Ireland: Part II

Thursday: Poison Glen, Glenveagh, and Colmcille
The day started off well -- a lovely Irish breakfast made by Diane, some good conversation, and then the group of us were off to town for a little bit. Jacqui went shopping at the 2nd hand store and found some nice sweaters, David and I mailed off some postcards, and then we all picked up some fish for the evening's meal. Luckily, Jack was also in town and he directed me right into a store that sold luggage. I found a large wheeled duffel bag for only 22 Euros. So that was a good amount of weight off my shoulders. Then we saw a bank and I thought I'd try my card yet again -- no luck. I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but past the Shannon airport, I haven't been able to get any money out. It was a huge stress on me -- I feel very poor. And I'm borrowing money off David for everything. He doesn't mind, but I do -- I hate having to do that. Geordy ended up taking me into the bank, where the woman eventually offered to essentially use my card as a credit card and give me a few hundred Euro. Unfortunately, it was declined. We began to get worried that they had frozen my account due to "suspicious activity" (read: I'd never been to Ireland before). I was really upset, though David kept telling me he'd take care of me.

At any rate, after town, we headed off to Glenveagh -- a lovely place with a beautiful lake, a large herd of deer (which we didn't get to see), and a more modern castle. On the way, we stopped to take some pictures of the Poison glen (apparently named because the Irish word for poison is close to the word for another word like shaded or something and it was mistranslated). We then wandered around the garden at Glenveagh, which ultimately didn't interest me much (David ended up telling me he wasn't as interested in the sculptured garden as the beauty of natural foliage -- me neither!), then took the tour of the castle (in which Geordy asked way too many questions and teased the poor tour guide a bit too much). It was an interesting place, but a bit modern as it was given over to the government in the 80's. We did discover the tour guide was a fiddler of sorts and tried to talk her into coming to Dungloe to play some tunes with us, but she seemed rather hesitant. I don't think she'll be showing. Ah well.

From Glenveagh, we went to see Colmcille's monastery and his birthplace. Lovely places. We visited the Holy Well, where you're supposed to be healed of your ailments (unfortunately, it seems that didn't work). It's so fascinating seeing all the old graves and crosses, treading ground where so many have gone before. While I don't feel such a connection to the old christian relics, I still find them absolutely amazing. I can almost hear the old chants when walking through them.

We headed through a little town called Churchill, named not because of Winston, but likely because it's a hill with a big church on it. We managed to stop there for me to make my phone call and because Jacqui needed to hit a restroom. I finally got Solvay Bank on the phone and found out they had deposited my money into the wrong account, so I had very little in my checking. Gah! They transferred over money on the phone, which was sweet of them, so I should be able to get money out now. With that stress gone, I was able to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

We drove through the country roads to get back to Dungloe, rather than hitting the N56. What was amazing about this was that we actually drove through some of the most phenomenol scenery I've ever seen. And it was entirely abandoned. Not a soul there, not even a bird or sheep or cow. Just...nothing but stripped mountains. And old abandoned cottages. I really cannot describe the sadness inherent in this place. These people left their homes, tore down the roofs, burned things, and all went away to America during the Famine. Entire villages of people. It was haunted. I wished we could have gotten out to walk to the cottages and pay homage to these people. How many made it to America? How many didn't? It boggles the mind to imagine how hard life must have been for these people to leave in such a way...in droves. All going one by one until the village was dead. And no one else settled here. The cottages have been left as a tribute to people long gone. Someday, perhaps, some of their relatives will return to see where their distant relatives once lived, loved, worked.

We did get a chance to stop and take pictures of some of the scenery, so I'm glad to have that at least, but still...I wish we could go back up that road and take pictures of these sad, old villages. But really -- it's something you'd have to see live to imagine. If you're ever up in the north, go to Churchill and take the road to Dungloe. You'll never be the same.

We did run into a little bit of a problem when we stopped -- Jacqui and Patrick were in a fight, which meant there was a lot of tension going on.

We finally arrived back at Dungloe around 7pm, got a few supplies at the supermarket, and then headed back to have dinner. Jacqui disappeared and things were still rather tense. Definitely not the happiest moments of the trip. At any rate, dinner was finally together and WOW was it great! Diane cooked up the cod we had picked up with a little flour and it had a nice, light, fresh taste. She also made champ, which is so delicious. Wonderful food, great company.

We retired to the living room to sit around the peet fire and talk. Finally, around 11:30pm people crawled off to bed. David and I ended up having a very intense conversation about how I'd been feeling with all the stress. He was worried about things and felt like I wasn't having a good time and he needed to make sure I still loved him as much. The conversation did end well and things were resolved, but he was worried. Traveling can be such a terrible stress on people!

Ultimately, I think the tension between Jacqui and Pat really got to people. Everyone was a bit miserable and uptight that night. We all felt on edge. This was definitely the low point of the trip.

View pictures from Day 4.

