Eastern Ireland - martin_b

a very special place...

martin_b — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I'd only scheduled a short walk for today, so I'd have lots of time to look round Glendalough.

The walk itself was uneventful, except that when I was walking along the top of paddock hill, in a world of my own, I suddenly found that there were two hares right in front of me. I hadn't noticed them, and they must have been so immersed in sporting with each other that they hadn't noticed me either. They wheeled away from me without stopping, but they must only have been about 10 yards away, which is really unusual for hares. They usually just sit on the horizon looking at you, then run away just to be on the safe side.

Anyway, pretty quickly (6 miles doesn't take long to walk), Glendalough and the valley it's in came into view...and it was stunning. Those Irish saints weren't stupid, when they decided to set up a monastery in the middle of nowhere, they made sure they had the best spots!

I made my way down, and took a look round the visitor center first. This labyrinth clearly isn't very Christian...

The monastery site itself is in pretty good shape after a thousand years in an Irish valley in the middle of nowhere. It has a real air of calm about it, and you can almost taste the clear air in the pcitures.

This is a view over most of the complex. The high tower is something uniquely Irish, not existing in that form outside the Celtic church. There's no doorway any more, which just makes it look all the more mysterious.

This is the Cathedral. Not what we'd think of a such these days, but that was it. It was a spartan place, of cource, despite the beauty of the valley.

Walking past the main site, there are great views up the valley, plus some more isolated sites, and even a very classy waterfall.

This would be the place I'd most recommend visiting, from what I've seen in Ireland. Ideally, with hindsight I should have planned to stay a couple of days and use it as a walking centre.

and back again...

martin_b — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

...and back to Wendy's house.

Holyhead...nice from a distance

martin_b — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Once the ferry got to Wales, I had some spare time, so took a look around Holyhead. The approach to the town from the harbour has been made pretty stunning.

The middle of the bridge has lots of round plaques...these two reminded me of the animals I'd seen in Ireland.

The town itself is fairly nondescript. Some nice sea views, and this church is on the site of Caer Gybi, the original Roman fort here. It's meant to have some nice stained glass inside by Burne Jones, but it seemed to be locked up.

Otherwise...one grubby main street, not worth bothering with.

Dublin once more

martin_b — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Later that day, I got the bus back to Dublin. I went back to the East Coast Swing lessons that evening, and had an excellent time. Two lessons gives enough steps to almost dance with, and I got the footwork enough that I could insert some Modern Jive moves. Hopefully they didn't look out of place, but who knows! I found some nice Irish girls who hadn't been before to use as Guinea pigs to practice on, which really helped my confidence (and probably gave them a better experience for their first week than most people have.) If only I could find a course in Manchester.

In the morning, I THOUGHT I had plenty of time to get to the ferry. I thought wrong...the bus took forever to get in to Dublin, and I arrived with just 5 minutes to spare. On top of that, I'd lost my ticket. Well, technically not lost...I distinctly remember throwing it out, thinking it was just an old train ticket. Duh.

In future, I will keep all crap until I finish the trip, just in case. Anyway, I did make it, just, and so it was bye bye Ireland.

Glencree, and on

martin_b — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

A nice sunny start to the day, as I descended into Glencree. It's a wonderful valley, great views up and down, big U-shaped valley, a very scenic babbling stream, woody glades (no I don't know why I have no photos).

Climbing the hill on the other side, suddenly I rounded a curve and Powerscourt waterfall came into view.

I carried on along the path, and at the top of the waterfall hit the one bugbear with this walk: tree clearance. I don't mind walking through trees, and I don't mind walking across moorland. But here, vast areas of trees are being felled, and it feels like walking across a World War 1 No Mans Land. The path becomes very hard to see, and tree stumps could easily be leg breakers.

As I passed the top of the waterfall, I passed to walkers going the other way. Not talkative types though, just a vaguely germanic "Hello".

