Roma’s Excellent Adventures, Part III:

The Emerald Isle

God invented whiskey so that Ireland would not rule the world
-Irish Proverb

In August, 2009 I traveled with my daughter, Maya, to

Ireland. This tiny, lush, island is about the size of Indiana
housing 5.5 million people, about a million of whom are
from the EU, especially Poles, Lithuanians, and Czechs.

In fact when I arrived in Dublin, a

few days before Maya, I had trouble
finding people who were Irish. It was
a bit frustrating.

Ireland is an absolutely historic

place. It was first occupied by
Neolithic peoples about 8000 BC
followed by the Celts arriving about
500 BC, then the Vikings (800-1100
AD) held sway, replaced by the Normans, (1160- 1536). King
Celtic cross; a
Celtic sun married Henry VII came in with a strong English influence from 1530, and
with St. Patrick’s The Irish took back their lands from the English formally in 1923.
crucifix.
One question I asked resulted in an important answer. I took a tour
of lovely Wicklow, the bogs, and was mesmerized by the Irish countryside (see wheat
below). After I finished my tour, I asked how in God’s name the Irish could have starved
to death during the potato famine of 1846. The famine, caused by potato blight, lasted
until 1852, took a million lives and lead to the mass emigration of hundreds of thousands
of Irish to the U.S.

My question was “In

a land brimming
with wheat, barley,
cows, sheep, and
with farmland so
green irrigation was
not even need, how
could the decline of
potatoes impact so
many? Why couldn’t
other staples have
taken up the slack?” The answer will surprise you. It wasn’t the potatoes so much as the
English. The English landowners thought the Irish were barbarians, treated them much
like slaves, and they simply exported most of the food, leaving the Irish with rotten
potatoes to eat. The famine and starvation were fundamentally political! It gives quite an
insight on why the Irish have an antipathy for the English to the point that they remained
neutral during World War II, and are still agitating to get them out of Northern Ireland.
Imagine exporting most of the indigenous food for profit and leaving the peasants to
starve!

I enjoyed Dublin’s Temple Bar area, lots of pubs, right across from the Liffey River.
While I was sitting, relaxing my aching
feet at Grogan’s pub (right), and having
a bit of wine, an old man said in the
most charming Irish lilt “Pardon me,
my good friend, I don’t want to disturb
you, but if you don’t mind my
comment. I think you are a very
contented man, very happy. I can see
contentedness all across your face.
You’ll likely live to be a ripe old age
indeed.” Made me feel good. He
himself was 84.

People in Ireland are nice, exceptionally nice, sweet, and kind. In fact there is a bumper
sticker that says “Because Nice Matters”

I made a bus tour of the Wicklow mountains and found some beautiful areas. In one spot
we stopped to look over a lake. This was the Guinness estate covering thousands of acres
and two lakes. The water of the lake comes from the bogs and is colored a dark brown. It
is drinkable
and pure but
looks like a
hefty Guinness
stout. As a
matter of fact,
the Guinness
family, so
taken by the
lake, imported
French sand so
it would look
exactly like a
Guinness stout
with a foamy
top. (See right).
On the Wicklow mountains bus tour, we passed the sprawling homes of Daniel Day
Lewis and some other celebrities. We then stopped in a place where St. Kevin became a
hermit. He lived in a cave, was loved by the local people, and farmers slowly started to
settle around him as he was believed to be holy with a special gift for treating sick
animals. These are photos of the lush vegetation on the way to St. Kevin’s cave, plus a
shot inside the 12th century church dedicated to him.
But I digress. This story began not in the Wicklow
mountains but in Dublin and its delightful and picturesque
pubs.

The pubs are really as nice inside as out.

Maya and her girlfriend, Kathy in front of St. John Gogarty’s pub.