Friday: Around the cottage and music at the Corner pub
Friday began ok to some degree. We were doing well until Jacqui got up and joined us. Poor Jacqui. We're really not sure what to do about her. She was still in tears that morning and she and Patrick decided to get going that day instead of sticking around until Sunday. Everything was still so tense with her it was unbelievable. And then she said entirely the unthinkable -- she said that the night before she felt completely left out of the conversation, like she was being ignored, and then went on to say she felt like that at session! That everyone played above her level and didn't pay any attention to her. So not only did she insult Geordy's wonderful hospitality, she also insulted all of us from session who have tried to help her along all the time, who ask her for a song, who offer to help her out with chords and guitar and banjo and bodhran. I have to admit, I was offended, and a bit angered for Geordy. He went so far out of his way to make us all feel comfortable there, to provide a warm place in a beautiful country, and feed us the entire time. It was lovely. And she was horrible about it.

At any rate, they finally left, and we could all breathe a sigh of relief. Geordy, David, and I headed to town for a short bit. David finally got his Donegal tweed cap and we managed to briefly be able to check e-mail, When we got back, we discovered we were having some problems with water, so David and I were off to the spring (that no one knew where it was) to try to get some fresh water for tea. Of course, we got a bit sidetracked and headed all the way down toward the ocean across fields of stone and grass. It was a hard but lovely walk down to the coast. We took a lot of beautiful pictures of the area. On the way back up, we ended up lost a bit, though heading in the right direction. We crossed over right by this thatched-roof cottage that a Scotman had bought and was redoing. What a lovely home!

We did finally find the well, though it turned out that behind the house we were near there was a spigot and we should have used THAT, and retrieved some water for the house. Of course, by the time we got back, they were already making tea from water from the bathroom faucet (which was apparently ok). Oops.

Tea was nice and relaxing, but everyone was ready to head off for another walk. This time we headed up the road to the top of the hill and then over a bit. It was a tough walk, very steep at times, but absolutely breathtaking. The highlight was seeing another famine cottage and this time actually getting to be up close to it. We spent a lot of time being contemplative there, walking around within it, touching the walls, and wondering who the people were and if they made it out of Ireland ok. There was a lot of sadness in that old burned out cottage.

The walk back down was much easier than getting up there and I spent much of the walk back chatting with Diane while Geordy and David hung back and chatted. Just a wonderful time!

By the way, in some of the pictures we took, you'll see a small island off in the middle -- that's Roan Inish, for those of you who have seen the movie.

After a lovely dinner, we headed down into Dungloe to hit the pub that Jack and lined up us playing at. WHAT A TIME. We first walked in and there was a bunch of people in the front room watching the World Cup game. I was rather nervous that we would be interrupting their game, so we headed back into the lounge and the pub owner (a lovely woman named Ann) said we were welcome to play there if that was what we were comfortable with. The game was on back in there too, but an interesting and very funny young man named John insisted on turning it off for the musicians.

We took up playing some tunes and things started off slowly. But then once we got really into things, and started singing some songs, people came out of the woodwork to listen and join in. Many of the locals started songs or made requests. And once Jack got there things just went crazy. With he and Geordy, it was like a competitions of songs that David and I just happened to accompany.

The pub owner was SO generous and brought as much as we could drink and she wouldn't take a cent for it. The locals had a blast and we only packed it in after the garde came around to close the pub down. Oops!

And of course, it was such a wonderful night that Jack and Martin invited us up to their place for tea and toast. We stayed there until shortly before 3am and then finally crawled off to bed. This night David and I actually had our very own bed and it was LOVELY sleeping in that room!

View pictures from Day 5.

Saturday: Rossbeg and Ardara
Saturday was a nice and relaxing day. After a late breakfast with Geordy and Diane, we were off to do a little bit of driving in the area. David wanted to hit Ardara and we decided to try to find another dolman out in that direction. And find it we did! The Kilclooney Dolman was situated out in the middle of a field. We saw a path leading out toward it and so stopped. Except the path ended in a very boggy field. We got back in the car and drove around...and around...and around, thinking there HAD to be another way to it. Unfortunately, we were never able to find one and so instead we ended up out at Rossbeg and got a chance to take some pictures of a very pretty beach. And I finally got to go stick my hand in the ocean! :-)

And then we made it down to Ardara. And the trip got even weirder. We walked into this little store that sold a lot of knitted goods -- wool and other materials. The owner, this crazy man named Hugh, who had already spent a fair amount of time in the pubs, came out and told us to not mind the prices because he just "makes them up." I ended up deciding to buy a scarf for my roommate and sweaters for my mother and I (the sweater for my mother was actually picked out by David). As we were coming up to the front, we got chatting with Hugh, who seemed to have a bit of a hankering for David, I must say. He kept touching him and grabbing him by the shoulder, and then saying things about how I was trying to drag him off (typical woman and all that). He ended up charging us only 80 Euro for the whole thing (the sweaters were 60 and 40 and the scarf was 18)...but then remarked the sweaters at 200 and filled out the VAT form so I was getting back 82! I not only got them for free, I got paid an extra 2 Euro for them! Great man and it really made our afternoon.

We headed back after that, picked up some cod for dinner, and then had a really nice relaxing night at home with Geordy, Diane, and Diane's sisters (one of which got totally clocked that night and was SO funny). David ended up doing his "girlfriend" thing because of our run-in with Hugh. We laughed, joked around, chatted, and the tenseness from whole Jacqui thing was long gone, though she was still the subject of some conversation.

David and I made up a bed on the floor again and had a lovely night spent there by the peet fire.

View pictures from Day 6.