On the Road in Ireland - Part 2

We had just departed Rock of Cashel, where the skies had blackened and a chill wind pelted us with random raindrops, and though it was getting late in the day, we took country roads to Waterford: narrow ribbons of asphalt that twisted through emerald hills and verdant farmland. Terry drove. I navigated. Terry nearly side-swiped a 300-year-old stone wall and keen words were exchanged (granted, she was swerving to miss an oncoming freight truck, but still). Other than that, the misty landscape was beyond serene in the late-day light that broke through the clouds. In the first three days in Ireland, we had managed to explore a Viking city, three medieval castles, and a sacred hilltop where St. Patrick had baptized an Irish king. Not bad for three days.

It was eight o’clock when we checked into the Waterford Marina Hotel. I asked the desk clerk for directions to a good pub. She recommended Reg’s.

“Walk down George’s Quay here,” she said. “Go right on William, then straight on to Mall. Reg’s is there. Look for Reginald’s Tower.”

“What’s Reginald’s Tower?” I asked.

“You can’t miss it.”

And she was right: You can’t miss it. At Reg’s, we ordered pints of Guinness, lowballs of Bushmills and a bite to eat. A talented duo played acoustical sets in the corner. So it was, listening to fine Irish music, we saluted the end of another grand day. And in the morning, the quest would continue.

A Viking longship is on display in downtown Waterford, Ireland’s oldest city. Viking raiders founded a settlement here in 853, where the River Suir empties into the Celtic Sea. They named it Vedrarfjiordr, which means “Fjord of the Rams” in Norse.  Three centuries later, the Anglo-Normans morphed it to “Waterford” because that’s sort of what Vedrarfjiordr sounded like in the Norse tongue. 

Just like the hotel desk clerk had said: You can’t miss Reginald’s Tower. The 60-foot high
structure, built in 1003, stands at a busy intersection in downtown Waterford. It was once
part of a wall and tower ring that defended the city—a city that would fall to the Anglo-
Norman army under Richard de Clare. For de Clare, the “arrangement” for invading Ireland
was an Irish princess named Aoife, daughter of the deposed King of Leinster, Dermot
MacMurrough. Hence Richard got a beautiful bride and Dermot got his kingdom back.
The wedding was a big affair and took place right here in Reginald’s Tower. The excellent
Reg’s Pub is in the ground floor of the building to the left.

At the top of Terry’s list of “must sees” was a tour of the Waterford Crystal factory. Fancy glass stuff is all I knew about them. But getting a firsthand look of the production process—from molding to blowing, polishing and cutting—was impressive. Waterford makes fine crystal the same way now as they did when founders William and George Penrose opened the business in 1783: with expert craftsmen, most of it by hand.  

A master craftsman scores lines in a vase. Each cut must be precise. One tiny little goof, and the vase will be tossed. A craftsman apprenticeship is five years long, to which you will work at only one station (scoring and cutting, in this case). At the end of the five years, you must take a test to demonstrate your knowledge and skills. If you pass: Congratulations, you are now a craftsman. If you fail, you have two options: Quit, or go through another five-year apprenticeship. 

And to think it all begins as a lump of sand. This piece fetches $40,000. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE MULCAHY CLAN

A clan of Irish origin, spelled Maolchathaigh in Gaelic, meaning “a descendant of a devotee of Cathaigh” (Inis Cathaigh was a 6th-century abbey founded by Saint Senán, one of the 12 Apostles of Ireland). According to most sources, the surname began in County Waterford and has been associated with the early Irish Church. The Mulcahy name is mentioned in the Annals of Inisfallen in 1317, and subsequent references in and around the monastic communities as far as County Kerry in the 15th century. 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

We didn’t find Jerpoint Abbey. It found us. Thirty minutes out of Waterford, northbound on
M9 to Dublin, we had exited onto a country lane that led us to a small village called
Knocktopher. From there, we continued up the road, past charming farm houses, looking
for somewhere to stop for a picnic. Suddenly, around a bend, Jerpoint Abbey loomed above
the treetops into a sapphire sky. We stopped. There was a picnic table in the gardens. And
what started as a quick lunch break turned into an enlightening, two-hour visit.

