The amazing Jerry Holland

Jerry Holland plays the fiddle at Fiddle Fair 2008, West Cork Hotel, Skibbereen, Ireland on Sat 10 May 2008. He is truly in a class of his own. Yes, the video is terrible, but the sound is magic... Of course it was far better to be there. If you like trad music, enjoy!

Fiddle Fair 2008

There are 2 blog entries on West Cork, Ireland
1. Fiddle Fair 2008 May 08
2. St. Patrick's Day Weekend March 07

flickr photo link <Fiddle Fair 2008> (still adding more photos)
NEW! YouTube clip link <The Amazing Jerry Holland>
What a wonderful weekend. We're driving home from Baltimore, West Cork, using the laptop in the car. We really love West Cork. Maybe lots of Irish people think that Connemarra or Donegal is the real Ireland, but we think that County Cork is the ultimate Ireland - the countryside, the scenery, the people, the food and the music. BUT THE FIDDLE FAIR... MY GOD, THE MUSIC WAS VERY, VERY GOOD! I think we may have heard some of the best fiddle music in the world over the last 48 hours. We heard fiddlers from Canada, Spain and all over Ireland, and people had come from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Spain & the USA to hear the music. As well as the "fiddle" enthusiasts, there were yachties at the pubs still in their buoyancy vests and divers still in their dive gear! Even a TV crew filming a show about Jeremy Irons who actually played a gig at the fiddle fair on Sunday afternoon. But we gave him a miss and went to see Leonard Barry playing his uilleann pipes at the O'Driscoll Castle instead. So let's start at the beginning...
Clare raced down from work in the far north of the Republic of Ireland to pick up Joe from work on the southern side of Dublin. All good going until Clare got lost around the Dublin Docklands! Eventually by 7.30pm or so we hit the M50 and really got going on the road south. Got to the "Rathmore House" B&B (€75/nt) at Baltimore, Co Cork around 11.30pm. This was one of the best B&B's we've stayed in - awesome harbour views out of our bedroom window; good breakfasts with options of the full Irish with Clonakilty black pudding, or a platter of Cork cheeses. Guess which Clare had? Not the black pudding... That's another thing we always notice about Co Cork - the support of the local food industry, and what great local food it is. We managed to pick up some smoked mackarel dip & smoked salmon pate from the Union Hall Fish Co-op at the local store in Baltimore, where they also sold 3 different local black puddings - not just the famous Clonakilty black puddings.
We had bookings for 3 concerts over the weekend and anticipated an early start on Saturday morning. But the "weekend" had started for some on Thursday morning, and by Saturday morning more than a few people including the muso's had had a very late/early session on Friday night - so the 12.30pm concert started around 1pm'ish! By then there was a queue going up the stairs of the Dún na Séad Castle (O'Driscoll Castle), built in 1215. A couple of impatient Americans were making comments on the Irish time keeping skills. Clare said we we should all go back to the pub and wait for a bit. A local Irishman said "yes, you're copping on quick!" But we'd already been to the local pubs. First we'd checked out the little harbour, then Clare bought some postcards at the craft shop, then we got some rum & cokes while Clare checked out the tourist literature and watched the 10.30am local island ferry steam away at 12noon... Irish time. There are 3 islands off the coast here that you can easily get to (in Summer) with people living on them year round. But there weren't many people around this morning. We later found out that the Friday night session had finished just a few hours before...
3 main pubs face Baltimore Harbour, with a few more in the back streets. We spent most time at Jacob's Bar & Bushe's. Jacob's Bar must have been refurbed quite recently we think... could easily fit in at Byron Bay. They had staff from France & NZ as well as locals. Bushe's (linked to W. Goggin) was far more traditional. The barman at Bushe's seemed like an Irish version of "Daffyd - The only gay in the village!" He was very efficient at serving Guinness and crab sandwiches. We also saw him cleaning the pub windowsills on Sunday morning. Now George W Bush claims to be a decendant from this village, not a notion much supported by the locals...
A brief history of Baltimore by Clare
So the village (yes, the US city is named after this place) clearly relies on tourism now, but was (and still is really) the ancestral home of the O'Driscoll clan. They specialised in piracy in the 1500/1600's. They pissed off other people including other pirates and one day in the 1600's some pirates from Morocco sailed in and took 107 prisoners in retaliation for some activity of the O'Driscoll's and took them back to North Africa into slavery. Only one person made it back to Ireland about 20 years later to tell what happened. But at the Heritage Centre in nearby Skibbereen, they mentioned that actually only 2 out of the 107 were actually Irish - the rest were English settlers. Later on, some Irish from Waterford came down and did the castle over, after being pissed off. Things went downhill from there, then in 1845 the famine really hit this area. It was very badly hit due to the massive reliance on the potato for the 60% or so of the population who were landless peasants living in rented mud huts with one pig and a few chickens. The Great Famine Commemoration Exhibition at the Heritage Centre commemorates the tragic period in the 1840s that is known in Irish History as the Great Hunger. Skibbereen was one of the worst affected areas, and the events of the era are depicted using local characters and events. Well worth a visit.
But enough of history and back to the music... The first concert on the Saturday featured 2 sisters from Dingle, Aoife & Deirdre Granville playing mainly the fiddle and harp but also the flute & tin whistle. The fiddling was good but the harp playing was really amazing. We'd never heard anything like it, rather like Enya without synthesis. A particularly good number was "Beauty" from the Blasket Islands that the girls learnt from their grandmother. Aoife is certainly a talented fiddle player, but it made us realise just how good the level of playing at our local, The Glyde Inn, is on Friday nights. Lisa, the resident fiddle player, could hold her own in this festival, but she's off travelling now, and is likely to be on a beach somewhere between Koh Samet and Bryon. Lisa, if you read this, we miss your fiddling already! We bought some CD's after this concert and managed to support the various musicians with a few CD purchases, a couple of t-shirts and a poster during the festival.
