Hey Soul Swiffer

much ballyhoe about nothing

A lot of the weekend was spent thinking and talking about the practical exam (not to mention more than a little general bitching and kvetching after a long week for everyone and trying week for some.) We’ve been given a packet of information which honestly was a little confusing.

I mean, there are Points to Consider, Cook Ahead, lots to draw for bread, Presentation, Tasting, AFTER Tasting, all those other bullet points, a complex grading calculation but no mention of what is actually being graded how, and don’t forget the Hot Tips! Sheesh I think some lessons in syllabus writing are called for here.

But THEN we just got ANOTHER 6-page packet on Monday with more information but which has thrown my whole menu plan into the blender¹ due to the lack of one little word: salmon. So while I think I will stick with my theme, which is Why Would You Go To Cooking School in Ireland? the idea being to make mostly my very favorite dishes that we’ve cooked here, the menu itself is now all ahoe.²

This hyperfocus on one topic³ does not play at all well with my psyche after a while so I made sure to have a bracing⁴ row this weekend which was an absolute brain swiffer, and an aimless exploration on Sunday in which I considered buying enough Stephen Pearce pottery to have the VAT refund wipe out the brutal shipping charges,⁵ walked a new beach, and discovered another ruined church with graves dating from the 17th c. to the 21st.

Had to do a little digging on the interwebs to find out anything about this structure because it really is in the middle of freaking nowhere between Ballymaloe and Youghal.⁶ The closest village is Castlemartyr but one source says that it is between Knockadoon Head⁷ and Garryvoe Beach (I’m just tossing these names about mostly because I like them not because I could actually get you there). You can find a little bit about Kilcredan on sites like the charmingly homemade Irish Stones and the National Built Heritage Service and one that I actually already follow The Irish Aesthete (This is not an Oxymoron).⁸

Anyhoe, Kilcedan was built in 1636 which was of course an auspicious year,⁹ on the site of an earlier place of worship. It features one grave that anyone thinks is remotely remarkable, that of Robert Tynte who is only famous so far as I can tell because he married Elizabeth Spenser, who was the widow of the poet Edmund Spenser who wrote The Faerie Queen.¹⁰ That’s Tynte’s memorial in the photo above on the bottom left, and also that of some contemporary local magistrate in the middle photo, all sans têtes. Irish Stones wrote “I may presume that in the past years an antiques collector came over here and carefully removed one of the plaques and the heads of all the statues to keep them in his house as unique ornaments.”¹¹ ugh, men, amiright?

There are loads of interesting gravestones here, and as with all of these ruins, the very recent graves are in front. A woman came to lay flowers while I was there, which was a kind of surreal intersection of present and past while I was trying to decipher some of these old stones.

Edmond Lynch on the left made me sad because all those grandchildren lost so young but also you have to wonder about someone who was regretted by his friends but only respected by his neighbors. Jerk or just an introvert? We’ll never know. But Johanna’s virtues were Such as Rendered her dear to her Friends and Much lamented by her Neighbors so obviously everyone liked her. And she is not shy about letting us know that:

“Whoever thou art that dost this tomb survey/peruse the following stand I beg you I pray/As you are now I was both young and gay/And as (something) thou shalt be dust and clay.”

(cue: a cloud obscures the sun and a crow cawes ominously).

Kilcredan Church was in a lovely quiet spot, except for the menacing warning about the local bully.

Shortly after I left, I was actually quite sure I was lost because there was a Y in the road and the google mapper didn’t feel like finding a signal out here so I kind of just drove in the direction of the sea and fortunately ended up back at school. Also it is confusing because there are a boatload of Ballysomethings in Cork and you have to read the signs closely to make sure you are heading to the correct one.

Ballymaloe - that’s mine, then there is Ballycotton, Ballybutler, Ballycrenane, Ballymakeagh, Ballymacoda, Ballyphehane, Ballykinealy, Ballyskibole, Ballybranagh, Ballyfleming, Ballyrussel, Ballyduff, Ballyonane, Ballyfin, Ballyroe, Ballyrichard, Ballyhimikin, Ballyhoohaa . . .

(just kidding I made up that last one)

Bally means homestead or place. For example, Ballyhoe = Whoville.¹²

Finally, I think I saw Evel Knievel in Youghal, at one end of a fine but not as treasure-ful beach as the one right here in Shanagarry.

Whenever I’m driving anywhere here in the countryside, there is a moment that catches me up and I find myself completely present and nothing else. Sometimes you are going along and you come around a curve or down a hill and the hedgerows and trees meet over the too-narrow road and make a green tunnel at the end of which is maybe some blue sky or more green hills and there may be some cows flashing through the green on the side. When you come out of the tunnel the hedgerows continue and there are so many wildflowers, things I know like Queen Anne’s Lace and Elderflower and so many more that I don’t but they change all the time and just now there is something spiky and dusky purple and every now and then the surprise of a brilliant magenta foxglove. At these moment I am enchanted - I can find no other word for it - everything else in my head goes quiet and it is just these greens and flowers and sky and light.

I have tried and tried to capture this in a photo and have not yet taken one that really satisfies. You’ll have to imagine it.

So when I’d recovered my mental equilibrium and returned to school, a few of us checked on our ferments - all healthy and bubbling away - and visited the calves and the piggies because everyone knows that snorting around with happy stinky pigs who do not know their fate is an absolute tonic for the soul.

And what happens next? Well in Hoe-ville they say . . . tune in next time!

1. That’s the liquidizer over here.

2. From here on out I shall spell hoo, hoe as in Ballymaloe.

3. I feel compelled to note here that not every student is all of a sudden zeroed in on the final exam. In fact, most are not at all - they are deeply engaged with producing this weekend’s popup dinner for 70 lucky guests and it is like a real restaurant kitchen so there is all sorts of drama and urgent needs. I am the only Pennyworter involved in the popup and I’m just doing front of house although I did contribute my one talent which was to do some research on the theme and write up some explanatory text and find a nice poem.

4. Read: hyper-rough with easterlies blowing hard, so wet and cold and felt very Irish.

5. And I don’t even like stoneware but this stuff is really something else.

6. Hoho Yanks, have fun pronouncing that one!

7. Knockadoon! What a name. I’ll knockadoon you about the head! Along with Lisdoonvorna it also makes me think of Brigadoon even though I know that is in Scotland. And also stuck in the 18th century but that is another whole story.

8. The Aesthete also has an active Instagram presence and is a really amazing source for information about houses and ruins all over Ireland. One of my major inspirations for coming here, in fact.

9. Our local community college back home was also started in 1636.

10. This is a massively influential - based on the length of its Wikipedia article - 16th c. epic poem about virtues but also really about QEI for whom there is little love lost here.

11. Irish Stones

12. It occurs to me that some of you may not know what Whoville is. It is where the Whos live, in Dr. Seuss’s classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas. There are also Whos, of course, in Horton Hears a Who but I do not recall if they live in Whoville.