Its a Longest Road to Tipperary, Part I

*blogging is somewhat touch and go as far as reliably uploading pictures and stories before the next adventure or the need for at least 4 hours sleep happens. Will try to add pictures as soon as possible.


Sitting in the large and empty lounge of the Castleconnel Hotel, otherwise known as the Castle Oak House Hotel. The hotel is large, estate-like, ornate and empty, and I half expect Jack Nicholson to come down to the pub at any minute to emote some of his stir crazy energy on a Corona.

Discussing traveling from one end of the country to the other in one day with an Irish is a bit like discussing your plans for space exploration.


"Limerick? A long trip. And fer sure now, there isn't much there," offered my cousin Philip.


We have great plans for making great time, and figure that we should be in Limerick by 4 pm at the latest. We leave Bellarena around half eleven with Joan driving and me playing DJ with the iPod, listening to what has to be the saddest song ever, The Town I Loved So Well, as we pass through Derry.


There is a shift-in-your-seat uncomfortableness to the sight of a union jack flying in a town square or at bridge curbs painted in bars of red, white and blue. It is a bit surprising that instead of a feeling of melting pot diplomacy, one feels indignant and annoyed at what (probably unfairly on my part) seems like a need to advertise authority in a place with such a history of trauma. Road signs marked "Londonderry" alternately have the "London" or the "derry" obscured with spray paint.


We cross into Omagh and stop at the first pub we come to for a break. "The Hogshead" is inviting and empty, except for the affable publican who waits on three men at the bar. The men's conversation is pretty loud and I have a feeling that they are swearing every few words, but the combination of their accents and their alcohol makes it unclear. When the bartender approaches our table, Joan asks about the best route to get to Limerick.


"Limerick?" He stares out the window with a confused smile on his face. "Ah no, I wouldn't be able to tell you that. And ting is, stop anyone on the street and their tell you the same thing."


Getting an idea, he tells us to hold on a minute and quickly heads to the bar to ask the two older gentlemen what they think. After they get over the initial shock associated with the idea of a person wanting to go to Limerick, there is a lot of back and forth and lively debate. "Watch them say, 'Go to Dublin first,'" Joan whispers while watching them. The publican returns.


"The gentlemen suggest you go to Dublin first."


Joan thanks him but says that we aren't going to Dublin first, so the publican suggests that we inquire at the Information Center because surely, someone there will know how to get to Limerick.

The publican is dropping off our food when Joan returns and so he asks what Information suggested. When Joan says that Information suggested a route via Galway, the publican lights up. "Right. Hold on a moment now. Got a bit of a bet going." He returns to the bar and there is animated whispering before the oldest man turns on his stool to look at us in disbelief.


"What is this now? Which road they be telling you to go?"
"They said to go to Galway first," Joan yells over to him.
"Galway?"
"Yes," I yell back over, "She said, 'You'll go via Galway. If you're smart."

The publican is bent over laughing and our man on the stool is on his feet and at our table in a few seconds.

"Hold on now and I'll tell you," he says pulling up a stool and inviting himself for a seat. "I don't know about that. Sure it'll be all day if you go to Galway first." He has a point: all roads actually do lead to Dublin and there is no direct north to south road. Going to Limerick via Galway looks shorter on the map but there are many towns and single carriageways along the route. As Joan and I have discovered, we have to several laps around and through each town in order to get turned around the way we came and actually see a posting for the route we need. It is all about confusing any invaders who arrive via Viking ship and then rent small Japanese cars in order to explore and then conquer the country.

Our man stays purched on his stool at our table, shaking his head and truly troubled by what we have told him, one hand on his hip and the other tracing an imaginary map on the table top.

"Sure, you should go to Dublin. If not, ye's should stay in Donegal fer the night. It is a terrible long trip."
Everyone is laughing and wishing us luck when we finally leave the pub.


We were to meet Rob and Mike at the hotel for dinner around six. Mike is Michael Coffey, the son of Jim Coffey. The story we all know is that Jim Coffey and his brother (my grandfather) Jack Coffey, were members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood during the 1920's in Limerick. Their jobs were primarily to hang out in the pub and eavesdrop on British soldiers and report back to the other members of the IRB, many of whom were doing the same thing, some of whom were reported to take the occasional Black & Tan up into the mountain for a last walk. While walking home one night, Jim and Jack encountered some British soldiers along the road who had been drinking and who recognized the two brothers as spies for the IRA. Jim and Jack were told to stand against a haystack, and it was only through providence in the form of the appearance of the soldiers' superior officer that Jim and Jack kept their lives that evening. Soon after, it was decided that Jim and Jack needed to leave the country. A coin was flipped. Jim got Australia, Jack got America. It was the last they would see of each other.