We went back for a trad session at Jacob's Bar. Every second person in Baltimore seemed to have an instrument and some of the world's best were joining in, so for young muso's it was a great place. People were dragging around harps, banjos, fiddles, flutes and tin whistles in specially designed backpacks for such opportunities. We eventually headed back to our room at the B&B and took some great pics of the evening light fading over the harbour. At 8pm we joined the festival shuttle bus to the West Cork Hotel at Skibbereen. Stopped off at The Sibín pub in the back lanes of Baltimore. Worth a visit. Whilst we drove along, the girls from "The Polskadots" group played a fiddle session on the bus...
The Amazing Jerry Holland
The evening concert was in 2 parts. The first act was Jerry Holland & John Doyle. Wow. Fiddle playing like we'd never heard before - mesmerising & literally spine tingling. Jerry (the fiddler) was an old bloke from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia (Canada) with John (from Ireland) absolutely amazing on guitar. Whilst the Irish roots are deeply felt here, the influence of Jerry's Nova Scotia trad fiddle sound is really strong, and sounded to me almost as if from the American South, perhaps Appalachian... I took one clip of this show, and have watched it a few times. Just a really incredible set, with a very enthusiastic and supportive crowd. A hard act to follow.
Berrogüetto... Trad fusion brilliance
Once in a while, we can be witness to rare musical gems. Perhaps obscure, possibly never to be seen again. But I hold out hope that these guys might turn up at the Bluesfest one year, as they truly fall into the category of "Roots" - but much more than that... Berrogüetto hail from Galicia (Spain) but language is no barrier to their infectious blend of trad fusion, roots, classical and world music. Even Greek & Middle Eastern influences. Something reminded me of Bela Fleck, and on listening to their brilliant album "10.0", I even hear electronica there too, although they had no electronic instruments on stage. The 7 member group play: 2 fiddles (dueling fiddles!); accordian; bouzouki; flutes; 2 gaitas/pipes; guitar & bass; harp; percussions incl. bodrum, drums & tamborine; saxo; zanfona/hurdy-gurdy... The zanfona/hurdy-gurdy is an amazing instrument like a big boxy violin where you turn a handle on the end whilst playing the strings. The gaitas/pipes have a distinct sound and are closer to the Scottish bagpipes than the Irish (Uilleann) pipes (more on those later). The sound of Berrogüetto had strong Irish trad themes in some songs, Greek/Turkish influences in others, with dueling fiddles & pipes... Still somewhat hard to describe - you have to hear it for yourself! The name Galicia comes from the Latin name Gallaecia, associated with the name of the ancient Celtic tribe that once resided there, so you can really understand the Irish roots heard in these tunes...
The concert finished up around 12.30am, and by then trad sessions had already started in other bars at the hotel. The boys from Berrogüetto obviously didn't play enough fiddles for everyone! One trad session was running in the hallway with about 10 fiddles going. Another was going in the front bar led by Jerry Holland. Very good music. We kept on until 2am and caught the shuttle bus back to Rathmore House. Most people didn't make the bus and probably kept going till dawn...
The next morning we managed, just, to make it to breakfast by 10am, then checked out and made our way back to the village. Nobody was stirring, so we went for a drive up to the spectacular whitewashed Beacon on the clifftops. A few festival campers had put themselves in the fields around the Beacon carpark, and the sounds of a plucking banjo could be heard in the air - the trad sessions never end here! So we wandered up to the Beacon, trying to avoid slipping over the edge of the of the unprotected 100 metre+ clifftops - no fences here! Spectacular rugged views, and wildflowers on the hillsides. There's a Wooden Boat Festival here later in May, and some guys were out on the harbour training for the races. Yes we thought about the Virtue boys and took some pics just for Rob, Keith & John.
Back to Jacob's Bar for an iced coffee, then to "Daffyd - The only gay in the village" for a crab sandwich before the next concert at O'Driscoll Castle. This was Leonard Barry, playing uilleann pipes & Michelle O’Brien on the fiddle. Apparently the uilleann pipes are made individually for each person and are pitched at different notes - Clare is sooo not musicial and is probably not explaining this correctly! We'd heard these pipes in Clifden last year and once at our local too. Perhaps the fiddle playing was a touch high pitched today, but the pipes were brilliant with many reels, jigs and "sets" played for over 1 1/2 hours. Yes, Leonard was great, but we still think the bloke who did a session at the Glyde Inn one night was better. He'd spent a year touring the world with "Riverdance" and was damn good. God, now we're comparing uilleann pipe playing - have we been in Ireland too long? Anyway, there will be some clips linked here shortly. This is the sort of music that's played at "caleigh's" (spelling?) which is clearly the music that Australian bushdances are based on. We noticed that Leonard played pieces from County Clare, Donegal, Kerry, Leitrim, Limerick and Sligo, but never from County Louth where we live. Why is this we wonder ???
Back to Jacob's Bar again for a last listen to the neverending trad session... dogs, kids and crab sandwiches, the Baltimore experience... before heading back on our long drive home. We drove through Kinsale on the way and ruled it out as some sort of Irish Noosa, without the rainforest. People walking along the esplanade with their icecreams, and fighting over carparks, etc. Oh, it's hitting 20c now, so summer is here at last (but don't expect it to last for too long!) Happy Days.