Then I started up the biggest mountain on the route, Djouce Mountain. It's big, and dark, and covered in cloud at the top. It started raining as I went up, but it was a hot day, so it was actually a blessing. I stopped just on the other side for a fig roll lunch.

I'd seen the Dublin lads in the distance just before, so I decided to push on and catch them up (it's nice to have a target to break up the day.)

So, I went switly up the hill, then at the top along a sort of raised planking thing which protects the moor from walkers. It makes for really fast walking, with fabulous views over the whole range, and I was soon looking down on the next valley, and running down the hill.

Sorry about the cheesey grin!

The lake in the bottom pic is in the bit of the Wicklows still owned by the Guinness family, and as far as I can tell still pretty much off-limits. It's a shame, because it looks like one of the nicest parts of the whole thing (no surprises there.)

I did catch up to the Dublin lads...you can see the edge of one of their sandwich wrappers in one of the photos. They had a looong way to go: I tried to break it to them that at the pace they were going they wouldn't get to Glendalough before about 8pm. I don't know if they made it, that was the last I saw of them. Maybe they are still wandering lost in the mountains....

Roundwood is not the nicest place in Ireland. It's a very small town expanding quickly, like most of Ireland. It's functional rather than pretty, and I wouldn't recommend it to visitors except for walkers. One of the pubs does serve interesting food, which may be German or Scandinavian, the latter I suspect. Lots of cold smoked dishes anyway. Good food, but not what I was expecting. Dessert was a very nice blueberry pancake though.

You know you're in trouble when your B & B landlady introduces herself with "welcome to Fawlty Towers!". Not the nicest place to stay, sort of run down. The shower worked fine until I switched it on, then fell off the wall. Getting clean thus became a sort of juggling act, as it wasn't the sort of shower you could hold easily, more prop in place.

15 miles to go...

martin_b — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The Wicklow Way is the easiest footpath I have ever followed. Every so often there are these little black way markers, and with a map as well it's pretty difficult to go wrong.

That was my thinking, anyway, as I set off on the long uphill stretch out of Marlay Park into the mountains. Marlay Park is a great little victorian park, slightly run down, with little bridges and lakes and things.

Climbing up Kilmashogue Mountain, everything was fine: the rain was keeping it nice and cool really. But when I got near the top, it got a bit dodgy. Suddenly there are paths in every direction, and I'm walking along a ridge, called Fairy Castle, hoping that the fairies haven't got me entirely lost. It's pissing down, right into my face, my glasses are wet and steaming up, there's no chance of getting a map out. The only thing that would make it worse would be some sleet hitting me in the face.

Eventually, the fairies let me loose, and I was sure I was on the right path. I did however have sleet hitting me in the face. Ho hum.

As I started to come down the other side of the ridge, the rain did start to peter out, and I could even see again, which helped.

I was making really good time still, down into the valley, and up the next hill, Prince William's Seat. There were starting to be some good views, too.

By early afternoon, I was thinking that I had broken the back of the day, not bad for 15 miles plus. I hadn't seen any walkers all day, but as I came down off Prince William's Seat there were a group ahead of me in the distance.

I caught them up pretty quickly: they were 4 lads from Dublin, walking and camping, and I walked along with them for a fair way. One of them was in the army, one (Aaron) had just left, and those two were strong walkers. Unfortunately the other two weren't, and they had a long walk ahead at the pace they were going!

They seemed a good bunch of lads, although I may have demoralised them saying I was only a few miles from my B&B with a nice hot shower!

The B & B was in Knockree, just off the Wicklow Way, maybe a mile from Enniskerry. Very unexceptional, but with the added entertainment of a mid-evening power cut.

Enniskerry is an unusual little village. It's near to the Powerscourt estate, so gets a lot of tourists. As such, although it's just a few shops around a square, it has loads of places to eat, and clothes shops and things.

