Irish Pub of the Week #15

Irish Pub of the Week #15, "The Lobster" on the esplanade at Waterville, right at the end of the Ring of Kerry. We didn't have a pint here, but the sight of the giant plastic lobster clutching the creamy guinness caught my eye, so we had to stop for a quick snap. I trust they might do some good seafood here. Rock Lobster...

Carlingford photos...

flickr photo link: <Summer in Carlingford & Dundalk>
Just a few weekend photos. We're off to Ballyshannon this weekend for (hopefully) a good bit of trad music...

Irish Pub of the Week #14

Irish Pub of the Week #14, "P J O'Hare's" in Carlingford, Louth. There's something rather special about Carlingford and P J O'Hare's, with it's Anchor Bar, Oyster Bar & Restaurant is most definitely a favourite for us. Located in a tiny lane in the heart of the village, it's a great spot for a Guinness and a dozen oysters after a good walk up Carlingford Mountain. Clare says she never liked oysters till she came here! And look out for the collection of ‘authentic’ leprechaun bones on display to hoodwink unsuspecting tourists...

Irish Pub of the Week #13

Irish Pub of the Week #13, "The Gall Bog Bar" in County Down. OK, all politics aside, this pub is in Northern Ireland, but our Irish Pub of the Week is based on interesting pubs rather than borders! Sometimes you see these little pubs in the countryside - they almost look like someones living room... They might have cars parked outside, maybe not. We guess these are pubs for locals only. Anyway, this one in County Down caught our eye as we drove past.

Irish Pub of the Week #12

Irish Pub of the Week #12, "The Bleeding Horse" on Camden St, Dublin. I'm staying in Ranelagh at the moment, and kept seeing this popular city pub with a fascinating name!

Little Tern Benefit Concert, Spirit Store Dundalk I

We hope you like these 3 YouTube video clips of the brilliant Irish Trad gig we went to the other night (there are 3 blog updates in a row here). This was The Little Tern Benefit Concert at the Spirit Store, Dundalk on Sunday 06 July 2008. The very best of Irish trad music! The first clip features Patrick Martin (on pipes) & Cathal Johnson (of the French Fiddles).



Here are the artist bio's:
Patrick Martin is a full-time musician specialising in Highland Bagpipes and Irish Uilleann Pipes. Having studied both these instruments for most of 28 years, he can offer live music of the highest calibre. Patrick is also in demand for recording work by a number of bands and singers desiring some pipe or whistle music on their arrangements. His business is called Ground Bass Music which refers to the sound of pipe drones. Also of Riverdance fame, he is prize winner in the European and 6th in the World Championships in 2006. He is also involved in the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland who undertake a series of concerts each year both in Ireland and overseas. Their soul-stirring performances have been described as 'inspriational', 'astounding' and 'ranking at the very top of orchestral brilliance'.
The name French Fiddles is derived from Louth local dialect meaning mouth organ/harmonica. The band started up about 2 years ago in 2006. Since then the band has developed a steady organically grown set that has evolved and continues to evolve along it's journey. Cathal Johnson on vocals, guitar and harmonica, Isabel Nic Chuireann on guitar and piano accordion, Jacque Faure on clarinet and sax and Andrew Grafton from Eurostar fame on guitar and vocals are the main members. But the band tends to expand or contract at times adding the likes of Eamon Doyle on bluegrass style fiddle. Their influences range from traditional music from around the world to contemporary, to local styles from around Ireland. French Fiddles play original music augmented with essentially traditional Irish, country folk, blues and jazz, old-timey, contemporary and bluegrass styles. An eclectic bunch who are in the process of making a commercial CD and hope to have it finished soon.

Little Tern Benefit Concert, Spirit Store Dundalk II

French Fiddles playing at the Spirit Store, Dundalk on Sunday 06 July, 2008.



Hope you like it...

