Princes and kingdoms

This tale starts last December, when a certain little boy wrote an epistle to a certain jolly old elf. The Irish countryside and the tale of the King of Ireland's son had clearly struck the boy, as his only wish in the nefariously intercepted letter was for a castle. This deputy elf's mind was set racing: clearly this wish came from the heart and needed to be acknowledged, and magic dictated that as much as possible that the wish be granted.

Luckily for us, at least one elf had research ability and a decent internet connection, and identified an alternative: spending the night in a castle, rather than all the headaches of ownership. And so it was that we found ourselves entrenched in Ross Castle on the shores of Lough Sheelin in County Meath this weekend.

We occupied the entire tower, which had been reconstructed in the 1850's to undo damage by Cromwell's men ("Is there any castle he didn't destroy?" laments my dear husband). Meter-thick walls and canopy beds offset the sixties-era creative plumbing, and our hosts kept a fire burning in the hearth as well as supplying a passel of their own children to run around with ours.

Of course, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to explore the surrounding area--indeed, it is County Meath that is home to many of Ireland's stately treasures, as its Boyne Valley was chosen by its kings for centuries as home.

The guidebooks lead tourists to Newgrange, a passage grave older than the pyramids in Egypt. Benn there, done that (back when they let you go in); Lesser known is the megalithic cemetery with 20 or so lesser passage graves on the hilltops of Loughcrew, which just happened to be a twenty-minute drive from the castle (did I mention this elf was very good?). Tradition is alive and well here: to view Cairn T (they're named with the letters of the alphabet), one must visit the tea house in a neighboring garden for the key. The keychain made it clear that we were going someplace seriously dark--no electricity on this windswept hillside!

Huffing and puffing after twenty vertical minutes, we wrestled the padlocked gate and let our eyes adjust to the gloom. Just a short passage with side chambers; a bunch of old rocks. But wait, isn't that a spiral? And a flower? Taking turns with the flashlight, we discovered the richness of the 3000-year old decoration. We had an hour with the place to ourselves, one of those jewel-like moments.

Tootling on, we trekked to the town of Kells, whose Heritage Centre now houses some lovely replicas: the famous book (original in Trinity College in Dublin), the Crosier of Kells (original in the National Museum in Dublin), the Market Cross (original in front of said Heritage Centre). After an uninspriring meal in the Smiley Café, we headed over the hills, for one more stop until our castle.

Fore Abbey, one of the seven wonders of Fore, is yet another lovely ruined abbey in a grassy vale. Most notable here was the dovecote and the motte behind. Because there was a wedding in town, it was impossible to park, so we parked on a side lane on the other side of the motte. A motte, as you may recall, is a big steep hill to keep the enemies away. As I was contemplating which side of the motte might provide the shortest route to the abbey, Marcus grinned and said, "let's just go over!" and ran up the hillside. Can't let my kid outgun me--up I went too, to a glorious view of the Abbey and a jumpable fence at the dovecot (pigeonholes are handy for climbing).

Saturday night was a late bedtime, and Sunday breakfast was a slow affair, so we meandered home via Trim Castle: movie buffs would have recognized the grounds where Mel Gibson was hanged, but we've never seen the flick. Guess we should add it to the list. We also tried our luck at four letterboxes ostensibly hidden on Tara Hill, but no luck, just the fairies and the sheep were in residence.

Home, unpack, laundry, showers and haircuts. Our attention now turns to preparing for a much longer trek: to our own Stateside castle, to reconnect and exchange winter coats for summer, and schlepp home excess treasures the princes have collected sofar.

The short road home

After two days in the car, no one was feeling particularly anxious to hit the road on Sunday. We realized too late we should have scheduled a "nothing" day for kids to play and adults to lounge and chat. But we had tickets to the Easter Eggspress departing Dublin on Monday, so staying an extra day, tempting as it was, was not an option.

And then there was the matter of Easter Sunday. No, we didn't have to deal with a Catholic vigil or sunrise service, but there was a pile of fresh hot cross buns and more than a few foil-covered eggs and bunnies to deal with. Any fears that the bunny might not find us were alieved when the kids got up early to play with the dog and found the table set by said festive rodent.

The outdoors had a few glimmers as well, and the kids soon discovered an embarassment of chocolate eggs and bunnies in the field around the cabins. All the booty went into one bag, equitably dividing the stomach ache among us all.

With the morning nearly gone and our bellies full of chocolate, we decided to take the direct route home, stopping once in Roscrea, a town we had bypassed on the way down. Two bags of snack, one for each car, were prepared, bags were packed and one more egg ingested for the road.

