06-26-2023, 04:00 PM
May 5 Galway
What better way to wake up and get started on your Galway adventures than to find out that at some time during the night my iPhone 14 Pro had decided to become an inert piece of aluminum and glass. Good times. I immediately tried a hard reboot to no effect. My phone was still a brick. It’s not like the phone was important or anything. It’s not like all our travel arrangements were locked in the phone included hotel reservations and maps to our destinations. No problemh.
The Queen found a place in the mall that did iPhone repairs called zRepair in the Corbett Court Shopping Center. They didn’t open until Nine and I was up at Five, so I did the only logical thing. I headed out for a walk. Since my iPhone camera was now gone and, heaven forbid, I should head out on a walk without taking photos, I brought along my GoPro in case there were any photo opportunities.
The Blackrock Diving Board was my destination of choice, about a forty-five minute walk from the Townhouse in a south easterly direction. I was able to walk through the medieval quarter again and then over the Corrib River via the Wolfe Tone Bridge. Wolfe Tone namesakes are everywhere. After I crossed the bridge, I made my through a residential section of town. There weren’t many folks out at this hour except for a few joggers. Always confuses me to see joggers in Ireland.
One of the things I should also have brought with me was a raincoat. What was a little sprinkle when I left the Townhouse was now a good steady rain as I walked along the Strand through Salthill with the Atlantic Ocean on my left. On a sunny day, this would probably be an amazing walk. Not so much on a Friday under cold leaden skies. I don’t know how many times I thought I should turn and go home. My hoody was soaked through. But I could finally see my destination and maybe the rain would let up.
It’s miserable and yet I see a guy out there swimming in the waves. If this had been California in this kind of weather the beaches would be empty. But in Ireland if you wait for good weather to go to the beach, you’ll never go.
At Blackrock diving Platform, more people were in the water. They all looked really happy to be out there. As you make your way to the platform, you pass by a nice building with facilities for the swimmers. There were a lot of swimmers. They didn’t stay in the water long but in they went. It made me quite euphoric to see the Irish insanity on full display. Of course, the insanity was only from my vantage. The swimmers were all quite happy. One of the swimmers spotted the strange Yank in their midst and asked me if I was going to go in. I said the water looked like it was freezing. The Questioner just shrugged and said it was much colder at Christmas.
Because my luck is my luck, the entry to the diving platform had been closed the day before for maintenance. I had to be satisfied with taking photos from behind the railing with my little GoPro.
While at Blackrock, the rain had let up so the walk back to Galway wasn’t quite as miserable. I marveled that on the sidewalk there were still markings telling people to keep their distance because of Covid. I also found a different path to go home rather than through the houses there was a path that followed along the ocean and put me along the Claddagh Quay. The Claddagh area used to be an area of thatched cottages and gave it’s name to the famous ring just across the Wolf Tone Bridge.
Because I’m me, I did a hyperlapse through the Medieval Quarter of town. A hyperlapse is a timelapse where the person moves. In this case, I set my Gopro to take a photo every second as I walked through town.
Since we weren’t staying in a B&B, we had to go find breakfast. The place that was open earliest was at The Hyde Hotel just off Eyre Square on Forster Street. We walked down from the Townhouse since it was a short walk on the opposite side of Eyre Square. It was a short walk for some. Breakfast was really good and the restaurant had really beautiful decor. Our little room had tons of flowers attached to the roof. I would have taken more pictures but dead phone.
Since it wasn’t that far from Hyde to zRepair in the Corbert Court, just on the opposite side of Eyre Square. I have to stop saying it wasn’t that far. By the time we arrived, The Queen Mum was desperate for a place to sit down. She ended up on a coin operated kid’s ride. She rested there for a few minutes to get her wind back before we walked over to the Dunnes store where we could see the original Galway City walls.
The Queen mum has an medical inhaler that she takes to help with her breathing. She is supposed to only use it five times a day to help her. The Queen Mum had already used it four times at this stage. That can’t be good. The Queen Mum rested while I went into zRepair.
