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Irish car security system, Kinvara...



Braveheart IIRC was mostly filmed in Ireland, this here is west of Kinvara, looks like the tower Mel jumps his horse out of in that highly improbable scene.



Hillside in the Burrens, County Clare. West Coast of Ireland, traditional refuge of fugutives from the English.

During counter-guerrilla operations in Burren in 1651-52, Edmund Ludlow stated, "(Burren) is a country where there is not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him...... and yet their cattle are very fat; for the grass growing in turfs of earth, of two or three foot square, that lie between the rocks, which are of limestone, is very sweet and nourishing."




The coast west of Ballyvaughan. I was talking to a couple guys fishing here, waiting for the annual mackerel run where they will hit virtually any bait. I asked them what they were catching, "F--k all" they replied (local vernacular for "nothing"), turns out the mackerel weren't in yet.

I asked them if you know the mackerel were in by the seabirds, "f--k the birds" they said, "look for all the people."



My home fer a month and a bit, here pitched at Doolin at the Cliffs of Moher, behind a wall to shelter from the wind. I gotta say that that thin REI Quarterdome did alright, kept me reasonably dry even in Ireland where ya pitch in the rain, sleep through the rain and put everything up in the rain the next day.

Thanks for sharing

Thank you gentlemen for reading.

Doolin and the Cliffs of Moher...

This guy rated a 'Beware of the Bull' sign, tho' I suspect he was waiting for handouts from passing tourists...



The Cliffs from the ocean side, 700 ft tall (213 m) at O'Brien's Tower (that three-storey tower being the tiny nub on the top in the photo). Sir Cornelius O'Brien who as local lore put it "built everything here but the cliffs" musta been a ladies' man, as it was said he built the tower to impress the women he was chasing.

I'll 'fess up, my own motivation for being on the boat was the seabird colonies.



I already posted some clifftop pics a couple of pages back, but here's another. A peregrine falcon sailed leisurely by at eye level right after I took this photo...



Strong winds and raining when I hiked the cliffs late in the day, on the way I came across this small monument, looked like a birdbath from a distance, or maybe a sundial.



I gotta say that trail was all about falling: There was a Suicide Help Line number posted at the trail head, apparently folks fall off fairly reg'lar voluntary or otherwise, and the times in all that wind and rain where the trail was washed out and you had to use your hands as well as feet to negotiate the edge I was repeating a mantra inside my head "I will not fall of this f--king cliff", "I will not fall off this f--king cliff" (I think I was picking up on the local vernacular ) .

Well,according to the plaque at the base of that little monument, two people fell while rappelling...



The irony in the name of course obvious.

Good stuff!

Leaving the cliffs, "Pat Sweeney's View" according to a plaque, and someone had put up a flag commemorating the centennial of Independence.



Doolin is a pleasant little tourist mecca, a laid back place with lots of younger folk, and many languages flying around. This Austrian Redneck was also at the campground, said he had just got done driving around Morocco. I thought the van was cool, prob'ly gets crappy mileage tho....



When I rolled into Doolin I seen a pub and my first thought was "Huh, another of them fake Irish Pubs".... until I remembered where I was

I gotta say, in Ireland, all this Irish stuff is practiced with serious intent, it ain't like they're putting it on for tourists. Scene from the pub in the evening, three guys putting out Irish tunes...



...and since I got room fer it here, my favorite Cliffs of Moher photo, that taller rocky spire down there was 2 or 300 feet tall...



The next day, cutting inland and running south of Doolin towards Ennis. Like I might have said elsewhere, away from the notably scenic spots Ireland to my mind recalls Upstate New York...

A digression into bicycles, after all this tour was done on one.

Since I got serious about bicycles five years back I tried many different tires. On the pavement tread really isn't all that important, in fact tread often increases rolling resistance, which is why road bike tires are often slicks. For me the biggest factor is not having to fix fuggin' flats, and if ya spend $50 and up for each tire ya usually don't have to. In fact premium tires pays for themselves in terms of all the inner tubes you don't have to replace.

