Emerald Isle (May 2024)

There are two things you notice about Ireland as soon as you arrive. The first is how green the landscape is, hence the name Emerald Isle and the shamrock clover leaf as the national symbol. As soon as you drive into the country you are pleasantly overwhelmed by endless fields of green with their patchwork of hedgerows dividing the landscape into smaller pastures that are invariably filled with sheep. We had come here to celebrate Junie's 75th birthday and to use the occasion to explore her Irish roots as a descendant of the infamous Kelly Gang.

The second thing is the Guiness logo, which is plastered on every wall, doorway, and window wherever you look. In Dublin, where we landed with parched throats, it certainly wasn't hard to find a pint of the creamy black stuff to quench our thirst. And in every pub you could also be guaranteed some live traditional Irish music starting early in the afternoon. 

The pedestrian ha'penny (half-penny) bridge takes you into the Temple District, a particularly vibrant area where Guiness, music, tourists, and cheerful locals flowed together in a colourful and seamless stream of happiness. By the end of the first day we had already learned the three most popular Irish songs you were guaranteed to hear in every pub, and could sing along with everyone else. They were; Dirty Old Town, Whiskey In The Jar, and Galway Girl.

Dirty Old Town - The Pogues

Whiskey In The Jar - The Dubliners

Galway Girl - Sharon Shannon & Mundy

Dublin is a fairly simple city to get around in. The River Liffey divides it into North and South with O'Connell Street the main road in the North. Heading south from Parnell Street and all the shops, it crosses over the River Liffey into Trinity College and Grafton Street, the main road and shopping district in the South, and finishes up at St. Stephens Green. Just after it crosses the River Liffey is the Temple Bar District with all the pubs and restaurants and easily the most popular area in Dublin.

O'Connell Street is of course named after the Nationalist leader, Daniel O'Connell and it features a 40 foot commemorative monument to honour his contributions to the promotion of Irish Catholics emancipation rights and the repeal of the Penal Laws that discriminated against Catholics. It's also the home of the Spire or Monument of Light, a 120 metre high stainless steel monument to the Millennium. And most fitting of all is a statue of Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish Nationalist politician and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party and the Home Rule League. The Irish struggle to break away from the British is a long, complicated, treacherous, and sad story with lingering effects that still continues, in some ways, to this day.

But if you really want to check out all the attractions, a ride on a Hop On Hop Off City Sightseeing bus is the best way is to get around. 

 

One of the key stops was EPIC the Irish Emigration Museum which covers the history of the Irish diaspora over the past 1,500 years. Since 1700, between 9 and 10 million people born in Ireland have emigrated. This is more that the population of Ireland itself at its historical peak of 8.5 million on the eve of the Great Famine (1845-1852). During the Great Famine over 2 million left Ireland and over 1 million died. By 1890, 40% of Irish-born people were living abroad and by the 21st century an estimated 80 million people worldwide claimed some Irish descent including 36 million in the U.S. Interactive displays within the various galleries highlight the religious and social persecution, criminal transportation, religious missionary work, the Irish famine and the various impacts the Irish have had on the areas where they settled.

Other notable attractions as you pass by the Parliament buildings, include Trinity College, Christ Church Cathedral, and of course the Guiness Storehouse, reputably the "World's Leading Tourist Attraction".

There is also the GPO Museum (General Post Office) one of Ireland's most famous buildings and the headquarters of the 1916 Easter Rising which was a pivotal moment in the history of the Irish Republic. Launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland, they seized strategically important buildings and proclaimed an independent Irish Republic while the United Kingdom was fighting WW1. The Easter Rising was also the first time the Flag of Ireland was raised. But the British Army brought in thousands of reinforcements and artillery and within a week forced the rebels to surrender and then executed 16 of its leaders. The Easter Rising would in turn lead to the Irish War of Independance, a guerilla war fought between 1919-1921 between the IRA and the British.

During the Irish War of Independance Michael Collins was Director of Intelligence of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and a government minister of the self-declared Irish Republic. After calling a truce in 1921 the Irish and British governments negotiated an Anglo-Irish Treaty, that was signed by Arthur Griffith (founder of Sinn Fein) and Michael Collins, that created the Irish Free State made up of the 6 counties of Northern Ireland, in the Province of Ulster, with their Protestant majority, and the 26 counties of Southern Ireland, in the Provinces of Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, with their Catholic majority. However in 1922 Northern Ireland decided to opt out of the Free State and stay within the United Kingdom. 

