A Dee Tour 4

Last Day In The Kingdom

Kerry county is beautiful place, jam packed with rolling verdant hills, quaint villages, hedgy skinny country roads, and a normally rugged and wild coastline which decided to be quite tame while we were there.

We had a relaxed morn, poring over picture books of the area, including one that featured a poem by a poet we'd heard the previous night in the pub, a guy called Gabrielle Fitzmaurice.

Gabrielle reminds me of my brother Ted, who still wears the same shirts, and sports the same hairstyle, that he did when computers looked like this.

I loved Gabrielle's poem.

Some people still thatch roofs around these parts, although it's pretty expensive to do it these days.

Granulart

Our first fixture of the day was to visit the dead centre of a town called Ballybunion, where a number of Michael's relatives have sadly Deeparted

Major Deecomposition going on here. Respectfully, of course.

Ballybunion Cemetery is jam packed full of Celtic crosses, which are sculpted in this way because that's what they look like when you hold them up to the sun. That's what the early Celts used to do with them.

Well, that's what Gerry told us.

But there are other theories too, one is that the design matched Celtic warrior shields, and another that the circle is a halo, to represent the holiness of God.

Poor Jack was only 14.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, keeping a suffering eye on proceedings.

The cemetery is beautifully situated on the coast, with a golf course right alongside it, which is quite picturesque, but which could nevertheless be rather problematic. I found a golf ball on one grave, and wasn't sure if the person inside it had been struck by it or not.

Oh well, bad luck, but at least you'd save on the hearse fees.

The inlet that winds in to the coast from Ballybunion Beach. Gerry used to come here as a kid, and in those days many fishers would go out to sea from here in their wonky tarred fishing boats.

Not so long back this area was almost tribal, with families engaging in massive feuds and battles, known as "faction fights," and land and buildings sometimes changed hands on quite a regular basis. On top of this, there were constant battles against troops sent by various English kings, battles where anti-English forces were sometimes supported by Spanish or French troops.

Local warlords also took control of strategic places at times, charging taxes for entry to important trading routes and through-roads or rivers.

The magnificent Ballybunion Beach, where the water was so warm that there wasn't any ice in it.

The ruins of Ballybunion Castle, standing defiant on the peninsula. The castle was built in the 14th Century by the Geraldine clan (almost sounds like Gerry Dee doesn't it), but was also occupied by various clans over the years, including troops loyal to the English King James VI.

These days it's just a sea shell of its former self.

Kerry colours

Irish Rails

We climbed up a hill, where Michael's great great someone-or-other once lived, before he made the decision to leave Ireland and move to Australia, where the weather is hot and the beer icy, instead of the other way 'round.

Normally my hair is impeccably neat, but this day was windy. Note that our puffer jackets are off (briefly), which could otherwise be described as a heatwave in Ireland.

Then we went to visit Garrett Dee, another Deestant relative, who lives on the nearby Carrig Island, to drink more tea, eat more cake, and get more Deetales.

Great old stone buildings, some of which Garrett has had renovated into a guesthouse.

Manu amusing herself, as a way of dealing with endless social interactions. She told me to say that. Michael is looking very reflective.

Another fine distraction.

Not sure what martyrs have to do with hay, but hey, it doesn't really martyr.

Ahhh, maybe they're talking of the good crop of fine men that continuously emerge from these fertile meadows, and the endless supply of strong, real women.

We went over to the stunning Caisleán Charraig an Phoill, otherwise known as Carrigafoyle Castle, which lies back on the mainland just over the bridge from Garrett's place, in a very strategic position on one part of the very wide mouth of the Shannon River.

The Shannon has been used as a transport waterway for centuries, and, at 350km long, is the longest waterway in the whole of Britain and Ireland. It passes through many large and strategic towns, including Limerick, and the ancient castle was used to both guarantee security for vessels using the waterway, and also as a way of gathering taxation revenue from traders using the river.

The castle had been held by Irish and Spanish troops, but in 1580 the English attacked, in one of the first ever uses of artillery fire-power in Kerry. The English cannons were too much for one of the castle walls to bear, and it came crashing down, killing many of the garrison soldiers inside. The English took the castle, and, just for good measure, executed the remaining captive soldiers.

That's how they did things in those days.

The castle ruins themselves, despite their bloody history, are bloody amazing. The building itself used to be five storeys high, with a huge number of nooks and crannies, and there's lots to explore as you go up. We had lots of fun in there, reciting our Shakespeare, singing, and just being general wankers.

Some more than others, of course.

I went to the trouble of getting period costume for the performance, searching far and wide to find appropriate peasant rags.

Garrett's property

Eventually it was time to head back to Dubbers. Poor Michael had to drive the whole way, as my Australian drivers licence expired months ago.

The Dubliners

We stayed at a place in Dublin called Mulligans. The problem is, there are more Mulligans in Dublin than you can poke a miner's pick at. And parking's not easy. We went to three different Mulligans before we finally found the right one. Next time I guess we should check the address.

It was a bit of a shitshow, and by the time we got there, at around 9pm on a Friday night, Dublin was pumping with revellers. Temple Bar, on the south bank of the River Liffey, is the centre of nightlife action in the city, and there were people everywhere, with the pubs bouncing, Irish bands playing and singing, and punters yelling and whooping.

Yeah, a Guinness drinker pulling his horse.

Fabulous historic buildings

I grabbed us a pizza, and then we went out to meet Gerry and Monica and their son Connall, who's just as lovely as his oldies. Connall has lived in Paris and Frankfurt as part of his work, and was happy to practice his French and German with Manu.

More black gold. A friendly young local woman offered to take our pic, but she seemed rather full to me. At least we got a blurred photo out of it.

There was a bit of jigi-jigi going on, as usual.

And a poster for one of John B. Keane's plays in the dunny.

At some stage after midnight Michael announced that he'd been in Ireland for 8 days in his whole life, and that on every single one of them he'd found himself in a pub drinking Guinness at 12 midnight.

Well, slainte! to that. That's the word for 'cheers,' in Irish, and is pronounced, "slauncher!"

From Black Beer To Black Coffee

But alas, it was finally time to leave the fair Emerald Isle, which, to be fair, actually was fair for some of the time we were there, in contrast to my grey and bleak earlier predictions, which were unfair, and based on the miserable fare the weather had dished up for us when we first arrived upon its fair shores.

Our time was limited, as Manu needed to get back to work in Germany, Michael needed to work back in Australia, and I needed to get back to my holiday in the Kyrgyz summer before the whole country froze over. I'd deliberately already spent last winter in India and Nepal so I could be in Central Asia during the summer, when the high altitude mountains are actually navigable by bicycle.

But Michael and I still had a few days left together, and we'd decided to spend them somewhere in the direction of Bishkek, where Bewdy, and all my gear, was waiting for me.

Yeah, enough of this mild or cold weather, which our Pommy friends had kept complaining about, and which our Irish friends had described as "hot" or "warm."

Yeah Michael and I were ready for an actual real summer now.

So we were heading to Napoli❤️

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