The Best of Ireland

03 542168 Ch01.qxd 12/12/03 8:50 AM Page 3 1 The Best of Ireland “The modern American tourist,” wrote historian Daniel J. Boorstin, “has come to expect both more strangeness and more familiarity than the world nat- urally offers.” That said, Ireland continues to offer more than its share of both. At first glance, Ireland presents a familiar face to American visitors. The lan- guage is the same, only more lyrical, the faces are familiar, the food recogniza- ble, the stout legendary. Many visitors, notably Irish Americans, experience their arrival as a kind of homecoming. It takes a while for this superficial reverie to wear off. When it does, the other face of Ireland shows itself, and this is when the country becomes truly exciting. Ireland is a place of profound contradiction and complexity. For one thing, it is at the same time both ancient and adolescent. It’s as young as it is old. Ireland’s age is obvious to anyone with a car. Within a half day’s drive of downtown Dublin lie Neolithic tombs, Bronze Age forts, early Christian monas- tic sites, Viking walls, and Georgian estates—enough antiquity to make your head spin, all in plain sight. Centuries-old castles are as commonplace in Ireland as Wal-Mart stores are in the United States. The Irish past doesn’t exist just in books; it’s in the backyard. A shovel, digging for peat or potatoes, may well strike a 5,000-year-old grave. Thousands of unexcavated ancient sites litter the coun- tryside. Any visitor to Ireland who ventures beyond its shops and pubs will soon be struck by how the country revels in its age. What is less obvious is how new Ireland is as a nation. The Republic of Ire- land, with its own constitution and currency, is barely 50 years old. Mary McAleese, the current president of Ireland, is only the eighth person to hold that office. In political age, Ireland, for all its antiquity, is a mere pup. Like any adolescent, it’s doing many things for the first time, and at least a few of its contradictions make sense when you keep that fact in mind. Compounding Ireland’s youth as a nation is the youth of its people. Roughly half of the population is under 25, and nearly a quarter is under 15. This means that, in some homes, those who once fought for Irish independence are living under the same roof with those who have never known anything else. In these same homes, the gap between generations is often seismic. It is indeed curious that in a country where what happened 1,000 years ago reads like yesterday’s news, it is common to feel old and outnumbered at 30. Ireland’s past has been remarkably tumultuous, inspiring a tradition of courage, humor, and creativity. Change is nothing new to the island, yet the rate and scale of the changes occurring in Ireland today are without precedent. And that’s where the contradictions become so endearing, like the old farmer in a tweed cap who is afraid of computers but rings his bookmaker on a cellphone. Like the publican progressive enough to have a website but traditional enough to not like seeing a woman drinking from a pint glass. (Older folks often tsk-tsk that “Ladies should drink from half-pint glasses.”) Like the grocer-cum-post office, or better still, the grocer-cum-hardware store-cum-pub, both common 03 542168 Ch01.qxd 12/12/03 8:50 AM Page 4 4 CHAPTER 1 . THE BEST OF IRELAND entities in many a rural town. Like the national weather forecasts, which, even with the help of a gazillion satellites, still manage to appear so parochially infor- mal. One Nostradamus-like radio weatherman actually offered this by way of a forecast: “It’s dry and clear across most of the country, and let’s hope it stays that way.” The magic of today’s Ireland lies in these daily slices of life. Take the time to let them wash over you. 1 The Best Picture-Postcard Towns • Dalkey (County Dublin): This most attractive large town in Ire- charming south-coast suburb of land. See chapter 6. Dublin enjoys both easy access to • Kinsale (County Cork): Kinsale’s the city and freedom from its narrow streets all lead to the sea, snarls and frenzy. It has a castle, an dropping steeply from the hills island, a mountaintop folly, and a that rim the beautiful harbor. This few parks, all in ample miniature. is undoubtedly one of Ireland’s With all the fine and simple most picturesque towns, but the restaurants and pubs and shops myriad visitors who crowd the anyone needs for a brief visit or a streets every summer attest to the long stay, Dalkey is a tempting fact that the secret is out. The town to settle into. See chapter 4. walk from Kinsale