Little Tern Benefit Concert, Spirit Store Dundalk III

French Fiddles playing at the Spirit Store, Dundalk on Sunday 06 July, 2008. Sorry, this trad piece is cut off after 3 mins, 5 secs. I need more memory cards!



Bye for now...

Irish Pub of the Week #10

Irish Pub of the Week #10, "Blue Stack Lounge Bar" in the heart of Donegal Town. Didn't get the chance to go in this small place, but it looked kind of different!

Irish Pub of the Week #9

Irish Pub of the Week #9, the big amazing yellow place on the road from Dundalk to Castlebellingham we've driven past hundreds of times, but what's it called? TEA WINE & SPIRITS STORES? If there is a name, then please tell me!

Viking Festival at Annagassan

Sword fighting action at the Viking Festival, Annagassan

(please click on this photo for a larger version)

Viking Festival Night at The Glyde Inn (YouTube video).

Not the best sound quality but sums up the atmosphere on the night!

Photo Link: <Viking Festival photos>
Video Link: <YouTube video of Viking Festival Night>
This weekend we had Jackson Allan (John Allan's son) to stay with us for a break from the rigors of Dublin living. So of course we went down the local for the usual Friday night trad session, and we heard about the Annagassan Viking Festival. What Viking Festival!? Apparently a full size Viking boat had tried to get into our local fishing harbour that day, but the boat was too big, so they went to Clogherhead (the next village along) instead - where they have a full size port with deep water access. This boat was sailed/rowed to Ireland by a Danish crew - it took them 7 weeks via Norway, the Shetlands & Orkney Islands. So on Saturday afternoon we checked out the Viking boat at Clogherhead and saw some quite large grey seals chasing fish that people were catching. Back in Annagassan, the Viking Festival was well underway in a local cow paddock. Trad music, Irish dancing, a chip van, Viking sword fights, etc, etc. They had history tours of the village and Clare got all the info about Vikings living here in the year 836 AD. All good fun for the village, and the Master of Ceremonies was dressed as a Roman Centurion - not sure what that was all about!

Hello again

Irish Pub of the Week #8 - Katie Macs, Ballycastle. Trad music in County Mayo.

(please click on this photo for a larger version)

Some more updates this weekend...

Photo Link: <Tuscany photos> (all 288 of them, we'll have to edit them down!)

Photo Link: <Mum & Dad's Ireland photos #1> (from June)

Photo Link: <Mum & Dad's Ireland photos #2> (from June)

Also, 2 of our Berlin photos (from Christmas) were selected for inclusion in the "Schmap" online Berlin Guide (Deutsche Oper) - Photo 1 / Photo 2

Well, Clare has been in Ireland for 1 year and 1 month now, and Joe has been here for 7 months. So here's a bit of a "State of the Union" (village!) update from us... (a few picture links in here)

Clare… “Not much sign of the summer yet. Last summer (2006), the weather here was magnificent and I had heaps of visitors & wrote a lot more emails. My Mum, Ken, Joe, Kiwi Liz, Gina & Mike and Glen & Simon all came to visit. Even went crew sailing very regularly all summer at the Royal Irish Yacht Club (Dublin) as well as a few Hash House Harriers weekend trips. Chris Irvine is living in Ireland now, and so is sailing this season (I only got a look in last year as Chris was working in Belarus). Now I’m writing the thesis for my MBA, I’m really knuckling down. I completed 2 subjects last year – hopefully it will all be finished by this November. Joe’s parents, Sue & Dave have been here for the month of June (photos) – we had some good trips out, and I’ve just finished a batch of blog stories about our Tuscany trip and Connemara weekend. Tracy also came over from Baghdad last November for the Aussie Rugby match. She’s currently living in Mossman, FNQ - converting the Mossman sugar mill into an organic chocolate processing factory, whilst living in a solar powered hut in the rainforest overlooking the beach. The complete opposite of the green zone in Baghdad, this time last year! Tracy has handed in the final, final version of her masters on mud crabs.”

