Worktime

Kilkenny Castle dominates the High Town of Kilkenny city. It has existed in various forms for eight centuries.

It was presented to the people of Kilkenny in 1967 by Arthur, 6th Marquess of Ormonde (1893-1971) for a consideration of 50 pounds.

The Office of Public Works began significant restoration of the building in 1979 and it is mostly complete with many of the original features, fabrics and carpets having been recreated based upon designs found on record or samples found hidden beneath wall fittings. The picture gallery is the second longest hall in Ireland. (Second only to the library hall at Trinity College in Dublin where the Book of Kells is housed.)

In the afternoon we drove to Carlow and parked in a gated, secure car park. Upon our return to the car after visiting the town, I discovered I had lost the parking ticket. A passing local expressed a morbid feeling of impending wrath that I should have lost the ticket and that it would likely lead to a prison term. At least I got no response from the “press here for help” button on the ticket machine.

We retraced our steps through the town and luckily found the ticket on the floor (trampled) in the shop where we had stopped to satiate Chris’ desire for salt and vinegar chips. With some smoothing applied and sufficient Euro coins we zipped out of Carlow before the pious local returned with his posse ready to take us into custody. (Note to self – in future give Chris all important tickets for safe keeping.)

Once the medieval capital of Ireland, Kilkenny has a rich heritage visible through its narrow streetscapes, historical buildings and landmarks. Butler House was once a dower house to Kilkenny Castle and was home to the Earls of Ormonde. You can stroll the manicured lawns and garden but the house is off limits to tourists. 🙁

St. Canice’s Cathedral was built in the 13th century. The round tower, built in the 9th century, is only one of two medieval round towers in Ireland that can be climbed – which of course, we did.

In the afternoon we programmed the GPS to take us to Bagenalstown to visit Maureen and Tom Doyle who are distant relations to Chris from Carl’s side of the family. We located the house and found some builders working on the roof who said Maureen was away at the shops and that she’d be back within the next hour. We decided to push on to the cemetery at Dumphrea to see if we could locate the final resting place of some even further distance relatives. We found the graves of Laurence & Mary Nowlan and many of their children. We spent some time picking out weeds and cleaning up the grave plot before returning to Maureen’s house.

Maureen was home when we returned and we discovered that her husband Tom had passed away over six years ago. She was very generous and hospitable to unannounced strangers purporting to be distant relatives from Australia. We enjoyed tea and scones and poring over her collection of family photographs. She is 81 and as sharp as a tack. She was able to recall every grandchild and great-grandchild without missing a beat.

Just as we were leaving she gave us the contact details for her brother Edward (Cork), sister Theresa (Limerick) and brother John (Galway). We shall see if our itinerary is able to extend to take in more relative sites.

In the evening we enjoyed some traditional Irish music during our meal at a local pub. Later, a five piece band setup and got the pub jumping with some great rock and roll favourites starting out with a couple of Prince retrospective covers. There were at least two hens night groups who had reached a level of inebriation that made for some fun watching their antics on the dance floor. We left the pub after midnight disappointed we couldn’t have stayed longer as the band was really, really good.

For the balance of our Irish adventure we are driving, so this morning we caught the light rail and dragged our bags to the car rental agency to collect our car. Despite having a prepaid booking with all options pre-selected, we still had to endure almost 45 minutes of “would you like to upgrade this”, and “insure that”, and “your windscreen will certainly be smashed to pieces and your tyres slashed if you go to Kerry”.

We eventually completed the transaction and merged into the Dublin traffic having decided to stop at Glasnevin Cemetery on our way out of Dublin. The first burial in Glasnevin was in 1832 and since then more than 1.5 million people have been interred or cremated there. There are more people buried in Glasnevin than are walking around Dublin today. There are many areas of communal burial within the cemetery – mostly due to mass outbreaks of cholera and the plague. One cholera burial pit contains over 12,000 bodies.

The cemetery was founded by Daniel O’Connell who wanted to provide a non-denominational burial site for Dublin’s citizens. Daniel was an Irish political leader in the first half of the 19th century. He campaigned for Catholic emancipation – including the right for Catholics to sit in the Westminster Parliament, denied for over 100 years – and repeal of the Act of Union which combined Great Britain and Ireland. He and six of his direct descendants are buried above ground in lead lined coffins stored in the family crypt upon which stands a very tall, round tower.

The cemetery contains most all of the several hundred combatants and innocent civilians killed during the 1916 Easter Rising. The ring leaders who were tried and executed were initially buried elsewhere in unmarked graves but have since been relocated to Glasnevin.

