In Memoriam plus a GPS Adventure!

…continuing with our adventures in Ireland, we headed north toward Killarney in County Kerry.

Along the way, Laurie took this photo of these colorful townhomes… They’re eye catching and it’s an interesting way to dress up this gray stone building.

Just before we turned north, we came to the town of Skibbereen on the south coast of Ireland and when we saw the Heritage Center, we decided to stop and look around. 

The name Skibbereen means “little boat harbor”.  The town has a population of about 2,700 and the town charter dates back to 1657 although the settlement dates back even earlier.  It received a sudden influx of people from the nearby coastal town of Baltimore in 1621 following a raid on that town by slavers from the Barbary Coast of North Africa.  It was the largest raid by Barbary pirates on either Ireland or Great Britain with at least 107 local residents being brought to North Africa to be sold as slaves.  To learn more about this raid (and for a link to information about similar raids in Iceland, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Baltimore.  These attacks by slavers were totally new information for me!

One of the key exhibits at the Skibbereen Heritage Center is the story of the Great Irish Potato Famine, (“Gorta Mor”) of the 1840s when potato blight wiped out much of the crop.  In what was the worst human disaster in Europe in the 1800s, between 1841 and 1850 over 1,000,000 people died and another 1,250,000 emigrated in an effort to escape the disaster.  Obviously the birthrate also plunged and it’s estimated that over 400,000 births just didn’t happen.  The population of Ireland had been 8,500,000 people in 1841 but by 1850, it was reduced almost in half! 

At the start of the famine, about half of the population relied on potatoes as their main source of nourishment!  As this illustration shows, the potato fungus arrived in Europe from America… Consider this, a poor family of 8 needed about 55 lbs. of potatoes every day in order to survive.   It was so bad that all eatable seaweed was stripped from the country’s shoreline.  At one point about 3,000,000 people were fed from soup kitchens every day!

A French Chef named Alexis Soyer invented a ‘famine soup’ that was named for him.  Check out these ingredients...

·         4 oz. of a half cup of beef (about 4 oz.)

·         8 quarts of water

·         2 oz. of a quarter cup of drippings (2 oz.)

·         2 onions or other vegetables

·         8 oz. or 1 cup of flour or a cup of barley (8 oz.)

·         3 oz. of salt

·         ½ oz. of brown sugar

I would lose weight fast on this diet, how about you?!

The Skibbereen Heritage Center also features an exhibit about nearby Lough Hyne.  This unique salt water lake is Ireland’s first Marine Nature Reserve.  To learn more, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lough_Hyne.  If you’re trying trace your Irish heritage and your family roots are from County Cork, with its 350,000 local genealogy records the Heritage Center may be of assistance.  To learn more about the Skibbereen Heritage Center, go to http://skibbheritage.com/.

…this was just another old hotel that I liked the looks of.  This handsome 116 year old West Cork Hotel is located in Skibbereen.  It was operated by the same family from 1902 until 2006 when it was purchased by local residents.  I checked out photos of the rooms as well as the Kennedy Restaurant and the Bridge Bar and the West Cork Hotel appears to be a truly classy place.  Check it out at http://www.westcorkhotel.com/.

We followed Ireland’s N71 Highway out of Skibbereen up through the town of Bantry…with beautiful lush green bucolic scenery along the way.

We pulled over so Laurie could take these photos of these impressive multi-colored hydrangeas… All was going well!  What a beautiful day for a drive!

Wait…!  What is this?  Where are we headed?  The genie in the GPS had taken control, sending us on her ‘shortest’ route to Killarney!  I’ve since determined that we could have never ‘found’ this route without ‘her’ help… We were led ‘astray’ somewhere around the village of Coomhola Bridge…

The road got smaller and more narrow.  People and farms became few and far between.  Then we came upon a traffic jam!  We just trailed along for a bit…

  

We had lots of time to check out the countryside… Mountains appeared and we kept climbing up hill!

Then we had to stop when the farmer stopped to talk to the passengers in one of only 2 cars we saw for miles along this scenic back road!  FYI, can you guess where the passengers in the 2 cars we passed were from?  How about New Jersey and Virginia!  Only crazy American tourists who trusted GPS found themselves on this road…

Once we passed the 2 cars and the farmer/herder turned off the road with his cows and Border Collies, it was just the stark but beautiful countryside and occasional flocks of sheep.  There were still a few fences though...

