Tuesday, September 28, 1999

The sky was overcast, but we decided to head for the Aran Islands anyway. Our host gave us driving instructions that made no sense to us: “left at the street, left after one block, right after one block, about 20 miles on that road.” We were skeptical, but followed his directions, and it turned out that he was right and we were just completely turned around in our sense of direction. We drove 45 minutes to the village of Rosslear to catch the passenger ferry boat – a last-minute dash, we were among the final people to buy tickets. The sea was fairly rough and I had a few moments of frantic thought that I might throw up.

A gauntlet of tour minibuses awaited us at the dock – reminded me of the vendors on the beach at Puerto Vallarta when we were there four years ago. We’d read that we could barter with the minibus drivers, but apparently they’d all gotten together since the book was written and agreed that no one would lower their price. The fellow said “Five pounds each,” I said, “How about four pounds each?” He said, “Ah, no, I couldn’t lower my price to undercut the others. I’m a Catholic, and I swore in the church that I wouldn’t do that”. After a wander through a store with expensive Aran wool sweaters – the hand knit about twice the cost of the machine made - we gave up, boarded the Catholic fellow’s minibus at his price - and then waited another 20 minutes until he had a full bus.

One of the outstanding sights on the island is Dun Aengus, a 3000-year-old fort. It was four miles or so down the road. By the time we stopped there, it was raining, so we donned our rain suits and headed up the rocky path. Wind blowing the rain horizontal, about 60 degrees. When we got to the castle there were only half a dozen young people already there – either drenched or bundled up as we were. It’s hard for me to grasp the age of some of these sites, as America’s history covers a relatively short period of time. The fort is at the top of a tall cliff – the same kind of limestone as at the Cliffs of Moher, some 50 miles south. As the cliff erodes, parts of the fort fall into the sea.

Art was having a tough time at Dun Aengus. His Gore-Tex rain jacket leaked for some reason, he couldn’t get at the camera easily, and he got pretty drenched. Frustrated, he had a battle with his rain pants and his waist pack, narrowly defeating them as he swore at the injustice of it all and hurled the waist pack to the wet ground. Then, when he unzipped his backpack, he found a treasure. With an angelic smile, he turned to me and said, “Care for some beef jerky?” I stood there in the pouring rain and laughed, surprised again at the enduring ability of food to perk Art up.

We drove around the rest of the island. It is a very rocky place – rock walls, houses, and fields. On this drizzly day it looked unattractive. I asked our guide how long he’d lived here and he said, “Eight generations.” Another reminder of the differences in time between Ireland and the States.

Back down the path, a captive audience until the bus returned for us, a similar situation waiting for the boat to let us on for the return trip. I decided that the Aran Islands were overrated. I did hear, though, that on a clear day it is just beautiful – and that the day before it had been just that kind of day. I think if the weather had been better it would have been fun to walk to the fort and then pick up a minibus for the ride back. There were several B&Bs and a couple of bike rental places. In the summertime it would be tempting to go to the island overnight and rent a bike. But not now, in the beginning of the rainy season.

Back at our B&B, Helene and Pat were interested in our impressions. They remarked that it had been sunny in Galway! I guess the Irish weathermen are no more accurate than ours at home. We settled in to watch a soccer game on TV with our hosts. It was the first time on our trip so far that we have spent time with the B&B hosts in the evening.

Wednesday, September 29, 1999

Our local day in Galway. We dropped off our laundry at a laundramat that had a huge mural on one of the walls. The lady said she’d been in business for only about six months, but before she opened she’d gone around to all the other places that would be her competition, and they’d seemed to her to be gloomy places. So she made her business cheerful. She was so animated that I could have spent a couple of hours chatting with her.

One of our tour books, Rick Steves’ “Europe Through the Back Door” had recommended a walking tour of Old Galway, so we’d called to make reservations. We got to the gathering point, the Tourist Information Center, with time to spare. There were just five of us and the guide, Kay, a knowledgeable, sturdy woman, probably in her late 70s or early 80s, with many gray chin hairs.

The tour was advertised as 1 1/2 hours but actually lasted three. We started off in a modern mall, where they had found and rebuilt two of the corner watch towers and a hundred feet of the old city wall, 30 feet high. The old architecture was integrated into the appearance of the new mall.

Then we went out into the city park, and stood behind the podium where JFK, the first Irish-American US president, spoke to the people of Galway in 1962, the year before he was assassinated. Also in the park was a sculpture of the copper-colored sails of the Claddagh fleet. The Claddagh was a settlement outside the city (across the river) where the Irish (not the Anglo-Normans) lived. Most of the men were fisherman. The fishermen were not allowed in the town because they didn’t wear boots; only the well-to-do people wore them. So there were “boot boxes” set up, and the fishermen could put on a pair and go into town, and then leave them off on their way out. The Claddagh was torn down in this century to build more modern houses, but the cultural memory of this area has been preserved in paintings and murals – including the one back at the laundromat.