I explained to the nice man behind the counter the problem with the phone and what I had done to repair the phone. My repair consisted of the hard reboot. The nice man walked back to his repair station at the rear of the store. He fiddled for a second and then he came back to me. The nice man handed me the phone and said all better. The phone now worked. I asked him what arcane magic he worked to get the phone started. Hard Reboot. I did the Hard Reboot. Yeah, but obviously I didn’t do the hard reboot properly. The Hard Reboot takes a skilled technicians hands. I thanked him and then thanked him again when he said there was no charge for him pressing three buttons on my phone.
The first thing I noticed on the phone were five missed calls from Brian Nolan Galway Tour guide. I had called him the previous night about taking a tour. He called back this morning when the phone was not operational. I called him and told him the situation with my phone. He told me that was a likely story. But he did say he could do a tour that morning. We would meet him in Eyre Square near the Galway Hooker sculpture.
First we escorted the Queen Mum back to Eyre Square Townhouse. After the three walks ending with the climb up the stairs to our rooms, the Queen Mum was done. She would not be joining us for the tour.
The Queen and I met Brian at the Quincentennial fountain. According to Mr. Nolan, the fountain hasn’t worked for years. We were joined by only one other couple. I’m all for small tours. After awhile, I did feel bad for them because I might have monopolized Brian’s time during the tour. Our first stop on the tour was the Kennedy Memorial. JFK stopped in Ireland for four days on the way back from his trip to Germany where he made his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech in Berlin. Brian also gave us a small aside about the Browne Doorway that stands at the edge of the square. The Browne doorway came from a manor house on Abbeygate street that was being torn down. Brian felt that something should be done about the doorway besides rotting away here in the square.
Our next stop was our already visited Corbett Shopping Center. I think I short circuited Brian’s speech by saying we had already been in there this morning. But I can never get too much of looking at the oddity of those stone walls in the shopping mall.
On the way out of the mall we stopped at Lynch’s castle where I learned more about the infamous hanging. To recap, Mayor hangs son after son commits murder. One of the notes I had never heard about the story, was the murdered man was actually a spaniard who’s life was kept in surety for the good actions of the Spanish traders. He was the son of a rich Spanish merchant living with the Lynch family and was making a move on the Lynch son’s girlfriend. If the Mayor were to let his son go unpunished, many Irish sons who were in Spain under the same conditions as hostages could forfeit their lives. The son had to go.
It’s very nice having a castle with your name on it, even if the castle looks more like a manor house. But I did learn that the Lynch family, like many of rich Galway merchant houses, owned the entire block and the Lynch castle was the key building in defense of the block. All the other building on the block all centered on a courtyard and the buildings acted as defense to that courtyard. I think this is the first time I actually went into Lynch Castle. The bank, which currently owns the building, left one room in the old style of floor to ceiling panelling with plenty of wainscot and wood trim. Need to go back and spend more time in there.
On of the unique to Galway features are marriage crests. When two people wed, they would combine the two individual family crests into one double crest and mount it to the Newlweds house. The double crest is only found in Galway. More importantly, Brian showed us one for the Lynch family and Blake Family marriage. The crest is kind of hidden down an alley on the way to parole services. When the plaque was originally found while doing remodel work, one of the workers was just ready to mix the crest in with a pile of debris for the foundation. Cooler heads prevailed and they remounted the plaque to the wall. We got to see the plaque because the usually locked door was open. Tourist Immunity!
From there it was off to Kirwan’s Lane. Up until a few years ago, Kirwan’s Lane was a mess. But one of the local artisans, Judy Greene, a potter, decided to do something about it. The whole lane has been refurbished to look like the streets used to look in Galway. More importantly, they built one of the buildings to house the Browne Doorway from Eyre Square. Since the Browne Doorway is still in Eyre Square somebody had to have said no. But you can see the build out on the building where the doorway was to reside.
At the end of Kirwan’s Lane, we turned on to Quay Street where we saw the Blake Merchant House. The Blake’s were the family that married with the Lynch Family back on that marriage plaque near Lynch castle. There were only the Fourteen Tribes. They all had to be married to each other. The Fourteen Tribes lost their power after the Cromwell Invasion and the rules were changed to favor protestants. The Fourteen Tribes were Catholic.