This attractive bright red house, complete with a patio, flower garden and greenhouse was way down in one of the valleys.  This photo was taken from on high using my 10:1 zoom lens at the max…and then cropping the photo to get a close-up!

Colorful sheep were scattered throughout this rocky terrain with its steep hills, narrow valleys and ridges.  The colors indicate just who’s sheep they belong to and, since this seemed to be free range with few or zero fences, I’m sure that the color coding is a necessity!

…the lonely narrow road stretched on and on… There are few actual passing places allowing drivers to pull off and let other vehicles past.  However, we lucked out both times we encountered other cars.

We stopped a couple of times and were greeted by absolute silence.  Once we heard sheep bleating in the distance.  This is definitely pure old time Ireland…

Laurie took this photo using the grass as a contrast to show off the distance involved.  That is a river down in the valley as well as a few sheep and a copse of trees… I learned later that this is the highest pass road in Munster at about 1,518 feet.  It crosses from County Cork to County Kerry…

This multi-colored sheep obviously has a different owner than the last one I posted.  They didn’t pay much attention to the car…or us…but we did have to watch out for them along the road!  Of course, we weren’t exactly speeding along this ‘superhighway’…

Finally…we came to the summit.  This pass has been known as The Priest’s Lepp (Leap) since at least 1600.

There are other theories but according to popular tradition, the name of this pass comes from an old Irish legend in which a priest being pursued by soldiers escaped by a miraculous leap of his horse from a mountain cliff in County Cork.  His pursuit began in Killabuane where a rock allegedly melted under the pursuing hounds.  It supposedly can still be seen today…complete with what looks like pawmarks.  Marks of the priest’s knees and hands as well as the horse’s hooves appear on another rock miles away, just a few miles from Bantry in County Kerry where he is said to have landed after his miraculous leap! 

Upon researching this route I discovered that this is a well-known bicycling route! (Are they crazy or what?) To quote from one on-line site, “Priest’s Leap Mountain Pass…Cycle is a 25 mile (40 km) stunning scenic road trip and “testing cycle” over Ireland’s highest mountain pass.”  To further quote, it is “off the well-trodden nearby tourist routes”.  That is for sure!

GPS led us along many a back road (shorter route) in both Scotland and Ireland but this one was a dandy!  We all agreed that we were actually very happy that ‘she’ had led us astray on this particular occasion…

Shortly after coming on down the mountain from Priest’s Leap, we merged back onto N71 and entered 'civilization' again in the town of Kenmare at the mouth of the Kenmare River.  At this point we were only about 25 – 30 miles from our destination for the day at Killarney, but we decided to take a lunch break.  Kenmare and our luncheon will be featured in my next post from Ireland.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for our trip back to the Irish Famine and our exiting and beautiful ride across the mountains!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave 

Ireland – Ancient History

After leaving Kinsale, for the most part we followed Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way route west along the coastline…

The village across the water is Timoleague Cork, Ireland.   If you click on this photo to enlarge it, you’ll note the large stone structure along the water in the center left of the photo.  That was our next stop…

The village gets its name from the original Irish name, ‘Tigh Molaga’, meaning Home/House of Molaga.  St. Molaga was reputed to have brought beekeeping to Ireland and honey production still goes on in the area.  Back in history, the village and much of the adjacent country belonged to a series of families, sometimes changing ownership via armed conflict.

FYI…to learn about The Wild Atlantic Way, the scenic route stretching from the southwest of Ireland to the northwest in Northern Ireland, just go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Atlantic_Way.  I just wish that we’d had about 10 days to explore this spectacular coastal route!

This is Timoleague Abbey…that big structure viewed across the water in the previous photo.  The Abbey was founded by the Franciscan order in 1240.  It was built on the site of a monastic settlement and monastery founded by Saint Molaga in the 6^th century. 

It amazes me that so much of this very old…ancient…structure is still standing!  The stone work is pretty spectacular.  However, not all of the structure dates back to 1240.  It was rebuilt and expanded by Donal Glas McCarthy, Prince of Carbery, in 1312.  He is actually buried here.  Irish and Norman patrons further expanded the 1500s.    

The monks inhabiting Timoleague Abbey were dispersed by the Reformation, but they returned in 1604.  In 1612, the abbey was sacked by English soldiers who also smashed all of the stained glass windows but, as you can see from these photos, a lot of the significant architecture has survived.  Despite the destruction, the friars remained in the abbey.  In 1642 Cromwellian soldiers set fire to the structure…

After the burning of the Timoleague Friary some friars escaped by rowboat.  They were rescued by some fishermen from Cape Clear, where they left a box with instructions that it not be opened as they would return, but they never did.  In 1855, a parish priest was visiting Cape Clear and he noticed the box, inquiring about its history and content.  After 200 years it was opened to reveal the remnants of vestments and, what is now referred to as the Timoleague Chalice.  It is now on display in The National Museum, Collins Barracks in Dublin.   