The Italian Wedding & Lake Maggiore

flickr photo link: <Lago Maggiore & Wedding photos>

25 Apr 08 FR9428 DUB/BGY 1735/2115

27 Apr 08 EI437 MXP/DUB 2120/2255

This is Blog Post #100!
Oh wow... Of all the weekends away in the last year or whatever, I think Northern Italy was possibly one of the most theraputic and spectacular (but too much food again!) We started early Friday evening with a smooth 2 1/2 hr Ryanair flight from Dublin across France & The Alps (a truly amazing sunset over The Alps at dusk, but unfortunately no photos). A few turns and bumps, and we landed at Bergamo, about 40km northeast of Milan. Picked up a little Hertz Fiat with Sat Nav, and drove along the AutoStrada to Legnano where Tarynne, my old DHL team member from Brisbane now lives with her (fiance... now husband) Alessandro. It was late when we found our way into town - there was some major contruction going on, seemed like half the town was ripped up. After a little investigation, we located the "Hotel Elitis", our slightly dubious pre-booked 4 Star, but it was comfortable enough. Clare soon discovered a little coffee shop/nightclub that whipped us up some risotto and a couple of glasses of 7 yr old Havana Club. We fell asleep with the Italian racer boys revving their cars up and down the streets outside...

Next morning, after a very noisy Chinese tour group had left the building, we had a quick breakfast in the deserted restaurant. We met up with June, one of Tarynne's family friends, and she pointed Clare in the direction of the shoe shop across the street. So Clare did the Italian thing and bought shoes. We checked out the local supermarket for some essential supplies (and a bottle of limoncello). Downtown Legnano seemed pretty small. Not as attractive as many of the towns in Tuscany, but functional all the same, and well located with the AutoStrada running down the eastern side (North to Lake Maggiore, South to Milan).

The Wedding of Tarynne & Alessandro... We headed out for the 11am wedding at the Legnano Town Hall. Very nice it was, all done out in old wood panelling and the town flags of Italy. The wedding was a civil ceremony, conducted in Italian by an official looking bloke wearing a sash (possibly the Mayor?) and his assistant. Some obviously essential parts were translated into English (I think mainly for Tarynne!) There were lots of things we only partially understood but a very nice wedding all the same. Afterwards, Tarynne & Alessando were literally pelted with rice as they left the hall. Had a few photos outside, then we drove up to the reception venue.

To be completed...

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!

A few aviation photos...

Hi all,
Yes I'm still a plane geek, and have put a couple of new (but quite small) photo sets online:
flickr photo link: <Aviation @ BCN Airport, 17 Mar 08>
flickr photo link: <Aviation @ DUB Airport 08>
The pics from Barcelona Airport were taken while we were waiting for our flight back to Belfast recently. The pics from Dublin Airport are my first for the year, dropping by the airport on a Sunday afternoon.
Bye for now.

Dark & Stormy

It's another dark & stormy night in Annagassan, and that's not the rum & ginger variety. The onshore breeze has been blowing up for days, but tonight it's gale force and grey clouds have settled in. White caps ahoy, not a good time to cross the Irish Sea. Funny, trying to remember last April... The yellow fields are in bloom, the days are longer but there's no sign of anything resembling warmth at all. In fact, most days are still in the single digits... Clare has been in bed with tonsilitus and I had flu a few days ago. We need to soak up some foreign sunshine, but we're pretty unlikely to find that in northern Italy next weekend...
Yes, it's all been go go go since our trip to Paris. The morning after we got back (at 2am), Clare was back at the airport at 8am. What the? Went via Heathrow to Shanghai on Virgin Atlantic. But unfortunately the Visas for China were not quite in order, so they had to go on to Hong Kong (damn shame), and because of Rugby 7's week, the only hotel they could find was a luxury place at the airport, so no complaints from Clare! They finally flew back into China, did a factory inspection (did not pass muster), stayed in more luxury hotels, etc. The work side of things ended up being fairly easy as inspection plans changed and there was a local public holiday. So finally back to Shanghai where Clare went off to find eggs benedict on the Bund, and she found them (at M On the Bund) and took a river trip. Then flew back to Heathrow on Sunday morning (1 week after Paris), where all the local & European flights were in complete turmoil due to 2 hours of snow that morning (down to 1 runway). So another night at Heathrow, then back into Belfast at midday Monday. We had dinner at a Dundalk pub on Monday night, then Clare went off to Cork where more work awaited... Had enough yet?
In the meantime, we're working on a new 'ticket' lodging system at my work in Dublin (HP), so everyone has been working very hard. A few more people have been heading to the local pub for a quick tipple after work, but I avoid going there if I'm driving (which is generally far better in the evening rush than the morning).
So this weekend will be quiet. Might have a sleep in, read the Guardian, maybe feed some ducks, etc. Bye all.