While visiting my sister Sarah during her 1998 year abroad in Australia, my mother tracked down a man by the name of Tony Baines who apparently knew her Uncle Jim. With little hope and several previous dead ends, she scheduled a last minute visit with Tony at his hotel, The Dolphin. When my mom pulled old photographs out of her purse to share with Tony, Tony smiled and pulled the same photographs out from his desk. He put mom in touch with Jim's elderly widow, who then put mom in touch with Michael, Jim's only son who lost his father at the age of five. Mom and Michael would eventually meet in Ireland in 2005. When they see each other during this trip, Michael will hug his closest living relative Helene and keep her safely tucked under his arm in a hug for several minutes.

Elizabethtown

After breakfast, Mom, Joan and I make our last drive to Magilligan Point. We collect sand for my niece, Madeline Jane, and I think about my
grandmother Jane collecting mussels with Aunt Mary there at low tide many, many years
ago.


Around "half ten," we call on Elizabeth. It takes her awhile to answer the door but we wait patiently on her doorstep knowing she is
home and just working somewhere in the house. When she answers the door she is smiling and wearing her apron.



"Wait a minute ye see - I was jest dun at the shop," she says and steps aside to urge us through the door.


"We thought you were sleeping in Elizabeth."


"Ah no. Come in here ye now an set a wee minute while I get me jumper on."




When she returns she has several framed pictures wrapped in brown paper to show mom.


"Ye see this one hare. Does any ye's want it?" It is a picture, one side showing Pope Benedict, the other side of Pop John Paul. At the top it says, "Bless This Home."


"Elizabeth, don't you want to keep it? After all, you can never have too many pope pictures in your house."
"Ah now," she laughs, "I have three already at the top of the stair and no mere space."

Elizabeth walks the short distance to the cottage with us so I can take some pictures. The cottage is the thatched one on Seacoast Road in Bellrena. It was home to the thirteen McPoyle children, although not at the same time. My grandmother, Jane, was one of only two children to emigrate and she knew her youngest siblings (Sarah and Mary) primarily through letters and a few dear return visits. Elizabeth's father, Philip, and mom's mother, Jane, were brother and sister. The house became part of the British National Trust when upkeep became too much for Sarah and Mary, who lived without electricity and running water until their eighties. The home has since been modernized: gone is the pile of peat that Sarah and Mary used to cook their meals and heat their home., and there is now indoor plumbing and other homes built right up to the edge of the property.


Elizabeth didn't know the man who now lives there, but after a couple of knocks on the half-door we made ourselves as home outside and took a few pictures (logistically a bit challenging since the man has two very modern forms of transportation parked right in front of the cottage but we did alright).


I took a different route back to Elizabeth's afterwards so I could take a few pictures of Binevenaugh. It was there that I probably amassed a wee bit of bad karma for the day when I tried to give a lost passerby directions.
Man In Car: Sorry, I'm looking for the wee road that is jest after the bar on Seacoast Road?


*it is worth an aside here to point out that the way that the Irish give directions is problematic even for the Irish; using landmarks vs. actual street names is visually more interesting but sometimes impractical, such as when Aiden O'Donnel's old brown cow decides to switch fields and therefore can no longer be found at the corner where one must turn to go to Dublin rather than Cork
.

Man In Car: Sorry, miss? The wee road?


Me: (Imagine here an Irish accent a la Madonna, but after she'd only been in the other country for about 3 days): There used to be an old bar just there - the Oasis - but I think it is gone now.


MIC: Ye see I don't know. I'm a social worker and my directions say, "Turn on the wee road jest after the pub." But I can't find the pub.


Me: The Coastal Road splits about another 2 kilometers down the road. Could that be it?


MIC: Ah no - I don't think so.


We go back and forth for a bit like this - me throwing out landmarks I can think of because - in this situation - I actually am the one in the know and for all he knows my funny accident is from watching too many American sitcoms. But I am useless and we eventually laugh at his situation and he drives off.


Before we leave, Joan hugs Elizabeth.


It has always been evident that Elizabeth isn't the hugging kind. She is the kind that loves by inviting you through the door, by showing you her grandchildren's school pictures from St Anthony's, by offering you a framed picture
of the pope because she already has three in her house, and by fixing you a cup of tea, putting extra butter on your potatoes and insisting that she buy you a glass of stout at The Point Bar.