It was here that I found out that Ireland has 2 sorts of lemonade, red and white. Red lemonade looks a bit like Tizer or something, and tastes different to white lemonade, but I'd be hard pressed to know what else goes into it. Definitely worth trying, but not quite sure whether I prefer it or not.

The start of the walking bit

martin_b — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The walking bit starts, so what happens? It starts raining. Hard.

I started from my B & B in Dublin, and walked South towards the start of the Wicklow Way. I wasn't going to walk the whole thing, only as far as Glendalough. I went through a soggy Rathfarnham, saw a soggy looking castle in passing (didn't go in), then walked on.

Eventually, I got to Marlay Park, which is both where the Wicklow Way starts, and where it started raining REALLY heavily. So, like all experienced walkers, I hid under the noticeboard, wondering what I was letting myself in for. It's odd how the steps look dry in this picture. Honestly, it was pouring down!

Anyway, I eventually did set off properly...

A day by the seaside, or something...

martin_b — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Howth isn't exactly secret, but thankfully not too well known. It's an island just North of Dublin, connected now to the mainland and with a trainline. I did wonder why there were so many people on the train: I soon found out it's because Howth is such an excellent way to spend a Sunday.

The first thing you see is the harbour, very scenic.

In the water was this lone seal: I think it was a Grey Seal on account of the pointy nose. It seemed to be as interested in us as we were in it. Or maybe it was just hoping for fish.

By the side of the harbour, a mish mash of buildings, including places to eat. Walking a little further and there's a proper village tucked up a valley, with another Martello tower. St Mary's abbey sits on one side of it.

I looked at all that, then took a walk round the headland: it was a bit rainy, but there are nice views: this is Howth Head, with a view south to glowering cloud over the Wicklows and Dublin to the right.

3 miles or so if you don't get lost I think. I did get lost. This was a good thing though, because it meant I ended up walking the back way back to Howth Village, over the top ridge of the island. There used to be an old victorian estate here, and as I walked across I went through what was gardens with 400 varieties of rhododendron. Now, the variety is still there, but gone wild and mixed with the native gorses and woodlands, making one of the most pleasant bits of walking I can remember, with a final view back over Howth.

just passing through...

martin_b — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I had planned today to look at the book of Kells in Trinity College, but the queue was massive, so I went straight by train to Howth.

ahem..

martin_b — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

this is only here to make the map look right!

Newgrange

martin_b — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Donore was the nearest I could get on this map...

OK, Newgrange is a World Heritage Site, think of it as Ireland's Stonehenge. Its a huge artificial mound, with a chamber inside which is wonderfully lit up only for a few days around the solstice (for which there is a lottery to get in and see it.) It's a truly magical place, and with its bright limestone covered sides would have been visible from great distances originally.

There is a whole complex of similar and related sites in the area, which the Irish government haven't yet managed to drive a motorway through.

Luck seemed to be with me on this trip: all the signs were saying that the tours for today were fully booked, but when I got to the visitor centre, it turned out they had just one ticket left for the last tour, so I got in!

Anyway, here are the pictures...

The big picture;

Some of the famous stones which go around the outside of the base, and which I'm sure many people miss.

And the entrance: ignore the fat bloke, he's not a druid or anything. the white stones are where the original line would have been, the grey stones have been cut away to make access easier for modern visitors. It's still frustrating though, very crowded when you get in, and so little time to see it properly.

On the way to Newgrange

martin_b — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I could have taken a guided trip to Newgrange, but I decided to do it by train and bus. This meant a stop off at Drogheda. It's a fairly average small town with a big river and this little Martello tower.

There's a little local museum next to it, and the LOL (little old lady) at the desk gave me a tour of the local guild banners, which are very rare. She really had the gift of the gab, and seemed to want to tell me the entire history of Ireland, Drogheda and the museum on the side. I presume her family history was next, but thankfully I made my escape when the next party arrived. The only other highlight (????) is the display of historic telephony equipment, which is, erm, probably unique.