FYI, the tower itself dates from the 1500s.  Cellars are located in the east part of the building and they were connected directly to the river via an outbuilding.  This allowed for the safe delivery of goods to the friary.  I also learned that the building contains some mysterious hidden wall passages…possibly escape routes back in the ‘bad old days’?

The abbey or friary is situated on the banks of the River Argideen overlooking Courtmacsherry Bay.  As you can see from this photo as well as 2 of the previous ones, people are buried everywhere in and around the ruins of the abbey.  Like many other ruins of its type, the abbey continued to be used as a burial ground until late in the 20^th century. 

  

As for the founder of the original monastery at Timoleague, St. Molaga was a native of County Cork born into humble circumstances.  However a wealthy family in the area took an interest in him and they ensured that he received a good education.   He became a priest and chose the life of a missionary.  While continuing his holy work in Britain, he met St. Dominic of Ossory, who presented him with a hive of bees.  St. Molaga brought the bees back to Ireland with him.  Because he introduced beekeeping to Ireland his ‘nickname’ is St. Molaga the beeman.

I believe that this photo was taken in Clonakilty Ireland…but I’m not certain.  I just liked the soft yellow color of the building juxtaposed with the red trim around the windows and doors.  What really set it off was the signing: “Dochtuir”, Irish Gaelic for Doctor.

This photo and the next one were taken as we drove through the town of Conakilty.  The town has a population of about 4,600.  It is a tourism center in West Cork and it was recognized as the “Best Town in Europe” in 2017.  In the same year, it was given the title of the “Best Place of the Year” by the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland.

We liked the ‘look’ of the An Sugan Guesthouse and Restaurant at the center of the photo…but it was too early for lunch!  You can check it out at http://www.ansugan.com/.

Clonakilty was founded in 1613.  It benefited from the patronage of Richard Boyle, 1^st Earl of Cork who is regarded by some as the town’s founder.  He had received its charter from King James I of England.  It’s a bit hard for someone from the US to get their minds around the landlord system in Ireland or the United Kingdom, but the Earls of Shannon later inherited the land and they remained the main landlords of the town until the early 20^th century.

Note:

·         Michael Collins, the former Director of Intelligence for the IRA, lived in Clonakilty and later served as Chairman of the Provisional Government and was instrumental in the founding of the Irish Free State.  He was killed in an Anti-Treaty ambush during the Civil War.  A statue of Collins was erected in town and dedicated in 2002. 

  

We didn’t stop in Conakilty…just too too little time and too much to see and do in the countryside. It was a foggy morning and we were in search of truly ancient Irish history.  This was the countryside where we stopped, got out of our van and starting walking into the past…

I took this photo of Bill and Bonnie along the path from the parking area…

…and they reciprocated by taking this photo of Laurie and me!

This is the Dromberg Stone Circle (“Liagchiorcal An Droma Blig”) in County Cork Ireland.  To say that this is an ancient site in an understatement!  Radiocarbon dating of samples taken from the site indicate that it was active from 1100 to 800 B.C.  That means that it is at least 2800 years old!

The stones includes 17 closely spaced stones span a circle that is 31 feet in diameter.  The most westerly stone is 2 egg shaped cup-marks, one with a ring around it. (A form of prehistoric art) It’s flanked by a pair of portal stones providing a south-west axis and the monument is orientated in the direction of the setting sun during the midwinter solstice.  The midpoint that is set in line with the winter solstice sunset which is viewed in a conspicuous notch in distant hills.   

Laurie posed with the stones…careful not to touch them and be whisked back in time as in her favorite Scottish TV series “Outlander”.  Note the strings laid across the circle.  The gentleman on the right and his compatriot were measuring and examining the circle during our visit.  The largest stone is called “The Druid’s Altar” and some believe that the site is haunted or cursed!  People still leave offerings of trinkets, coins and sweets on the Axial Stone at Dromberg.

Following a number of surveys in the early part of the 20^th century, this middle to late Bronze Age site was excavated and restored in 1957.  During the excavation, an inverted pot was found in the center of the circle.  It contained the cremated remains of a young adolescent wrapped in thick cloth.  About 80 other smashed potsherds, some shale and a collection of sweepings from a pyre was also discovered in the center of the circle. 

