Ireland: Tuesday

This day would be long.  Not intentionally long, but necessarily long.  Our plan was to drive north out of Kenmare up to the Cliffs of Moher before ending the day in Galway.  Unfortunately that seemingly simple shot northwards became frustratingly circuitous.

We left the hotel in straight-a-way fashion.  The man at the desk, Padrig, suggested that rather than heading through Limerick, we should skip the more commonly traveled routes (i.e. the busiest) and instead head straight north out of Killarney to Listowel and onto Tarbert where we could catch a short ferry ride across the Shannon River.  For 18 Euro and a half hour less driving time, not to mention simply getting to ride a ferry, we went for it.  And so off we went.  

The drive was what had become typical of our drives in Ireland.  At times, the sun shown down and others, it poured rain.  Mind you, none of this lasted more than twenty minutes.  More frustratingly, which would repeat itself in the afternoon, was feeling like we were constantly stuck behind a row of cars.  One car could be frustrating enough due to all roads being curvy two lane roads, which made passing challenging.  But, get behind three or more cars, and you had your work cut out for you.  As the trip went on, my courage increased and I’d find myself pedal to the metal passing four cars at a time when we were lucky enough to have a unencumbered straight-a-way.  

We winded our way up to Tarbert without incident.  We arrived only minutes after the 11:30 ferry left, but with a boat going every thirty minutes we didn’t have long to wait before we got our ride.  Packing us in like sardines, the driver wasted no time in pushing off and cruising across the wide river mouth.  We jumped out the car for a few minutes to take in a little air and stretch our legs.



Once docked, we zipped off the ferry and headed to the nearest town for lunch.  It was here, while I was filling my face with a club sandwich, chips and a guinness that I received a call from somewhere in Ireland.  Odd, why would someone in Ireland be calling me?  I let it go to voicemail, finished my mouthful and then listed to our friend Padrig from the Coachman tell me that they just found my sport coat with my passport inside.  

At this point, you have a mix of emotions circulating.  I’m mad, I’m frustrated, I’m wondering how the hell we’re eventually getting back up to Dublin.  It begins an interesting thought process of feeling the need to express all that, but also realizing you’re the only one to blame.  And on top of it, there’s nothing you can really do to fix it other than drive back.  It being a passport, I wouldn’t want to risk having it couriered or somehow overnighted.  With a plane to catch and a foreign country to get out of, the best thing to do is the opposite of what I did to leave it there… get that thing back on my body and leave it there.  

That all being said, we are on vacation and we didn’t come all this way to simply turn around.  So, we continued northwards.  I mean, why not?  I suppose we could have turned right around, but by the time we got back down to  Kenmare, where would we have gone from there?  It didn’t seem worth skipping one of the main sites to see in Ireland in order to gain a couple hours.  So, we went.  

Over the years since my last visit to Ireland, I had developed some romanticized vision of what a visit to the Cliffs would be.  I distinctly remember cutting through some unmarked field road, ending up at the Cliffs and climbing about without hardly a soul around.  Well, that would not be the case this time.  Either the large visitor center and parking lot sprang up within the last ten years, or my memory is clouded by Guinness.  I’m guessing the later since there’s a tower on the Cliffs dating back to the late 1800s offering tourists amazing views.  What I experienced in my last trip was not an instance of “off the beaten path”.  Regardless of my memories and slight disappointment, we paid our six euro a head and headed out.  The parking lot was full and the paths were full of people.  So, those first several hundred feet of walking were a bit crowded.  Once you got out past the throws of people and found a bit more space, you could find some space to take in the sights.  Looking back, away from the Cliffs, I was surprised by how small that parking lot really is.  I was surprised that we were completely surrounded by cow pasture.  What seemed so packed, suddenly seemed very small.  

That’s not to say we wouldn’t be annoyed by the crowd, but that view added some perspective.  In reality, that crowd of people was limited to a path not more than twenty feet wide along the cliffs edge.  It was amazing how little security there was both in terms of a complete lack of structure keeping people from the edge or guards wandering about warning people.  We all were completely on our own and left to our own sound decisions.  And of course, plenty of people pushed the envelope, getting so close to the edge that you felt uncomfortable just looking at them.  These weren’t hard, rocky cliff tops, rather the grass came right up to the edge and even downward, which offered an awfully inviting place to sit, relax and take in the view… as long as you didn’t mind the notion of a certain fall to death mere feet in front of you.  

But, with another three hour drive in front of us, we had a time limit.  Walking back, we once again were confronted by the vast crowd.  This likely helped us not feel bad about cutting our trip short, although it did add up to an hour and a half exploring the cliffs.  

The drive back to Kenmare began with that same annoying sense of never being able to get out from behind a line of Sunday drivers, but as we made our way south into our second and third hour on the road, our fellow drivers began to thin out.  For the first time during the trip, I finally felt like I had the freedom to set a pace to my own liking.  And it was great.

We pulled into the Coachman close to eight o'clock.  We were happy to see Padrig there with my jacket and passport.  I sheepishly thanked him and then asked where we might want to head to.  He recommended Cork, which would then leave us with a fairly straight forward three hour drive to Dublin the next morning.  Call it what you will, but this was the one night during the entire trip we didn't have a hotel reservation.  And as we were now four hours from Galway, where we wanted to be, we had the flexibility to reverse course and head an hour down to Cork.

Over dinner at a pizza slash kebab shop, we managed to find a place with availability.  Our patience had started to wear thin at this point.  Eight hours in the car will do that do you.  But, we agreed on a place and headed out.

The drive down was easy and quiet.  Our destination would be the Audley House near the university district.  We briefly met the manager, who gave us our keys and pointed us to our room.  We asked for some recommendations for finding a place for a drink, a well deserved drink.  He pointed out a couple places, one of which was Reidy's Vault Bar.  We decided that would be the spot.  Being a Tuesday night at eleven o'clock, it was dead quiet.  Only the elderly bar maid and a TV showing some kind of Irish game show were there to keep us company.  It was here, on our last night in Ireland, where I finally had a glass of good Irish Whiskey, a Redbreast 11.  A fine whiskey, perhaps not as good as an aged Bushmills, but still a perfect pour.  And so we drank, alone, feeling like we were interrupting this funny old lady as she watched her show, but still glad we were done for the day and could even muster a chuckle over our adventures.