Michael Collins’ grave is the most visited grave in the cemetery and is always decorated with flowers. Our tour guide said people travel from all round the world to deliver flowers and to pay their respects. Collins was a soldier and politician who was a leading figure in the struggle for Irish independence in the early 20th century. He was shot and killed in an ambush in August 1922 during the Irish Civil War. His popularity is likley due to his charming good looks and a life cut short in its prime with the burgeoning promise of a statesman like legacy.

We set off for Kilkenny driving along the coast enjoying views of the Irish Sea between dodging oncoming vehicles along the narrow and winding road. Wicklow was a cold and windy outcrop.

Chris was not able to be persuaded to go for a swim in the Irish Sea. The beach was covered with coarse sand and the rocks upon which Chris is standing (below) were flat and would have made fabulous skip stones had we been brave enough to go anywhere near the water. And had we tried to skip these across the sea, they would surely have reached England as (again) the Irish Sea was unbelievably flat. No chance of any surfing on this beach.

We walked to Kilmainham Gaol this morning excited about the opportunity of being locked up for a few hours but were disappointed to find all the tours for the day were already booked out. 🙁

So we returned to the city centre and visited Trinity College and the National Gallery before heading out to take up a romantic booth in one of the many Temple Bars to enjoy some live music and a refreshing drink.

It had been my cunning plan to book the final tour of the day at the Guinness Brewery in the hope of being able to drink the leftovers. The tour is about 90 minutes, self-guided and very informative, winding in a circular loop up seven levels till you reach the Gravity Bar with stunning 360 degree views of Dublin. Towards the end of the tour you get to sample some of the stuff and fortunately for me, Chris doesn’t like beer so I got her pint too – but through some dilation in space-time, we’d been turned Alice like into giants – making the drinks considerably less impressive. The mist in the following image is coming from the flux capacitor enabled time machine circuits cooling down after warping space-time with a short power burst of 1.21 gigawatts.

The black Guinness proved to be more potent than I had recalled and before long I was feeling disoriented. Christine appeared to me in a strange alternate reality.

We drifted home from the brewery for our last night in Dublin before moving onto our next Irish adventure in Kilkenny.

Dublin; so much to do – so little time! We visited St. Stephen’s Park, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral and Dublin Castle today. St. Stephen’s Park played a central role in the 1916 Easter Rising. There are numerious plaques around the park providing the historical context of the event. Unfortunately, we will not be in Dublin when the planned commemorative activities marking the centenary of this event take place in several weeks time.

I disovered that Temple Bar is not in fact a single “bar” (a drinking waterhole as us Aussies might otherwise relate to this word) but rather this describes a section of land reclaimed from the adjacent River Liffey upon which a number of businesses were created over a period of time. This area now contains a concentrated number of live music drinking bars and is a magnet for young people and the young at heart.

Tomorrow we go to the Guinness Brewery at 5 pm for a guided tour and beer tasting. We may also do something else but tomorrow we go to the Guinness Brewery for a guided tour and beer tasting. 🙂

Our short stay in Shrewsbury turned out to be an unexpected gem. I had imagined it to be a bump in the transit from Oxford to Dublin, but it turned out to be so much more. The town itself is very pretty, with splashes of colour courtesy of the local Horticultural Society. There is plenty of medieval stone, Tudor facades and Georgian architecture interspersed with green areas and open parklands. There was a complete lack of tourists and the crush of crowds pressing upon you as you might take in a pleasant vista or attempt to frame a particlar camera image.

However, it was the warmth and generosity of our hosts that turned Shrewsbury into the best stay on our trip so far. Ian and Vanessa welcomed us like relatives rather than paying guests and last night’s dinner was by far the best meal we’ve had. But, all good things must come to an end and so it was that we had to say goodbye and move onto Holyhead by train to take the ferry to Dublin. Ian saved us the hard slog of dragging our bags on the reverse trip to the station by driving us there and our departure was an emotional hug rather than a warm handshake.

The train trip to Holyhead passed through Wales arriving in the early afternoon. We boarded our ferry, The Stena Adventurer, for the three hour transit to Dublin and enjoyed a transit across a mill pond rather than what I imagined would be present on the Irish Sea. You could have skied across the water it was so placid.

We took a bus into the city centre and walked to our accomodation – tired but excited about continuing our adventures into Ireland.

Today we visited Attingham Park, a vast area of parklands containing Attingham Hall with associated stables and garden areas. The weather was perfect with blue skies and a light breeze. It was 6.5 km one way and it took about 1.5 hours to walk. For about half this distance we trekked along a narrow footpath adjacent to a road that appeared to be the back straight of Brands Hatch with cars speeding by in a hurry to be anywhere other than where they were at that instant in time.

When we arrived at Attingham Park we discovered where the cars had been speeding between. A vast estate now managed by the National Trust, Attingham Hall presents as a mansion from a period drama with the lower floor lovingingly restored to its prior grandeur and the upper floors currently being renovated.

