June 11 - Largymore to Dublin

June 11, Tuesday

The day started grey and raining.  My hostess, Ethna Diver, said this is more typical weather in Ireland.  I was really lucky with the streak of nice days.  Since I was tiring of the Full Irish, I had an omelette for a change, with an offering of white and black pudding on the side.  OK, for the Americans reading this, white pudding is a small hockey puck looking thing which is made of the parts of animals not normally eaten, like ears, knuckles, and feet and such, while black pudding is the same except it’s very dark brown, and also including animal blood.  She said it’s an “acquired taste”.  I found the white isn’t bad in small quantities.  Her hot chocolate was Great – milk with actual chocolate melted into it.  I remember having had it that way in Gronigen, Netherlands once, where you are given hot milk and a stick with chocolate at the end to dip…  but I digress.  I’d forgotten to get cash to pay since she was not set up to take credit cards, so we drove caravan style to Killibegs, a nearby seafaring town to find an ATM.  It was on my way towards Dublin and she needed to do errands in town anyway.  This was one of those places and hostesses I found hard to leave. 

Then I was off, in the rain, towards Donegal Town, then Sligo.  I’d originally planned to stay above a pub in Donegal Town (which would have been noisier) but, at Paddy Byrne’s suggestion, had changed to Largymore thinking I’d be doing the sunset boat cruise with him.  You see how things can change all over the place.  After Donegal Town, heading towards Sligo, these were some of the widest highways I’d been on in days.  I knew I had to make time in order to maximize my time in Dublin that afternoon/ evening and I was driving not only from the west coast to the east, but also south a ways. 

Then I saw the sign for Glencar waterfalls.  I had to go.  There was no indication how far I’d need to drive.

It turned out to be a narrow road for 10 km each way, but once I got there, I got some great shots.  There was the Glencar lake as well adjacent to the parking lot; sheep in the foreground, hill behind the lake.

Following my nose, I found my way back on track, though I think by a different route, and took a quick tour of Sligo town, but didn’t stop, deciding to stop for a quick, portable lunch (ice cream on a stick) in Carrick on Shannon, a picturesque town on the Shannon river, doing a half hour’s walking tour (suggested by Ethna). 

From there it was on to Dublin airport to drop the car overnight.  Everybody said not to drive into Dublin and instead take a bus from the airport.  Unfortunately, all my self-imposed delays had me arriving at the very heavily traveled M50 Dublin ring road and the airport at early rush hour.  It was a bit hairy, but the occasional NYC and other city driving I’ve done was plenty to prepare me.  Navigating to the Europcar outer lot, dropping the car, finding the bus to the terminal, another bus to town (the 747, airport bus, aptly named), waiting, taking it all the way to the end, and walking, with my bags, took almost 2 hours.  I sure hope it’s faster in the morning, but expect to run into rush hour traffic again going back to the airport to meet Lorraine. 

The Gate Lodge in Dublin was basic lodging, similar to the row house I stayed in in Belfast.  The Internet didn’t work in the room.  Seems I lurch from lovely to basic and back again this tour.  It will be interesting to compare the listed ratings to my ratings.  I’m glad they advised me to buy a Rambler ticket for the day since for an extra 30 cents above the cost of one way from the airport, I could get unlimited travel on buses.  After dropping the bags at the Gate Lodge, I took the bus (near the Gate of Phoenix park, huge, probably wonderful, but I had no time to see it) to Trinity College, downtown.  The location of the Book of Kells (or as some snarkily refer to it, the Page of Kells, since only one page is shown to the public) is there, but I really didn’t have time or interest to stand in line.  It was too late by the time I got there anyway and it was still raining.  Even the campus didn’t seem that extraordinary, having seen and lived in plenty of Eastern US Ivy league college campuses.  Stores and pretty much everything shuts by 6pm.  So I walked the Grafton pedestrian shopping mall, with many others, but only the most touristy shops were still open.

I went into St. Stephens’ Green, which I expected to be like other town Greens I’d been to in New England, but no.  This was more akin to Central Park, a heavily landscaped place with curved walkways, occasional plantings of flowers, watercourses and bridges, etc.  I would have stayed to enjoy it, but it was still raining and getting chilly.  I continued west towards the medieval part of town, and then north into the “Temple Bar” area.  This place was hopping with young folks cruising the pubs.  I continued walking around the south of River Liffey downtown.

 All during this walk, I’d been in touch with a colleague who I met frequently at the annual solid waste conference in Philadelphia and who is a professor at the Dublin City University, so with quite a few texts, we met in Dublin back on the Grafton pedestrian mall.  She found an old, famous place for us to eat, and we caught up.  It was nice to see her.  She had also taken a solo trip in the southern US, so we had plenty to talk about.  I remembered, too late, that in ordering dinner don’t order anything beef in the British Isles.   Same as in Canada.. fear of mad cow disease, so they overcook.   She’d parked near St. Stephen’s Green, so we walked the perimeter of the park, noticing all the barricades going up around a big hotel she said that dignitaries often stayed at, and the Obamas were planning to stay at in a few days, and she gave me a ride back to the Lodge, as it was on her way home anyway.  I realized I must get out much earlier tomorrow morning since I need to pick up Lorraine at the airport.  If the bus takes 2 hours again, our start to get to Blarney in the south will be quite delayed.