The fog certainly contributed to the feeling of being in the past…with maybe a ghost or two hanging around this site!  Laurie took this photo of yours truly walking past the ruins of one of two round stone walled conjoined prehistoric huts that lie about 130 feet from the Dromberg Circle.  The larger of the huts had a timber roof supported by a post.  The smaller hut had a cooking oven on its east side. 

A path leads from the huts to the cooking place (fulacht fiadh) which featured a hearth, well and trough where water was boiled by adding hot stones.  Evidence indicates that the ‘fulacht fiadh’ was in use until sometime in the 4oos A.D.  The function of these fulacht fiadh sites is still debated.  Other than for cooking, they may have been used for dying clothes, bathing, as saunas or even possibly as a brewery…  

In the USA, a site like this would be fenced off or minimally be under the supervision of guides or park rangers.  After all, Dromberg is one of the most visited megalithic sites in Ireland and it is protected under the National Monuments Act.   Perhaps the Irish and tourist in Ireland are more respectful of such sites…or perhaps it’s just not feasible to guard all of the ancient and historic sites in the country.  County Cork alone has 58 National Monuments and there are over 1,000 nationwide that are listed under the Monuments Act!

That’s all for now… Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for stopping by for a bit of ancient history!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave 

The Maple Street Biscuit Company – Knoxville TN

Time to take a break from our adventures and exploration of Ireland to check out another dining opportunity here in East Tennessee…

This is the Maple Street Biscuit Company on Kingston Pike in Knoxville Tennessee.  We had tried to dine at another Maple Street location in downtown Chattanooga on two occasions but failed.  The first time, I had a ‘fight’ with a credit card parking meter that wouldn’t give me a ticket and I drove away frustrated and unsatisfied!  The second time was on a Sunday…and that location was closed… 

This is a view of the service counter and the kitchen area of the Maple Street Biscuit Company.  The young woman taking the orders had the perfect personality for this particular position. 

Customers check out the menu and place their order…and then you provide the counter person a name to call when your order is ready.  They seem to have a theme for your ‘order name’.  On this day, it was something that you are grateful for.  We chose “good friends”.  Other choices we heard included “family”, “Jesus Christ”, “Christmas” and “Skittles”…

The dining area is long and narrow with tables on the right by the wall and a bar at the left with stools.  The overall ambience is the currently popular industrial look with metal, wood and polished concrete floors.

We were particularly impressed by the hardworking biscuit maker…who never stopped producing more batches of fresh biscuits while were there.

The first Maple Street Biscuit Company Store opened in Jacksonville Florida in 2012.  Today there are 20 locations in Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia with the 21^st due to open soon in Georgia.  The company prides themselves in being a ‘community store’ and there are religious tones in their mission statement.  As a company policy, the stores are closed on Sundays…

Well…what about the food?  This creation was Laurie’s brunch.  This is called “The Five and Dime” ($9.00) It consists of a biscuit, an all-natural fried chicken breast, pecan wood smoked bacon and cheddar cheese topped with homemade sausage gravy and an egg.  It was amazingly good!

Without the egg, this is called “The Five”. ($8.00) A number of other options are offered involving items such as goat cheese, spinach, honey mustard, shitake mushroom gravy, maple syrup, collard greens, lettuce, tomato, blue cheese, apple butter, etc.  It is an imaginative menu to say the least…

I had exactly the same thing to eat as Laurie did…just adding my usual Tabasco to the mix!  FYI...that sausage gravy is a real winner!

Customers can order just biscuits and gravy, add eggs to it, order a waffle (with or without fried chicken), a salad, oatmeal, a “Bluegrass Grits Bowl”, Smoky Mountain Mac ‘n Cheese or even a “Hashbrown Cake” with smoked gouda cheese, topped with chives to which one can add an egg, gravy or both… Laurie also ordered a very nice latte to accompany her meal…

The Maple Street Biscuit Company that we visited is at 9314 Kingston Pike in Knoxville Tennessee.  They are open from 7 AM to 2 PM Monday through Thursday and from 7 AM until 3 PM on Friday and Saturday.  Phone: 865-247-6793.  The company’s website is at https://maplestreetbiscuits.com/.  