The last plane out of Beauvais' almost gone...

flickr photos coming soon...
28 Mar 08 EI528 DUB/CDG 1815/2050
30 Mar 08 FR29 BVA/DUB 2250/2315
Paris... Going straight into our 3rd weekend of travel was quite hard, believe it or not (ooh, poor us)... It seems like the working week extends into the weekend, often with no sleep-in, punctuated only by another dash to the check-in and another European airport somewhere, where the baggage takes so long to get to the belt, and you find yourself comparing the level of customs scrutiny from country to country, and how well organised the transport services are, etc. Paris scored quite highly in that regard. But this was so short – Paris in a weekend is like peering through the candy shop window, but you can't go in. You go up the Eiffel Tower, explore the back streets and ride the open top bus with the Americans, but you barely scratch the surface of this amazing city.
We started on the Friday evening with Aer Lingus from Dublin to Charles De Gaulle T1, which was like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with it's 70's chic & perspex tube travellators. We like Aer Lingus for the sheer reason that they do seat allocation, as opposed to Ryanair which is like boarding with the rhinoceros herd (for the sheer fear of being left behind?) We took the people mover under CDG to the train station, then the RER train into Paris (just over 8 Euros). This ended up about 200 metres from our hotel (Hotel Des Mines, €108/nt) on Blvd Saint-Michel in the 5th arrondissement. Nice little attic room with bath, like when Harrison Ford escaped across the rooftops in Frantic.
On Saturday morning (after we were able to get that all important sleep-in) Clare discovered a nearby carpet shop in world record time, and acquired a nice Iranian piece (what a bargain) for which we then acquired another piece of cabin luggage later that afternoon (to carry it back to Ireland). Our area was full of little boulangeries, street markets, loads of Vietnamese & Japanese Restaurants. You could explore here for days, then move onto another part of Paris... So we took the open top bus tour (still slightly cool) which took us up the Champs-Élysées, past the Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower, into the traffic of Saturday afternoon in Paris – loads & loads & loads of police vans and demonstrators who seemed to be pensioners, fighting for better pensions or sick benefits, or something? In the meantime, Sue & Paul were racing to Paris on the TGV from Italy and arrived mid-afternoon. That night, we had a couple of happy hour drinks, then dinner in a restaurant cellar (we think they shoved the tourists in the cellar) which wasn't too bad (about €23 each). We took the metro to the Trocadéro to view the lights of the Eiffel Tower and barter with West Africans selling little light-up tower replicas (flashing away on our bookcase right now...)
On Sunday morning Clare discovered that she'd left her Irish credit card in the Iranian carpet shop the day before, so that had to be cancelled. Then we headed back to the Eiffel Tower, where we queued up (in increasing rain), and took the lift to the 2nd level. What an amazing structure, Clare stood well back from the edge! By this point it was really raining, so Clare, Sue & Paul headed for the Musée d'Orsay while I went to the nearby Musée de l'Armée and the Tomb of Napoleon at Les Invalides (originally built as a hospital and home for disabled soldiers by Louis XIV). Good way to spend a wet Sunday afternoon. As the afternoon faded away, we said goodbye to Sue & Paul and did our final sector on the open top bus tour, then back to our hotel for the shuttle to Beauvais.
Paris Beauvais Airport is part of the Ryanair model of “cheap” flying in Europe (as much as I still love 'em)... The model where you question just how far the airport could possibly be from your destination city. In this case, Beauvais is a town in the countryside of Northern France, a long long way from Paris (seemed like ½ way to Belgium). Beauvais is a large tin shed regional airport with some improvements like a little supermarket and café with crummy food. Much like Proserpine. Ryanair dominates this airport and the queues move like rhinoceros herds (from check-in queue to customs queue to boarding queue, etc.) Our plane was late (bad weather in Dublin)... Very Late... and as we became the last flight on the departure board, and Clare was due to head to China early the next day, we started adapting the lyrics of “Khe Sanh” by Cold Chisel...

“Well the last plane out of Beauvais' almost gone
Yeah the last plane out of Beauvais' almost gone
And it's really got me worried
I'm goin' nowhere and I'm in a hurry
And the last plane out of Beauvais' almost gone”

At some time well after 11pm, with our rhinoceros herd ready to stampede, the inbound Ryanair 737 touched down and achieved the fastest turnaround I've ever seen. With the threat of air traffic control delays if we didn't depart pronto, the pilot implored people to take their seats and we left Beauvais. They switched off the lights behind us. We landed in absolutely pouring rain in Dublin. Back to Annagassan at 2am. Now where are we going next weekend?