Irish Charity shops: they do have them, but they seem to reflect a different era, when there were society ladies, as many of them seem to be named after a particular person (Mrs Greene or whoever), and don't even mention the name of the charity concerned. A strange state of affairs, but then I guess that would have been how many charities themselves started in Victorian times.

and on to Newgrange...

More in Dublin

martin_b — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

By this time, I was running out of days to do Dublin before I had to move on to the walking part of the trip.

I started off by doing the rest of the National Museum. There aren't enough superlatives, really. If only the British Museum was this good.

After that, I crossed the river and walked up O'Connell Street, which cuts right through the main shopping area. It has a fancy tram system as well.

It also has this strange spikey thing, which is quite impressive.

Most of Dublin is covered in reminders of the fight for Independence. It's odd to remember that (apparently) at the time of the revolt that led to independence, most of the fighters were off fighting the Germans. The rebellion was started by some more dilettante types, and failed. It was only when the Brits killed the leader that public sentiment changed in favour of independence. It's funny how much of history rests on little things.

I was quite impressed by the cosmopolitan nature of Dublin after seeing this jacket!

Further up O'Connell St., there's a very grand post office, with this statue of Cuchulainn, just after he's died. Cuchulainn is too long a story for here- look him up on Google!

Still on the same street, and still on mythology, there's a war memorial gardens. At one end is a fantastic statue of the Children of Lyr being turning into swans.

I happened to go past the Gate Theatre, and noticed Sweeney Todd was just starting. It seemed to be fate that there was just one ticket left for the preview performance that evening, so I took it.

Just past that, turning left, is the Hugh Lane Gallery, with a nice modern art collection. Every nation has a few little known but excellent artists: Louis de Brocquoy seems to be one of the Irish ones. I'm sure that is spelled incorrectly.

OK, at this point I made the mistake of thinking I should walk to the botanic gardens. It was a boring walk, and a long way, don't do it! The gardens are good once you get there though.

There was one bit where there was a series of empty beds, with labels on but grassed over. I popped up to see what I had missed: it turned out to be a fine display of lawn grasses! Well, I almost wet myself with excitement.

That evening, I made it to the theatre on time. I felt really scruffy next to all the dressed up people (but hey, there's only so many clothes you can fit on one rucksack!)
My seat...was interesting. I'd known I was on the front row: what I hadn't realised was that the stage had been extended forward in the middle, so it finished, oh, maybe 6 inches from my left ear. This made the play quite an immersive experience. I had coins just missing me, being thrown off the stage, flour flying about, a dead body next to my head, you name it.

It was great fun though, first time I've been to a musical I think, and very entertaining: Sweeny Todd himself was excellent. A bit close at times, but excellent.

The Royal Canal

martin_b — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I felt like a change from all that urban stuff, so I took a train out to Maynooth, to the West, with the intention of walking back along the Royal Canal, whcih the guide books recommend.

Maynooth is a pleasant small town. It has a rather posh looking public school, Geraldine Castle, which was closed, and the odd shop. I thought I was in somewhere quite obscure, but even here in a 2 street town I could hear American voices. Anyway, I took a quick look round, while eating a rather nice summer fruits scone from a deli near the B & B.

The canal walk itself was fine...but I felt I could have done something very similar in England, so I wouldn't repeat it. The highlight was probably the sheer variety of birdsong, which was more than I'd expect in the UK.

The worst/most unusual bit of the day happened as I got closer to Dublin. There were 2 boys, leading 2 horses. They were trying to come off, away from the canal, but the metal gate was locked: there was a small gap for walkers. So they tried to do the extremely stupid thing of taking the horses through the small pedestrian gap.

Now, this got quite scary, because the first horse got stuck, and it started to get quite traumatic when the lad started to try to push and pull the horse through: it was getting upset, and it could have done itself a serious injury. I ended up holding the other horse (well a rope: you don't think I'm actually holding a strange horse do you?) while they tried to get it out.