My adventure really began not in pubs but at Trinity College

in the heart of Dublin

Built about 50 years after Columbus discovered America, this

Protestant College started admitting Catholics only in 1970.
Its distinguished graduates include Samuel Beckett and scores
of others. I took a short historical tour of the place with a
guide who had just escorted John Roberts, Chief Justice of the
U.S. Supreme Court through the same winding tour. (Roberts
didn’t leave a tip, by the way). Ireland is known as the land of
“Saints and scholars.” One story has it that playwright
Brendan Behan was drunk riding home from a pub on a bus late at night. An irate lady
said to him on the bus “You’re a disgusting drunk!” His reply: “I may be drunk, but
tomorrow I’ll be sober, and you’ll still be ugly!”

What intrigued me about this place

was the Long Room, a beautiful
room of over 200,000 books the
photographs of which always
intrigued me. That’s what drew me
there. Trouble is, it doesn’t look like
the photo. It is dark, dusty, poorly
lit, and no one goes there since the
books are over 200 years old, filed
not be authors name or Dewey
decimal number, but by “size.” So it
is virtually impossible to find a
book. On top of that they wouldn’t
allow photos. Skip Trinity if that is
what is drawing you to this place.
Trinity’s famous alumni include
Jonathan Swift, Samuel Beckett,
Oscar Wilde, and one of my favorite
philosophers, George Berkley
Maya at Trinity College
All the choir of heaven and
Next stop was the Dublin Castle, the largest castle in Ireland, furniture of earth - in a word,
all those bodies which compose
in the heart of Dublin. A nice tour. I learned the meaning of the frame of the world - have
“saving face” and “losing face.” Seems the ladies of the court not any subsistence without a
wore wax make-up. If they got too close to the fireplace, they mind….George Berkeley
“lost face.” If they stayed behind a fabric shield, they “saved
face.”
The next day Maya arrived and we met in a sleek little village called Kilkenney about an
hour south of Dublin. It is known as the most picturesque village in all of Ireland. We
stopped to see the cute Kilkenny Castle. (below)

But then we took off in a rented car on a road trip and our first stop, unexpected and
unplanned, was a visit to the Jonathan Swift estate. Our Gulliver’s Travels author, they
say, was a bit mentally disturbed, but that is only a rumor. His estate covers probably 50
acres, and the house, now owned by a German woman, was impressive. She invited us in
and we liked the layout a lot (below).
However, our major interest that day was in the Purcell castle. My mother, whose maiden
name was Margaret Purcell, originally came from Ireland. Her grandfather was born
there. So we asked where the Purcell’s were from—we knew it was the Kilkenny area—
and we learned that Montague Purcell built a castle in about 1380. After his death,
women were not
allowed to own
property, so the
widow Purcell’s
bad brother put her
in a nunnery and
took over the
castle.

We may be
descended in one
way or other from
this DNA. Here is
a picture of us in
front of the Purcell
Castle which is
now a youth hostel.
Located outside of
Kilkenny, it’s now
called Foulksrath,
and the man in the
photo is Jack
Madden who took
the time to tell us
the whole story
and was a delight
to get to know.

Maya, me, and & Jack Madden at the Purcell Castle

 Maya inside Purcell Castle

We departed the Purcell Castle and headed for a pre-historic monument I wanted to see.
This is a so-called “capstone” gravesite (although no one really knows what it really is).
It is out in a wheat field, has been dated to 2500 BC, and the Neolithic people who
erected it managed to lift a 240,000 lb. stone into this mysterious configuration. Funny
thing is that if you look hither and
yon, all you see are fields, no rocks,
no hills, no quarries, no rocks of any
kind. So how did they get this rock
and deliver it to this site? No answers
at this time. The site is called
Brownes Hill Dolmen

Two prehistoric sites (dolmens) also found in Denmark and France. We visited the one on the right
Maya and I then journeyed to where Jim’s wife, Veronica, was born. Veronica died two
years ago and was born in a small Irish village called Graigenemanah (pronounced Greg
Namanah). It was only about 30 miles from where my mother’s family originated in the
Purcell Castle (go figure!). We had no
anticipation that we would be able to
actually find Veronica’s house, but we
went to a pub and said “Do any of you
know the Crowleys; Veronica
Crowley’s father was a constable here
about 50 years ago.” “Of course we
do!” they said, and we were escorted
to Veronica’s place of her birth, took
photos, and met a guy named Liam
Foley, a friend of her brother, Michael.
He showed us around, plus a bicycle

he made himself entirely out of wood (including

the chain).
 Random things:

Of course there are things that just come out at random, so here goes.

