and rock and building I recognize. I need to point out the freeway changes I’ve noticed at Bunratty Castle and Durty Nelly’s. I have to tell the story of why the Two Mile Inn is called the Two Mile Inn. It doesn’t stop. I know I didn’t run out of stories until we were going back to the airport on the way home.

We sat in the Lobby of the Strand Hotel until 7:30 so as not to wake my father too early. We did kill a little time while we waited by walking over the Sarsfield bridge, which spans the Shannon River, to get a really early morning look at Limerick. The only people on O’Connell street were the street sweepers. I pointed out some sights. Told some more stories and then we went back to the hotel.

Despite my best intentions, I still woke my father when I called. He would join us for our first Irish breakfast in the hotel restaurant.

Ah, the Irish breakfast buffet. I had the white bread with Irish butter, sausages, Irish bacon, scrambled eggs, and some brown bread. I washed it all down with thick Irish Tea. I knew I was back in town after that sat like lead in my belley.

This also occasioned talks of my first trip to Ireland. How I stayed at the Ryan hotel with my father. I explained similar breakfasts and how the bacon used to be cut closer to the bone so you had these white hard lumps in the bacon which freaked me out the first time I saw them.

My father and I should never be in a car together in Ireland. We both know the best way to do things which is always at odds with how the other person wants to do things. We had a discussion at every roundabout about right of way. To the uniformed, there are roundabouts everywhere in Ireland. They use them instead of stop-lights and intersections. And if I have stories, my father has ten times as many. His stories are hampered by time and old-age.

I’m now thinking of starting a support group for the people who have sat in the back seat while my father and I discuss the best course of actions on our trips. The group now consists of Cindi and my nephew Zachary. I’m sure their treatment will be long and costly.

We arrived at the village of Quin and it’s namesake abby at nine. The interior of the ruins didn’t open until ten. This gave Cindi and I a chance to wander the grounds and take some photographs while we waited.

I didn’t realize I hadn’t been inside the abby since 1981 either. When Zachary and I were here in 2009, we had arrived early as well and couldn’t get in. Since there was a booth inside the entrance, I figured they were now charging admittance and I didn’t feel like paying, I was content to wander around the outside on that journey. I have since found out it was still free to go inside.

The first thing I noticed there was now a bridge right next to the Abbey across the local river to another ruined structure that I had never visited. I had never visited because I didn’t feel like fording the river. But now I could. Ah, new things.

The sky was completely overcast during this visit with the occasional rain drop to add some diversity. This was okay. I figured I was going to make a couple of trips to the abby on this journey. I especially wanted to get some sunset shots of the ruins.

One wall that had always been free standing next to the main abby structure had developed a bulge and now needed supports to keep it from collapsing. As I walked across the bridge to the other ruined building, I noticed a man walking towards me carrying a chainsaw. Fortunately, he wasn’t a deranged killer, just a man carrying a chainsaw. I never did see where he ended up.

Cindi and I made a circuit of the outside. The cows who graze in the field outside the abby walls were most generous in their production of cow pattys. I think my shoes emerged unscathed from my travel

In the fine Irish tradition of promptness, the man in charge of opening the gate into the abbey arrived fifteen minutes late. He must be really happy about the new bridge because it allowed him to park right next to the abby. He also took about five minutes to park his car just so.

He also wasn’t the friendliest of guides. He warned us not to do a survey with our cameras. He told us we couldn’t take pictures of single headstones unless we had the families permission to do so. I asked him I if I could use the port-a-jon and was rebuffed.

It’s still a great ruin. The most impressive feature was the two story garderobe. There is also a lovely arched inner courtyard. It has an upper story you can get to. It used to have small staircase you could climb to get to the top of the walls but those have been blocked off since I last climbed them in 1981. We bumped into the caretaker/guide as we wandered the ruins. I tried to make small talk but he was having none of it.