In the end, it came through, with nothing broken, but it was stressed and bleeding. I decided to just get out of there quickly.

I did make it back to Dublin (it is hard to get lost on a canal!) and getting on a random bus seemed to work- eventually I found the centre again.

I did a Salsa lesson in the evening. It's phenomenally popular over here, there must have been 200+ people. I went in quite confident about my ability, but it turns out that some Salsa is different to others, and it was quite challenging to say the least. I did learn about outside turns though.

Carry on up the Liffey

martin_b — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The bug seemed to have passed a bit, so I decided on a walk up the Liffey for today.

I started off, but then decided on an Irish breakfast. This turned out to be ok, but a bit meat-heavy. I'm a bit dubious about white pudding: kind of like sausage meat, and not what I want for breakfast. Sightly disturbing to see people drinking Guinness for breakfast.

Anyway, the lower stretches of the Liffey are a bit loud and dirty, and I popped South to Dublin Castle. It's a bit of a mix, from the original Viking fortifications through Normans and medieval to victorian and modern bits. This bit is the chapel, based on one of the original Norman towers.

Behind the Castle, there's a really nice maze garden. If you believe the guides, this was the site of the original "Dubh Lin" or black pool, which was where the Vikings landed. Looking on the medieval maps, I think that's dubious, but it's still quite pretty, and I sat in the sun for a bit watching the world go by.

Just to the right of that garden, there's the Chester Beatty Gallery, which is a really relaxed building, not old but just calm and tranquil, with one of the worlds greatest collections of ancient religious texts, including the oldest version of some bits of the bible. This water feature is in the shape of a peacock feather: the cafe next to it is well worth a lunch visit. This is where the beautiful people of Dublin come to lunch.

While I was up that end, I popped into Christ Church, one of Dublin's cathedrals. Fairly boring, except that at the front, there's a little iron heart shaped casket. Inside of it is the heart of Strongbow, the famous warrior that came over with the Normans and beat seven bells out of Ireland.

Eventually I actually got back to the Liffey, and headed upstream. It's a nice walk, and it's a shame the Liffey is so neglected by visitors. I went as far up as the Guinness factory, then headed down the other side, stopping at the other site of the National Museum (clothes and stuff), at what used to be a very majestic barracks building.

The Liffey does seem a bit dead round here: no birds, although there was a fire brigade boat.

After that, I had to move my stuff to the B&B I was moving to, which was way in the South of Dublin. It says something about Ireland that the main bit of info offered was not bus times, or local restaurants, but a list of local church services. The B&B seemd to be run by Germans. But then most of Dublin isn't run by the Irish: asking for directions can be difficult!

In the evening, I discovered Camden Street. At last, a proper area where you can eat without getting ripped off. This is a really vibrant, young area, with lots going on. After that I went to the Camden Palace Ballroom, and did an East Coast Smooth lesson, which was good fun. I'd never done it before though, so as there were only 2 or 3 steps taught, I wasn't up to much really in terms of leading anyone. Only a small class with maybe 30 people, half of them actually Irish: I resolved to come next week if I could.

Tuesday is archaeology day

martin_b — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Tuesday was the day I got a bug as well...

Anyway, I found out today that my roommate was a French girl called Stephanie. She was meant to have come with her boyfriend, but he had discovered at the last minute his passport was out of date. A lesson for us all there...

I headed South across the river, and poppoed in briefly to Trinity College, which looks a bit like this:

Lots of tourists, and not very exciting in my view, so I went on the the National Museum, to see the archaeology. I'd wanted to come here ever since my Celtic Studies course. Thankfully, although I had a headache and felt a bit grotty, I found this to be an awesome collection. Pictures are sadly not allowed, but it's one of those rare places where everything is world class, and my jaw was dropping for most of the day. There's stuff from Newgrange and Knowth, an Egyptian collection, lots of Bronze age and Iron age bits, an exhibition of gold artifacts from the bronze age on, which is quite incredible and unique, and some medieval stuff. I spent pretty much all day looking, and didn't get through it all, even though the Viking bit was closed (the roof collapsed unexpectedly.)