I have had great success with Continental Gatorskins, but for this trip, not knowing how much dirt I'd be riding on, opted instead for the highly-rated (and expensive) Continental Top Contacts II's.

Here's a fuzzy pic I took at the time for a bicycle forum, the Gatorskin being the one without the tread...



Yep the Top Contacts had noticeably higher rolling resistance, but were better in sand and gravel etc. Part way down the Kintyre Penisula in Scotland the front tire developed a distinct sideway kink in the tread. I was carrying a spare new Gatorskin folded up in my bags but, saving that for a real emergency before I got to a bike shop I rolled on that front tire for more'n a week, waiting to come across a bike shop, tolerating the "dink....dink....dink....dink" every time the kinked spot hit the inside of the front fender.

Outside of Abbeyknockmoy I got a flat in back, no biggie, flats happen. Next day, 'nother flat, same spot. Turns out the inside of the tire was disintegrating around the original puncture site, the fibers coming apart. So, I tossed the front tire in a dumpster, broke out the folded Gatorskin and put it on back, and put the old back tire on the front, a folded 5 Euro note between tube and tire covering the bad spot on the inside of the tire.

From Doolin I called ahead to a bike shop in Ennis, who ordered me two new 700x32 Gatorskins on just my word alone. I get to Ennis after leaving Doolin and see two guys on road bikes ahead so I crank hard after them to ask 'em where the bike shop was. Not seeing me, they go faster, so I have to crank extra hard on my 70+ pound bike to catch them.

Just as I get their attention...

"POPsssssSSSSSSssssssSSSSsssssh...", the 5 Euro note inside the tire blows out, that fix had lasted maybe seventy miles. So now I'm stuck, except right across the road at that point is the very bike shop I was needing What are the odds?

Gotta give 'em their props; Top Bike, Ennis, Republic of Ireland, guys who will purchase $120 worth of tires just on some unknown American guy's word over the phone, and when he arrives have him on his way in no time at all



I was headed south for Limerick, which from thirty miles out was already turning out to be a major urban center so I stopped that afternoon at the Ennis Youth Hostel.

Hostels ain't fer college kids anymore, in fact most folks there are older. What they were for me is a cheap place to charge up yer electrical devices, take a shower, do laundry and get on wifi.

The downside is you sleep in a dorm in a bunk bed with some random number of guys, and I hate sleeping in a room with guys. Every hostel is different though, and at this one I got to sleep on the floor below an open window AND a young German woman opted to sleep in the same room in the bunk bed above her German boyfriend.

Flat amazing how having a young woman in the room can improve the whole atmosphere.

Like many hostels in the British Isles, this one was in a classic old building downtown. Here's a mural out the window, probably by some Irish guy who hadn't been to many actual rodeos



Same window, 5am in the morning, four Irish ne'r do wells (NOT hostel patrons) loudly and profanely bemoaning the fact that they didn't have any cash for breakfast, booze or drugs. Also illustrating the latest in silly styles presently in vogue among Euro urban youth....




On through Limerick the next day. Limerick sucked, only place I didn't like in Ireland, took about forever to get clear of the place, the Homosexual flags adorning the big downtown bridge didn't help first impressions any...

Thanks for sharing your trip with us!

A small suggestion I was given years ago and found useful. I thought I'd pass on:

Before leaving home, cut about a foot of 2 inch duct tape and wrap it around one of the tubes in your bike frame for storage.

A foot long piece of tape is enough for a couple of tire repairs, even using 2 or 3 layers of tape on the inside of the tire.

I had a tire blow once, leaving a about a 4 or 5mm hole in the tire and me without a spare tire, although I did have a kit for patching a tube. Three layers of silver tape applied to the inside of the tire worked fine to keep the tube from blowing out at the hole (even at 60 or 70 psi).

All hail the mighty Duct Tape!

John

Next day, north of Killarney. Judging by the newspapers, horse racing is still a big deal in Ireland, didn't know how grass roots it was until I came across this.

