The Road Goes Ever On

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Old Bushmill's

Drinking is my sole spiritual experience these days, but I am at least ecumenical in my drinking. And so we had to visit the Old Bushmill's Distillery while in Bushmill. The campground was practically adjacent to the distillery. (Bushmill's is Protestant. the others, Catholic). Many of you will be wondering what has been my assessment of the four great Irish whiskeys, Jameson's, Paddy's, Power's, and Bushmill's. I have indeed sampled them all, some more than others. I still favor Jameson's and Bushmill's, as before coming to Ireland. But I also sampled a boutique whiskey, Michael Collins, in Dublin, and it was by far my favorite. In any case, I have to plead insufficient sampling so far.

Ireland's oldest (well, Northern Ireland's oldest), chartered in 1608

The sweet aroma of the mash was, well, intoxicating

Great spirituality

Comparable to Jameson's, gift shop-wise

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Drumcliffe

Drumcliff Church, north of Sligo

High and very old cross

Old stone in church narthex

Church interior

Church organ

Yeats' and George's graves

Carremor Tombs and Drumcliffe

Grand tomb at Carramor; a huge mound with inner courtyard and chambers

Dolmen within the tomb

Circle with dolmen, a few hundred feet away

More stone circles in the complex

We spent most of the morning querying and researching German customs regulations about receiving the Grey Wanderer in Bremerhaven. There are always complications, and our shipper has not served us well in alerting us to costs and other matters. More on all this as it develops.

After lunch we began our drive to Northern Ireland, through Sligo, Donegal, Derry, and beyond to Bushmill, where we are presently camped. It rained throughout the day but let up this evening just long enough for us to pitch our trusty and so far water-proof tent.

Our major stop of the day was at the Carramore Tombs just west of Sligo. This is another enormous megalithic complex...dozens of passage graves, dolmens, stone circles and the rest. Here, however, they are almost unimaginably old, going well past 6,000 years.

Then just north of Sligo, we stopped at Drumcliffe, the site of Yeats' grave, and itself a site of considerable interest, the monastery dating back to 574. The little church was a model of simplicity and beauty.

Ceide Fields and Dunbriste

A totally duded-up Cooper S right there on the coast road; nobody home

6,000 year old stone wall at Ceide Fields

Downpatrick Head and the sea stack, from Ceide Fields

The blow hole on Downpatrick Head, 100 meters or so from the cliff edge, enormous...

The sea stack, Dunbriste; it separated from the Head in 1393; two families were isolated, later rescued

After lunch, we drove on to Ballycastle, just beyond it, to the Ceide Fields. In the last couple decades, archaeologists have discovered, surveyed, and partly excavated a neolithic system of fields encompassing many hundreds of acres—all bounded by stone fences, structures—that date back to the 4th millennium BC, 6,000 years. It is the largest neolithic site yet discovered, anywhere. Relatively little has been excavated, but there is a good modern museum and brief guided tours. The Ceide Fields lie beneath an enormous blanket peat bog, 1-2 meters deep generally, and thus their preservation. (No decomposition in bogs, where there is little oxygen.) Ireland was heavily forested in neolithic times, pine, hazel and elm. Clearing the forests made herding and grain-growing possible, but it eventually led to super-saturated ground that becomes the bog.

The Ceide Fields run right down to the cliffs and the sea, and not far from them is one of County Mayo's most famous sights, Downpatrick Head, and the sea stack there, Dunbriste. Finding and walking out to Dunbriste, past the enormous blowhole in the middle of the cliffs, was another incredible treat and a fine way to end the day. We camped, under gathering rain clouds, at Ballina.

Don't Pass Up the Mayo

Our negotiations with shippers, brokers, agents, bankers, customs officials, and others seemingly at an end (thank you, Rebecca), we took the day to explore the Hamburg centrum, mostly on foot. (See Vicki's blog for descriptions of the interesting circumstances regarding the shipping of the Grey Wanderer). It is a very old city, capital of the Hanseatic League before there was a Germany; but little of the really old remains. It is nonetheless an attractive city, with much to see and explore. Good beer, Bitburger, is 49 cents a half-liter bottle. FWIW. A bottle of Riesling was a buck, I mean, Euro. Somehow I resisted visiting the U-boat museum. Our explorations included the railway station ("Ich gehe zum Bahnhof"--some of my two years of German is coming back, slowly, in iotas..."the awful German language"), where we purchased tickets for tomorrow's ride to the port of Bremerhaven. Hopefully, we'll pick up the Grey Wanderer there on Friday. If not, we'll be at a hostel in Bremerhaven until we do....

The Turlough Round Tower

Fitzgerald Manor House, now part of the National Folk Museum

A Lyrachord, only one ever made, part piano, part harpsichord

Hide boat at National Folk Museum

Exhibit, National Folk Museum

Ascent of the Reek

Croach Parick, about 2,500 feet; this is the mountain on which the saint did Lent, 441AD, also from which he expelled the serpents and other unsavory things, etc.