I will mention the fact that one of our friends visited this restaurant just before closing one day and they felt that their biscuit had ‘been around for a while’ and it was a bit hard.  We didn’t have that problem and we really liked this restaurant and the concept behind it!  We will return ASAP!

Just click on any of the pictures to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a bit of brunch!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave 

Morning in Kinsale, Then Moving On

After touring Kinsale and sampling some quality pizza and some excellent seafood, we retired to our bed and breakfast for the evening.  What adventures would experience the following day?

We woke up to a glorious sunny day with a bit of fog below us in Kinsale and its harbor…

The beautiful fog along the water just added to our upbeat outlook for the day…

Before breakfast Laurie went outside and she took a couple of photos.  This is the first of what she terms “God Shots”…

You must admit that this is an ethereal or celestial light that is shining through the trees…

Time for breakfast at our Bed and Breakfast on Compass Hill just above Kinsale Cork Ireland.  This is the lounge/breakfast area at Rocklands House Bed and Breakfast.  What a warm comfortable space!

This is a reverse view from the previous photo showing the breakfast buffet and another dining table… 

Here is the breakfast menu at Rocklands House Bed and Breakfast.  There were plenty of options for us…whatever our appetite demanded.

This is a close-up of the breakfast buffet.  There was cereal, muesli, fresh fruit and juice.  I don’t think that those liquor bottles at the right rear are part of the breakfast offering…but curiously I did detect a bottle of Southern Comfort.  It must be something that some visitors really like…

One of our breakfast choices was the pancakes with maple syrup…enhanced with a strawberries, blueberries and grapes.

This was the full Irish breakfast complete with poached eggs, grilled mushrooms and tomato, black pudding, sausages and Irish bacon.

FYI…If you didn’t read one of my early posts from Scotland, blood pudding is a type of blood sausage commonly eaten in Great Britain, Ireland and other parts of Europe.  It’s generally made from pork fat or beef suet, pork blood and a relatively high proportion of oatmeal.  I guess that the oatmeal makes it ‘healthy’.  It is definitely an acquired taste…

This was the cheese omelet with grilled mushrooms and tomato with a side of Irish bacon. 

In addition to the breakfast main courses, we managed to consume a few of these lovely scones with butter and some quality jams. 

Our breakfast at Rocklands House Bed and Breakfast was very nice indeed…but then again so was everything else about our stay here.  We would highly recommend Rocklands House to anyone visiting Kinsale in County Cork Ireland.  It was a real value too!  Check it out at http://irishfarmholidays.com/accommodation-listings/rocklands-house/.

…on the road again.  Our eventual destination for the day was Killarney in County Kerry.  As we headed west on R600 from Kinsale, we rolled through the little village of Ballinspittle.  We loved the name and I had to take a picture of it!

Of course, the village’s name is a bit different when translated but I still don’t understand it or how it originated.  In Irish Gaelic, it is “Beal Atha an Spideil”, meaning “ford mouth of the hospital”.  What the heck!?

Note:

·         In the summer of 1985, Ballinspittle gained national and international attention when local residents claimed to have witnessed a statue of the Virgin Mary moving spontaneously.  Subsequently, thousands of pilgrims flocked to the site and many visitors claimed that they also saw the statue move.  To see the BBC report on this happening, you can go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZjM83wZmWw.

We like seeing livestock so Laurie snapped this photo of dairy cattle grazing on the green, green grass of Ireland as we cruised along.  For much of our drive on this day, we followed “The Wild Atlantic Way”, Ireland’s scenic coastal route.

In general, the roads along the route were fairly narrow but with great views. 

At 1,600 miles in length (2,600 km), The Wild Atlantic Way is one of the longest defined coastal routes in the world.  It winds along Ireland’s west coast from Kinsale, County Cork all the way west and north to Derry, Londonderry in Northern Ireland.   

This was one of the peaceful coastal scenes along the way… As advertised, everything in Ireland is really green!  There wasn’t much traffic along R600 which suited us just fine… 

We’d rented a Global Positioning System (GPS Unit) when we rented our Ford van at Dublin’s international airport.  We really needed a GPS unit in Ireland as addresses here are sketchy at best, unlike what we have in the USA.  However, despite her utility, sometimes our lovely GPS ‘lady’ would lead us off the ‘main route’ on side roads that she considered to be more direct… This grassy 2 track road leading back down to R600 along the water is a good example.

At this point we had only driven 22 miles since we left Kinsale.  The town viewed across the water is Timoleague in County Cork.  There will be more about this village and its primary historic tourist site in my next post.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave