The South Coast and the Open Sea
Good morning all!
Hope this finds you well. I'm writing from my very cosy little cabin on the ferry leaving Ireland....quite blissful to know I have 15 hours of not carrying stuff, no buses to catch, nowhere to find (or not find) on Google maps...even though this quite a large boat, with lifts.
So I left you last time in beautiful Bantry, whose natural harbour of course has always had strategic importance in times of sea travel and trade, having very long standing links with Spain and France. There is a strange impression in England that Ireland is kind of tacked onto the side of Britain, and that the larger island is the bridge between it and the rest of Europe, but this of course is not the case...not now with air travel, and even less with sea travel before it, and this is certainly not how Ireland is seen from the point of view of the rest of Western Europe and North Africa- Britain and Ireland are just two different islands to the North (or the South for the Norwegians). Most of the human settlement after the ice age came from Iberia to Ireland, without passing through England.
Most of Ireland didn't come under the control of the English crown until Henry VIII....There had been Anglo-Norman (and direct Norman, and Norse settlement) before, but aside of a few of the large towns where English and Norman French were the languages, Ireland was a Gaelic-speaking tribal society, and a Catholic one. Having a country like this so close by, and with so many direct links to Spain, was seen by Henry as a potential and very real threat, and there were indeed Spanish soldiers who came to Ireland to try and stop him, unsuccessfully. Even then, the anglicisation of Ireland was gradual (and never complete) linguistically, and largely unsuccessful religiously and culturally. This part of Ireland, West Cork was really the last place to fall under any kind of control by England....with lucrative free trade with France and Spain through its harbours, it was ruled by the O'Sullivan clans. There were also long standing sea connections with Morocco, but less happily in the early modern times than in the past, as a large number of Irish people were abducted and taken as slaves to North Africa.
But the increasingly religious fundamentalists who held power in England eventually did control West Cork politically, well over a hundred years after Henry VIII....but of course the free trade with the rest of Europe through Bantry and other ports continued as before, only now it had become illegal according to the greedy powers that were in England, who wanted the tax money. I think that power and gresd are so closely linked, however that power chooses to portray itself. Puritan rule in England was incredibly similar to Taliban rule of Afghanistan....but this did not happen in Ireland.
And so I left Bantry, having learned a lot, and enjoyed the beauty of its bay and the lovely town. The old woollen mill there is now the library- and a really beautiful one, with a calming water wheel beside it. It was quite a long journey, so lots of knitting time, going into Cork and then back out to Clonakilty. They are really not very far apart but have no direct public transport connection outside of the summer. This is a sparsely populated country, so you can't expect public transport to run all the time, but as one woman said to me 'Our bus service is the best, as it takes you all around the world!' Clonakilty is very beautiful, and perhaps is most famous for De Barra, which is everything you could want a pub to be....cosy, atmospheric, with a wonderful indoor garden....and a music venue at the back which has played host to so many incredible musicians...I had a pint sitting next to the signed personal dedication from David Bowie, who also loved this place.
Because of the storm, I had booked a ridiculously cheap air bnb a few miles outside; a room above a pub called the Pike, at Lissavaird. It was cheap because the pub is still being renovated...saved from total dereliction by a group of four people who are putting so much love and real character into the place. Half the pub is open...if they make the other half anywhere near as good, this is going to be a fantastic destination. So nice to see a local pub being rescued....not just from dereliction but also saved from being turned into some identikit chain pub who would have ripped the soul from it. These people are putting yet more soul into it, and it was great to see this. The room also had one of the most comfortable beds I've ever been in, so I woke up very refreshed...luckily, as I needed the strength to cope with being out all day in constant driving rain.