The biggest change from this time last year is where we’re living now – Annagassan. This is a one street fishing village where everyone knows the names of all the dogs and what they’re all up to. Our ex-carpark dog “Pigsy” (proper name D4), was captured by the Louth dog catchers, but rescued by his owner who lives in a large house in the village. So now from time to time we take D4 out for a walk along the seafront. I think they’re taking better care of him now. The pub (The Glyde Inn) has great “trad music” sessions on Friday nights. So we’re becoming semi-regulars on Friday nights now. We’ve even taken an Aussie flag and a fake cork hat to put behind the bar, but somebody already flogged the cork hat! If it’s sunny (God forbid) we even have a beach (well sort of, but not like Straddie or even Bribie Island!) Clare is forever running outside and taking pics of “weather” as Joe describes it – sunsets, clouds, storms and the ever changing scenery of Dundalk Bay. We’ll try and post some of those pictures soon.

We have an incredible view (and ever changing) view of Dundalk Bay and the Cooley Mountains from the big front window in our apartment. Just this weekend we’ve seen fishing boats trawling just off from the pub (about 60 metres offshore) and sailing boats about 200 metres from the shore. Annagassan was founded by the Vikings coming to raid, rape and pillage the nearby Monasteries, ie. Book of Kells and all that good stuff. But Clare found out the other week that the “Rath” (manmade hill) across the River Glyde was most likely built, not by Vikings or Celts, but by the people before who built Newgrange a long, long time ago!

We haven't really gone out of our way to find history – just the normal tourist stuff so far. Yeah, and Clare’s had audits on estates that date back to AD 462! (In Northern Ireland, quite close to a couple of our favourite walking spots like Castle Ward, Strangford Lough & Tollymore Forest Park - we love County Down :) After Clare finally finishes the MBA thesis, hopefully around Oct/Nov, she’ll have the time to really look into her own family history on both sides. She's concluded that even though it’s through her Dad’s mother that she has an Irish passport, he is SOOOOO German, and not at all Irish, whilst her Mum, who is technically at least 75% Irish but without access to a passport, is SOOOOO Irish in many ways. Her Dad’s family is actually only Irish since the late 1700’s when they came from France, as Huguenot protestant refugees to Cork. So not Irish and not Catholic – so much for all those family “histories!”

We’re off for a long weekend in London 04-06 August. Hope everyone is enjoying the Brissie winter! Don't forget we warmly welcome all visitors (Oh, and we have the best Guinness in the world!)

Lots of updates...

Irish Pub of the Week #7 - O'Donoghue's Dublin. Nice atmosphere, but bloody expensive drinks (1 pint of Guinness + 1 rum & coke was over €12 / AUD 18)

(please click on this photo for a larger version)

Just a quick update to the blog. We've made loads of major updates recently, mainly finishing off some of our recent stories:
The Connemara Jig (from May)

A week in Tuscany - Part 1 (from June)

A week in Tuscany - Part 2 (from June)

Red Dress Run (photos, from July)

Also been doing lots of updates to our main Flickr photo site, now that Yahoo photos has disappeared from the net. Bye for now.

Dublin HHH - Red Dress Run

Photo Link: <Dublin HHH - Red Dress Run photos>
We went on the Red Dress Run with the Dublin Hashers today. I think the pictures pretty much sum it all up!

Life & Times in Annagassan

Irish Pub of the Week #6 - The Glyde Inn, Annagassan, Co. Louth. Established in the 1700's. This is "our local", about 3 mins walk from our apartment. They pour a nice pint of Guinness!

A pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Co. Louth

A bit of aviation spotting, American Airlines Boeing 777

Pigsy, our local dog at The Saltings, Annagassan, waits patiently for a dog biscuit
(please click on any of these photos for a larger version)

Photo Link: <Annagassan photos>

Hello all. Not much to report this week. Clare & Joe have both been busy at work. Clare had an overnight trip to Berlin on Tuesday (3am start), and enjoyed our favourite sushi restaurant in Europe. Joe did his DHL stuff! Just another week to go before we head across for our holiday in Tuscany. It's still spring in Ireland, although the weather conditions can change, quite literally, minute by minute. It might be spring in the morning, summer at lunchtime and winter on the drive home. No shortage of rain of course, as always. They've just started some Friday night trad music sessions at our local, The Glyde Inn, so we'll have to check that out soon. Bye for now.

The Connemara Jig

Irish Pub of the Week #5 - Mannion's Bar, Clifden, Co. Galway

Jump! The Atlantic Ocean hits the cliffs of County Mayo

Clare feeds the Connemara ponies
(please click on any of these photos for a larger version)

Micky Martin & Marie Walsh playing some great Irish trad music
at Mannions Bar, Clifden (YouTube video)

Photo Link: <Connemara photos>

Video Link: <YouTube video of Irish trad music>

This past bank holiday weekend, we went for another motoring jaunt across Ireland – to Connemara and County Mayo, on the Atlantic coast. Lots of rugged hills, peat bogs, rocks, loughs (pronounced like Scottish "lochs”), and loads of “famine ruins” (abandoned rock houses) as this was one of the worst affected areas of Ireland. I guess you could say Connemara is quintessential Ireland, although Ireland has so many really different regions. It’s certainly one of the major "tourist” areas of the country, as we saw coach loads of Americans that we don’t see in County Louth (where we live). We also caught 2 nights of really great trad music at Mannion’s Bar in Clifden – the best so far in Ireland.

We started our journey with some dinner at The Cock Tavern in Swords (right near DHL, before we even hit the road), then along the wonderful M50 (not!) and the M4 to the Galway ring road in about 4 hours. Stayed at the Ibis Galway (€87) - we always seem to start our weekend at the Ibis! Definitely don’t drink the water, as the Galway water supply is currently rendered undrinkable due to cryptosporidium contamination. Mmm, tasty. Despite all the rainfall in this country, maintaining a clean water supply to towns still seems to be rather a challenge.

The next day started with low rain and cloud. We took the coast road (R336) via Spiddal towards Clifden. The country beyond Galway soon turns very rocky & boggy, then the mountains of Connemarra start to rise up. We drove north straight through the middle of the Maumturk Mountains past a number of mist covered lakes, peat bog diggings and small stone walled fields full of sheep. Some sheep did manage to escape the fields onto the roads, especially the black faced lambs! We had a seafood lunch in Leenane where Killary Harbour starts - this is Ireland's only true fjord. The road rises from here with views of Mussel farms (floating ropes in the water) that are strung along the fjord and flowering trees -Rhododendrons? We stopped at the very gothic pile of Kylemore Abbey. At this point, after 2 fine weeks, it started to rain again. The abbey is now a girls boarding school run by the Benedictine Nuns. The stately home was built for an American couple in 1848, saving huge numbers of locals from potato famine starvation, and now is partially open to the public. The extensive restored kitchen gardens and family chapel are also open. It's very interesting to see what vegetables were grown and how, as most stately homes around the world show off the formal flower gardens but very few show what the residents really grew and ate. The only other one Clare can remember seeing was George and Martha Washington’s place at Mount Vernon, USA. The Nuns grew produce for the school in the garden until the 1970’s (I think) then it all ran wild until an EU grant came to the rescue in the 1990’s.

