Monday
and Tuesday both cloudy and dry, though some "mist" yesterday a.m.
Impressions:
Road greeting by many drivers, a raised hand inside the car. Smoking chimneys. Guinness.
Winding roads, many valleys and hills.
Friendly people. Mara and Thomas
entertained others in the lounge yesterday evening, Thomas with his French
("bonjour") and his new game: "I'm dead. Then you say, 'My little Thomas is
dead.'" Then he shoots himself.
Wednesday
23 October, Cork to Dublin. It is a
lovely day for the 160 mile drive to Dublin across the highlands. We see real mountains for the first time in
many months. We stop in Caher for
lunch. By five o'clock, we are in
Dublin, where we easily find the hotel and park the car away for the duration. The Ormand is right on the River Liffey
(north side) and figures in Ulysses. We
walk to O'Connell Street and have a pizza dinner. Our attitude has brightened considerably.
Thursday
24 October - Friday 25 October, Dublin.
Suddenly there are a lot of things to see and do. We are in the City and can walk
anywhere. Despite the continued cloudy,
sometimes drizzly weather, we begin to enjoy ourselves.
Thursday
24 October. 10:10 a.m. Still at the breakfast table. Every one up in the rooms. Dark morning with sunrise after 8 a.m.,
sunset at 6:10 p.m.
11:30
p.m. Another gloomy day. Few sprinkles in late afternoon, early
evening.
Thursday
morning the children, bouncing on the beds and off the walls, are reprimanded
by the hotel staff to quiet down. Their
room, in the back, off of the street, is large enough for all four. Our room, across the hall on the second
(third) floor, is small and overlooks the river and street that runs along side
of it. We leave the hotel fairly early
in the morning, making a left turn. Our
stops include: the woolen mills shop (caps for the boys), tourist information
(tourist books), Cleary's department store (lunch), Trinity College (The Book
of Kells), House of Ireland shop (sweater and blanket), and St. Patrick's
Cathedral (Protestant!). It is a busy
day of shopping and sightseeing.
In
the evening Cathy and I are able to leave the children in the room with pizza
while we go to the 6:30 showing of "Under Suspicion." It reminds us of "Body Heat" in a
cold climate. Cathy likes Liam
Neeson. (The way I liked Kathleen
Turner!?) We return to the hotel for
sandwiches and Guinness in the room and watch "Murphy Brown" on
television.
On
Friday, Jeffrey, Robert and I get up early and go to the Joyce museum at the
Round Tower, the opening scene in Ulysses, via the DART. It is an interesting experience: there is the
tower itself and the memorabilia within, and, nearby, the morning swimmers in
the ocean: men and women in their 60's perhaps, some overweight. We see the name Buckley everywhere and, on
our way back, stop in for a visit at a church.
We have a friendly conversation on the train with a college student from
Michigan attending Trinity. I learn, too
late it seems, that if your grandfather was Irish, you too may claim
citizenship. The last in my family who
could have done so was my father. I
wonder about Cathy's grandfather.
Back
in the city we meet Cathy, Mara and Thomas and visit the new Writer's
Museum. Afterwards Cathy and I drop the
children off at the mall babysitting and activities center on Grafton
Street. We each go our separate ways,
she to the shops and me to the Guinness Hop Store. We rendezvous at the National Gallery for
half an hour's viewing, concentrating on the Irish painters, then pick up the
children and have a nice dinner at QV2.
I top off the meal with an Irish whiskey.
We
don't realize it at the time, but Saturday is a semifinal World Cup Rugby game
in Dublin between Australia and New Zealand.
(Australia beat Ireland the week before in Paris.) Friday night it sounds like a party outside
our window, next to our room, until the wee hours of the morning.
Saturday
26 October, Dublin, Ireland to Holyhead, Wales by Ferry; Drive to Saffron
Walden. My day begins disastrously: as I
pull the van out of the parking lot on Saturday morning in the pre-dawn hours,
I put a large scrape in the left side of the car. How do these Europeans manage to squeeze all
the cars in? I bite my lip and drive the
short distance to the port, where we wait in line for the early morning
crossing (1000). The Dublin to Holyhead
crossing is much shorter than the Pembroke to Rosslare route. It is, once again, a dull day, but the water
is very smooth. We have a hearty
breakfast on board, arrive in Wales at 1300 and are on the road at 1:40.
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| Robert |
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| Getting to Know Dublin |
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| Trinity |
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| James Joyce Tower |
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| A Writer at the Writer's Museum |
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