Coloring books, cheap felt pens and a mountain of food got us all the way to Roscrea, where we discovered, much to our delight, that there was a great castle with picnic grounds, sunshine and an OPW booth--we could actually use our card for the first time this trip! The guidebooks don't lie when they call this place a great halfway stopover. The castle has been restored very selectively and sensitively, allowing you to explore passageways and see evidence of even more. Think of sunny window seats, a huge fireplace and stairways to nowhere. There's even a hole-in-the-floor dungeon, called an oubliette to scare the kids.

From there, we discovered it was a quick hour home to Tulfarris (mostly motorway), and kidlets, full of sun, chocolate and lunch, slept most of that. Our food bag also had some lovely lamb chops from County Kerry, which served as our garlicky Easter lamb that grilled up while the troops played soccer outside our very own back door.

I love a parade

When I was a girl, we used to head downtown every summer for the Shasta County Sheriff's Posse Parade. Come to think of it, I'm not really clear what the occasion was, but the parade was a fine one from my perspective, with a color guard, lots of horses, and clowns at the end to scoop up the horse poop. People threw candy, and being a kid, you could squeeze to the front row and see everything. It was probably a pretty lame parade, but it at least paritally explains why, when faced with the opportunity to attend the world's most famous St. Patrick's Day parade--the one in Dublin--we took a pass.

Instead, we scoured the listings to find a parade that promised some local flavor but not too much in the way of heaving masses of tourists. Our town, Blessington, wasn't having one this year, though we did see posters for early evening music, kiddie meals, and face painting at the West Wicklow House, so we put that on the calendar for the evening. But we needed a parade.

We settled on a town an hour and two counties away called Tullamore; it met all our criteria and more: the parade brochure promised us street entertainers, guest of honour Pauline Curley, and boasted of "American Mussel Cars." Hard to resist that!

We arrived in time to see the locals walking toward the centre of town, clad in varying degrees of green and orange. Much like a sporting event, with the team colors just happening to match the national flag, and the mascot lending itself to ridiculous hats with golden buckles and silly sayings.

We parked and followed the crowds to the main thoroughfare, a fine example of an Irish main street, with a grandstand set up on the back of a truck. The population of the best seats (well, only seats) in the house were the town elders, wearing their fancy dress and bunches of shamrocks;

Add a few fiddle players, keeping a handful of polka dancers circling in the street. The mood was festive, and hawkers were selling flags, silly hats and long stuffed animals (?) on sticks. We couldn't figure out why you would wave this particular thing, so purchased our very own Irish flag for €3, which Danny promtply appropriated as his own.

Parades are led off by a color guard where I come from, and here is no exception. What is different is that they gave the microphone to a gentleman with a silver-tongued gift of gab, which meant that the parade often came to a standstill while he had his ample say. Of course, there's no rush, but it proved a bit of a challenge, say for people on bicycles or those herding small children.

As promised by the brochure, we did have an Olympian, riding in style in a lovely Rolls Royce:

And street entertainers:

Fortunately, the American Mussel Cards turned out to have nothing to do with mollusks, and more with Fords and Peterbuilts. We're not sure how they got the big rigs over here, or how they can afford to run them with diesel running about $5 a gallon.

There were of course, a few Irish "mussel" vehicles:

As for the mysterious stuffies, it soon became apparent, every time a fellow dressed as a green-robed saint came by. Yup, snakes they were, the very same ones that St. Paddy led out of Ireland.

Now, if I had been sitting on the podium, I would have given out an award for this entry: Nowhere else in the world could you have a float with a bunch of punchy fellows cutting peat. Can you spot the leprechaun?

As the announcer promised, they saved the best for last--at least he and our eldest could agree on that. The entire County Offaly fire and rescue brigade came out, and the sight and sound was quite impressive.

*****

So, you ask, do you follow a parade like that? Well, apparently you head to a pub, but it was such a lovely day, and the crowds were so thick that we opted for yet another car picnic. We still had four hours to go until things warmed up at the West Wicklow House, and so we turned once more to our trusty Ordinace Survey Maps and Peter.

We had seen the ruin on our drive in, and so took a left turn to Lea Castle (the name is lovely, too, isn't it?). Peter told us to climb the fence and walk across the field, but due to cows, we took the long way around--only to find the shortcut on the other side. I sure hope you like castles, because we do, and this is not the last wildly romantic castle we shall clamber over.

On the way out, a farmer fellow mentioned that if we liked castles, it would be a good day for one a few hills over. But we were tired, and there are more weekends to come. We eventually did get back to Blessington, where we confirmed that corned beef is served here for St. Patrick's Day, along with a cold pint and live music and craic at the local pub.

Full weekend

It was one of those weekends where we were feeling intense, over-achieving pressure to have fun. In retrospect, it's pretty stupid, getting all worked up and yelling at each other, staying up late trying to figure out what to do next, but that's what we did. You'd think middle age would have left us smarter than that.

