Meat and Potatoes

May the 4th Be With You

Cashel, Ireland

Distance travelled: 214 km

Cumulative distance (not including walking) 214 km

We said goodbye to our Parisienne friends at breakfast this morning and we were away within 45 minutes of our targetted departure time of 10:00 am. My idea had originally been to walk to pick up the rental car, drive it back to the hotel and pick up Nan and the luggage. Her idea was to Uber it to the car rental place. She won.  Which, in the end, made much more sense because we were already later than we had planned, and I use that term lightly and since our plan was to drive back roads, it would take longer to drive the distance than otherwise on the Ireland Interstate Super Highway-Motorway. 

The car rental place was busy, perhaps because today is a "bank holiday" and most businesses are closed. There were extra staff at the rental place and I checked in while Nan stood guard over the luggage outside. The were operating pretty efficiently but it was clear that the car I "ordered" had little bearing on what they had available.  However, I did specify an automatic since I would be driving on the WRONG side of the road, I figured I would prefer to have one less thing to worry about if I had to react to something. 

I didn't monitor how long we were there but it was probably 45 minutes. My credit card covers the Collision Damage Waiver, which was DOUBLE the car rental price, so I was glad to present my letter from the CC insurance company. I didn't get any grief for this, unlike when I made the reservation, so that was good. I had to pay extra for taking the car into Northern Ireland because it is a different country and they managed to talk me into an extra ten Euros for insurance to cover the stuff that wasn't covered by the CDW. OK, it was still 50 Euros less than what I would have had to pay.  PER DAY, BTW. Last warning from the agent: insurance does NOT cover an unregistered driver, drinking and driving and putting diesel in a petrol car.  USE THE GREEN HANDLED PUMP! Then, when we did the walk around the vehicle, I noticed in large block white letters on our black car next to the gas cap the word DIESEL. Green handle means petrol (gasoline). 

To the uninitiated, driving on the wrong side of the road takes a little conditioning. I've done it before; a couple of times in Australia in 1983 and once in Fiji in about 2010, so I figured I would be fine. I will say it is beneficial having an extra set of eyes until things become a little more natural, even if we are snapping at each other. Turning into the correct lane, especially when turning right, it is good for a copilot reminding the driver to stay in the left lane. I think the thing I had to concentrate on the most though, was staying in the centre of the lane. Imagine yourself driving down the road on the right hand side. You are sitting over the left part of the lane and if the road is grooved or there are ruts, as the driver, you will be directly over top of that (left) groove. A few times, the car had to remind me to drive in the centre of the lane as I occasionally drifted over to the left side. I was gravitating to be over the left groove in the road; it was instinct. Believe me, on the back roads, there is nothing beyond the edge of the lane. The other thing is the drivers: generally speaking, they are pretty good. As a rule, I found most other drivers didn't speed, exiting Dublin, they didn't run yellow lights but what they DID do, was cut corners coming around bends. They can't see an oncoming car (around the corner) so they think they own the road. A couple of times cars were partly in our lane as they came around the corner, which gave me a fright and also tested the braking power of our rented Skoda. The other drivers seemed oblivious to this being problematic. They don't run yellow lights! What more do you want?

Our primary stop for the day was at Birr Castle in, you guessed it, Birr. This was a big deal for me and I have the good fortune of having a patient and tolerant wife who humours me on occasion. Birr Castle, which is a castle where people actually live, is the home of the Leviathan 72 inch telescope, originally constructed in 1845.

For 70 years, it was the largest telescope in the world, under the world's cloudiest skies. It wouldn't matter if it was STILL the world's biggest telescope, you can't see much through clouds. However, there were some hand drawn astronomical images produced by the Earl that resembled actual astronomical views, and for the nerds in the crowd (both of you!) the Earl discovered that galaxies have a spiral structure.  I could go on... but I will spare you.  Let's just say that this was a highlight for me. 

Birr Castle had been requesitioned as a barracks during the Irish Civil War. The three young men were fighting on for the anti-Treaty forces, i.e. those attempting to maintain ties with the United Kingdom.  They were found guilty by a military court of the Irish Free State which was later criticized for being without due process. They were executed on the site of the  above archway leading to the castle on Janary 23, 1923. Two were 19 yeas old and the third was 20. The plaque was erected on the 80th anniversary of their deaths.