One of the gates to the city, the “Blue Gate”, was erected in the park, with all the inscriptions and family crest of one of the founding Anglo-Norman families. The guide said that when she was a girl there was a fence around the park; the park was only for the aristocrats. We later saw the same fence around one of the churches, put there after it was torn down from around the park, as a rminder of how it had been used to keep commoners out.

We traveled in and out of streets as our guide showed us where the old city had been. We could see telltale signs of the old buildings, and the new buildings right next to them. Recently, thanks to an active historical society, some of the old buildings have been renovated. As the paint is scraped away, some of the old inscriptions appear, revealing the dates the buildings were originally constructed. We toured the new cathedral, a large stone church with beautiful stained-glass windows. Construction on this building began in the 60s and was only completed about eight years ago. It has a style that makes it look older. I would have expected a more contemporary design for such a new cathedral. It was built on the site of an old prison.

After the tour, feeling very knowledgeable, we went shopping – bought five sweaters for Christmas gifts and another Maeve Binchy book, wandered around until our feet hurt, found another cybercafe to check email and contact Alyx to get in touch with James about picking us up from the airport, ate good fish and chips, and wandered around some more. We ran into Pat, our host, on the job – a foot policeman who carries no weapons. He said that his job is to keep an eye on the young and on the old.

Galway is a very attractive small city – full of activity and interesting shops, with an ambience we’ve not found elsewhere. If Art and I were to live somewhere in Ireland, Galway would probably be the place. There is a university in town, so there are many young people, but it doesn’t seem to be dominated the the young, so we felt comfortable there. In Dublin I was very aware of the influence of the young, but Galway seemed less dependent on their energy. Also, we encountered fewer tourists in Galway. We arrived and left in the shoulder season, so most everyone else had left and only the university students and the locals remained. It was a very attractive combination. I thought several times that my son Russell would love to spend some time here. When I got home and talked to him on the phone, he commented that other people had told him the same thing.

On the way back to our B&B we stopped for our laundry and another nice chat with the owner, then home to map the rest of our visit. We decided to stay two more nights in the Hanlans’ B&B – on their recommendation, we wanted to see Connemara and then rest before heading further north.

We walked to a pub that had been recommended in “Europe Through the Back Door” as a not-too-noisy place where we could hear good Irish music. The music was good, all right, but it was jammed with college students, most of them apparently in the engineering school, celebrating someone’s birthday. Lots of smoke and laughter. A couple of them knew how to dance the Irish jig. Soon there was a line of young people attempting high kicks. Art and I sat along the wall, sipping our 7-Ups with a few other “old people”. I commented to Art that most of our children would have loved the place, but it was a bit noisy for us. We left after 45 minutes or so and found a pizza place for a late dinner on the walk home.

Thursday, September 30, 1999

To Connemara today, driving through intermittent rain. The landscape is wild and beautiful. The sheep are unfenced, grazing on the “long acre”, so we have to watch them as well as traffic, which is sparse. Even in the rain this is an attractive drive. We visit Kylemore Abbey, formerly the custom-built mansion of a wealthy man, later purchased by Benedictine nuns and now being used as an international boarding school for girls. On the grounds of Kylemore there is a small Gothic church. It was built as a replica of “pure” Gothic architecture in about one-half scale. Even to my inexperienced eye it was interesting. There’s a small cemetery on one side of the church where nuns are buried. I noted that most of these women lived to be well into their 80s. I suppose that a quiet, contemplative lifestyle would lend itself to longevity. This cemetery had gravel between the graves rather than grass. I don’t believe I’ve seen that before.

At Kylemore we also ran into a couple from Boston who’d been with our group the day before on the tour of old Galway. We told them about our walk on the Dingle Peninsula. The man was very fitness oriented, and the walk sounded appealing to him. I assured his wife that if I could do the walk, she could. The couple was headed to Northern Ireland, where we couldn’t go, according to the contract on our rental car.

On the way back to Galway we drove through the tiny town of Leenane. It was especially interesting to us because of a play we saw at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle a couple of years ago called “The Beauty Queen of Leenane”, where a middle-aged single woman lives with her disagreeable mother and ultimately manages to escape the old woman’s hounding. We could see that the set designer had captured the beauty and isolation of the Connemara area, and what might have driven the character in the play to her desperate means of freeing herself from her mother.

In the evening we found a meeting, and I was asked to chair. I was a little nervous, not knowing the rituals of this meeting, but the secretary was looking for a woman with some time in the program because there were half a dozen fairly new women. These women looked pretty beaten down. I was reminded of how lucky I am to have found a way of life that works for me.

We went back to the fish and chips place we’d been at the night before. It was 10:30 by now, but the place was still open and we were famished.