Brian Nolan gave us a massive tip at the end of the tour. He said there was an informal Traditional Music (Trad) session held that day at Monroes Pub at 4:30 that afternoon. The answer to my prayers. I want to go to Trad sessions. I fall asleep before they usually start. Brian even told us the best place to sit to hear the session. It was like a Christmas miracle in May.
The rain finally let up when we departed the tour. Not that it had been raining hard, just enough to tell you you were in Ireland. We stopped in St. Nicholas’ Collegiate Church for a quick tour and more pictures at the Lynch window. I really need to get a guide book from the Church because there are a million weird things in the church most importantly of all is the Lynch Transept where there are at least three Lynch tombs including the one for Mayor James Lynch who hung his son. One area has trader marks carved into the floor from different professions. There is a crusader buried in there. There is plaque to Jane Eyre but a different Jane Eyre. Ms. Eyre left money to give bread to the poor. Christopher Columbus (That Christopher Columbus) may have prayer in this Church before setting off on his voyages. St. Nicholas of Myra was the patron saint of sailors. Most of the early memorials have been defaced by Cromwells soldiers who took Galway in 1652. Soldiers supposedly used the Church as a stable for their horses. We did just a quick visit thinking to come back later with the Queen Mum.
I decided to track down some of my teachers from the Crescent College Comprehensive, the school I attended in Limerick, while on the trip. One of whom, Father Liam O’Connell, now lived in Galway. Best of all, he was on Facebook. I messaged him I was going to be in town and asked if he would like to get together. He said yes. Father O’Connell coached my Rugby team as the Crescent. Most of the students referred to him as Father Moses because of his almost biblical beard. I can’t remember if we ever said it to his face.
Moses invited us to lunch at Hooked on Henry Street over on the other side of the Corrib River. Hooked opened at 1 but we should make plans to be there before then. They were very popular and did not take reservations. Since it was a bit of a hike, we opted to take a cab to the restaurant. The first thing the driver said to us when we got in was the restaurant was within walking distance. Not for all of us.
Hooked was popular but not as popular as advertised. There were four other groups waiting by the time we were let in the front door. But as we dined the place did fill up. Hooked serves seafood and only seafood. The Queen and The Queen Mum were in heaven. Me, not so much. Usually there are one or two items that aren’t seafood in a seafood restaurant. Hooked did not give in. Nothing but Seafood. I ended up with Fish and Chips. Boy, those chips went a long way. The fish wasn’t too bad for me. Raves from the other three diners.
Since the Queen Mum had yet to see anything of Galway and we had about an hour before the Trad session started at Monroe’s, I suggested we walk over to the Medieval Quarter and see some stuff. I particularly wanted to get her to see St. Nicholas Church. The Queen Mum felt good about the journey. Moses led us on a lovely walk besides one of the canals that used to drive the mills along the Corrib River. We made several stops along the way including on my friend The Wolfe Tone Bridge. One of the other key destinations was Thomas Dillon’s Claddagh Ring shop. Thomas Dillon’s on Quay Street is where the Claddagh Ring was invented. The Queen has bought two rings from the shop and had them resize one of them.
From there, we walked to the next block and St. Nicholas’s Church. Because of the hour, St. Nicholas’s Church was closed. Which worked on sort of. The Queen Mum was exhausted, desperate for a spot to sit down. I went off to find a taxi to get us back to Monroe’s. I watched for about ten minutes as Taxi after Taxi would come up bridge street to the roundabout and then go back down bridge street. I opted to call for a cab to come find us. The dispatcher told me the cab would be there in fifteen minutes.
By this time the skies had cleared and was fully of puffy white clouds. The day had turned gorgeous. The Streets were packed. I photographed a wedding procession coming up Quay street. A great day to be in town.
While I waited for the cab, I walked down to Bridge Street to find out what was going on with all these cabs not coming up towards us. The reason was simple as I soon spotted it. There was a taxi rank there with a line of Taxis waiting for fares. I went and told the Queen and the Queen Mum that were just going to get one of those cabs rather than waiting. When we got in the Taxi and I told the driver our destination, the first thing he said was “It’s within walking distance”. I said not for everyone. The driver, who seemed to be from the Caribbean from his accent said they have to tell fares how close things are otherwise they get angry when they realize how close the destinations are. I received several messages from the Taxi I called wondering where I was.
