After another
full Irish breakfast we waddled onto the bus for a turn around the Connemarra
and some more truly glorious Irish countryside.
I’ve always had a bit of a thing for stone bridges and Ireland is the
place to get your fill of those. The
best so far has been the beautiful Quiet Man Bridge near lough-side Oughterard.
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| Quiet Man Bridge - Oughterard |
Then it
was off to Kylemore Abbey for a bit more lough action and one of many stunning
examples of what the English did for themselves in Ireland. The structure was built in 1868 by a London doctor,
Mitchell Henry, whose family had made a motza from their Manchester textile mills. Originally styled Kylemore Castle I was left
wondering what actually constitutes a castle beyond a desire to have one. Was Prince really a prince and what about
Duke Ellington, Lady Gaga and all the others?
And then there remains the vexing question of Michael Jackson’s youngest
child, Prince Michael "Blanket" Jackson II, now known as Bigi. But as usual, I digress.
The
Germans bombed the crap out of some Benedictine nuns in Ypres during WWI so
they packed up and moved to London then on to Ireland where they purchased
Kylemore Castle in 1920, waved their magic wimples and turned it into an
abbey. These days there are also a few restaurants
and a rather lovely Victorian walled garden which is worthy of a wander.
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| Kylemore Abbey |
I had
barely finished my last seared scallop when we were whisked back onto the bus
and off to… wait for it… another bog!
This time it was Derrygimlagh Bog, site of Marconi’s radio transmitter and
also the crash landing of the first trans-Atlantic flight in 1919. The aviators were actually aiming for
something more appropriate but of course there weren’t any airports back in the
day so a bog is better than a reek.
The
memorial marking the latter is a little confusing. At first glance I thought it was a nuclear
missile silo but it’s actually the nose cone of some aircraft completely
unrelated to the Vickers Vimy biplane flown by Alcock and Brown so go figure!
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| Derrygimlagh Bog |
We had to
unpack our sea legs next day for a boat trip out to Inis Mor. It’s the largest of the three Aran Islands and
I’m here to tell you it’s barren, Sharon!
If you have ancestors from that part of Ireland be grateful they left
because it’s bleak and inhospitable, even on a nice day.
A quaint
village aside, the major attraction on Inis Mor is the pre-Christian cliff-top fort
of Dun Aonghasa which dates from 1100 BCE.
It was given a major beef-up with new technologies in around 500 BCE but
Christ only knows what they were defending.
The place looks to be good for goats and not much else. A couple of hours on Inis Mor was long enough
for me.
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| Dun Aonghasa |
We passed
through Moneygall on our way back to Dublin and our guide Maureen mentioned
this was where Barrack Obama went searching for his lost apostrophe, it being
the birthplace of his great-great-great grandfather. Most of us thought that interesting but not Fred
and Wilma who wanted to hear nothing of it.
In fact Fred had some thoughts of his own that he decided to share,
nothing new, just the usual guff about Obama being a Ugandan-born Muslim and a
communist to boot. You’ve heard it all
from Trump. I think there might have been
mention of polygamy as well but Fred was drowned out at this point.
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| Michelle & Barack Obama in Moneygall |
Stan
from Toowoomba was up on his 85 year-old feet and straight into him. Stan had been a wharfie on the Brisbane docks
for 45 years and union rep for 35 as well as a proud card-carrying member of
the original Australian Communist Party until it was dissolved in 1991. He told Fred that he wouldn’t know a
communist if one bit him on the fucken arse and then removed his dentures and
waved them about in a rather threatening manner, offering to do the honours
himself.
That’s
where Stan’s daughter Adela stepped in and brought things under control, I
suspect not for the first time. Adela,
it transpired, had been named for Adela Pankhurst, daughter of Emily and co-founder
of the Australian Communist Party. She
had been Stan’s travelling companion and handler since her mother died a few
years earlier and did pretty good job of keeping him in line. But Stan already had a gutful of Fred and his
MAGA cap so was ready to blow. Best it
happen as it did when there was nothing sharp or heavy at hand.
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