Stopped at lots of country crossroads to check for directions - that’s quite a common thing in Ireland, especially in Connemara, and most drivers are pretty tolerant to people just stopping in the road! Eventually got to Clifden, where we stayed at the Ben View House B&B for 2 nights (€65/nt) which was quite pleasant and you got a nice pot of tea served on silver each morning! Clifden is a small town and eveything is within easy walking distance. So we had some dinner, then went on a "trad" music pub crawl. The first place, EJ Kings, was just a bit too crowded. At the second, Lowrys, we had a drink and listened to 2 old blokes playing the accordian and keyboard. Then we went to Mannions Bar (our favourite!) - here we settled in and listened to Marie Walsh (All-Ireland accordion champion) & Micky Martin. This is our YouTube video of Irish trad music (you'll need a good broadband connection to view this). Apart from the well sozzled locals propped up at the bar, I think we were the only English first language patrons, so lots of the Europeans didn’t always catch Micky’s jokes. One of them them was aimed at us - Clare requested "Bound for South Australia," so Micky says "this song is for the South Australians in the corner"... "well, actually Micky, we're not from South Australia"... "OK, this song is for the people in the corner who might have once been to South Australia"... We bought 2 CD's that night, so supported the local musos!

After a "full Irish" breakfast, we headed off in the rain to drive the rest of the coast road (R341) around to Ballyconneely & Roundstone. This part of Ireland is very, very Irish and most, if not all, people will speak Irish. These areas are called Gaeltacht. Most of the road signs are in Irish too, and not often in English. To buy a house here you must first pass an exam in written and oral Irish. Not quite sure how the Americans manage to get holiday houses here then. The place is full of side lanes that usually lead to a wharfs and salmon/mussel processing/smoking plants. Clare has been to these parts before with her job. We passed the site of the Marconi Telegraph Station, which is interesting because Clare has seen sites marked with the same title in Cape Cod, USA and just north of Perth, WA. Did Marconi get around or what?!

We stopped at a few places on the way: patted the Connemarra ponies; stopped at some white sandy (but windswept) Atlantic beaches (Tra Mhoir on Mannion Bay and Gurteen & Dogs Bays); checked out some fishing boats, just back into port; checked out a huge dead crab on the beach. On the R340 past Kilkerrin, we stopped at a windswept (yes, a pattern of the day) cemetery full of spectacular Celtic crosses, some with sheep grazing on them! Clare has been to some wonderful cemeteries in my time - Bonaventure Cemetery down by the river in Savannah Georgia stands out, but this one was really bleak with mist sweeping down (well it was in the bogs of Connemara) and at the same time had the most wonderfully inviting moss lined stream running through it. We headed back to Cliftden via the N59 straight through the middle of Connemara past abandoned "famine" villages, cleared bright green fields edged by dry stone walls, yellow gorse "hedges", and flat bog lands below rocky hillsides and mountains - 100% Ireland! After a late lunch at the Blackberry Café Leenane (in the Irish good food guides), we did some scenic detours through an area that had a number of villages with the name Tully in them. We have a good friend (Tully!) from Joe's DHL Brisbane days, so we took pictures of the Tully Mountains, Tully village, Tully Cross village, etc. Suzynne, we think this must have been your ancestral home! Being the fair weather "walkers" we are, we gave the Connemara National Park a big miss due to continuing downpours.

The sun finally came out as we headed up the famed "Sky Road" near Clifden. Yes, well worth a look. Clare's work colleague Dave insisted that we really should walk or ride a bike along the 12km road - needless to say we drove it. This is a small hilltop road (lane?) that runs off the N59 just at the northern edge of Clifden town, and loops around rugged, stunning Atlantic coastal scenery. From up here, you can see clearly how local people have worked so hard over the centuries just to eke out a basic living from the fields below. They start with a rock strewn patch of grass; collect all the rocks of every size; build a dry stone wall around everything, right down to the sea; collect seaweed to fertilise it; then put the sheep in it. We guess in the past they grow endless crops of potatoes, until the blight got to them in 1845. And so started the greatest migration I think the world has ever seen - before or since. There were 8 million Irish in Ireland in 1844. Even now there are only 4 million people in Ireland, and 250,000 of those are Polish. So 1 million people died in the famine, and another 1.25 million people emigrated. Looking at the harsh scenery in Connemara, it takes no imagination at all to see how & why this happened.