We got Monroe’s on Upper Fairhill Road nice and early. Using another tip from Brian Nolan, we sat at a raised table right next to where the band was going to play. Okay. We got there too early and the sun was shining so I told my two companions I was going for a little stroll to do some picture taking. The best picture I took was in the bathroom for an upcoming performance by a band called Craic Sabbath.
Ten musicians took over the booth in the corner of the bar. A window next to the booth opened on to the street so pedestrians on the sidewalk could hear the players. The only disconcerting note was above the musicians booth was the large screen TV tuned to some golf match. In the group where pipers, drummers, fiddle players, a squeeze box and a banjo. I’ll be honest. A little bit of Trad session goes a long way for me. The tunes starts to sound the same to me. Heresy! I really wish I was the kind of person who could sit in a pub all night listening to the music, but that’s not going to happen. I don’t drink and I’d already polished off my order of chips. We left after a half hour. The ladies took a taxi back to the Eyre Square Townhouse while I walked back. I needed to take a picture of Sally Long’s Pub. The pub has murals of rock stars on the outside wall.
I had to do a quick walk to the car park to buy another parking pass for the Sportage. I was pleasantly surprised to find the car was still there. I did move the car to be closer to other cars as well. My only concern when buying the ticket was the ticket showed the expiration time as the current time rather than the next day. I figured it would all work out.
For dinner, I walked down to the Pizza Factory Restaurant. The menu was pretty simple. You pick a type of sauce. You pick a type of pasta. They make it. You take it home. And yet the woman in front of me in line at the restaurant couldn’t quite grasp the concept despite the fact there was a giant chalk board next to the register that listed all the sauces and all the pastas. It took this poor woman about ten minutes to come up with her order which I think turned out to be two things. I tried to be clear and concise when I had my turn to order. The food was really good, but as usual there was way too much. The Queen Mum continues to eat like a bird. I could have ordered one portion of pasta for the Queen Mum and her daughter and there probably still would have been pasta left over. The garlic bread was probably too much.
After dinner it was off to bed. We packed up a little since we were off to Cong and Clifden in the morning.
What better way to wake up and get started on your Galway adventures than to find out that at some time during the night my iPhone 14 Pro had decided to become an inert piece of aluminum and glass. Good times. I immediately tried a hard reboot to no effect. My phone was still a brick. It’s not like the phone was important or anything. It’s not like all our travel arrangements were locked in the phone included hotel reservations and maps to our destinations. No problemh.
The Queen found a place in the mall that did iPhone repairs called zRepair in the Corbett Court Shopping Center. They didn’t open until Nine and I was up at Five, so I did the only logical thing. I headed out for a walk. Since my iPhone camera was now gone and, heaven forbid, I should head out on a walk without taking photos, I brought along my GoPro in case there were any photo opportunities.
The Blackrock Diving Board was my destination of choice, about a forty-five minute walk from the Townhouse in a south easterly direction. I was able to walk through the medieval quarter again and then over the Corrib River via the Wolfe Tone Bridge. Wolfe Tone namesakes are everywhere. After I crossed the bridge, I made my through a residential section of town. There weren’t many folks out at this hour except for a few joggers. Always confuses me to see joggers in Ireland.
One of the things I should also have brought with me was a raincoat. What was a little sprinkle when I left the Townhouse was now a good steady rain as I walked along the Strand through Salthill with the Atlantic Ocean on my left. On a sunny day, this would probably be an amazing walk. Not so much on a Friday under cold leaden skies. I don’t know how many times I thought I should turn and go home. My hoody was soaked through. But I could finally see my destination and maybe the rain would let up.
It’s miserable and yet I see a guy out there swimming in the waves. If this had been California in this kind of weather the beaches would be empty. But in Ireland if you wait for good weather to go to the beach, you’ll never go.
At Blackrock diving Platform, more people were in the water. They all looked really happy to be out there. As you make your way to the platform, you pass by a nice building with facilities for the swimmers. There were a lot of swimmers. They didn’t stay in the water long but in they went. It made me quite euphoric to see the Irish insanity on full display. Of course, the insanity was only from my vantage. The swimmers were all quite happy. One of the swimmers spotted the strange Yank in their midst and asked me if I was going to go in. I said the water looked like it was freezing. The Questioner just shrugged and said it was much colder at Christmas.
Because my luck is my luck, the entry to the diving platform had been closed the day before for maintenance. I had to be satisfied with taking photos from behind the railing with my little GoPro.
While at Blackrock, the rain had let up so the walk back to Galway wasn’t quite as miserable. I marveled that on the sidewalk there were still markings telling people to keep their distance because of Covid. I also found a different path to go home rather than through the houses there was a path that followed along the ocean and put me along the Claddagh Quay. The Claddagh area used to be an area of thatched cottages and gave it’s name to the famous ring just across the Wolf Tone Bridge.
Because I’m me, I did a hyperlapse through the Medieval Quarter of town. A hyperlapse is a timelapse where the person moves. In this case, I set my Gopro to take a photo every second as I walked through town.
Since we weren’t staying in a B&B, we had to go find breakfast. The place that was open earliest was at The Hyde Hotel just off Eyre Square on Forster Street. We walked down from the Townhouse since it was a short walk on the opposite side of Eyre Square. It was a short walk for some. Breakfast was really good and the restaurant had really beautiful decor. Our little room had tons of flowers attached to the roof. I would have taken more pictures but dead phone.
Since it wasn’t that far from Hyde to zRepair in the Corbert Court, just on the opposite side of Eyre Square. I have to stop saying it wasn’t that far. By the time we arrived, The Queen Mum was desperate for a place to sit down. She ended up on a coin operated kid’s ride. She rested there for a few minutes to get her wind back before we walked over to the Dunnes store where we could see the original Galway City walls.
The Queen mum has an medical inhaler that she takes to help with her breathing. She is supposed to only use it five times a day to help her. The Queen Mum had already used it four times at this stage. That can’t be good. The Queen Mum rested while I went into zRepair.
I explained to the nice man behind the counter the problem with the phone and what I had done to repair the phone. My repair consisted of the hard reboot. The nice man walked back to his repair station at the rear of the store. He fiddled for a second and then he came back to me. The nice man handed me the phone and said all better. The phone now worked. I asked him what arcane magic he worked to get the phone started. Hard Reboot. I did the Hard Reboot. Yeah, but obviously I didn’t do the hard reboot properly. The Hard Reboot takes a skilled technicians hands. I thanked him and then thanked him again when he said there was no charge for him pressing three buttons on my phone.
The first thing I noticed on the phone were five missed calls from Brian Nolan Galway Tour guide. I had called him the previous night about taking a tour. He called back this morning when the phone was not operational. I called him and told him the situation with my phone. He told me that was a likely story. But he did say he could do a tour that morning. We would meet him in Eyre Square near the Galway Hooker sculpture.
First we escorted the Queen Mum back to Eyre Square Townhouse. After the three walks ending with the climb up the stairs to our rooms, the Queen Mum was done. She would not be joining us for the tour.
The Queen and I met Brian at the Quincentennial fountain. According to Mr. Nolan, the fountain hasn’t worked for years. We were joined by only one other couple. I’m all for small tours. After awhile, I did feel bad for them because I might have monopolized Brian’s time during the tour. Our first stop on the tour was the Kennedy Memorial. JFK stopped in Ireland for four days on the way back from his trip to Germany where he made his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech in Berlin. Brian also gave us a small aside about the Browne Doorway that stands at the edge of the square. The Browne doorway came from a manor house on Abbeygate street that was being torn down. Brian felt that something should be done about the doorway besides rotting away here in the square.
Our next stop was our already visited Corbett Shopping Center. I think I short circuited Brian’s speech by saying we had already been in there this morning. But I can never get too much of looking at the oddity of those stone walls in the shopping mall.
On the way out of the mall we stopped at Lynch’s castle where I learned more about the infamous hanging. To recap, Mayor hangs son after son commits murder. One of the notes I had never heard about the story, was the murdered man was actually a spaniard who’s life was kept in surety for the good actions of the Spanish traders. He was the son of a rich Spanish merchant living with the Lynch family and was making a move on the Lynch son’s girlfriend. If the Mayor were to let his son go unpunished, many Irish sons who were in Spain under the same conditions as hostages could forfeit their lives. The son had to go.
