When Irish Eyes Are Smiling

Months before our departure to England, Brianne had won an "early bird" draw through our SWAP program. The prize was a 3-day bus tour with Shamrocker Adventures (though we had to pay for ME to go with her). We chose the trip through Southern Ireland, and so it was that this past weekend we flew out to Dublin to start our Celtic sojourn.

We flew RyanAir out of Gatwick Airport on Thursday. Ryan is a dirt-cheap airline, and it shows. Clean and safe, but essentially a bus with wings and NO assigned seating. Decent for our 1-hour flight (plus the hour-and-a-half delay that they're apparently well-known for), but we wouldn't want to fly longer hauls with them. Also, Gatwick was massively disorganized from our point of view. We're used to all flight check-in desks arranged in one long line across the entrance of the terminal, a la Ottawa or Pearson. Here the desks were in hodge-podge "zones," with lines snaking around corners with no signs or demarkations. Bit of a hassle.

Brianne made me laugh so hard while we waited for the plane. I've never tasted a Red Bull, and in response she told me that "Red Bull tastes like . . . BEES."

Dublin is a nice little city, with low buildings and the river Liffy running through it. We believe our hostel might have been a convent school at one point, as there were reliefs of saints in the ceiling moulding and little nooks which looked like they once held devotional statues. The place was clean, and we had the pleasant surprise that they had a free BBQ that night. Regrettably our dorm had a snorer, but that's why one packs earplugs and nightmasks for hostels.

We met up with our bus group on Friday morning. We immediately met 2 Canadians - Kristen of Hunt Club, Toby of Dunrobin - and an American - Kelli of Tuscon. Kelli was travelling by herself, so Brianne and I pretty much adopted her. Our guide for the trip was a lovely girl named Jac (Jacqueline), with a lilting brogue and an impish grin. Throughout all the travels to follow she was a great pal and storyteller, always looking out for the group and giving us the "craic" (jolly good time.) On our way out of Dublin she pointed out the Millenium Spire (a 5-storey needle-like monument by the river to commemorate Dublin's thousandth birthday) and remarked that it is usually known by it's monikers "Rod to God," "Stilletto in the Ghetto," or the smirk-worthy "Stiffy by the Liffy."

Our first stop was a tour of one of the oldest whiskey distilleries in Europe, Locke's in Kilbeggan. It's a stone edifice nearly 300 years old with the mill-wheel out back still working. Below is one of the wooden vats used to heat the water for the distilling process. In the old days, they say, the temptation of hot water was very great, and so after quitting time the workers would often sneak into the vats for a bath.

We were given two samples of fine Irish whiskey, one that was their 40-proof finished product of Kilbeggan whiskey, and one that was pre-distilling process and clocked in at 78% alcohol. I only took the tiniest sip of the latter, and still it demonstrated whence came the inspiration for cartoon characters to blow steam out of their ears!

The next stop was Clanmacnoise, an ancient monastic settlement with some of the oldest and grandest examples of Celtic crosses around. This was where the rain caught up with us.On our way to the next destination, all the 23 passengers in the bus took turns at the guide's microphone telling a little about themselves, with encouragement to tell embarassing stories about either oneself or one's travelling partner. Hoo boy, the look on Brianne's face when she heard this . . .

Brianne told the story of how I essentially called her father Stephen Tucker a woman in front of his father while out for dinner. I related how cute B's malaprops are, and then finished with the story of why I always toast to Guiness itself when drinking Guiness - and why I'm thinking of my dad when I do so. All these stories warrent their own blog entry at a later date. Stay tuned.

By the time we stopped at Burren, the sun came out, which made the endless expanse of limestone in this national park sing with timeless grandeur.

The standing-stone structure above is the site of a burial mound. There is evidence that hundreds of these stood all through Burren.

According to Jac, the locals of this area are superstitious and truly believe in fairies. So our next stop was a "fairy ring." The little ones are said to inhabit the centre of the ring, so you mustn't cross the circle, only follow the path around clockwise.The next part of the trip took us past Gallway Bay and Lisdoonvarna, a town famous for it's annual singles mixer - which lasts the entire month of September and is attended by singles from around the world!

The next stop was a highlight of the entire trip for me and Brianne: the Cliffs of Moher. Spectacular in their own right, they resonate even stronger with us because they are also . . . THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY! Yes, this is where they shot iconic cliff footage from our favourite movie The Princess Bride! We practically squealed when Jac told us this. Below are the cliffs in all their splendour, with a special cameo by Brianne's teddy bear Toby. He made a few appearances this trip. We sometimes called him our mascot, but ususally we jokingly referred to him as "our cheap child."

After our view of the cliffs, we settled into the nearby village of Doolin for the night. The hostel was family owned and operated and was probably our favourite of the trip. Friendly owner and a great family dog in the backyard. We stopped by an old cemetary on the way to dinner. Amazing shots of crosses and landscape.