Mannions Bar had another session that night with Micky Martin, Marie Walsh, a bloke on the Irish bagpipes and another bloke on the "spoons" (yep, spoons). Then there was another bloke who sang. Then a girl popped in for a while (looked like she was clubbing with her 10 mates), and she sang a couple of songs. Things were generally a bit more rowdy as the locals hit the Guinness before the Monday bank holiday. A busload of Americans had taken the best tables, but not to be outdone, the locals took the tables back, seat by seat, until the Americans eventually gave up and left! The same sozzled locals from the night before were at the bar again, proclaiming us to be long lost friends to the Americans, and the barman knew our drink order by then and had the bottle of rum at the ready. The night before he'd said they had no rum, whilst standing in front of a bottle of Havana Gold. Mmm. Clare went back to Mannions in early July (had more salmon factories to look at). The local boys were still at the bar and the bottle of Havana Gold still wasn't finished. Micky was playing next door at Lowrys - that was the only difference!

On the Monday the sun had really come out (always happens on the day you go home) - we headed north on the N59 again, passing Killary Harbour and through Westport in County Mayo (very smart little town). We headed out to Ballycastle and the nearby Ceide Fields, sitting on the edge of spectacular Atlantic cliffs near Downpatrick Head. Ceide Fields is the worlds most extensive stone age monument. It's not like Stonehenge or Newgrange, but is a complete community of houses, fields & tombs completely buried under the peat bog fields from 5500 years ago. The visitor centre is well worth a look. Joe called this a "bunch of buried rocks" and to a large extent, it is, but Clare found the history of the bogs fascinating. Even more fascinating the fact that when the bogs came and they couldn't farm anymore, the people who were farming here just moved down the road, 8km or so, to the area of Ballycastle. The tour guide said that Ceide Fields would have looked physically almost the same as the farms in Ballycastle today, using more or less the SAME FARMING METHODS. So it's not a tall order to say that there are still some people in Ballycastle who may be direct descendants of the farmers from 5500 years ago. Stopped for some service station junk food on the way home. So that's a wrap-up on another great long weekend in Ireland...

A quick update for the week...

Irish Pub of the Week #4 - Pebble Beach, Clontarf, Dublin 3

Glass half full, Pebble Beach

(please click on either of these photos for a larger version)

Photo Link: <Our Best Of Ireland Photoset>

Photo Link: <Our Irish Pub Of The Week Photoset>

Hi all. Another week (and weekend) has gone by. Clare was in Brussels for the European Seafood Exposition until Thursday - had a great time and saw lots of her old Aussie seafood clients and met people from the Irish seafood industry. Brussels got to 31c, with humidity just like Brisbane, but Ireland didn't rise above the teens as usual. Joe did his daily commute to DHL at Swords, close to Dublin Airport, not so exciting. We had a new front window installed at our apartment, which stayed clean for 1 day but is now covered in salt spray as the coastal breezes really whipped up this weekend. People were flying kites and I even saw a brave sailboarder screaming across Dundalk Bay. We went for a walk with the Hashers on Sunday - at Clontarf, on the northside of Dublin. Quite leisurely, and ended up at the pub as usual. Next weekend we're off to Galway and the West of Ireland as we have our May Bank Holiday (Labour Day). Bye all.

Accidental Tourists

Of all the Newcastle's in the world... this is one of them!

Irish Pub of the Week #3 - The Sail Inn, Clogherhead, County Louth

Silent Valley is an appropriate name. You can almost hear the silence.
(please click on any of these photos for a larger version)