Easter Monday...

flickr photo link: <Causeway Coast photos>
After Derry we headed on for some serious tourist spots like The Giant's Causeway and the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. It was a popular day and cars were blocking the road at The GC to pay £5 for the National Trust car park. Lazy buggers. So we parked on a nearby lane instead and walked for free. We did however support the National Trust by eating some of their sandwiches in the tearoom, then followed the crowds down to the rocks, which I have always felt slightly unspectacular. An amazing rock formation yes, but does it deserve all the accolades? I'm not so sure (God I'm hard to please...) On to the Rope Bridge where we took pics of Sue & Paul walking across and admired the view from the cliffs. Again, people lined up with kids & dogs to cross the bridge and complete their touristic pilgrimage of Northern Ireland (but we didn't see them on the Bogside, mmm...) We made it back to the car just in time before hail & sleet reduced the temperature to 1ºc as we headed for Belfast.
Everyone seemed to be out shopping and going to the pub even with the Irish flags up in commemoration of the Easter Rising, well in some neighbourhoods anyway. Union Jacks flying in other neighbourhoods of course. The pub Paul had wanted to see in Belfast (The Crown Liquor Saloon) was closed, so we kept driving to the Balloo House in County Down which does superb food. We grabbed quite possibly the last table in the bar, but they still served us quickly and graciously, and the final bill for drinks & 2 courses put the Republic prices to shame (as we've found consistently in N.I.) We drove back to Annagassan via Newry with a quick tour of Dundalk in the dark... oh look, they've finished expanding the Aldi. Home for a few loads of washing and well earned sleep!
Next weekend... Paris!

Free Derry

flickr photo link: <Derry photos>
It was cold when we arrived in Derry (aka Londonderry) on Easter Sunday. The late afternoon streets had been abandoned to the lager louts and the shutters were well and truly down. So we wandered along the 9 metre thick old city walls, looking down on the divided areas and murals from a distance. I should have worn 2 coats. It was grey and foreboding, and we returned along the grim Strand Road to our B&B (The Saddler’s House, £50/nt) which was quite nice. After a quick change we had dinner at an American style restaurant just down the street that did some great main courses but the desserts were a let down. We do give extra points to the young barman for mixing 2 Pina Colada's, and send this appeal to his management to buy him a new blender. Come on, they don't cost much!
The following morning Clare & Joe did a walking tour of The Bogside with a local guide (just the 3 of us!) Foreign tourists were out snapping pictures of the murals as we listened to the stories of the Battle of the Bogside and Bloody Sunday, from our guide's point of view. Perhaps we saw it in the wrong light, but Derry just seemed so far removed from the tourist brochures advertising art, culture & shopping (which are generally true of Belfast now). The entire history of this city is troubled and it felt like the 'troubles' just finished yesterday. It turned out we weren't far off the mark. We'd seen some posters around for a march at the local cemetery starting at 2.30pm in celebration (?) of the Easter 1916 uprising. We didn't go along, which was a good thing, as according to news reports, a riot kicked off at 3pm with police frisking kids, collecting 41 molotov cocktails, etc. Who they were rioting against and why? Who knows.
We left Derry towards the Giants Causeway with mixed feelings, hoping that one day this place may find some true peace.

Easter, Part I...

flickr photo link: <Donegal photos> (Coming Soon)
Sue & Paul arrived in Dublin on Good Friday, which is one of those weird days in Ireland as although many things are closed, it's not an official public holiday, so lots of people have to work although they'd prefer to have a public holiday like all sensible countries have (like Australia!) Went straight to Trinity College for The Book Of Kells (Joe asks why you'd pay to see a crusty old book... heathen!) The Trinity Library is more impressive than the book itself. So Harry Potter, quite spectacular. Lots of original Gould books of birds & animals from everywhere - loads of them. Apparently the library books are mostly in Latin but catalogued by height, not author or subject matter. The students are allowed to take them out but it's difficult for anyone to find anything they want to read. Almost inspires you to apply to go to Trinity for 2 weeks or so to borrow the books.
It hailed as we drove up to Malahide, just north of Dublin. We had some lunch in a popular little cafe, but missed the last tour at Malahide Castle (this was because Clare & Sue had a dessert with lunch!) We missed every castle over the weekend for one reason or another. So we went home... We tried to go to our local pub that night, but it was closed :(
On Easter Saturday we went to Newgrange. Sue & Paul did the tour, Joe read the papers and Clare took the laptop to the Café (decorated with plastic lampshades from a Stanley Kubrick movie). We then meandered up to Donegal with a few stops in haunted cemeteries (Pagan & Christian) and the like. We checked into the Atlantic Guest House in Donegal Town (€60/nt) right in the middle of the town. It rained in Donegal, as usual, and we eventually found somewhere to eat and a good, but rather solemn trad music session at 'The Reel Inn' pub that night. Lots of laments about leaving Donegal during the famine to live in the slums of Chicago. Definitely no rollicking versions of 'Bound for South Australia' or 'Belle of Belfast' like we have at our pub on Friday nights.
On Sunday we headed around the coast of Donegal and visited numerous teashops - not for tea but for coffee, cakes & souvenirs. We drove up to Slieve League cliffs, the highest in Europe at 600m - quite spectacular (Clare says it was a bit scary). Went for a walk up for a higher view - Clare slipped in the mud but luckily they had a solid fence and she didn't fall into the sea, just got a wet bum and muddy jeans. Had lunch at a greasy spoon place in Dungloe. Onwards towards Derry via more mountain passes, past Mt Errigal (looked like Mount Doom from LOTR) and through Glenveagh National Park. There was a castle here that involved a 40 min walk from the car park in the wind and rain so we gave it a miss. Then on towards Derry.
We thought the Lonely Planet writers got a bit excited over Donegal and raved a bit too much about alleged 'alpine' passes. They were interesting with a windswept beauty, but not alpine. Lots of sheep and jolly jumping lambs everywhere, and loads and loads of holiday bungalows in the coastal areas. Another part of Ireland ticked off the book!