One of the best bits of all was the special exhibition on bog bodies. There were 5 or 6 on show, which is about 5 more than I've ever seen before, so rare they are. I hadn't realised before that when these brown, wrinkled, dessicated looking things come out of the ground, they are actually soft and fleshy. There was a video of an autopsy on one which brought this out. I stayed in that exhibit for an hour and a half, so good it was.

What else today? Well, I kept nipping out, because my attention span was suffering with the bug. There's several more nice parks on that side, worth a visit. NOT worth visiting is the Natural History Museum. Ye gods, it can't have changed in 100 years, and in a bad way. The National Portrait Gallery next door is a lot better though (but the cake is overpriced!)

In the evening, I went to see a play, "A Pleasing Terror", at Andrew's Lane Theatre, which was a one man show, telling 2 of the ghost stories of M.R.James. It was extremely well done, with the actor just playing James himself telling the stories, in a small candlelit room. He began hunched over the candles, half-lit, and blew them out as the play went on. Definitely worth seeing if it comes to the UK, it really brought out some of the comedic side to the stories, as well as the horror.

a little bit of Dublin

martin_b — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Dublin at last! I arrived at Dun Laorigh which is just at the southern extreme, and had to catch a DART train into the centre. It's a scenic trip along the coast: I hadn't really realised Dublin had so many sandy beaches.

The centre of Dublin, near to the main rail station, is ugly, noisy and dirty. Not a great first impression, and as I got lost trying to find the hostel, it seemed to get worse.

Eventually, I did reach it. It was a bit on the spartan side, but then it is a hostel. Had to complain to get some lights, but got there in the end. Never did get a working shower though (there were more outside of the room!) I seemed to be the only person in the 4 bed dorm, so nice and quiet.

Before it went dark, I took a walk across the river, around Temple Bar and to the South. Again, very noisy, but I did fine a great park full of statues/scultures, which was a very pleasant and restfully quiet way to spend some time.

Oh, and I finally got a roommate at around midnight...she came in in the dark, and tried really really hard to be quiet, but failed completely..I had to laugh...

To Holyhead and beyond...

martin_b — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Now, I remembered Holyhead as being a dump in the back of beyond that you wouldn't want to go to. Actually, on a sunny day it's quite nice, and if you read on there's some pictures later.

We also had a very nice boat to take us across. Quick, cheap, nice chairs, typical dodgy food. Sadly as it's one of the superfast hydrofiol jobbies, it doesn't have an observation deck, but there are excellent views from inside. there is a tiny little outside platform right above where the water comes out of the hydrofoil: the sheer power of it is amazing.

Coming towards Ireland, there's a good view of the Wicklow mountains, where I was going to be walking, but not much to see of Dublin itself, which is a pretty flat city really.

Leaving Oldham

martin_b — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

This wasn't exactly organised...I didn't have any transport booked, and only had about half of my accomodation. Then everyone was telling me that Dublin was over-rated, and there's nothing to do but pubs (which I don't do!) Oh dear...

Anyway, I got myself to the railway station.
"A sailrail ticket to Dun Laorigh please"
"a what?"
...I repeat...
...we debate place name pronunciation...
...he taps some buttons on his big ticket machine...says he's never done one before...
...he taps some more buttons...
...he phones someone else...
"apparently the machine won't do them, you'll have to buy it at Manchester"

Luckily I'd allowed lots of time...
Manchester was pretty similar, with the added joys of explaining to the man on the barrier why I didn't have a ticket, but eventually I did get a ticket (after the guy had used up his Phone a Friend and got it wrong a couple of times), and did, eventually, get to Holyhead (via a stop at Llandudno Junction because none of the train toilets were working.)

I'd forgotten how scenic Anglesey was, I'll have to get back there.