In Ireland, when you get a bluebird day like the Saturday of the June Bank Holiday weekend, the radio announcers remind everyone to wear sunscreen and stay inside between 11 and 2. Because, you know, sun and Ireland. But honestly I’ve seen any number of gorgeous days or bits of days anyway.
Some of my favorite traveling companions showed up this weekend and we left Shanagarry in the dust heading for the delights of Co. Clare and the Burren, that magnificently spare glacial landscape of rock and surprising greenery which makes it not at all bleak and actually makes it known as the “fertile soil.”1 If you want to go to the Burren, now is the time to do it, when the wildflowers are popping and if you are like me, you will take many pictures of them and identify them on your phone and feel kind of smart until you realize that you’ve already forgotten all their names and have to look them up again. While you will find beautiful and amazing tiny orchids and ferns you will also get quite excited about a reddish-leaf plant that turns out to be a Sowthistle, which looks an awful lot like a dandelion.
Burren comes from a word that means rocky place because that’s what it is - covered in great limestone plaques which are pretty tricky underfoot if you are a human but apparently not so much for cows.2 Unlike other cow and sheep areas, here in the Burren it has been a practice since ancient times to bring your animals to these highlands in the winter, and back down closer to your farm in the summer. This is because the water up here is loaded with calcium and the plants and herbs that grow in between the rocks are mineral-rich, so not only particularly good for the cows and sheep but in the long run make for particularly tasty beef and lamb.3 Also, the limestone absorbs heat and stays a bit warmer to keep those beasts cozy during what has to be an incredibly bleak and cold time of year. At the same time, it is good for the Burren if the cows and sheep munch up all weedy plants so that they don’t take over and smother the more delicate wildflowers with a mat of shrubbery.
Anyway it is both barren and beautiful with flashes of pink and purple and yellow among the gray, a surprisingly blue sky, green lowlands in the not-so-distant distance, and blue-green sea in the distant distance. We find a Neolithic tomb, my favorite kind with a slab perched impossibly and precariously on top and that it has been that way for like four thousand years.
Along the famed coastal rode, this rocky landscape comes right down to the sea and you will have a LOT of time to view this dramatic scenery if you are behind a tour bus that is trying to pass another tour bus or even a camper van on what is basically a one-lane road. Not exactly movin’ right along.
And man, is this one heavily-visited area of Ireland. Sunday morning we head to the justly world-famous Cliffs of Moher along with every other tourist in Ireland. If you walk far enough, you lose a lot of them, also they stop to take pictures of both the cliffs and the nearby cows which we suspect are paid employees of the Cliffs of Moher Experience.4 As do I, because each turn of the path yields a more spectacular view or another new-to-me wildflower and I keep thinking oh this is the picture, nope this is the one, no really this one, and so on. You don’t have to walk far to understand why this is such a famous place but if you do stretch it out for a bit you are rewarded with really incredibly stunning views.
Humbling, even with all the people. We have gorgeous sun for a bit, then the clouds roll in as we head up the coast road to Hazel Mountain Chocolates, a well-known (in the local food world, they’d been held up in our chocolate demo as an archetype of excellent chocolate production) bean to bar chocolatier that is actually in the middle of nowhere. Absolutely worth the trip however, so if you are ever in Oughtmama, pop on in. You can get a tour of their manufactory from their delightful staff, try some of their chocolate, and like me, do your bit for the local economy.
You can also find the delightfully deserted ruin of Corcomroe Abbey a.k.a. the abbey church of St. Mary of the Fertile Rock nearby, of course with more picturesque cows.
We love a good gloomy ruin but they raise questions among our party: why does one wall always remain standing? Because there is always one, photogenically covered in ivy, or glowering against a blue sky or green sea. Often with a cow posed just so nearby. Also, why are there so many churches here in County Clare, that are just ruins but have active graveyards around them? Is the ground still consecrated somehow or does that not matter? And the graveyards! Such fodder for discussion. That guy who just placed a stone there “for all my ancestors” - too cheap to actually have their names on it? That last friar standing at Quin Abbey who “died in holy poverty and respected for his religious discipline” - is that code for he was a pious twat but he was the last one so we had to feed him once in a while? And who the heck was Fireball MacNamara, Chief of Clan and a 98 Patriot?