I got the bus back to Clonakilty, well quite beyond it actually, as I missed the stop, not recognising the town as the one way system takes the bus to a different part of town. So I arrived at Knitwell Wools like a drowned rat! Had an amusing time there, talking to the lovely, and very camera shy, but very witty woman working there. Someone came in, looked at all the wool, and bemoaned her slowness at knitting. The quick reply was 'The Only answer to that is thick wool and big needles", and then she rolled her eyes at me....yarn work isn't for the impatient....but you do probably need patience working in a knitting shop where so many people came and acclaim 'wow!' again and again without buying anything. There's something about a range of colours on display that makes people happy, but I imagine running a knitting, or a stationery shop, it might get a bit annoying, people coming in and leaving smiling, but you're not a therapy unit, you're trying to make a living. At the bus stop, I met a lovely fellow textile artist, colleensullivanfineart from Canada...check out her very interesting embroidery art on the insta. She's travelling around Ireland visiting pre-Christian sites, mapping her walks, communing with the mischievous faeries and migrating stones.
From there it was two buses through Cork to Dungarvan, County Waterford. The landscape is much softer here, and the bay is enormous, though I couldn't see much of it in the evening mist. I put up my tent and soon realised I had the place completely to myself....it's really a caravan park, it was a Thursday night in late September and pretty cold. A few caravanners arrived the next morning when it was lovely and sunny, and I had a lovely long walk all around the bay to the town. The two ladies in Monica's knitting shop were delightful, and they told me how the shop had celebrated its 70th anniversary earlier that year. The original Monica had moved down from Galway to open the shop, but passed away 13 years ago at a time old age, and now it's run by the lovely Bredi. There's a place in the town square called The Local, which serves the best chips I have ever eaten, and I have eaten rather a lot of chips. I had a moment of sadness seeing the new Waterford greenway....the entrance to which is lined with EU flags and the countries of all the EU nations....no Union Jack any more. It was a timely reminder that much as Brexit is a huge issue for the Brits (and a worrying one for the Irish all over this island) everyone else will just carry on happily as before. It's like a self important guest who apologises to everyone for leaving a party early; the others would be too busy enjoying themselves to even notice they'd gone.
It's a short bus ride back to Cork, most of which I sleep through and then notice I've lost a small bag...nothing too serious, mostly batteries but I have lost a chain that I always wear when I travel. It's a moment of panic before I conclude that perhaps it's time to let go of superstitions like that....this world is full enough of both wonder and horror without adding to add with beliefs that aren't real. Besides, it's a chain I made myself, and if I did it before I can do it again.
Vibes and Scribes in Cork really is a paradise....a whole basement of yarn of so many different kinds. I got some locally dyed supersoft yarn. The first floor is all fabric, the top floor all craft materials....wonderful, and lucky I am pushed for space otherwise I could have filled a couple of suitcases and had to live off foraged food for several months. Ger who I met in Dingle kindly offered to put me up for the night, and she lives a 10 minute walk away. It was great to see her again. It is culture night all over the island, and we went up to Blarney, where she lived for a while to see a moving theatre troupe, dressed in Edwardian clothes reenacting the events of the town in 1920. They were great! And it finished with a lovely choir. Barney used to have the most enormous woollen mill; it's been sympathetically restored into a big hotel, a vast pub and restaurant and the largest shop in Jreland- that's how big the mill was. We went back into Cork to find total darkness...a power cut all over the north of the city, and went to a packed pub called Sin E, all decked out in fairy lights. I marvel at the luck of seeing it in a power cut, but it actually always looks like that! There's a brilliant trad Irish music band. ..so fitting for my last night in Ireland. ...but pretty soon the landlady has to close. .not because she wants to....the place is heaving and it is Friday night....but because the lack of power has meant all the beer is getting warm. And we're not in England!
I'm sad to leave Ireland....it's been wonderful...but also exhausting, and I have missed Shane enormously. And now it's Brittany, a home from home for me, and going to spend some time with one of my oldest friends Gaël. The first thing I do on the ferry is go and eat a delicious French meal; not that Irish food is bad, very far from it, but who isn't happy to see a cook who speaks French?