through Scilly • Carlingford (County Louth): to Charles Fort and Frower Point What a pleasant surprise, up in is breathtaking. Kinsale has the lackluster Louth: A charming, added benefit of being a foodie tiny medieval village with castle town, with no shortage of good ruins right on the bay, excellent restaurants. See chapter 8. eateries, and pedestrian-friendly • Kenmare (County Kerry): If lanes filled with colorful shops, you’re driving the Ring of Kerry, cafes, and pubs. See chapter 5. this is the most charming base • Inistioge (County Kilkenny): camp you could wish for. The “lit- Nestled in the Nore River Valley, tle nest” has a blessed location at cupped in the soft palm of the mouth of the River Roughty rounded hills, this idyllic river- on Kenmare Bay, and is loaded to front village with two spacious the gills with flower boxes, greens and a collection of pleasant enchanting shops, and places to cafes and pubs is among the most eat. See chapter 9. photographed Irish towns. It also • Adare (County Limerick): Like a attracts hosts of anglers, because perfect little medieval town fish invariably show good taste plucked from a children’s book, and love this place. See chapter 6. Adare is a bastion of thatched cot- • Kilkenny (County Kilkenny): tages, black-and-white timbered Slightly larger than a small town houses, lichen-covered churches, but terribly picture-postcard and romantic ruins, all strewn nonetheless, Kilkenny may offer along the banks of the River the best surviving Irish example of Maigue. And it’s got two of the a medieval town. Its walls, the best hotels and one of the best splendidly restored castle, and the restaurants in Ireland, to boot. See renowned design center housed in chapter 10. the castle stables draw visitors • Westport (County Mayo): It’s from Ireland and abroad. never a surprise in Ireland when Kilkenny, however, is no museum. someone says Westport is his Many regard it as perhaps the favorite town—it’s small and 03 542168 Ch01.qxd 12/12/03 8:50 AM Page 5 THE BEST NATURAL WONDERS 5 bursting. Someday it might town that somehow manages to be explode into a city, but for now as friendly and welcoming as a vil- Westport remains a hyperactive lage. See chapter 13. 2 The Best Natural Wonders • The Slieve Bloom Environmen- Tower. The views of the open sea, tal Park (County Laois): Slieve of the distant Aran Islands, and of Bloom, Ireland’s largest and most the Twelve Bens of Connemara unspoiled blanket bog, has been (see below) are spectacular. A walk described as a “scenic bulge” rising south along the cliff edge at sunset gently above the midland’s peat makes a perfect end to any day. fields. Its beauty—gentle slopes, See p. 376. glens, rivers, waterfalls, and bog- • Croagh Patrick (County Mayo): lands—is subtle rather than dra- Rising steeply 750m (2,500 ft.) matic, but it is comparatively above the coast, Croagh Patrick is untouched. You can have it more Ireland’s holiest mountain, to or less to yourself, apart from its which the saint is said to have deer, foxes, and badgers, and an retreated in penance. The place is occasional marten or otter. See the biblically imposing. Traditionally, box “Beyond the Pale in County barefoot pilgrims climb it on the Laois” in chapter 5. last Sunday of July, but in recent • MacGillycuddy’s Reeks (County years, hundreds of Nike-shod Kerry): One of several mountain tourists have been making the ranges on the Iveragh Peninsula, ascent daily. The view from above MacGillycuddy’s Reeks boasts the can be breathtaking or nonexist- highest mountain in Ireland, Car- ent—the summit is often wrapped rantuohill (1,361m/3,404 ft.). in clouds, adding to its mystery. Whether gazed at from afar or See “County Mayo” in chapter 13. explored up close on foot, the • The Twelve Bens (County Gal- Reeks are among Ireland’s greatest way): Amid Connemara’s central spectacles. See “Outdoor Pur- mountains, bogs, and lakes rises a suits,” under “Killarney,” in chap- rugged range known as the Twelve ter 9. Bens, crowning a landscape that • The Burren (County Clare): The is among the most spectacular Burren—from the Irish Boireann, in Ireland. Some of the peaks meaning “a rocky place”—is one are bare and rocky, others clothed of the strangest landscapes you’re in peat. The loftiest, Benbaun, ever likely to see: a vast limestone in Connemara National Park, grassland, spread with a quilt of reaches a height of 719m (2,395 wildflowers from as far afield as ft.). See p. 408 for more informa- the Mediterranean, the Alps, and tion on visiting the park.

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