The Irish Free State was not a republic but rather it had Dominion status, like Canada and Australia, with a Governor General representing the King/Queen. It was a compromise solution that represented a big step towards independance, but it was viewed as a betrayal by the anti-Treaty forces and, as a result, the Irish Civil War broke out from 1922-1923. In 1922 Michael Collins, commander-in-chief of the Irish Free State National Army was assassinated by the anti-Treaty IRA forces. The Irish Free State forces ultimately prevailed against the anti-Treaty IRA forces and the Irish Free State lasted until 1937 when it became simply Ireland. It wasn't until 1949 when it finally left the British Commonwealth that it became a republic.

Next stop on our whirlwind tour of Ireland was the Blarney Castle just outside of the city of Cork in County Cork. A picturesque castle, as far as ruined castles go, that invites tourists to explore its grounds and battlements and, most importantly, kiss the Blarney Stone. Kissing the Blarney Stone, which has to be done by leaning over backwards without falling through the parapet, is supposed to endow the kisser with the gift the gab. 

Checked into the charming Maranatha B&B where we were spoiled with our frou frou surroundings that harkened to an earlier era but were a pleasure to enjoy.

A little visit in Cork included the English Market and a walk around the city centre which of course always includes a good pub with plenty of hearty Irish fare.

Driving from Cork to Killarney (in County Kerry) was green as green can be and, with the intermittent rain, the mystery of those green fields started to reveal itself. No water shortage in Ireland.

When we got to Killarney we headed straight for the historic Reidy's Public House and General Merchant. Built in the 1870's it was a combination hardware shop and agricultural supply store, grocery store, bakery, pharmacy, horse stable, and sweetshop pub. Now of course it's just a bar and restaurant set within a very unique complex of restored historic shops and an outdoor courtyard.

Killarney itself is a colourful 19th century town filled with charming buildings and the starting point of the Ring of Kerry scenic drive. The drive follows along the coastline and is the southern section of the Wild Atlantic Way, providing a stunning view of the ocean on one side and green fields and hedgerows filled with sheep on the other side.

One of the colourful towns along the way is Dingle, located on the rugged Dingle Peninsula where Ryan's Daughter was mostly filmed. Also checked out the Dunbeg Fort, an Iron Age stone fort that would have been hard to attack given its location. The distances between towns aren't great, but the winding roads make the journey last longer than you think. It was already the end of the day when we finally pulled into Tralee for the night.

Besides being a perfect place to spend the night, Tralee is famous for its Rose of Tralee International Festival which selects a young woman from the Irish diaspora and the 32 counties of Ireland who best displays the "lovely and fair" attributes of the song Rose of Tralee. Not just a beauty pageant, the participants are judged on their personality, ability to be a good role model, and suitability to serve as an ambassador for Ireland.

Next stop was Galway and this included a short ferry ride across the mouth of the River Shannon, a 360 km long river flowing through the middle of Ireland and emptying into the Atlantic Ocean, and a stop to admire the awesome Cliffs of Mohar.

Saying goodbye to the Cliffs of Mohar we made our way towards Galway and passed through a part of the Burren National Park, a vast, moonlike, place with a strange limestone landscape and unique geological history. Surprisingly farming is able to prosper here and it's also the home of a famous perfumery.

Didn't get to spend much time in Galway searching for a Galway girl but we stayed in a nice B&B pub, checked out the Salthill Promenade and Quay Street, and vowed to return to Ireland's capital of festivals.

As we entered the Province of Connaght we noticed the hedgerows were now all made of stone and this observation led to a little more Irish history to explain things.

From 1536-1603 the Tudor dynasty, starting with Henry the 8th and ending with Elizabeth the 1st, completely conquered Ireland, destroyed the Gaelic aristocracy, and confiscated their lands which, in turn, were colonized with people from Britain and Scotland and later referred to as the plantations of Ulster. English law and language were imposed, Catholicism was banned, and Anglican Protestantism was made the state religion. 

Penal laws were introduced that forbid Catholics to own property, barred from owning firearms or serving in the armed forces, excluded from all public offices, not allowed to marry Protestants, not allowed to vote, excluded from legal professions, Catholic children were not allowed to travel abroad for education, and Catholics were banned from owning a horse.

In 1641 the Irish rebelled and demanded an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater self-governance and a return of confiscated lands. The war lasted for 11 years but ultimately the Irish lost to Oliver Cromwell in 1653 who completed the reconquest. In retribution, all remaining good quality Catholic lands were confiscated and given to British and Scottish settlers. Remaining land owners and peasants were banished to western and southern Ireland under Cromwell's famous order "To Hell Or Connaught".

In order to survive in the poorer lands of the Province of Connaught, massive stone removal of the fields was undertaken by the peasants to clear them, and these stones were used to construct hedgerows. These painstakingly constructed hedgerows were built without any cement or binding materials. It is estimated there are over 400,000 km of stone walls in Ireland. Recognized as the greatest exercise in ethnic cleansing in early modern Europe, nearly half of the Irish population was either killed by Cromwell's forces or forcibly placed on ships and sent to the Caribbean where they worked as slaves in the plantations of Barbados. 