Our docent, Joe O’Connell, gave us and four other Americans an incredible tour, cleverly
weaving facts with architecture, medieval history and intriguing stories on the day-to-day
life of a 12th-century Cistercian monk. Jerpoint’s construction in 1180 was funded by
Donogh O'Donoghoe, King of Osraige. It’s one of the best preserved abbey ruins in Ireland.  

The afternoon sun cuts a mosaic of shadows and light as Terry ponders one of the old tombs in the nave of the church. The tour is done. It’s just the two of us now. One can almost hear monks performing a Gregorian chant in Latin. The Irish abbeys flourished after the collapse of the Roman Empire, remaining apart from the turmoil in Europe. Jerpoint was built at the apex of this golden age, functioning as a transcendent, Cistercian compound for 360 years before King Henry VIII seized it in 1541. He sacked all of the Catholic monastic sites in the British Isles, razing their roofs and forbidding they ever be used again.    

I am of the Tuatha Dé Danann, 
From yonder Brú na Bóinne, 
Chequered with the many Lights.

— from Celtic folklore

We were driving along the River Boyne, having just finished dinner in Donore, a tiny
settlement comprised of the three essential buildings (church, school and pub). It was close
to sunset when I asked Ter to pull over to the side of the road. I clambered out with my 
camera, wading through the bramble to get a shot of this placid dell and pasture full of 
bleating sheep at the base of a large, grassy knoll... Hold on. I peered through the telephoto 
lens. Whoa! That wasn’t a grassy knoll. It was the Newgrange Passage Tomb! This is what 
had brought us to the Boyne River Valley. It’s over five thousand years old: Older than 
Stonehenge; older than the Pyramids of Giza. And tomorrow, we would be venturing into it. 

Here’s a rare pic of me at the Newgrange Visitors Center. We were there bright and early: there are a limited number allowed into the passage tomb each day and we aimed to be in the first group. It’s a scenic, two-mile shuttle ride out to the site.

The morning sun warms the front of the passage tomb as we wander the grounds. The
structure was built on a knoll overlooking the Boyne River Valley around 3200 BC. About
200,000 tons of rock was used in its construction, some of it—such as the white quartz on
the east-facing façade—quarried from a vein fifty miles away. Little is known about these
master builders from the Stone Age, other than they had no written language or number
system, yet possessed a firm grasp of engineering and astral concepts. Their identity is lost
in early Celtic mythology, where they were known as the "Tuatha Dé Danann from the Brú
(mansion) of the Chequered Lights.”  

In single file, twenty-four of us squeeze down the passageway. It narrows the deeper we go; cold, prehistoric walls brushing against both shoulders. After about sixty feet, the passage opens into a small, vaulted chamber. The ceiling is twenty feet above our heads, spiral artwork carved into the stone. Our tour guide then shuts off the lights, leaving us standing in absolute darkness, wondering what to expect next. We don’t have to wait long. A soft beam of amber light soon reaches up the passageway from the entrance, slowly becoming brighter, until it illuminates the chamber in a yellow glow. This, our guide explains, is what the Ancients would have seen 5,000 years ago when the morning sun peeked over the ridge on the winter solstice. A special floodlight and computer program now simulate the phenomenon. But the sun itself will shine into the inner chamber every December 21st. To see the real thing, you can enter your name in a lottery: Each year, a few lucky people are picked to go inside on the winter solstice. Terry put her name in.     

Terry examines the carvings on one of the 97 curbstones that adorn the structure. These slabs are regarded as some of the finest achievements of European Neolithic art. Archeologists estimate that the passage structure was used for astral observations and religious ceremonies for many centuries. But there would come a day when the heavy entrance slab was sealed across the passage for the last time and the Ancient Ones vanished. A Bronze-Age people would later inhabit the site, but by then the passage entrance was long lost and only the stories remained. Folklore was passed along from generation to generation. By the time the Celts arrived in Ireland, around 500 BC, the passage tomb was nothing more than mystic legend.  