It’s very nice having a castle with your name on it, even if the castle looks more like a manor house. But I did learn that the Lynch family, like many of rich Galway merchant houses, owned the entire block and the Lynch castle was the key building in defense of the block. All the other building on the block all centered on a courtyard and the buildings acted as defense to that courtyard. I think this is the first time I actually went into Lynch Castle. The bank, which currently owns the building, left one room in the old style of floor to ceiling panelling with plenty of wainscot and wood trim. Need to go back and spend more time in there.
On of the unique to Galway features are marriage crests. When two people wed, they would combine the two individual family crests into one double crest and mount it to the Newlweds house. The double crest is only found in Galway. More importantly, Brian showed us one for the Lynch family and Blake Family marriage. The crest is kind of hidden down an alley on the way to parole services. When the plaque was originally found while doing remodel work, one of the workers was just ready to mix the crest in with a pile of debris for the foundation. Cooler heads prevailed and they remounted the plaque to the wall. We got to see the plaque because the usually locked door was open. Tourist Immunity!
From there it was off to Kirwan’s Lane. Up until a few years ago, Kirwan’s Lane was a mess. But one of the local artisans, Judy Greene, a potter, decided to do something about it. The whole lane has been refurbished to look like the streets used to look in Galway. More importantly, they built one of the buildings to house the Browne Doorway from Eyre Square. Since the Browne Doorway is still in Eyre Square somebody had to have said no. But you can see the build out on the building where the doorway was to reside.
At the end of Kirwan’s Lane, we turned on to Quay Street where we saw the Blake Merchant House. The Blake’s were the family that married with the Lynch Family back on that marriage plaque near Lynch castle. There were only the Fourteen Tribes. They all had to be married to each other. The Fourteen Tribes lost their power after the Cromwell Invasion and the rules were changed to favor protestants. The Fourteen Tribes were Catholic.
Brian Nolan gave us a massive tip at the end of the tour. He said there was an informal Traditional Music (Trad) session held that day at Monroes Pub at 4:30 that afternoon. The answer to my prayers. I want to go to Trad sessions. I fall asleep before they usually start. Brian even told us the best place to sit to hear the session. It was like a Christmas miracle in May.
The rain finally let up when we departed the tour. Not that it had been raining hard, just enough to tell you you were in Ireland. We stopped in St. Nicholas’ Collegiate Church for a quick tour and more pictures at the Lynch window. I really need to get a guide book from the Church because there are a million weird things in the church most importantly of all is the Lynch Transept where there are at least three Lynch tombs including the one for Mayor James Lynch who hung his son. One area has trader marks carved into the floor from different professions. There is a crusader buried in there. There is plaque to Jane Eyre but a different Jane Eyre. Ms. Eyre left money to give bread to the poor. Christopher Columbus (That Christopher Columbus) may have prayer in this Church before setting off on his voyages. St. Nicholas of Myra was the patron saint of sailors. Most of the early memorials have been defaced by Cromwells soldiers who took Galway in 1652. Soldiers supposedly used the Church as a stable for their horses. We did just a quick visit thinking to come back later with the Queen Mum.
I decided to track down some of my teachers from the Crescent College Comprehensive, the school I attended in Limerick, while on the trip. One of whom, Father Liam O’Connell, now lived in Galway. Best of all, he was on Facebook. I messaged him I was going to be in town and asked if he would like to get together. He said yes. Father O’Connell coached my Rugby team as the Crescent. Most of the students referred to him as Father Moses because of his almost biblical beard. I can’t remember if we ever said it to his face.
Moses invited us to lunch at Hooked on Henry Street over on the other side of the Corrib River. Hooked opened at 1 but we should make plans to be there before then. They were very popular and did not take reservations. Since it was a bit of a hike, we opted to take a cab to the restaurant. The first thing the driver said to us when we got in was the restaurant was within walking distance. Not for all of us.