Elizabeth accepts a hug from Joan. Then mom hugs her and that is it. Elizabeth is in tears, pushing mom away and waving us off while she waves us goodbye. I don't get to hug her at all and it bothers me a bit because the way she sets her kitchen table and fusses over meals and says, "Oh aye" now reminds me of my own grandmother who died when I was ten.


She stands at the door until we drive away.


And she is still there waving when we drive back by a second time because we actually went the wrong way the first time.

"Driving" - Belfast to Derry

Joan and I are taking turns and mom either deserves sainthood or an oscar, because other than the occasional, "Whoa Nelly," or "My, that looks like quite a turn coming up," there is little other commentary coming from the back seat.

I think we both have our pluses and minus.  Listening to the Pouges definitely seems to encourage Joan to drive faster. And we did become intimately acquainted 

with a hedge row once when a lorry was

 bearing down on a single lane road, but I think that was a good thing. I tend to hug more to the center line (danger: oncoming traffic), while Joan tends to hug more to the curb (danger: a somewhat lopsided but entertaining few moments while we proceed down the road with two wheels up on the curb).  I think I proved my worth today in making quick U-ies mid "single carriageway" when we were headed in the wrong direction or needed to back track to pet donkeys in roadside fields.

We've only had one run-in with the law, and we initiated it, so I don't think it counts.  Belfast city center is a bit like downtown DC on the weekends; everything that thrives on the government is shut down on Sundays.  We had a rough time finding a place to have breakfast. For one because we didn't wake up until 10:30 -

 we got hit with Europe's "spring forward" and lost yet another hour of sleep, and also stayed 

up too late encouraging mom to watch all of "School of Rock" on RTE 1.  So not only did we miss mass, but free breakfast as well (I'll leave it to the reader to determine which is the bigger sin, but mom says it is OK to miss church when you're on vacation.) 

The overnight guy at the Park Inn hotel's reception desk was thrown when I asked about eating.

Me: Know any place we can get brunch?

Guy:

Me: Brunch.  Or lunch.  Or breakfast.

Guy: (looking at a distant spot on the

 horizon): Uh...breakfast....

Me: Yeah.  Something to eat.

Guy: To eat....maybe Wetherspoons? Just around the corner.

Me: Wetherspoons?  You mean the place that was all over the news yesterday?

Guy: 

Me: Because there was a riot there over the Poland-Northern Ireland football match and 

the police had to close down the block?

Guy: (Staring at spot on the horizon): 

Animated Shift 

Relief Guy with Bleached Hair Who Breezes on the Scene: Yes.  She is right. Weatherspoons. Riot. Chairs through windows. Police everywhere. OMG. No. Go to Ormeau Street. Fabulous cafes.  A-dor-a-ble. Get an Ulster Fry. Go right, then left, then right again. Avoid the blood pudding.

Joan drove. We were lost after the first "right then left, "  but spotted two police officers leaning into a

 window of a 

car next to the upcoming stop light.  "I'll ask them." 

As we slowed to a stop I noticed these were not the benign looking billy club weilding, funny hat wearing Gardia of the south, but fully kitted-out northern officers with bullet proof vests and guns. And they seemed to be giving the once over to a girl behind the wheel. Maybe we shouldn't bother the nice men after all. But we were stuck at a stop light, and I couldn't get my window back up, and the red haired fellow was already eyeballing me over his shoulder while his partner dealt with the driver.  

In my best "I really don't mean to bother you" whisper I leaned toward him and said, "Sorry, sorry - Ormeau Street?"

He looked at me once, then back to his partner, and then leaned in towards me and whispered, "Don't ye think ye better be putting on yer seat belt there first?"

While I scrambled to get my seat belt on the light changed and I only got a glimpse of him laughing to himself as we pulled away. We never did find Ormeau street and the Ulster Fry.

Dublin Airport Tour to Drogheda

The sun is shining on this our first day of our island holiday.  Oh, no it isn't.  Ah, yes it is again. 

After the 6 hour flight, during which Ms. Hegan celebrated her last year as head cabin attendant for  Aer Lingus (applause all around), we headed to the passport desks.  

When we reconvened at baggage, Joan expressed her humored dismay that mom's and her passports were stamped with a 30 day limit, vs. the usual 90 days. 

At that point it ocurred to me that I should check what my passport said since I was in a different line than they were....

After having spied a just illuminated "ALL PASSPORTS" light, I managed to be first in a new line.  I would have stayed put had I known that my passport agent was having a not so good passport agent day. I later decided that it must have been because someone moved him from his prefered spot in a damp basement with a naked lightbulb, single metal chair and instruments of torture, to his current and rather pedestrian spot in a passport booth where he struggled to really shine.

"Good morning. When are you leaving." 