What we did relearn was that if you leave things to the very last minute, you're not going to get away with a quick call to a great hotel in Waterford with a view of the big St. Paddy's day fireworks over the River Suir. And it should be no surprise that all castles and farms nearby are booked out as well. Of course, there is only one fleabag hotel available. We need a plan B. (Actually, we need a plan A, but let's be kind to ourselves.) Hmm, it's only a three hour drive: maybe we should just drive down for the day, and drive up afterward, getting to bed really late. So we think we'll do that. The next morning, we realize that we don't want to drive that much and fight the expected crowd of 50,000.

So, Plan C. We went to music lessons like we do every week, and then after lunch, we piled in the car with a few snacks and a couple of Ordinance Survey maps, and headed down to the Piper's Stone, a stone circle just a few miles down the road. Through the gorse bushes, say hello to the sheep, scratch your head about the sheep's skull in the middle of the circle, strain to hear the piper. Very cool.
Then back down, finding a passage grave, an Ogham stone in Donard, and picking up some local eggs at the corner market. We decide to try to follow the oral directions of the guide at Glendalough a couple of weeks ago to find a stone circle in the nearby woods. We gave this one the old college try, but to no avail. The walk in the woods was a fine afternoon in its own right, but if there was a stone circle, it was either hidden under three inches of moss, or had been obliterated by recent logging activity (I hope not!).

Back then to Tulfarris, where the boys had a date with the neighbor to watch the next in the Six Nations series of rugby matches (Ireland won again--if they win this week, it'll be a grand slam sweep). We'd figured we could go into town to catch the Waterford fireworks on the big screen at the pub. Alas, the place was so packed we never would have had a table, and the screens were tuned to yet another game played on a green field. Clearly the fireworks were not meant to be, so we headed over to our favorite pizza place and got some pies to go.

*****

The next morning, we had a real, some would say cunning, plan: We heard tell of the Shamrock Festival in Navan. Now this sounded like it might provide some Irish flavor of the local persuasion. So, we headed out mid-morning to drive north to County Meath. Alas, the town was almost deathly quiet, with nary a pub open with food. We grabbed sandwiches at the Centra (think 7-11) and ate in the car (those dual sunroofs are pretty cool for this), while formulating a new plan: drive out of Navan town and try to locate a convergence of red on the map (you may recall that small red writing on OS maps means a place of interest) and entry in Peter (more on him later).


Just outside of town was a "church and round tower." Donaghmore Church (15th century) was pretty much in ruins, but the round tower was lovely, even if a Victorian-era restoration had blocked out the windows. Church and tower mean churchyard, and we're always interested in the stories that the headstones tell.

And then, mere millimeters further on the map, was "castle." Well, we're game for that, and our Irish guidebook from the 70s (Guide to the National Monuments in the Republic of Ireland, by Peter Harbison, hereinafter referred to affectionately as Peter) told us that it was Dunmoe Castle, a 15th century edifice that Cromwell took pot shots at from the opposite side of the River Boyne in 1649. We chat over the fence with the neighbor, who notes that there was a secret passageway from the castle under the river until the 1940s when it collapsed. We marvel at how lucky his boys are to have a real castle in their backyard.




Back in the car, Alfred says, "What's that on the left?" I look at the map and read, "Bective Abbey." He makes the turn, and we spend a pleasant hour climbing over the ruins of a 12th century Cistercian abbey (Peter notes it was renovated several times, fortified and even did a stint as a private home). The cloister is lovely, and some of the fine carving can still be seen in spite of centuries of weathering, Cromwellian enforcement and neglect.




Our theoretical destination was Trim. We recalled a place where we had stopped about 10 years ago, on our way back from the west on a St. Paddy's Day weekend. The town was all abustle, with sheep pens in the main road, dancers and live music in the town square, and big burly guys having a tug of war on the hill overlooking the castle (which you may recognize as York Castle from Braveheart). The atmosphere was magical, with the spectacular Trim Castle (the largest in Ireland) towering over it all.

But of course, nothing stays the same. To give an idea of the change in a relatively short period, here is what Peter says about accessing the castle: "Through gate and up a short lane. If gate is locked, ask for key in restaurant opposite the entrance. Not signposted." That was 1970: When were there ten years ago, the castle was closed for renovation. The influx of Hollywood and Celtic Tiger money have done their bit: the town has been fixed up with sidewalks and stripe down the middle of the road and there is a modern monstrosity of a building where the dancers did their jig. The hillside is still verdant though, and the castle was open -- and charging hefty admission. Flashing our shiny heritage card, we walked right in.


Our dream of a nice supper in a pub eluded us once more, and we end up grabbing a bite in the chipper (which we are assuming occupies the space of the restaurant Peter mentioned as having the key). It has been a full weekend.

Now we just need to decide what to do for St. Patrick's day!