Photo Link: <Best Of Ireland photos>

It's really great to go to places within an hour of home (in Ireland), that are so bloody brilliant, so diverse. It's weird enough that we can actually see the Mourne Mountains (on a good day), from the main window of our apartment, and had never been there. The Mourne Mountains, and the little town of Newcastle where the mountains meet the sea. Newcastle, with it's Victorian Terrace seafront, amusement arcades and good cafes couldn't be any more different than Annagassan. They even use a different currency... But it's only an hour away. I guess we used to explore our "backyard" in Brisbane too, but when you live somewhere, you think you know your own region so you spend your weekends at home, or doing something else. So Ireland is just made for exploring. Every day I can drive down a new country lane I've never been on before, or see a different Norman ruin or ancient church. Last week, I discovered 2 country pubs less than 10 minutes from Annagassan. This week, vast fields of yellow flowers emerged in the Spring temperatures. So this weekend, we found new sights and tastes in a region just north of where we live - the Mourne Mountains. The weather can vary of course. It was quite warm today. The clouds rolled in over the hills and rain threatened, but never really happened. We went for a 3km walk at the Tollymore Forest Park (far too easy, we should have done longer). We had a great lunch at the Seasalt Cafe in Newcastle (notes from Lonely Planet Ireland). We took a loop walk around the Silent Valley Reservoir. Silent it was too, apart from the distant bleating of sheep in lush fields. Thankfully, the reservoirs here look a lot healthier than poor old Wivenhoe. So we drove home to Annagassan, sat down in our loungeroom, and gazed at the Mourne Mountains again!

I Can't Get No Satisfaction...

Irish Pub of the Week #2 - Cobblestone, Smithfield, Dublin 7

Hi all, just a quick weekend update. We managed to get 2 tickets for The Rolling Stones at Slane Castle in August (about 1/2 hour from Annagassan)... Should be a blast - concerts at Slane Castle are reputed as being quite special with 80,000 people in a in a natural amphitheatre beside the Boyne River, in the height of the Irish Summer (but I still had no idea Clare was a closet Rolling Stones fan). All 80,000 tickets sold out in 1 day of course!
On Sunday, we went for walk with the Dublin Hash Group (A few photos are here) - we were following impossible clues in Polish, German & French from pub to pub across Dublin. Found a great Sunday afternoon trad music session at the Cobblestone, Smithfield. Not much to look at from the outside, but that's no sign of a good Dublin Pub. There are so, so many of them to choose from...
We're off to Madrid this Thursday for 4 nights away. This was a surprise trip for Clare, but I've given the destination away now - Olé...

Springtime in Ireland

Irish Pub of the Week #1 - Maccarthy's Bar, Castletownbere

Damn, it's really foggy tonight!

It’s Springtime in Ireland. Everything is glowing green despite the St. Patricks weekend of hail, sleet, snow & pouring rain (often all at once). Even most of the daffodils have survived it all – just a few broken stems. The trees are getting buds and some have pink flowers. Lambs are running in the fields and we have daylight until well after 8pm, which is a weird concept, and will only get later from this point on. The sun is valiantly trying to burn through the cloud layer to raise the daytime temperature out of single digits, but Ireland has a strange meteorological condition at the moment. With the rising temperatures and all the moisture in the fields, an amazing permanent haze (fog) hangs over over the landscape. It looks very much like Aussie bushfire smoke, but when you wind your car window down, the blast of cold air reminds you it’s still March. The haze looks really spooky with all the bare winter trees and has developed into thick pea-soup fog for the last 2 nights when colder air comes down. There’s been some incredible car smashes near Dublin too…
We had some friends (Chris & Shay) up from Dublin for the weekend and it was the first weekend Clare's been home for a full weekend here & not writing assignments! We took a nice walk along the seashore, patted the local dogs (and fed cows), popped in for some craic at the local pub and made a nice dinner. We even discovered some sort of ancient mound, just over the river from our apartments. Clare is away now on a quick 2 day audit in Northern Ireland, while I continue to deal with my DHL clients who seem to exist in a world of permanent happiness. On Monday morning I thought I’d try a new shortcut across the country lanes to the M1 (motorway to work), but ended up taking a long, long drive & discovering lots of new pubs, but alas it was far too early for a Guinness and I eventually got to work just a few minutes late. One more weekend at home, then we're away for Easter...