I was riding along and heard a faint running commentary, at first I thought the internet on my iphone musta been left on, got closer and here was this sign....

Undoubtedly one of the best threads of the year!

Thanks for the tip, with all the stuff I was carrying I coulda thrown a whole roll of duct tape in the bags and not noticed any difference.

Killarney National Park, turn a bend in the road and there it starts; the west of Ireland just rises up all of a sudden as if randomly attached to a not nearly so spectacular mainland....



Friggin' Mexicans have infiltrated EVERYWHERE



I was there to look fer white-tailed sea eagles, but Killarney otherwise was just a pleasant touristy place to hang out, lots of sidewalk-type cafes and cool outdoorsy stores, bookstores, that sort of think, accents and languages from all over Europe.

At the campsite there was three cute blonde and natural German girls in the next tent over who thought I was just the most amusing and interesting old guy around (*SIGH*, like an old labrador during duck season, no longer allowed to retrieve).

Didn't score any young German blondes, nor find any eagles, but the scenery is all it was supposed to be, why so many go to visit there....

Great read and SUPERB photography, Mike !

Kudos !

GTC

I passed on riding the 100 mile Ring of Killarney, but instead just worked my way South around the coast towards Skibbereen....



Kenmare Bay, the waters change colors in response to the sky....





At the top of Caha Pass a homecoming of sorts; County Cork is where the O'Birdy's are from.



Slept there up high, dawn the next morning....

Tks Greg, I'll fess up, there were times during my stay in County Cork in particular I got a tad choked up, prob'ly the humidity no doubt....

Next morning, the long downhill roll to Bantry Bay. The observant might note a change in the weather from that prior pic up top taken just a short time before, this being Ireland after all.



Bottom of the hill, Bantry Bay





...and looking south towards Roaringwater Bay...



Turns out Algerian pirates raided Roaringwater Bay in 1631, killed hundreds, and carried off 200 into slavery...

The mass gravesite at Abbeystrowry just outside of Skibbereen, where more than 9,000 victims of the Potato Famine were interred.





Google translator outdid itself this time, roughly....

"In memory of the thousands who suffered and died in the GREAT FAMINE in the district of Skibbereen 1845 - 1850. May God grant His peace to their souls."





It was a Wednesday evening, turns out there's an outdoor Catholic mass held there every Wednesday evening. I wanted to take photos of this service, and my people there, but of course I didn't.



The elderly Catholic Priest, clearly also a Historian, gave a fine sermon and referenced some inscriptions in the Church of Ireland (ie. Protestant) Cathedral at Kinsale (which denomination he said, unlike the Catholics, had not forgotten the fine old Irish saints ).

He had researched those inscriptions and had discovered some quite extraordinary efforts among elements of the British Christian community in those years to bring aid to the suffering in Skibbereen. Probl'y easier just to point fingers and feel aggrieved tho.

Along those lines I had a long conversation with a gentleman who tends those grounds and knows a bit about it. An utter catastrophe; a million dead and a million emigrated, but both of our own Catholic ancestors were among the more than four million or so in Ireland at that time who somehow contrived to survive those years, in the case of our forbearers in County Cork no less, near the epicenter of the famine.

What decisions they had to make on behalf of themselves and their families to accomplish that we'll never know.

Pausing to navigate the next day along the south coast of Ireland while letting sleeping dogs (two boxers) lie. Its a good thing I weren't after the silverware.



No worries on that score, no time to waste, in 60 miles and 48 hours I was due on a ferry to France, and before then was on a mission to locate my grandpa's childhood abode in Cobh, said objective being central to this whole long endeavor.

Not what you might expect: The shallow tidal bays on the South Coast of Ireland smell friggin' wonderful, like fresh seaweed and the ocean, makes you hungry for seafood.





..and yet another Irish church ruin, but this one at Timoleague came with a detailed history attached...

Cobh (AKA "Queenstown" under the Brits) at last, here I am waiting for the ferry at Passage West to take me over the river.