We missed our shuttle bus back to the Visitors’ Center, so we walked. It was a beautiful 
morning. Flocks of sheep grazed in the fields. Humorist/author, Dave Barry, once opined 
that “Ireland is a medium-sized rural island that is slowly but steadily being consumed by 
sheep.” He may be right. 

It’s a great day for a hike along the River Boyne. There's supposedly good fishing here for salmon and trout. 

A short drive from Newgrange is the Hill of Slane, where we explore the ruins of a 16th-century friary while ravens circle and squawk. It was from this hilltop, in the year 433, where Saint Patrick lit the first paschal bonfire in defiance of the pagan King Lóegaire, who reigned from the legendary Hill of Tara just ten miles away. It was strictly forbidden for anyone but the king to light up the night sky during the Beltaine Festival (spring equinox). The Druids demanded Patrick’s head for pulling that stunt. But somehow Patrick managed to keep it, and earn King Lóegaire’s respect in the process.   

Well I took a stroll on the old long walk,
Of a day -I-ay-I-ay.
I met a little girl and we stopped to talk,
Of a fine soft day -I-ay.
So I ask you, friend, what's a fella to do?
'Cause her hair was black and her eyes were blue.
And I knew right then, I'd be takin' a whirl,
'Round the Salthill Prom with a Galway girl.

— Steve Earle, “Galway Girl”

There’s nothing like waking in the morning to sunshine and the sound of gulls. This is the
view from our bedroom window in Galway, where the River Carrib flows into the sea. We
had pulled in the night before after dashing straight across the island to this emerald jewel
of the West side. It’s a vibrant city, only a third the size of Cork. It was founded in the 12th
century by the Irish clans of Connacht. Then the Normans arrived and the settlement
expanded. By the 15th century, the walled city had become a thriving European trading port,
controlled by several Irish-Norman merchant families known as the Fourteen Tribes. A
young Christopher Columbus dropped anchor here in 1477.   

High Street is the heart of old-town Galway, where music and laughter exude from pubs and restaurants along the way, too numerous to count. Traditional Irish music is a big thing here, drawing from the best talent around. Galway is also the place to have your bachelor or bachelorette party—stag and hen parties, as they call them here—and young folks come from afar to live it up before tying the knot. Dressing up in costumes is part of the gig. We saw a few. It’s quite entertaining. (What happens in Galway, stays in Galway?) In the end, we land in the King’s Head Pub, which, the bartender assures me, has been accommodating drinkers for almost 400 years.      

The Heron's Rest, the B&B where we stayed, is the blue building. 

Afternoon rain catches us on the Claddogh Quay, across the river from old-town Galway. The Claddogh District was a fishing village for centuries, the last of the thatched-roof houses being demolished in the 1930s. Now it’s a high-demand residential neighborhood with rocky beaches along the Salthill Promenade, immortalized in the Steve Earle song “Galway Girl.”

King John’s Castle glints off the River Shannon on the outskirts of Limerick. We had exited 

the motorway to track down a bike shop, and when I saw this, I just had to stop and snap 

some photos (my dear wife is a patient saint). The castle was built in 1200 for the king 

himself—the same King John of the Robin Hood tales. Limerick itself is an industrious 

port city—another city founded by the Vikings—where the Shannon flows languidly by 

like the centuries.

We eventually located the bike shop, where Terry picked up the leg warmers she was 

looking for. Then it was back to the motorway, southbound to Cork. The first half of our 

Ultimate Irish Road Trip was coming to a close. We had covered a tremendous amount of 

territory in six days, but once back in Cork, we would turn in our rental car. The second half 

of the adventure would start tomorrow—on bicycles.

To be continued...