Does anyone actually speak Irish and when will the British and the Irish realise that their television shows suck?

Blarney Castle

 

As my train leaves Paris Est heading for Nancy (where I have to transfer to get to Basel and then transfer again to finally end up at Zurich at 11pm tonight), I’m already giving up on my ability to learn the French language- there have been two announcements on the train and all I have understood are the words “ladies and gentleman” and “door”, and I tried to read the article in the train magazine on Sofia Coppola (yes train magazine- woohoo for first class train travel- a small luxury) and didn’t get through much of it (may try again later as my ability to read French is a little better than my ability to understand it when spoken). While I could give you my brief impressions of my ten minutes in the central Paris that can wait until another day after I have actually stayed there. When I left you, I was on a train from Dublin to Cork and you may be thinking what’s the deal Clare was in Ireland why is she suddenly in France- well this is what happens in Europe where countries are closer than towns are back home.

 What to say about Cork... Things were looking up as the countryside heading south got greener and greener and I was further from the slush of Dublin’s streets. Then at the train station things took a brief turn for the worse when, for the only time in my life I can remember, I failed to understand someone who was speaking ENGLISH! I had only grabbed half my change from the bus driver and when he called me back to the front of the bus to get the rest of it, his accent was so thick and he spoke so fast that I understood not word one of what he was saying (everyone else on the bus clearly understood him though so I looked quite the fool).  Getting off the bus, I got to see my reason for coming to Cork...University College Cork. Why you may ask, well University College Cork is my life that might have been. Many years ago as a humble undergraduate, I wanted to go on exchange and UCC was my first choice (I can’t remember what was second but I think it was a uni in Berlin) and I had all the paperwork sitting in front of me and had investigated UCC’s curriculum (I was hoping to study a tonne of Celtic history) but then it dawned on me that a $5000 scholarship would not cover much after airfares and being the impoverished student that I  was I did not have the money to cover the trip so sadly it never happened.  So I went to Cork to see if I could have lived there for six months to a year all those years ago. I have to say that though Cork isn’t a very interesting town (its tourist highlights include numerous churches and a Butter Museum), it was a town I could have lived in as it reminded me a little of the ‘Gong in part and a little of a watered down Newtown in others. It is clearly a town in transition. The areas near the university (which is where my hostel was) have a lot of B&Bs and the like but as you walk towards the centre of the city, you see a student town starting to emerge from this industrial portside community.  There are several coffee shops emerging (some of which had bearable (though still not good) coffee)- one of which greatly entertained me as its slogan was “Coffee for the masses” and it was covered with pictures of prominent Communists (Lenin and Che Guevara in particular). The rainbow flag was being proudly flown from a few buildings (not up to the level of Newtown yet but getting there). There were many cheap Indian and Asian takeaway and quite a few vego restaurants. There were also quite a few pubs but hey it is Ireland, and just like Australia, pubs are on every second street corner wherever you are.

The hostel was a converted old hotel (I think) and again it had evil push button showers (so over them). Thankfully the rooms were not at all overheated (a first for my time in the hostels of UK and Ireland) but they did have the odd lack of convenience of the basin being in the room itself instead of in the en suite bathroom so you would have difficulty of brushing your teeth or washing your hands being out of the question if it was early or late and people were sleeping. Sadly breakfast wasn’t provided (nor was internet which was a rip at 2 euro an hour) so you had to quest for it but thankfully there were cafes just down the way. The people in my dorm were mostly tourists staying one or two nights so they could head out to Blarney but spending time in the lounge room of hostel showed that this was not the case for most people staying there- most of the hostel residents were staying there during the week for work as they lived out of town but had got work in Cork (not at the hostel itself though) which is a little of odd as most hostel dwellers only stay/ are only permitted to stay a week at most but these guys had clearly been there for almost a month. That said, they were friendly enough even with their appalling taste in television (more on that later). The people who run the hostel also have two of the cutest little terriers who were running around one morning but keep getting called by their owner to come to her with the call of “Dogs! Dogs!”in a thick Irish accent.

A street in Cork

My first afternoon in Cork I went for a stroll of the town centre (what there is of it which isn’t much) and discovered the Cork Butter Museum which sadly was closed. I also discovered that all the tourist signs in Cork are in English on one side and Irish on the other which doesn’t help when you can only see the Irish side from a distance- I mean does anyone, who isn’t Irish, speak the language? No, of course they don’t, and even the Irish don’t speak it most of the time (it is a beautiful language but really!) The next day I was off to Blarney to indulge my touristy side and kiss the Blarney Stone (because eloquence is just what I need). I met a crazy grumpy Irish ticket seller at the bus stop who talked to me like I was an idiot when I asked her (she was sitting below a sign that said “tickets”) if I could buy a ticket from her instead of the machine as I didn’t want a wallet full of change (no I couldn’t it seems but she did give me change for the machine).  I discovered that Blarney Village and the gardens around Blarney Castle are worth the price of the silly touristy stuff. It is beautiful place, very green, very peaceful, full of birds, waterfalls and the kind of trees we don’t see back home.  There is also a poison garden which is quite interesting and also entertaining, if only for the sign on the cannabis cage that tells you that the plant was taken by the Garda (i.e. the Irish cops) and hopefully they’ll have a replacement soon. I would highly recommend anyone who makes a trip to Ireland visit Blarney for this and not for the Stone.  That said, I did make the climb up the very steep, very small steps of the very narrow stairwell to kiss the stone. The castle is not for the tall or the large. I had to duck in a lot of the rooms and the passageways are very skinny.  Kissing the stone is a very odd experience as you have to hang off the side of the castle upside down while an attendant holds you round the waist and you hold tight to two metal poles (I didn’t ask but I’m sure someone has to have died doing it). The attendant in question took my photo for me (not kissing the stone but standing at the top of the castle- I should add here the castle also not for the afeard of heights) and told me I was “the girl who always says yes” – slightly odd old Irish guy that he was.

Back to Cork for the night and the people at the hostel were very committed to the watching of The Apprentice (yes it is still on in Ireland and it, The X Factor, I’m a Celebrity Get Me Outta Here, etc. still get front page headlines in both the UK and Ireland).  I knew I wouldn’t be able to escape the UK and Ireland without a dose of reality TV and that was it. The next morning I slept very late and then in the afternoon made the trip out to Kinsale. Kinsale is a fishing village about 25 kilometres from Cork. It supposedly has historical connections to the Spanish Armada and the American War of Independence but the museum was closed so I couldn’t check these out.  I did go for a walk around the town (where the ice finally got its vengeance and yes I fell on my butt after slipping on it- thankfully no-one saw though), checked out the remains of an Abbey where in the 1600s (?) the English killed around 600 people, found a pub called the Ned Kelly (I have no idea why) and ate some super tasty seafood chowder. Finally I returned to the hostel in Cork and sat through people watching Emmerdale while I was using the net but quickly ran away when the live 50^th anniversary special episode of Coronation St started (yes soap opera and reality TV supplemented with the occasional dose of football, this is TV in the UK and Ireland).

Finally words from Cork:

•  If you’re ever in Southern Ireland, try the seafood. It’s very good and reasonably priced as well
• Don’t get on the wrong side of a grumpy Irish person
• Ask for food without the meat at Cork Airport Sport Bar, they are so shocked that you don’t want meat that they give you an extra egg, extra tomato, and a side salad and hash brown which aren’t normally part of the deal- all for the same cost as the meal with a sausage and bacon

Anyhow there have been a few more French announcements (one of which I’m sure was about food) and so I’m off to quest for food.

A salt water swan in Kinsale