Out of Ballyvaughan you can take the road to Lisdoonvarna5 up Corkscrew Hill, a.k.a. the Lombard Street of the Burren because of its hairpin turns, and although it is a lot shorter than the guide book buildup suggests the view from the top (once we realize it is the top) does not disappoint. The road up this hill was built as a kind of Great Famine WPA project, called the Famine Relief Scheme. Sounds nice but the screwed part is probably more apt since it was basically: Irish peasant, you can work on the road for some food or a pittance that you can pay right back to us British landholders for some wheat, or starve. You have a choice!
And you wonder why they hate the British.6
I hope this isn’t discriminatory but the truth is that one reason I love Ireland is that I just love Irish accents, and now that I am here I am learning more about regional differences. For example, people from Cork sound different than people from the north, but the basic rule is that the older they are, or the more rural they/you are, the less you can understand any of them.7 So we tune into a Galway radio station while driving and end up listening to some sporting event that sounded very exciting but we just did not understand at all so have no idea what Galway beating Westmeath 4-5 AND 112-11 means - is it a close run thing or a blowout? How are there two scores? Why does the announcer sound the same level of excited after the game so we aren’t quite sure if it has actually ended? Izzy - that polymath - susses out that it is the Gaelic Athletic Association All-Ireland Senior Championship 2024, which means Gaelic Football, which explains our confusion because this game is close to incomprehensible as there are goals AND points you can do pretty much anything to win them.
After the sports come the local death notices in which the announcer somberly reads the name, birth name, residence, and then wake, services, and donation information for various people who have just passed away. This is preceded and followed by a few bars of funeral parlor music. Absolutely fascinating as these just appear to be normal people, not like celebrities or anything. Then there is news (133 people arrested so far this weekend in a police effort to catch drink drivers as they call them here), and then it is back to sports, with a talk show featuring a guest from Boston - the “t’irty-t’ird county” of Ireland - who talks all about Bill Walton. The Irish host tries to keep up but gets more excited when the Boston guy mentions Kevin McHale “oh of course we all know him.” We lose that service as he is discussing baseball and find ourselves in the middle of a top 1000 favorite pop songs of all time countdown, as voted on by listeners, which we follow avidly until we get back to Shanagarry at about number 15.8
After a stop at an apparently important but frankly underwhelming Bronze Age hill fort we returned to the lush green of County Cork and collected sister-in-law KT who is a welcome addition to the Traveling Laskins for the next couple of days. Back to the grind, but not before the good people of Pennywort who stayed around for the long weekend, led by Lucy, fed us a lovely dinner.
Tune in next time for week 7!
How the area came to be named after a pub in Davis Square is mystifying. Hey-o! (Thank you, I’ll be here for another six weeks.)
Because let’s face it: the cows rule here. Just consider the hairy eyeball this Corcomroe bovine is giving me.
THIS IS THE WHOLE POINT, PEOPLE. If you have been paying attention, we learned it on day one: healthy soil grows healthy plants, which feed healthy animals, which feed healthy humans and taste delicious.
Past readers of The Right People Travel may remember my note about the Irish fascination with Experiences: The Jameson Experience, The Guinness Experience, The Sheep Farm Experience, and so on. At the Cliffs of Moher, the Experience is really just the Visitors Center.
Famous for its annual matchmaking event, attended by thousands every September.
You could also wonder why it took so long to get rid of the British, who’d been there since the 12th c. but that’s a subject for another lecture.
During the infamous dairy duty episode, fellow student Scarlet turned to me more than once to mutter “I’m not sure what he just said but let’s just follow along.”
From the Department of No-Surprise, listeners voted The Cranberries “Zombie” number one. Glad I saw that tribute band!
Man I laughed out loud so many times! Such a joy to follow your adventure. Also, Fireball MacNamara? Was that his name at birth, or did he earn that name? I'd love to know. So fascinating!
Lose the "dean" and be a tour guide. I'd follow you anywhere! And yes, seems like you had a joyful birthday. Fabulous combo of photos and words. Felt like I was in the Laskin car.