Barcelona!

flickr photo link: <Barcelona, Mar 08>
14 Mar 08 EI46 BFS/BCN 1040/1420
17 Mar 08 EI47 BCN/BFS 1500/1640
We heard the old man on the Friday evening. At first it was just an odd sound, floating down through the breezeway behind our apartment in this part of the Barri Gòtic of Barcelona. Something deep and resonant. We opened the bathroom window. After more careful listening, it was certainly a voice... quite guttural, almost as if from the devil himself. We had no idea what he was saying, but it was certainly a one sided conversation, interspersed with a laughter, perhaps slightly hysterical. This occured regularly, morning and evening, and became strangely familar during our 3 days and nights here. We're sure, now we've left, that his voice will continue to intrigue and puzzle many visitors to come.
So, Barcelona, another fantastic (too short) travel experience in Europe. We flew from Belfast International on Friday 14 March. We shared the Aer Lingus A320 with the “Shankill Junior Football Club” which made for an amusing trip, especially the 1 ½ hours sitting on the tarmac in Belfast waiting for the fog to lift in Barcelona as the (numerous) kids around us got more and more bored... But eventually we took off and the flight was quite smooth. Barcelona Airport is nice looking but the baggage handling was poor (1 hour from landing to carousel), which we've come to expect now in Europe – all the more reason to forget the check-in baggage and travel with roll-ons that exactly fit carry-on specifications, mmm, next time...
After some deliberation outside the terminal building (a typical Friday afternoon I would suspect), we ended up sharing a cab to Plaza Catalunya with an Irish couple. They were also on the same flight back on Monday.

- Story & photos to be completed -

Storm Of The Century, Part II

This may, quite possibly, be one of our shorter blog entries. The wind howled, some rain came down and waves lashed along our sea wall, but there was no disaster last night. Everything was fine. It's probably better to have a prediction of bad weather than not be told at all. So, that was our storm of the century and all is well. Bye for now.

Storm Of The Century, Part I

Tonight, the "Storm Of The Century" is hitting Ireland & Great Britain with 100kph+ winds and buckets of rain, all combined with a super high tide. But it hasn't reached us yet! The population has been asked to stay away from coastal areas, which is a little difficult for us as we live right on the coast. So wish us luck. More updates later!

Ireland puts forward a turkey

I've always found the Eurovision Song Contest rather hard to swallow. Maybe Ireland have finally got the right idea with this crazy entry (which believe it or not, is actually dividing public opinion over here!)

Dustin the Turkey heads for Eurovision semis...
Dustin the Turkey will be representing Irish hopes at this year's Eurovision Song Contest semi-final after he won the public vote in the national Eurosong 2008 last night. Dustin saw off the challenge of the other finalists Donal Skehan, Mayo, Leona Daly, Liam Geddes and Marc Roberts, with his song 'Ireland Douze Pointe' at the University Concert Hall in Limerick. He will compete in the first Eurovision semi-final on May 20th in an bid to reach the finals on Saturday, May 24th.
© 2008 ireland.com

Almost March...

The Coachmans Tavern had seen better days...

Frosty morning, Annagassan...

Always remember to take your Peugeots out of the freezer

We've had another pretty quiet weekend, making the most of sleeping in before some upcoming travels. Except I've had a cold/flu all week, which seemed to intensify on Saturday morning, so I set up the laptop sideways and did some DVD watching in bed, whilst despatching Clare to Tesco & LIDL for our weekly supplies... The Movies: This Is England, Die Hard 4 & Zodiac (but I didn't get as far as Zodiac). These were all from the "3 for €30 collection" from HMV (the nice people at DHL got me a €30 voucher for the Pavilions Shopping Centre in Swords when I left there in December). Of course when men have a cold/flu, they're obviously dying, so must be taken care of. It was a lazy day, supported by Day & Night and Strepsils, but I felt better by Sunday so it must have worked.
It feels like winter is slowly easing away here - just the usual 4˚c at 5.30pm this afternoon and a little hail... We've had some good fog & frost this week too. Clare has been auditing & training in Ireland this week (no jetsetting), while I've been busy organising meetings and various upcoming projects in Dublin. I worked a little longer on 2 nights this week and came back on the "Belfast Enterprise", which is a very comfortable (luxury) 30 minute non-stop train journey from Dublin to Drogheda. I made the mistake of driving down on Friday. It's all fine until you hit the outskirts of Dublin, then you crawl, and crawl, and crawl... and remind yourself why the train is just so much better, regardless of how much it shakes around or the arts grant worthyness of the vandals who made an interesting creation the other day, centre carriage, from abandoned newspapers and some sort of red creaming soda... or maybe jam? The cleaners were in for a real job there.
Our travel plans for March/April/June could of course easily be thwarted by any number of strike plans over here, from cabin crew to mechanics, hell even the air traffic controllers who are demanding thousands of extra Euros, just for being on call for overtime. You gotta keep up, right? Yes, Aer Lingus staff are unhappy, British Airways staff are unhappy, Ryanair staff can get nicked if they're unhappy (thanks to Michael O'Leary), but nothing will function anyway if the air traffic controllers walk out, which they're threatening to do this Thursday, shutting down the entire country. Cool.
So if everything goes to plan, we'll be in Barcelona for 14-17 March, then Sue & Paul are here for Easter (we're heading for the Giants Causeway & Donegal), then Paris for 28-30 March, then Milan for 25-27 April, then BRISBANE for 13-28 June... Please don't ask about the carbon miles or whatever. We'll just have to act more responsibly in our next life.
Oh, we're also helping out on the Annagassan Viking Festival committee (9th & 10th August). Big things to happen right here in our little village!