Hooked was popular but not as popular as advertised. There were four other groups waiting by the time we were let in the front door. But as we dined the place did fill up. Hooked serves seafood and only seafood. The Queen and The Queen Mum were in heaven. Me, not so much. Usually there are one or two items that aren’t seafood in a seafood restaurant. Hooked did not give in. Nothing but Seafood. I ended up with Fish and Chips. Boy, those chips went a long way. The fish wasn’t too bad for me. Raves from the other three diners.
Since the Queen Mum had yet to see anything of Galway and we had about an hour before the Trad session started at Monroe’s, I suggested we walk over to the Medieval Quarter and see some stuff. I particularly wanted to get her to see St. Nicholas Church. The Queen Mum felt good about the journey. Moses led us on a lovely walk besides one of the canals that used to drive the mills along the Corrib River. We made several stops along the way including on my friend The Wolfe Tone Bridge. One of the other key destinations was Thomas Dillon’s Claddagh Ring shop. Thomas Dillon’s on Quay Street is where the Claddagh Ring was invented. The Queen has bought two rings from the shop and had them resize one of them.
From there, we walked to the next block and St. Nicholas’s Church. Because of the hour, St. Nicholas’s Church was closed. Which worked on sort of. The Queen Mum was exhausted, desperate for a spot to sit down. I went off to find a taxi to get us back to Monroe’s. I watched for about ten minutes as Taxi after Taxi would come up bridge street to the roundabout and then go back down bridge street. I opted to call for a cab to come find us. The dispatcher told me the cab would be there in fifteen minutes.
By this time the skies had cleared and was fully of puffy white clouds. The day had turned gorgeous. The Streets were packed. I photographed a wedding procession coming up Quay street. A great day to be in town.
While I waited for the cab, I walked down to Bridge Street to find out what was going on with all these cabs not coming up towards us. The reason was simple as I soon spotted it. There was a taxi rank there with a line of Taxis waiting for fares. I went and told the Queen and the Queen Mum that were just going to get one of those cabs rather than waiting. When we got in the Taxi and I told the driver our destination, the first thing he said was “It’s within walking distance”. I said not for everyone. The driver, who seemed to be from the Caribbean from his accent said they have to tell fares how close things are otherwise they get angry when they realize how close the destinations are. I received several messages from the Taxi I called wondering where I was.
We got Monroe’s on Upper Fairhill Road nice and early. Using another tip from Brian Nolan, we sat at a raised table right next to where the band was going to play. Okay. We got there too early and the sun was shining so I told my two companions I was going for a little stroll to do some picture taking. The best picture I took was in the bathroom for an upcoming performance by a band called Craic Sabbath.
Ten musicians took over the booth in the corner of the bar. A window next to the booth opened on to the street so pedestrians on the sidewalk could hear the players. The only disconcerting note was above the musicians booth was the large screen TV tuned to some golf match. In the group where pipers, drummers, fiddle players, a squeeze box and a banjo. I’ll be honest. A little bit of Trad session goes a long way for me. The tunes starts to sound the same to me. Heresy! I really wish I was the kind of person who could sit in a pub all night listening to the music, but that’s not going to happen. I don’t drink and I’d already polished off my order of chips. We left after a half hour. The ladies took a taxi back to the Eyre Square Townhouse while I walked back. I needed to take a picture of Sally Long’s Pub. The pub has murals of rock stars on the outside wall.
I had to do a quick walk to the car park to buy another parking pass for the Sportage. I was pleasantly surprised to find the car was still there. I did move the car to be closer to other cars as well. My only concern when buying the ticket was the ticket showed the expiration time as the current time rather than the next day. I figured it would all work out.
For dinner, I walked down to the Pizza Factory Restaurant. The menu was pretty simple. You pick a type of sauce. You pick a type of pasta. They make it. You take it home. And yet the woman in front of me in line at the restaurant couldn’t quite grasp the concept despite the fact there was a giant chalk board next to the register that listed all the sauces and all the pastas. It took this poor woman about ten minutes to come up with her order which I think turned out to be two things. I tried to be clear and concise when I had my turn to order. The food was really good, but as usual there was way too much. The Queen Mum continues to eat like a bird. I could have ordered one portion of pasta for the Queen Mum and her daughter and there probably still would have been pasta left over. The garlic bread was probably too much.
After dinner it was off to bed. We packed up a little since we were off to Cong and Clifden in the morning.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm