Crossing into County Cork, we arrived at Blarney Castle, certainly one of the more familiar tourist destinations in Ireland. The extant castle dates to the time of Dermot McCarthy, which is to say about 1446. One of the regular features of castles, and churches in Ireland is round towers. These were originally perhaps bell towers, but they were also where the monks went to hide and protect themselves from Vikings and other invaders, and simply became part of the regular... Read more

On our way from Dublin to Blarney (on which more later in another post), we stopped in Urlingford, at Hayes Pub. It is a beautiful traditional pub where they very kindly opened early and served us tea (or beer) and scones. Yummy. Here’s our friendly barkeep and owner…. By traditional I mean it has traditional furniture, mirrors, taps, etc. It’s quite fetching. Pubs are not just places to go and have a beer, they are in fact community gathering places... Read more

Depending on your age, when you think of the music of Ireland, you may well think of Van Morrison, or this guy…. Or you might think of some of the New Age music of Enya, or her family band Clannad. But of course long before them there was the traditional folk music and folk dancing in Ireland, still represented today by bands like the Chieftains. Thanks however to Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, traditional Irish music has revived and... Read more

Certainly one of my all time favorite groups was Crosby,Stills and Nash, a combination of players from three prior major rock and roll groups— the Byrds (David Crosby), the Buffalo Springfield (Stephen Stills), and the Hollies (Graham Nash) and sometimes Neil Young (also Buffalo Springfield). Nowadays, Nash and Crosby are feuding and each of these guys is doing solo tours. In the case of Crosby and Nash, they are touring to back recent excellent albums of new material— see Croz,... Read more

It is not a pleasant tale to tell of the history of Irish repression by the English going back to Cromwell. Cromwell is not loved in Ireland, considering how many Irish people he killed. And this is not ancient history for the Irish, because they didn’t get their independence really until the 1920s. The scars are still visible. And just to be clear, I’m not even talking about northern Ireland, I mean the Republic in the south. Nevertheless, and in... Read more

There are a number of Stone Age and Neolithic sites to be seen in Ireland, and they are all quite interesting. We are going to spend some time in the Burren in this post. Here first of all is some sign posting to get us started. That’s enough signs for a while. This limestone formation is truly bizarre and interesting. It looks like someone created a bunch of ruts or even crevices in a field of solid limestone. And not... Read more

If you live in Kentucky like me, you’ve seen a lot of this. Stonewalls stacked up perfectly, with no mortar. All these stone walls in Kentucky we owe to the Irish migration in the middle of the 19th century due to the potato famine. They brought their stone masons, their whiskey (aka bourbon), their Catholic priests, their jockeys, and their horses. I have just described not only the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, I’ve describe a good deal of what characterizes... Read more

A huge amount of Ireland consists of peat moss, or peat bog. Take your pick. Ever resourceful, the Irish realized there were many things that could be done with this turf. For one thing, it burns, nice and slow, and can warm a house quite readily, and unlike wood, it doesn’t burn up quickly. Behold the peat fire, in the old cottage of Dan O’Hara. So here’s what we are talking about– the digging up of turf in the form... Read more

We had an opportunity to visit a genuine sheep farm, and watch a sheep dog do his work. It was fascinating. But as with so many other old trades and industries, sheep farming these days is mostly a labor of love. The number of shepherds and sheep dogs is dwindling. John Davoren is our shepherd. Here’s our shepherd and his dogs. And here are the sheep… of course. And while we are at it… there were indeed also goats….not with... Read more

Connemara marble is world famous. It is quarried just outside the city, in a quarry owned by the owners of the marble shop we visited. We got a full demonstration as to how marble is turned into beautiful things. Here’s the owner doing the demonstration of how the stone is milled and drilled and polished. The owner’s name is Ambrose Joyce, presumably no relation to James. Marble comes in many different sizes, shapes, and colors and sometimes is even multi-colored.... Read more