Love and light to you all, Billy xxxx
Hope this finds you well. I'm writing from my very cosy little cabin on the ferry leaving Ireland....quite blissful to know I have 15 hours of not carrying stuff, no buses to catch, nowhere to find (or not find) on Google maps...even though this quite a large boat, with lifts.
So I left you last time in beautiful Bantry, whose natural harbour of course has always had strategic importance in times of sea travel and trade, having very long standing links with Spain and France. There is a strange impression in England that Ireland is kind of tacked onto the side of Britain, and that the larger island is the bridge between it and the rest of Europe, but this of course is not the case...not now with air travel, and even less with sea travel before it, and this is certainly not how Ireland is seen from the point of view of the rest of Western Europe and North Africa- Britain and Ireland are just two different islands to the North (or the South for the Norwegians). Most of the human settlement after the ice age came from Iberia to Ireland, without passing through England.
Most of Ireland didn't come under the control of the English crown until Henry VIII....There had been Anglo-Norman (and direct Norman, and Norse settlement) before, but aside of a few of the large towns where English and Norman French were the languages, Ireland was a Gaelic-speaking tribal society, and a Catholic one. Having a country like this so close by, and with so many direct links to Spain, was seen by Henry as a potential and very real threat, and there were indeed Spanish soldiers who came to Ireland to try and stop him, unsuccessfully. Even then, the anglicisation of Ireland was gradual (and never complete) linguistically, and largely unsuccessful religiously and culturally. This part of Ireland, West Cork was really the last place to fall under any kind of control by England....with lucrative free trade with France and Spain through its harbours, it was ruled by the O'Sullivan clans. There were also long standing sea connections with Morocco, but less happily in the early modern times than in the past, as a large number of Irish people were abducted and taken as slaves to North Africa.
But the increasingly religious fundamentalists who held power in England eventually did control West Cork politically, well over a hundred years after Henry VIII....but of course the free trade with the rest of Europe through Bantry and other ports continued as before, only now it had become illegal according to the greedy powers that were in England, who wanted the tax money. I think that power and gresd are so closely linked, however that power chooses to portray itself. Puritan rule in England was incredibly similar to Taliban rule of Afghanistan....but this did not happen in Ireland.
And so I left Bantry, having learned a lot, and enjoyed the beauty of its bay and the lovely town. The old woollen mill there is now the library- and a really beautiful one, with a calming water wheel beside it. It was quite a long journey, so lots of knitting time, going into Cork and then back out to Clonakilty. They are really not very far apart but have no direct public transport connection outside of the summer. This is a sparsely populated country, so you can't expect public transport to run all the time, but as one woman said to me 'Our bus service is the best, as it takes you all around the world!' Clonakilty is very beautiful, and perhaps is most famous for De Barra, which is everything you could want a pub to be....cosy, atmospheric, with a wonderful indoor garden....and a music venue at the back which has played host to so many incredible musicians...I had a pint sitting next to the signed personal dedication from David Bowie, who also loved this place.
Because of the storm, I had booked a ridiculously cheap air bnb a few miles outside; a room above a pub called the Pike, at Lissavaird. It was cheap because the pub is still being renovated...saved from total dereliction by a group of four people who are putting so much love and real character into the place. Half the pub is open...if they make the other half anywhere near as good, this is going to be a fantastic destination. So nice to see a local pub being rescued....not just from dereliction but also saved from being turned into some identikit chain pub who would have ripped the soul from it. These people are putting yet more soul into it, and it was great to see this. The room also had one of the most comfortable beds I've ever been in, so I woke up very refreshed...luckily, as I needed the strength to cope with being out all day in constant driving rain.