Work Tales, Part II

Clare has been jetsetting, as usual... San Francisco one week, Limerick the next! Tonight she's called me from Gatwick Airport, where her Ryanair plane seems to be blocked from the runway by an Aer Lingus plane (the Ryanair pilot would take delight in telling you that, I'm sure!) Such is life in the world of seafood training, etc, etc. So here's a little trip report that Clare sent to me from San Francisco (and I found rather amusing)...
"Had some problems getting onto the net, user issues as you would say! The weather was pouring rain last night - I thought I was in Dublin. Both flights (to San Fran) were empty and I had 3 seats all the way. I did MBA work, read magazines and didn’t get toxins at Newark (this refers to Joe's little food poisoning incident at Newark Airport last October, please don't ask!) The conference oragnisers had sent emails warning about not to walk around here at night and I thought they were being paranoid Americans but they were right. I'm sure I saw 2 homeless people in the lobby at 9pm and a woman straight out of ‘Pretty Woman’ in the lobby and again later in the hall near my room. Hispanic, large, high heels, loads of makeup and very short skirt. Almost laughable really. The hotel is very ‘LA Confidential’. I thought its best days were probably around 1951 or so but I read the hotel blurb and its heyday was around the 1890’s. One of the few buildings to survive the earthquake intact and became the City Hall for a few years after 1906 or whenever the big earthquake was. Whilst eating ‘breakfast’ at Starbucks, in the hotel lobby, I watched the homeless go thru the bins at 10am this morning. The hotel blurb in the rooms has 2 pages on security, 1 page on fire safety and 2 pages on earthquake safety - during and after...
I caught the BART to Sunita’s place (ex flat mate from Brisbane). It was the train to ‘Dublin’, would you believe? Sunita lives in a ‘transition’ neighbourhood in Oakland - loads of Central American families going to Mass, artists taking over factories and making real loft apartments - not a developers version of loft apartments... mosaics where graffiti used to be. Her husband was the architect on the apartment block where they live, so they got it cheaper. But the mortage on one wage is still tough, so Sunita was back at work 3 weeks ago and her Aussie mother-in-law is here for 9 months looking after their baby son. But they'll make a fortune in a few years when the neighbourhood turns white and professional. That said, M-I-L, Chris, says the drug deals regularly go down at the train station. We had breakfast - all healthy and no eggs benedict. Chris says I have a hint of an Irish accent. Hmmm, I doubt it! Chris lived in Cork for a while 4 years ago. So we swapped Irish stories...
Sunita says that San Fran & Manhattan are the only 2 places in the USA that don’t expect a recession and house prices are not collapsing. But her husbands company (architects) sacked a bunch of people last Friday and he's working Sunday and regularly doing 90 hour weeks. The TV here has ads for 1000 houses being auctioned next week in Modesto/Fresno, etc. (well outside San Fran), and all those places behind LA that are repo houses...
Reading the papers - there is more support here for Obama than Hillary. No one cares about the Republicans, but this is San Fran! It's Tet today, the Vietnamese New Year. So I'm off to find some Pho in a few minutes. I could go to a Superbowl party with the fish types, but I can’t miss Tet when it's about 2 blocks from the hotel. Bugger the homeless. etc...

And later...

I found the Law & Order channel on TV. This area is definitely the homeless epicenter. They're everywhere - lying on all the streets, sitting everywhere and there is diversity there as well. Men, women, black, white & Asian. Can you believe homeless Asian women? I don’t think I've ever seen that before. And I can now see why people thought I was homeless in 1999 - the homeless here have backpacks and sleeping bags and when you see them from a distance they do look like a group of backpackers. Some are quite young...
Tet was very interesting - very few food stalls. Only those weird jelly things, a few red bean buns and one Hawaiian kebab stall. Mostly stalls selling: dodgy Viet DVDs, plastic & glass things from a plastics factory in the Mekong delta, Viet charities, Uni scholarship programs, newspapers, nail places and florists. There was a big concert of some Viet band that was fairly huge. But the weirdest thing was the audience was 99 % Viet. A few hispanics and a few white men with their Viet girlfriends/wives. Only saw 2 other white women. And around the corner was a big YHA hostel. But it would seem no one from the YHA went to Tet ????? Found the Pho shops. Little Saigon is about as big as Darra - that’s all. I popped into a couple of shops - one selling loads of weird jellies and other meat products - not in refrigeration! Gave them a miss. Then to the little supermarket on the corner. Found a rack of Kettle Chips. Loads of different flavours. Bought 3 types of chilli chips - Spicy Thai, Island Jerk & Buffalo Bleu. Found a farmers market on the way back...
On Monday night we saw the Deadheads For Obama - the Grateful Dead got back together for a concert for Obama and all their supporters were walking around with signs, etc. No stickers for sale though :( Bill was down at the seafront in a building doing a live telecast to Hillary - in another state - for supporters to have a chat. We went to a fish factory for drinks & crab, then off in a cable car to Chinatown with the conference organiser, who grew up there. Nice enough dinner of Cantonese & Szechuan cuisine. Most others thought it was exotic...
Tuesday arvo I escaped and did tourist stuff - seals, aquarium and Fisherman's Wharf. That night was the conference dinner - okay food, terrible speaker. A few of us went to the bar and told our own after dinner auditor stories. Up again at 4am to go to the ‘seafood markets’ that didn’t exist. I did see some trawlers, seals, giant seagulls & rats. Then did my talk and dashed for the airport...
(Sorry, no photos from San Fran, didn't take the camera)

