Vacation Day Eight-Off to Visit the Quiet Man

This day was another quite full day out in the Irish countryside, so let me get right to it.

Today I had four objectives on my trip through the Connemara region, which is roughly in the center of the Irish West Coast. First was to get to Clifden, which functions as the unofficial regional capital. Second, drive along the Sky Road outside of town, which has incredible views of the inlet leading to the Atlantic. Third, to visit Kylemore Abbey, north of Clifden. Finally, to visit Cong, where John Ford filmed one of my very favorite movies, the 1952 movie The Quiet Man (starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara).

My sinus problems seem to have subsided and I'm feeling a little better today. But not as good as the guy at the table next to me at 9:15 a.m. drinking a pint of Guinness. Way to fire up. After all, you can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning. And Guinness IS good for you. But on the other hand, no one seems to look the other way at someone having mimosas during brunch, so maybe its the same.

I'm looking like Walter Sobchak today, from The Big Lebowski. Shorts, t-shirt, a vest, sunglasses. All I need is a bandanna, a bowling ball and a gun and I'd be in business. So as you can tell, I'm really cutting quite the figure out here and representing America. Though when anyone asks where I'm from, I say Texas.

Oh, a couple of more preliminary thing-gas stations are so much better here. The bathrooms are cleaner than a lot of hotel rooms I've stayed in. (I know, "note to self, never go on a trip with Chris Reeder"), and you don't have to pay for your gas before you pump it. In other words, its like 1976 at Irish gas stations.

The other is I heard a story on the radio about the former Bishop of Derry, a fairly important and influential man in Ireland and in the Catholic Church, has come out in favor of allowing priests to marry. He noted that the priesthood is becoming much more gray, and fewer men are entering it. He said lifting the celibacy ban isn't so much about letting priests have sex, but so they can enjoy the companionship of a wife. He said all the studies show that's the main reason priests oppose the celibacy ban. He said he didn't have that problem because he had a "housekeeper" to come home to at night and share his problems with. "Housekeeper"? Uh huh. I had a "housekeeper" too once. It was delightful. Anyway, he said he had been teaching in a seminary when he suggested that the Church study the question. Not change the policy, just study the issue. The head of the seminary brought him into his office and said he was giving him an official warning about suggesting changing the Church's celibacy policies. Nice going! I guess that's Catholicism for you-one guy does all the thinking for everyone. At least the Mormons have a committee that runs the show.

OK, first stop for the day was to visit the ruins of Aughanure Castle castle in Oughtergard. Just before you reach the site, you pass a golf club and extensive course that seemed like it had everyone from a 20 mile radius playing. What is the hold that golf has on some people? Its like heroin or shopping or something. You just can't kick it. You go to greater and greater lengths to get that golfing high, like going all the way to Ireland to play a game you could play at your local track any day of the week. They're like the Viet Cong, or the varmint cong, totally focused on only one thing. Playing more golf. None of them were at Aughanure Castle, which is where the action was today. "Aughanure" means "valley of the yews," as opposed to Valley of the Dolls. Middle Ages soldier used yew wood for a variety of purposes, including to build longbows and use the poisonous leaves for various nefarious purposes. The O'Flahertys built this tower type castle in the early 1500s, and apparently these guys had some really bad intentions. They were quite adept at killing lots of people in war and used the resulting power to throw their weight around. Every floor of the tower served some purpose. The tower was surrounded, as were most castles, by outer defenses. This one had a really cool "murder hole" atop the front door. As invaders would gather around and try to knock down the front door, the O'Flaherty's would open a trap door above them and start shooting. That's how to deal with those pesky trick-or-treaters or Christmas carolers.

From there it was on to the very pleasant nearly-seaside town of Clifden. This looks like kind of an arts community. Its in the middle of a two week arts festival (of course, they're not doing anything Sunday, which is when I visited). Like many other towns along the west coast, Clifden has a surprisingly vibrant commercial town centre, and lots of people were milling about. They also like their meat-I counted about four butchers. There's twice as many pubs, of course, but that's still a lot of meat. From Clifden I took the loop west of town starting on Sky Road. This runs up the cliffs that look down on the ocean. Had it been a better day I'd have had some really spectacular views of the estuary, all the farms and ranches, and the ocean with islands from the perfect height. As it was, the pea soup fog and mist had settled in, with off and on rain, so great views were not to be had this day. Nonetheless, even through the fog, I could see the lands down below. Check out the photos.

