Ireland

This morning, we docked in Ireland in the town of Cobh which is pronounced “Cove”, by the locals. It turns out the “h” is known as a “lenited letter”, which is silent, but changes the  pronunciation of the following letter. So in this case, the “b” is pronounced as a “v”. Congratulations, you can now speak Gaelic!

Cobh was previously known as Queenstown, and is most notable as the port that launched both the Titanic and the Lusitania, both of which sank after leaving port. (Sorry. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, I hope I didn’t ruin the ending for you..)

Anyway, if you find know the story of the Lusitania, it is very interesting. 

England ruled Ireland for almost 800 years. Along our travels, we learned of the trials and tribulations of Sir Walter Raleigh, who gained favor with England’s Queen in the 1500s  for calming an uprising in Northern Ireland. For his efforts, he was rewarded with a massive Irish estate. Later in life, he was accredited with bringing  potatoes and tobacco to Ireland (of which they now say “both almost killed them”, a reference to the potato famine.) 

Their tumultuous past lead to the island of Ireland being divided into two countries, the sovereign nation of The Republic of Ireland (commonly referred to as “Ireland”) and Northern Ireland. 

Our visit took us to Ireland, where they experience 250 days of rain per year. It is said that if you see an Irishman with a suntan, it is not actually a suntan. It’s rust! However, the locals don’t mind, for as the old Irish saying goes, “today’s rain, is tomorrow’s whiskey”.

Viking terrorized Ireland for 100 years (during the entire 7th century). On a positive note, they did wall many cities, including Cork, which was one of our destinations for the day’s adventures. 

And an adventure it was. Our guide was a little old Irish lady, and what a hoot. Right out of the gate she explained how luck we were to have her, and that our driver was not a near driver, he was a fine Irish a “steeerologist”! Oh boy, this is going to be a long day…

But I digress. Kinsale actually has an area of town referred to as the Good Foot Circle. It is also home to an a annual Gourmet Festival” and the location where Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island. Most importantly, it is one of the cutest little towns ever. 

So after touring Cobh, we headed to the town of Kinsale, which is known as Ireland’s  Foodie Capital  (Note the capitalization, which was largely due to the fact that we had not had breakfast yet. Poor grammar? Probably, but who’s to say one can’t create their own proper nouns, based on important current events? And who’s to say not having breakfast yet can’t be an important current event? Hmmm…)

So, opting out of the traditional (lower-case) full Irish breakfast, we enjoyed an authentic scone and spent our few precious hour exploring town. Loved it!

Perhaps Kinsale is best known as the home of the Old Head Golf Links. Arguably the finest golf course in the world, it commonly refers to as Pebble Beach on steroids. (It also lead to me rewriting the joke at the end of today’s post!)

As our steerologist transported us to our next destination, we enjoyed the beauty of the countryside. 85% of the country is green fields used for grazing, and inspired the Johnny Cash song 40 Shades of Green, which he wrote while honeymooning in these parts. This song is Ireland’s unofficial national anthem, and came up several times throughout the day. 

Of course, Ireland has its own musical legends, as it is home to U2, Sinéad O’Connor, and Enya just to name a few.  

Our next stop took us to Cork Ireland, home to Queens  University which is considered one of the world’s top university. It is also home to George Boole, the philosopher/mathematician who is accredited for founding Boolean algebra and the subsequent search logic (widely used in most all forms of computing). He’s kind’a Google’s great-great-grandfather! Anyway, it was cool seeing the university,  knowing the history of Boole AND having been a big fan of Boolean operators/logic, but NOT recalling that this was a product Queens University OR that the university was in Cork until after seeing it on the tour. 

Of course, while in Cork, we visited The Blarney Castle, home of the infamous Blarney Stone. 

While they generally do not have motes, Irish castles have some unique defenses features, such as heavy, gated doors. But if the invaders got through the doors, just inside the door is the castle’s murder hole, allowing the defenders to droop rocks or fire on the intrudes’ heads. If they got past the murder hole, the last line of defense was the  specially designed trip steps. (The Blarney castle has over 120.)

Trip steps are designed to give the person coming down a fighting advantage, allowing a right-handed person to draw their sword going down the steps, but the folks coming up had an iron rail sticking out from the wall that hinder their ability to draw their sword. (And the staircase circle in a way that gives them a disadvantage too.) Also, trip steps are designed so that each steps is a random height, depth, and are tilted one way or another, making every step cumbersome to go up. 

We were undecided if we wanted to kiss the Blarney Stone while visiting the caste, but the 90 minute wait in line helped to expedite our decision. Also the fact that you have to transcend the 120+ steps, lay down on a marble slab on your back, hold hands with the fella working there as you extended your neck out a foot or so over the castle wall, and then be the one (thousandth?) person of the day to kiss the big (floozy of a) slab. Yummo! (Of course, according to legend, the advantage is that one gains the gift of eloquence if they kiss the Blarney Stone.)

So instead of waiting in line for the gift a gab, we spent our day touring the beutiful castle grounds. And man were they cool. 

Having a bit of time left over, we found a local tavern, and enjoyed a pint of Guinness. While I enjoyed a bowl of Irish stew (local favorite) Karen opted for the house specialty, the fish and chips. 

So I have to say, this was the best stew I’ve ever had. And the fish and chips was so large, even with my help we could not finish it. At any rate, it suffices to say lunch was outstanding. 

And now for a story for our whiskey fans. As they can tell you, there are three types of whiskey. Monks have been distilling whiskey in Ireland since the 6th century, and others began distilling commercially since the 1500s.  In the 1800s, Jameson was founded, and quickly became the countries leading distiller of Irish whiskey. 

While scotch whiskey same about in Scotland, also thanks to their naught little monks (no relation) and in the same timeframes as Irish whiskeys, the third type of whiskey, bourbon, was a late bloomer. Although bourbons history is a bit vague, it became commercially available in the 1800s in the good old USA. 

Coincidentally, the Jack Daniels Distillery was founded at approximately the same time as Jameson, in the mid-1800s.

I was lucky enough to visit Jackie Daniel’s about 15 years ago, and this evening I toured the  Jameson distillery.  And what a treat. (Much thanks to our friends at RCCL for providing this excursion as a gift!) 

The tour was informative, and the distillery was cool. IT turns out that Irish whiskey fell from favor in the 60s. So much so that across the country, mealy all of the commercial distilleries permanently closed. The three leading manufacturers, barely hanging on,  came up with a plan in the mid 70s they banned together forming one company, (Midleton Distillery) and teamed their best folks with each other to create new products and market them. While most of the products were successful locally, the Jameson brand garnered worldwide attention, and is still the leading brand today. 

I really liked the waterwheel, which turned out to be the factory’s main power source until 1975. 

Although I am not much of a whiskey guy these days, the tasting was enjoyable, and I have to admit, their Jameson and ginger ale with lime was a surprisingly refreshing change of pace. 

Returning to the ship at sunset, I was sad to leave the beautiful country of Ireland. I can say three things for sure. One needs many days when visiting Ireland. The food here is outstanding. And lastly, this is definitely a must-come-back- again destination. 

Nest stop, Paris, France. But as they always say, that is a story for another time. 

Thanks for visiting my friends. 
– Mike
“I don’t know how golfers get girlfriends. The girls are always like tens, but the golfers are like minus sevens… I just don’t get it. “ –  Mike Mikus, Open Mic Night 2024