Things got even worse after the next Irish Rebellion of 1798 when the exiled James 2nd tried to use the Irish to wage a war to get his throne back after the so-called Glorious Revolution that brought William of Orange and his wife Mary to power. It didn't work and in 1800 the Irish Parliament was abolished and Ireland was merged into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Scotland and England had already merged into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707.

There was certainly no end of pleasant scenery to greet us as we drove further north alongside the Lough Carrib on our way to Westport with quaint villages, endless green fields, sheep, dense thickets of rhododendrons, and even an abbey as we passed by.

But driving through the countryside it was the abandoned peasant cottages that really caught my eye. Their design was fairly common, stone was the main construction material, and they could be found around every bend of the road. When they were occupied the stone walls had a coat of whitewashed clay covering them. In the past it was a mainly a consequence of rural folk moving to the city that caused so many homes to be abandoned but now folks from the city are restoring these cottages to either escape the city or have a summer home. 

The Great Famine (1845-1852) of course was another major contributing factor to the abandonment of the countryside. With crops destroyed and nothing to eat the people fled to the cities hoping for some form of relief. While the cause of the famine was the infection of the potato crops by blight, it was aggravated by the land tenure system and the British government which refused to provide any aid because they believed the Irish lacked moral character and it was divine providence that had allowed this to happen. 

Absentee landlords owned most of the land and through middlemen rented it out to tenant farmers who were given a small patch of land to grow their own food. The potato was the only crop that could meet their nutritional needs and a monoculture developed. Massive amounts of food were exported from Ireland to England during the famine, but the government refused to ban the exports and let the Irish starve. To save money on the per capita rent/tax landlords had to pay, they also took advantage of this time to evict thousands of families and burn down their homes in order to consolidate their holdings into larger parcels of land for grazing sheep and cattle instead of raising crops.

With 80% of the population Catholic and living in poverty while Protestant English and Anglo-Irish landlords lived in luxury and allowed their middlemen to abuse the peasants with eviction and other forms of disruption and fear, discontent was always simmering on the surface. Anti-English sentiment and a desire for independance set the stage for what would soon erupt into the modern Irish revolutionary period that would follow, starting with the 1916 Easter Rising.

Ireland used to be covered in forest but over the past few hundred years the trees were almost entirely chopped down to make room for fields and pasture and by 1925 only 1% was still forested with native tree species. Today that total is up to 2% plus another 9% of non-native trees making Ireland the country with the lowest tree cover in all of Europe. With no wood to burn the Irish have for centuries turned to peat as a domestic fossil fuel for heating. Peatlands make up 20% of the Irish landscape and starting around St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) people in the country still cut the peat into briquettes and leave them out to dry in the summer before being used to heat their homes in fall and winter.

Westport turned out to be yet another charming, colourful village with a great pub, live music, friendly people, and pet friendly chickens at our B&B.

We stopped in at Portumna to check out the horrific workhouse museum/centre, described as the most feared and hated institution ever established in Ireland. Another Victorian institution, working under humbug Christian principles, that operated 163 workhouses from 1840-1920 in Ireland with the purpose of providing for those who could not provide for themselves including the old, sick, orphans, unemployed, and those with no money or food. But rather than show any compassion for the unfortunate (because the authorities believed that poverty was a result of laziness) they were treated abysmally with women separated from their children, husbands from their families, fed a starvation diet of oatmeal porridge for breakfast and pototoes and milk for dinner, forced to sleep in cold, unheated quarters, and put to work throughout the day to earn their miserable keep. Only the truly desperate would enter these workhouses but, during the Great Famine, thousands went there to escape starvation. 

Then to cheer ourselves up we checked into a lovely B&B with its own pet donkeys that was situated practically next door to Johnnie Fox's Pub, established in 1798 and claiming to be the highest pub in Ireland. There we were treated to the best meal of the trip and a fabulous Irish music and dance extravaganza as part of their Hooley Night. All the familiar Irish songs were sung and the dancers in their beautiful costumes and lively choreography kept us well entertained until closing time.

A final pint of the black crack, mother's milk, or black stuff with friends was the perfect way to say goodbye to Ireland in general and Dublin in particular. Still lots to understand and discover, particularly in the North, but rumour has it Northern Ireland will one day soon be voting to join the rest of the Republic now that the new generation has brought in a change of view. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 seems to be holding nicely and hopefully the "Troubles" will be finally over. In the meantime Irish Eyes Are Smiling.