Then it was back through Clifden along some narrow winding roads through the Inagh Valley. This road runs through some of Ireland's few mountains, which aren't really so much "mountains" as extremely large hills. Sort of like we call creeks "rivers" back in Texas. Mountain goats and sheep are grazing all up and down the roads, sometimes on the roads, making it very hard to get to a high speed. Also, lots of bikers were out as well. The danger is that if you come around a corner too fast, you're on top of a bike rider or sheep before you have enough time to break. That tends to reduce a driver's ability to enjoy the scenery.

I next made it to Kylemore Abbey. Presently run by Irish Benedictine Nuns (there's a real party group for sure), it was built right after the famine by the Henrys. He was the son of a cotton merchant, and had inherited all of dad's money. Which, as we all know, was slave money, because that's who picked cotton back then. Anyway, he and the wife were visiting the area, which by 1849, as the potato famine was winding down, must have been a real joy ride. They liked it so much, they decided to settle down. They spent more than a year building the place in Victorian style, using local builders and tradesmen, and local materials. The place is magnificent. It set in front of a dark lake, right in front of a mountain. The views of the surrounding country are incredible. The castle itself was made of a very dark kind of stone not commonly seen elsewhere in the area, giving it a sort of black and white appearance. Still, I can't help but think as I walk up to the building that it looks like it was made out of Legos. The castle was incredibly advanced for its time, enjoying gas and electricity well before those things were common. Unfortunately, the wife died in Egypt of...dysenterry...not long after (at the age of, gulp, 45). That's really a hell of a way to go, but my understanding is its still a leading cause of death in many parts of the world. You get dehydrated. Sounds like King Tut's Curse. That leaves the guy and their nine children. Later, he sold it to some guy from Cincinnati who later lost the deed in a card game. Don't you know that the guy's wife was super mad about that? Just after she redecorated I bet. Besides, unless you're Michael Jordan, if you're betting the title to the castle you just paid a small fortune for, you may want to consider whether you have a gambling problem. In the 1920s, the nuns bought the place, having nowhere else to go after World War I screwed over their present location in Ypres, France. Ypres, of course was site to several important, bloody battles, so they were primed to get out of there, particularly after artillery began shelling them. They're still here. For many years they ran a boarding school for the rich and mighty (or at least their kids), but not anymore. There's really no need of that sort of thing, now that rich kids spend their time skiing, snorting coke and killing their parents. Instead, they make chocolate and fabrics now, and run the visitor operation fairly efficiently. While Bantry House was definitely a low tech affair, these nuns have this operation running in high gear. They must have hired some company to do it for them. I was going to go off on some tangent here about nuns, and the whole "married to Jesus" thing, which I'll boil down to they can't all marry Jesus, unless he's the worst polygamist the world has ever known. Maybe the Mormons were right after all.

Next, it was on to the final stop of the day, Cong. You've probably never heard of the place, but as I said earlier, its where the Quiet Man was fimed. If you haven't watched it, you should. Anyone who thinks John Wayne couldn't act would be very surprised. He plays an American boxer in the 1920s who quits the ring and returns to his family's ancestral home in Ireland, and adjusts to life in the simple farming ways of post-Civil War Ireland. Maureen O'Hara was never lovelier, and they really got the whole Irish thing down pretty well. John Ford wanted to turn that book into a movie his whole career, and went to great lengths to do it, despite warnings the movie would flop. It didn't, and its just really a lovely story. The third "character" though is Ireland; set in early Technicolor, it really dazzles. The village of Cong, where it was set (renamed "Inisfree" in the movie) was entirely charming. So while I was here I wanted to see whether it still looked that way. The answer is, not really. I could tell a few things from the movie, the Cohan's Bar, the graveyard where Wayne and O'Hara first kiss, the cross in the road (c. 1350)and layout of the main square, and one of the back alleys. Its kind of hard to tell now that the place has car traffic, a gas station and power lines. Its a shame I couldn't spend more time. The ruins of Cong Abbey (c. 1200) were well preserved. Cong Woods has an extensive trail system running near a very pleasant creek, and I'd have enjoyed spending some time hiking there.

As the sun was setting, I made a mad dash back to Galway before dark, where I packed and got ready for the crack of dawn run to Dublin to catch my flight to Scotland.

Next-Edinburgh