1. Bog Man. I went to the museum

of natural history and was looking for Bog
Man,” an almost perfectly preserved
Neolithic or
Celtic man
who had
been buried
in the bog.
Here is the
upper half
of his torso,
skin and
fingernails
intact. Roughly 2,000 years old.

2. Churches : The major cathedrals of Dublin were St. Patrick’s and Christ Church,
both Anglican. I took a liking to another, however, not listed on the brochures, St.
Augustines. It was stately and even more ornate inside.
3. Guinness: We went to the Guinness brewery
for an incredibly interesting tour. Its
advertising room alone is worth the visit: very
creative and ingenious commercials down
through the ages. The Brewery is celebrating
its 250th year. Arthur Guinness signed a lease
for the land for 45 pounds per year for 9,000
years! The copy of that unusual lease is
proudly displayed in the brewery.

We tasted draft, stout, and extra stout. About

3.6 billion pints are downed every day, and it
was a delight. Trouble is I don’t like the taste.
As you can see Maya felt differently.

4. Dublin’s shopping streets. We didn’t frequent these shops much, but there are loads
of beautiful and crowded shopping streets that are filled with people, street musicians,
and mimes. The guy painted black was singularly impressive!
5. The Irish literary tradition. Home or birthplace
to Dylan Thomas, Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde,
James Joyce, Jonathan Swift, and Brendan Behan,
you see frequent reminders in the sidewalk or on
panes of glass, quotations, spread throughout the
city. This one from James Joyce’s Ulysses is
embedded in the sidewalk.

6. Obama’s health plan. I met a man on a bus who

said that he lived in San Francisco for 20 years. He
had a heart attack, insufficient medical insurance,
and it cost him $70,000. He had to sell his property
and move back to Ireland. He likes it here better he
said.

7. Smokey and Corky. My Irish uncle, Jerome, “Uncle Jerry” was my namesake. He
used to call my brother Corky and me Smokey when we were 3 and 5 years old. My
brother, as an adult, developed a slight
addiction to alcohol (Corky), and cigarettes,
rather than alcohol, grabbed me by the
“bullocks” thus the name Smokey. Uncle
Jerry had incredible foresight. So when I
saw a pub called Korky, I couldn’t resist.

7. Favorite area and time. My best “spot”

was near Powerscourt, a shopping area with a
good vibe, and I truly enjoyed resting from my walking tours and having an afternoon
read and wine near Temple Bar.

8. Food: Ate traditional Irish dishes (Irish stew, about 4 times, bangers and mash
(sausages and mashed potato), and my favorite, cottage pie (basically shepherd’s pie
made from beef). Maya’s friends, Kathy & Vinnie, went out with us and Vinnie had
“Coddle,” an interesting an tasty blend of sausages, vegetables, and cream. Best beer was
Smithwicks at a pub in Kilkenny called Duiskes. Best desert also at Duiske’s pub: bread,
ice cream and butterscotch. Incredible!
9. Just pretty things. I took pictures of pubs and buildings which I liked, just because I
thought they were pretty. Here are a few.
10. Ballykissangel/ Avoca

On my bus trip through the

Wicklow mountains we
stopped in a quaint village
called Avoca. This is where
they film Ballykissangel, a
BBC-PBS TV program.
Everyone in the little town has
been an extra in the on-going
series. Cute little place.

8. Poland. There are many EU citizens in Dublin, and I was

singularly impressed with how many poles there were, including
Polish stores and markets. Here’s one celebrating my 50% Polish
DNA right in the heart of my Irish DNA:
8. Comedy club. On our last evening, Maya and I went to a comedy club. We had to wait
for an hour, so we sat in a pub across the street and Maya peppered me for which
fashions I liked and which I didn’t. An interesting game to play as you people watch.
The comedy was exceptional. A perfect end to the trip.

So its time to say goodbye to this little adventure. How better than to put in a bit of the
Irish harp and shamrock.
“If me aunt had any balls, she’d be me uncle!”