On the way back, we got to play one of my favorites games, which could be called “I think it’s around here” or “You just passed the turn”. On a lark we decided to find one of my father’s employees Lilly Kelly nee Goggin. Lily was the first hire of the Verbatim company in Ireland and probably the first person I met in Ireland as well. If you needed the life of a party you would call her. If you wanted someone stereotypically Irish you would call Lilly.

Well she works at the Limerick Institute of Technology which my father kind of knows where it is. I’m sure if he were driving, he could go right to it. He would spot the landmarks he remembered and make the proper turns.

Too bad I’m the driver. We made some abrupt last minute turns. We ended up near Thomond Park in a group of red brick buildings. I felt like we were driving into trouble, in the we have no where to park and you want me stop sort of trouble.

But he spotted a familiar building which had an empty handicap spot out front. I pulled in and got the dreaded “Run inside and ask” Great. I did and much to my chagrin, it worked. I found Lilly’s office. More importantly, I found Lilly.

There is nothing better than surprising someone that completely. If we had been better people, I’m sure we should have called ahead and set up a meeting. Instead I burst into her office after not seeing her for two years and asked her how she was doing. I think this is how we’ve come across Lilly the last several visits I’ve made at her residence over the previous eighteen years. She must be getting heartily sick of the surprise arrival.

But she hid it well. She hugged me. She gave me a “Jayzus it’s good to see ya” We ran to the car to jabber with my father. Lilly said we should go find her husband, Mick, at the house. We promised to meet up later. (We didn’t)

Here is why I hate my memory. I think we stopped to see one of my father’s friends, Brendan Bradshaw on the way to see Lilly. Brendan is recovering from bypass surgery and pneumonia. I think we stopped at his house, the second number Nine on the same street. He was abed and didn’t feel well enough to come down.

After the one, possibly two visits, we returned to the Strand Hotel, our home for the next ten days. We unpacked and thought about sleeping. Well Cindi put the sleeping plan into action. I took pictures through the window of the Shannon river and the Sarsfield bridge. I took the elevator upstairs to see if I could get out on one of the balconies to take some better pictures of Limerick.

Limerick used to be a city that had it’s back to the river. But in recent years, they’ve built many new buildings facing the water and added promenades to walk along the rivers. The day we arrived would have been the best day to walk these walks and photograph Limerick. I only got those few photos from the balcony of hotel and through our dirty hotel window.

What made the sunny day great for the locals was it was the first sunny day they had had in a long time. As a matter of fact, they had some bad flooding in Dublin the day before. It was the largest one day total of rain for October the country had ever had.

I finally napped for a couple of hours. But certainly not enough.

We made plans with Dad to go out for dinner. He had heard from some friends about a place called Johnson’s out the Ennis road near Durty Nelly’s and Bunratty.

We started looking for an exit that probably existed before the dual lane carriage way was built. Which means the landmarks are no longer there. Which means I get to pull into the gas station near Bunratty and ask about the location of Johnson’s restaurant and receive blank stares for my trouble. We talk it over and decide to eat at Durty Nelly’s rather than continuing our quest for the mythical Johnson’s. Turns out it had another name and was actually located next to the gas station.

I’ve always been skeptical about eating at Durty Nelly’s. It reeks of being a tourist trap despite it being founded in 1652. But who says they couldn’t be building tourists traps back then?

Don’t get me wrong. I love going there. It looks great in pictures with the castle in the background and the river in the foreground. It also looks great inside with it’s warren of different rooms and cubbyholes. I just wouldn’t eat there.

I will now. We had a great dinner. And as is the case on vacation, I had desert as well. The first of many we had on the trip. I’m pretty sure I had the beef. Mainly because when push comes to shove on these menus, I have beef.

We traveled back on the pitch black dual carriage way to the hotel. I think we bored Cindi with talk of the Limerick Inn. My father expressed a desire to go through the new Limerick tunnel which bypasses Limerick and goes under the Shannon river. It just doesn’t go where we need it to go.