We continued on back roads, with speed limits up to 100 kph with nary an extra inch on the side of the road to squeeze by oncoming traffic, to Cashel. However, because we had had a long day, we accepted the revised route guidance taking us down the motorway (super highway) even though it is pretty uninteresting.  Arriving in Cashel, we were greeted with the impressive scene of The Rock of Cashel, which is a castle sitting on top of a big rock in, you guessed it, Cashel. We checked into our hotel, which is really a quaint old house on the main street with 20 rooms. Our room is very large and decorated by my grandmother. But it also has a view of The Rock, which is nice. 

View of The Rock of Cashel from our hotel room at Bailey's Hotel in Cashel.

Since we arrived in Ireland, we have consumed an enourmous amount of meat, potatoes, roasted root vegetables and nothing green. Even for breakfast in the hotel in Dublin, everyday it was the same: scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, fried mushrooms and roasted tomatoes. Bread/pancakes/formed, deep fried hashbrowns and blood sasuage were also on offer. Oh, and I would have a bowl of fresh fruit with yougurt, which made for something fresh. But it was filling. Dinner has been typically beef or lamb or sausage with potatoes. Today, I was determined that I was going to find myself a salad somewhere and when we checked into the hotel, the front dest attendant offered to make us a dinner reservation in the hotel restaurant. I commented that I was in serious need of a salad and she recommended the chicken parmesean salad.  Now as a rule, my preference is to get away from the hotel restaurant because I don't want to dine with other tourists, I want to go somewhere that I can meet some locals. We skirted a dinner reservation and I was thankful they really didn't have room for us for a couple of hours. She suggested we could sit in the bar without a reservation however, we opted to walk down the street to Feehan's Bar when I saw they had a salad on the menu. On the way down there, a couple of old guys (even to us) hanging out on the street cat-called Nono and yelled out, "She is looking fine!" She's still got it. 

Even though Feehan's is on the main street, I was doubtful that it would be a "local's bar". Sure enough, there was a family that was sitting on the patio having drinks and I thought that told the tale. Inside, it was a different story. There were a half dozen people sitting at the bar and a few couples (seniors all) at tables around the place. There was also a fairly large group of people, maybe seven or eight,  that looked like - and I don't mean this unkindly - some people looking totally out of place in a tourist town and the one in a very snug-fitting cat suit  who looked totally out of place with her group was up at the bar asking where they could get food. It seems the kitchen in Feehan's closes at half past four. And we were there after 7 pm so we had all missed dinner, along with everything else.  The bartender suggested Bailey's, which is the hotel restaurant where we are staying and off they trotted. One fellow sitting at the bar suggested to us another place and Nan and I decided to sit down and have a beer to contemplate our next course of action. We decided we would try "the other place" and it was close so convenient. Well clearly, we stand out as tourists because the places being suggested were clearly catering to tourists and not locals. The Other Place was full and we would have to wait at least a half hour to get into a table. We opted to walk back to our hotel restaurant and hope that we could get in there, despite the fact that Google Maps lists multiple restaurants all around us. We walked by another other place and looked at the menu that featured, amongst other things, "pheasant under glass" and "suckling pig". What does that even mean? We kept walking and someone, who shall remain nameless but not me, was getting a little hangry and concerned we might not find any food. I suggested that, worse case scenario, there was Super Valu (sic) Foods across the street and were still open. But better yet, we passed a take-out pizza shop on the way back to the hotel, which became our back up plan should we be refused entry to Bailey's.

Inside, I saw one of the group from Feehan's walk by.  Yhe restaurant person who greeted us at the door did us a BIG favour when Nan mentioned that we were hotel guests and we were able to get a table. I ordered chicken parmesean salad and Nan ordered some chicken rice dish. We each ordered a glass of chardonnay. My meal came and was actually a very thin bed of lettuce and red onions with a pile of battered, fried chicken and boiled potatoes drenched in about a cup of melted cheddar cheese sauce. Tasty but not what I was craving. We may need a different strategy moving forward or be prepared to carry a set of paddles for the rest of the trip.

A telescope lens and a copy of a drawing done by the 3rd Earl of  Rosse.

The drawings above and further below were expressed to me as being original drawings by the Earl. That may well be the case but if not, they were certainly very old.

The Earl's wife was no less a scientist than her husband. She was a pioneer in early photography, though they were unable to ascertain a method to make astronomical photographs. Here is a depiction of her darkroom.