My sister says I look like a garden gnome



I had two street addresses, one was my great grandfather's house where my grandfather was born and from whence he left for America both times and the other was the house where my great grandmother was living at the time she married my great grandpa.

The cathedral where they married in 1884 and where my grandad was baptized in 1889 was easy to find. And indeed there was a wedding taking place there that very day, maybe in the year 2148 their great grandchildren will come looking for that place.



The street addresses I had brought good-natured smiles from the locals, they knew right where they were, just around the corner from each other.

Back when Cobh was Queenstown and a major port, the old east end of Queenstown was called "The Holy Ground", a notorious sailors' dive.

Go there and you'll find this marker bearing this photo...





Great Grandpa (born in Queenstown 1854) was 30 and living in that front row of houses by the dock when he married Mary, 18, who lived on the diagonal hill immediately behind those houses.

Both their houses are gone now, demolished in the 1960's and the lots sold off. A few of the original row houses still remain on the dead-end waterfront street where the family lived. On the right of the seawall in the foreground you can see the ramp going down to the wharf, the same one visible in the old photo.




On the hill where Mary lived, right behind those houses, nothing remains but overgrown foundations and rubble. Some of the locals, old as me or older, remembered the old houses and even where the house numbers had been.



We knew the O'Birdy's were from Queenstown, and we knew they were mariners, we just didn't realize how much.

Great Grandpa Birdy and his wife emigrated to Brooklyn in 1900, shortly thereafter he died on a construction site, family history has it that he was murdered by an Italian, and indeed there was an inquest into the suspicious death of himself and three others, killed as a result of the collapse of a construction scaffold.

The following year Great Grandma brought the three children, two boys and a girl, back to The Holy Ground where "several aunts and uncles lived". Great Uncle Patrick joined the Merchant Marine when he came of age before enlisting in the Royal Munster Fusilliers and was KIA at Gallipoli.

Grandpa O'Birdy, who despised the Brits and their wars, also went to sea as a teenager and ended up working as a salvage diver around the Panama Canal, a crippling attack of the bends ended that career and he moved to Brooklyn where he met his wife, likewise an Irish immigrant. He went on to father nine kids, so at least some parts escaped permanent damage.

There it is, two generations at least of the O'Birdy's were from The Holy Ground, front and center, a neighborhood so notorious they wrote a song about it




Next up: Birdwatcher goes to France.

Sorry to read that the ancestral homes are no longer. That's got to give a bit of a hollow ring to your efforts in finding them. My condolences for that.

I want to thank you for taking me along on another cycling journey. You've seen and shared some beautiful country. Places I'll never see. I've a good amount of Celt blood in me, mostly Scottish if the names mean anything, and would treasure the opportunity to visit Scotland and Ireland. Thanks for sharing your journey.

Birdwatcher, thanks from here for the great pictures and comments. I did a little wandering around in Germany several years ago but nothing like you are doing here. Those old countrys have a lot of history.

Oh heck, not at all. I'm sure those places were condemned for a reason, to the point that they were demolished in a place where even now, fifty years later, only part has been replaced with modern structures. So it ain't like there was a public domain demand for the property.

Referencing the beginning of this thread, I spent my own childhood living just a half mile or so from the sea in one of those little brick multistory row houses, so did everyone I knew, and as it must have been for my grandfather so it was the seashore was our playground.

In any case, most of the town itself, which must have been as familiar to them as our own streets are to us, is still intact. For example, this was practically on their front door step.





Looking up from the wharf to the exact location their house stood, plainly things ain't changed all that much on the seaward side of that wall...



From there they looked out across the harbor to the harbor mouth and open sea, must been a pretty powerful pull.



..and the old town between there and the cathedral is still mostly intact, the satellite dishes are something new tho...

Weddings and such are still going on in that same cathedral....





Which I'm pretty sure is still Irish..... and Catholic






Sir, you are most welcome My visit to Cobh was just Day 24 of a 40-day journey, we still have quite a ways to go yet.

Might be next week and Texas before I have the idle time for another big catch-up day on this tread tho.