I got the bus back to Clonakilty, well quite beyond it actually, as I missed the stop, not recognising the town as the one way system takes the bus to a different part of town. So I arrived at Knitwell Wools like a drowned rat! Had an amusing time there, talking to the lovely, and very camera shy, but very witty woman working there. Someone came in, looked at all the wool, and bemoaned her slowness at knitting. The quick reply was 'The Only answer to that is thick wool and big needles", and then she rolled her eyes at me....yarn work isn't for the impatient....but you do probably need patience working in a knitting shop where so many people came and acclaim 'wow!' again and again without buying anything. There's something about a range of colours on display that makes people happy, but I imagine running a knitting, or a stationery shop, it might get a bit annoying, people coming in and leaving smiling, but you're not a therapy unit, you're trying to make a living. At the bus stop, I met a lovely fellow textile artist, colleensullivanfineart from Canada...check out her very interesting embroidery art on the insta. She's travelling around Ireland visiting pre-Christian sites, mapping her walks, communing with the mischievous faeries and migrating stones.
From there it was two buses through Cork to Dungarvan, County Waterford. The landscape is much softer here, and the bay is enormous, though I couldn't see much of it in the evening mist. I put up my tent and soon realised I had the place completely to myself....it's really a caravan park, it was a Thursday night in late September and pretty cold. A few caravanners arrived the next morning when it was lovely and sunny, and I had a lovely long walk all around the bay to the town. The two ladies in Monica's knitting shop were delightful, and they told me how the shop had celebrated its 70th anniversary earlier that year. The original Monica had moved down from Galway to open the shop, but passed away 13 years ago at a time old age, and now it's run by the lovely Bredi. There's a place in the town square called The Local, which serves the best chips I have ever eaten, and I have eaten rather a lot of chips. I had a moment of sadness seeing the new Waterford greenway....the entrance to which is lined with EU flags and the countries of all the EU nations....no Union Jack any more. It was a timely reminder that much as Brexit is a huge issue for the Brits (and a worrying one for the Irish all over this island) everyone else will just carry on happily as before. It's like a self important guest who apologises to everyone for leaving a party early; the others would be too busy enjoying themselves to even notice they'd gone.
It's a short bus ride back to Cork, most of which I sleep through and then notice I've lost a small bag...nothing too serious, mostly batteries but I have lost a chain that I always wear when I travel. It's a moment of panic before I conclude that perhaps it's time to let go of superstitions like that....this world is full enough of both wonder and horror without adding to add with beliefs that aren't real. Besides, it's a chain I made myself, and if I did it before I can do it again.
Vibes and Scribes in Cork really is a paradise....a whole basement of yarn of so many different kinds. I got some locally dyed supersoft yarn. The first floor is all fabric, the top floor all craft materials....wonderful, and lucky I am pushed for space otherwise I could have filled a couple of suitcases and had to live off foraged food for several months. Ger who I met in Dingle kindly offered to put me up for the night, and she lives a 10 minute walk away. It was great to see her again. It is culture night all over the island, and we went up to Blarney, where she lived for a while to see a moving theatre troupe, dressed in Edwardian clothes reenacting the events of the town in 1920. They were great! And it finished with a lovely choir. Barney used to have the most enormous woollen mill; it's been sympathetically restored into a big hotel, a vast pub and restaurant and the largest shop in Jreland- that's how big the mill was. We went back into Cork to find total darkness...a power cut all over the north of the city, and went to a packed pub called Sin E, all decked out in fairy lights. I marvel at the luck of seeing it in a power cut, but it actually always looks like that! There's a brilliant trad Irish music band. ..so fitting for my last night in Ireland. ...but pretty soon the landlady has to close. .not because she wants to....the place is heaving and it is Friday night....but because the lack of power has meant all the beer is getting warm. And we're not in England!
I'm sad to leave Ireland....it's been wonderful...but also exhausting, and I have missed Shane enormously. And now it's Brittany, a home from home for me, and going to spend some time with one of my oldest friends Gaël. The first thing I do on the ferry is go and eat a delicious French meal; not that Irish food is bad, very far from it, but who isn't happy to see a cook who speaks French?
Love and light to you all, Billy xxxx
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