Our dinner at the local pub was authentic Irish stew and real honest-to-goodness brewed-in-Ireland Guiness. I toasted my dad and sipped . . . I swear to you, the best brew ever. It just has more heart to it than any Guiness you buy overseas. We had a grand time at the pub with a real live Celtic band in background.

Lord help me, I don't exactly know how this happened. We were chatting with our new friends about what it's like at the Tucker cottage and how the men sometimes end up in drag. Well . . .

. . . B and I hade worn similar outfits of black T/jeans, so we popped into the back and switched outfits for the amusement of our fellow travellers. I can make only these two statements in my defence: "The true essence of acting is the willingness to make an ass of yourself in public," and "If you're a real man, you can do whatever the hell you want."

We woke the next morning to an elusive double-rainbow. Irish magic.

Our bus took a ferry over the River Shannon, the longest river in the British Isles. There are actually dolphins swimming about in it, and we saw a flash of dorsal fin at one point. We stopped for a lunch of seafood chowder and oysters in the town of Dingle. We prefer our oysters from PEI. Speaking of Canadian food, I actually saw a stand in a convenience store selling Tim Horton's donuts! Hadn't the time to pick one up, and they looked like the kind we found in a convenience store in London, i.e. close but no cigar in terms of authentic taste.

Our next stop was a craggy beach called Slayhead, where a bunch of us from the bus played a great game of keep-up volleyball. A few jumped into the surf, but we Canadians are too used to frigid waters and didn't see the novelty . . . that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

After the beach we came to the Western-most point of Ireland, a cliff jutting into the ocean, to which we climbed and listened to Jac tell legends of Fionn MacCool, the sleeping giant you see below. Cliche as it is, we felt on top of the world.We stayed in Kilarney overnight, a lively town. We had a dinner heavy on starch and protein at O'Connors pub in the upstairs room, a room which later became the make-shift theatre space a local actor/storyteller to perform a one-man show about a man closing his pub for the last time. The characters were fun and the jokes were bawdy, but the two things no one in the audience will ever forget are his constant friendly and sincere reminders that the show came with a money-back guarantee (which nobody felt the need to redeem) and the way he drank Guiness. This man speed-chugged half a pint glass in 5 seconds each time for a total of 3 pints during his hour-long show! After his performance, audience members (our bus and another Shamrocker tour that was in town that night) were invited up to the front of the room for "Shenanigans," or open-mic time. Brianne and I got up and did a few verses of The Wolfe Island Ferry, an Arrogant Worms song in which you make up the verses at breakneck speed. We each improvised a verse, then handed it to our performer host, who strung together a couplet or two before finishing by downing his pint glass to raucous cheers. I then went for the ultimate in tasteful cheesiness and sang a verse of Danny Boy. I just HAD to. How could I pass up the chance to sing that song in an old-fashioned pub in Ireland? We finished the night in bar called The Grand, with a Celtic Rock band in the main room and a cavernous old-school dance club in the back. Didn't stay too long in the club - it's always a bad sign when the tunes they play don't hold an emotional resonance, they just make you think "What grade was I in when this came out?"

Our final day of the tour was highlighted with a stop at Blarney Castle. A ramshackle ruin of great character and scenery, and home of the infamous Blarney Stone. The stone is actually part of the rampart of the top-most section of the castle, and in order to kiss it - as is the ubiquitous custom - you have to lie on the floor and lean backwards and outwards while being aided by an elderly man bracing your posture. I'll admit I didn't necessarily feel the "gift of the gab" descend upon me, but it was fun nevertheless. The grounds were magical-looking, and contained an ancient tree-and-rock formation called the Witch's Kitchen, seen below, as well as the Wishing Steps, a staircase in a tunnel which must be traversed up and down backwards with your eyes closed to grant your wish.

We stopped next at the Mitchellson caves, a series of underground caverns with interesting rock formations with names like The Gingerbread House and The Eagle's Wing, as well as a coral fossil in the wall dated at 350 million years old. Brianne and I were invited to sing a few bars in the deepest cave to show off the acoustics, as the cave has held masses and concerts. Sadly, no photos were permitted.

Our final stop on the tour before heading back into Dublin was a brief photo op at the Rock of Cashel, a castle ruin which was the sight of a fairly bloody massacre of the peasants. Ah, history.

When we arrived back in Dublin, we said our goodbyes to most of our travelmates, but met up again with a few of them for one last pint. Brianne and I made a nice list of things for our guide Jac to do when she visits Canada later this year, including trying Icewine and Alexander Keith's and taking an Ottawa ghost walk. And we had a good laugh with our now good friend Kelli. After one last night in a Dublin hostel, we hopped our flight back to Blighty and our own bed in London.

It was a great trip, and a welcome break. Ireland is a beautiful country with very friendly people, and I'd recommend it to anyone. The bus tour was a great way to see a load of highlights of the country in a very short time. Get on over and check it out.