"Oh. Uh, April. 6th."

"Why are you here."

"Visiting family."

"What family."

"Oh. Uh, family in Tipperary and Derry."

Incredulous look: "No - who is this family."

"My mother's cousins?"

Staring at me with the stamp poised over my passport: "When are you leaving."

Next to "Permission to Remain in the Country until" he scrawled: APRIL 6.

Joan compared the rental car desks to the New York Stock Exchange - hands waving, people shouting, general chaos and malay as the next wave of tourist passed their way.  We had a successful time pitting them against one another - Joan working the Hertz guys while I played hardball with Budget. 

Minus 70 Euros later we had scored our beauty bargain: a lovely gold Nissan Something That Begins With An A that I found in the parking lot after only 23 minutes of walking up to each one in the fleet and clicking the unlock button. (Once I even got myself completely settled with mirrors and seat adjusted before realizing the key didn't work and someone had just accidentally left the car unlocked.)  I then spent the next half hour taking a not so leisurely ride around and around the airport while repeating "on the left, on the left" to myself as I navigated roundabouts and traffic cones.  I 

finally had to use a "bus only" lane and my hazard lights in order to get back to Mom and Joan so we could load the luggage.

Out on the M1 headed north, lorries barred down on me in the 

rear view mirror as the wind blew the 

daffodils flat against the fields. Lack of sleep is apparently an amazing sedative because mom clutched nothing on our drive and even offered that I was doing, "a very good job" with my driving.  

We arrived and got settled into hotel number 1: Scholar's Townhouse Hotel,an old CB boy's school in Drogheda (DROCK -HEH -da).  It is no longer a boys school, however there is one next door.  Over breakfast Joan kept looking up from her plate of fruit with an anxious look to ask, "Doesn't anyone else hear screaming children?!" We didn't -  and thought she was hallucinating (triplet flashbacks now rising to the surface with some distance) but turns out she was right - recess was on next door and a game of football was going on in the school yard. 

We settled into the one of our two rooms.  Mom got into her PJ's and tossed a bit and smiled at us occasionally while we all waited for the other room to be ready.

Downtown after the naps.  Through the smallest allowable alleyway for our vehicle to get parking.  Our man at the lot was quite understanding about our not having any money yet. "Ah not at all. Ye's pay when ye's come back."  

In line at the BankLink, a snapshot of the butcher, and then a side stop at an art gallery with a personal tour of sorts from the security guard:

"Ye see, some of this is surreal art, and some of it is realistic, the difference being some is real and some is...is...."

"Surreal?"

"Yes. Exactly."

The whole town seemed torn concerning where to recommend for dinner in that there didn't seem any place to recommend ("Ah, no, ye'll not send them there..."), and we finally took the advise of the cashiers at Boots Pharmacy: The West Court Hotel Pub.   Which was kind of nice, other than the big screen TV's with VH1 "The 80's" videos that completely mezmerized Joan, and the large group of teenagers that came into drink, refused to leave and told the manager, "We'll finish our focking drink so fock off." When Joan and I said, "We didn't know you had live entertainment tonight," the waiter didn't laugh.  

A nicely dressed 20-something young man passed our table tsk-tsking, and  - in what I guess was an effort to relate to three yanks - knowingly said, "This would never happen in the Bronx, right?"

A drizzly post pint walk up uneven sidewalk found us facing a locked car park. 

 "But it says on the door, "parking, night and day."  Joan would repeat this with several times while we laughed until we realized there was a "no" at the front of the phrase - at which point we just laughed more.  

Suleman to the rescue with a 6 

euro, 4-block cab ride home. "I didn't know we were riding in a Mercedes," Joan laughed as we said goodnight to our money and his smiling face. 

Back at our hotel and snug by the fire in the pub.  

The manager tells me the best place for internet 

reception is "in the bar" - how lucky.  

We settle in leather chairs for our nightcaps. Nana settles into a big leather couch. Joan checks the progress of her Brownie troupe's Girl Scout Cookie sales online.  I stare at the tumbler of Jameson's I got in place of the hot toddy that I ordered.  I wish I was the gal who tossed back her whiskey neat with a bang of the glass on the table, but sadly I am not. It takes me 45 minutes and Joan and mom's help to finish it.

Onto Belfast in the morning.  The Troubles are supposedly past, but hard economic times may explain some recent flare ups by the IRA.  Joan says Ireland's economy is the 2nd worst in Europe.  The plan is to take a Black Cab Tour once we are settled.  It will be my first time in Belfast since I passed through on a bus in 1993 and got my only  glimpses of armed  soldiers on bustling street corners.