Work Tales, Part I

I'm never quite sure how to start these blog entries. The concept of all this (back in 2006) was to be about our travel experiences, but then, of course, there is work (unless you're lucky enough that work is optional, or a mere afterthought)... So here I am again on the 6.59am to Dublin, where my Hewlett Packard office is located in a suburb called Clonskeagh, south of the city centre. The commuter trains, so far, have been pretty good (and very much on time), apart from the week a derailment happened between Drogheda & Dublin.
I absolutely love my new job. I loved my 11 years with DHL too, but this a brand new environment for me, where the team leaders self manage the workforce (of about 90 people) to a far greater extent than DHL. The building has rather good amenities with a cafeteria, coffee shop and gym, etc. I spend my days involved with: ensuring we meet our service levels, stats & performance management, learning the technical aspects of what we do (in our immediate area), organising & attending meetings, recruitment (from start to end of process), looking at morale & motivation, etc. There's always plenty to do, and of course HP is a huge global organisation in regards to future prospects. At 5pm, I literally run for the mini-bus, back to the station, where I get the 5.18pm back to Drogheda, then back home. So, that's a day for me right now.
I don't know if I'll ever get used to a 6am rise... but it happens, and as I drive down the lanes in the dark every morning (with my 4th new tyre on), there's nothing like knowing that train will leave the platform at 6.59am, whether you're on it or not...

.....f...o...g.....

Amazing fog this morning... freezing, thick and no flavour (like a Mr Whippy)... Check out the pic at the top... That's in the middle of Dublin City, and even the webcam is "fogged out"... Looks like something from Dickens London. Temp is currently 1°c.

Slice of Ireland, No. # 77

One of my tyres kept going flat. I think they call it a 'slow leaker'. Kind of inconvenient when I have to drive down to Drogheda Station at 6.30 every morning in the dark, be it raining, or frozen as it often is at the moment... Swerving along the country lanes, avoiding as many pot holes as possible, dashing through the middle of town avoiding the garbage trucks and milk deliveries, making it to the station in time for the 6.59am to Dublin, then rumbling along in the darkness listening to my Ipod, where conversations are kept low and most people try to get more shut eye. The same thing happens in reverse in the evening (dark again!) Everyone dashing for the exit at the station, trying to get home before their fellow commuters. And the same flat tyre is flatter still, so I creep the Peugeot the short distance from the train station to the service station to use the air machine, sometimes needing gloves, sometimes not (have you ever tried to get the screw cap off a tyre valve with gloves on?) So it was well and truly time to get a new tyre (or 2)...
Last Saturday afternoon whilst out shopping I discovered a place called First Stop Tyres... Very friendly, looked efficient, all good. I left the car with them and went off to look at some shops. They called me on my mobile. "You should consider 2 new ones on the front, and the one on the back..." Sure, I said yes to the 3, and thought nothing more of it. Back to collect the car a while later, and all was fine. Drove away thinking how good the service was. Roll forward a couple of mornings, raining again, slick roads, flat tyre... But the tyre shop had replaced 3 tyres on the car, right? Yes, 3 tyres out of 4, but not the 'slow leaker' which of course was the reason I went there in the first place. So much like many other unexplained mysteries here, I'll just have to go back and buy the 4th tyre too...
Clare went to San Francisco this morning on Continental. In fact, she's in the air right now as I write this, somewhere over Ohio, or Idaho, etc. You get the picture. I was hardly awake when she left this morning, much like she too is hardly awake when I leave for the station each morning in my car with the flat tyre. My morning commute is well worth it though, because I really love my new job at HP Dublin. Commuting to central Dublin by train is definitely the way to go when you hear the traffic reports on the radio every morning. Especially the days when the city grinds to a standstill (almost every day) thanks to some great motorway planning in the 1980's, when some of the pollies in Ireland were more concerned with collecting bags of money than ever believing that people would actually consider something like commuting (shock, horror), so the road (and rail) infrastructure in many parts is rather lacking. We're actually very lucky at Annagassan/Louth that we're in one one of the best served transport corridors around Dublin.
So Clare is back in Dubs on Thursday. I went up to Newry this evening to see the brilliant, if slightly baffling Coen Brothers "No Country For Old Men"... Thought about making it a double bill, but when confronted by the choice of "Cloverfield", "I Am Legend" and similar fodder, I decided to call it quits and head home. Now there would have been a time once when I might have happily sat through one of those movies, but perhaps my taste has matured and I couldn't stand the thought of another crap film. Tomorrow I'm off to Dubs for a Hash run. Bye for now.