We had been invited to dinner with our accomodation hosts, Ian and Vanessa, and so left for our return trek leaving sufficient time to freshen up from our adventures before arriving for dinner. Alas, our plans did not proceed as planned. Upon arriving at our lodgings, we were greeted by the harmonious strains of a bass and acoustic guitar and some male voices singing “Make Me Smile”, a 1977 song by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. Once inside the door we learnt that a couple fo friends of our hosts were also going to be joining us for dinner; Brian (the financier) and Jan (the retired solicitor). Brian (acoustic guitar and vocals) and Ian (bass guitar) were practicising for an upcoming gig for Jan’s 50th birthday. They are both active in other bands but have known each other for many years. Chris, Vanessa, Jan, two squabbling dogs and I sat in the kitchen sipping wine and talking until the two musicians joined us for what turned out to be a wonderful evening of fine food and entertaining company.

It was a great meal with lively conversation covering a vast range of topics; music, politics, the GFC, sport (cricket), Scottish sessation from the UK, Australia’s multilateral trade relations with China and the USA, etc. When I revealed that I was a drummer locked in an engineer’s body, I had to endure the usual round of good humoured jokes about drummers. Here’s one I hadn’t heard before; “Q: How do you know the drums are setup level?  A: When the drummer is dribbling evenly out of both sides of his mouth!”

It was biting cold and drizzling as we bumped our bags along Oxford’s cobbled streets towards the railway station. We had left our apartment early and arrived with plenty of time to warm up before boarding our train to Shrewsbury. Then things went awry. I won’t go into details but, as we dragged our bags hopefully across the bridge spanning the railway platforms, our train departed without us, and couldn’t have cared less! We dragged our bags back to the ticket office where I purchased another round of train tickets and we arrived in Shrewsbury exactly one hour later than we had scheduled and about 76 pounds lighter. (That is British Pounds; about AUD $154.)

Our accomodation in Shrewsbury was a bit of a walk from the station and we eventally arrived having dragged our bags about 1.5 km “up hill and down dale”. Despite the unfortunate progress of the day thus far we parked our bags and went out to explore Shrewsbury in the middle of the afternoon.

The town centre is contained within an almost complete circular arc of the River Severn with nine bridges spanning the river around the arc. A beautiful park faces the arcing river and we strolled along the river bank enjoying wonderful floral gardens. A section of the park used to be a quarry and has now been transformed into an enclosed flower wonderland that is locked up after hours. It is called The Dingle and was filled with brightly flowering and fragrant plants. The Shrewsbury Horticultural Society is an active association and the town is littered with flowering pots of colour adding very much to the overall charm and beauty of this place.

Our last full day in Oxford was invested with visits to the University Church, The Museum of Natural History, The Pitt Museum of Anthropology & Archeology and The Museum of The History of Science which turned out to be a good plan as it was heavily overcast, rained all day and cold.

The Museums of Natural History and Anthropology & Archeology were overwhelming with many detailed exhibits and plenty of interactive exhibits for young children and school groups.

The Museum of The History of Science was a curious collection of instruments, telescopes, microscopes, calculators and various other apparatus used by experimental scientists and educators. In a prominent location over a large fireplace was a section of blackboard encased in a protective cover. The blackboard was used by Albert Einstein during a series of lectures at Oxford in 1931.

Tommorow we transit via train to Shrewsbury.

Despite a number of attempts to do away with me using a blunt butter knife and poison me with bad beer, I am pleased to report that our tour of Midsomer Murders “shooting” locations was enjoyable but otherwise quite safe.

We were picked up from our accomodation by John and joined a band of three ladies from Norway. They spent a considerable amount of time during our time together attempting to persuade us that we should go to Norway for the natural beauty and agreeable climate. In turn we suggested they should visit Australia for our natural beauty and agreeable climate. I don’t wish to cast “nasturtiums” but I think our climate would be more agreeable for more of the time than theirs.

We were chauffered through Oxfordshire (principally) among tiny villages that reeked of character. We stopped at a few of the villages for photo-ops and food / nature breaks. John was a wonderful guide who had a background in public broadcasting on the BBC and a relaxed speaking voice. Although he had not watched every episode of Midsomer Murders he had a wonderful passion for the landscape and the character that each small village presented. He also managed to skillfully navigate our tour such that we did not get rained on at all despite there being plenty of rain about.

We stopped for lunch at Henley where the annual regatta is held. A local pub, The Argyll, where we had lunch, was used in a couple of epsisodes. They have a special beer named in the spirit of the series. I say this becasue it was bloody terrible!

Chris and I had a great day. It was wonderful to visit the small hamlets and soak up the character that Midsomer Murders have been able to weave into the series – and all without loosing a single tourist!