Tynanwoods Day One

14 October 2006
Bad eggs and curious cows; jet lag as a form of temporary insanity.

Arrived brain dead and sans half our luggage at some ungodly predawn hour in Shannon Airport. The children were zombies and proceeded to fall asleep on the benches in the airport as we waited for our missing bags to arrive on the next flight. (They did.)

We spent an extra two hours in the airport letting the kids sleep while Xtina uploaded photos to her travel blog (Shannon has free but slow WiFi service) and I wandered aimlessly with his WiFi sniffer, unable to find a place to plug in my battery-impaired laptop and connect. Xtina lead the sleepwalking children to our rental, an Opal Astra, into which I'd stuffed our bags into every conceivable pocket of spare room.

Xtina drove, which is the only reason I am alive today to record these thoughts. They drive on the other side (not the "wrong" side) here, the roads are very narrow and the Irish are nearly uniformly in a hurry -- 100kmh on the major roads is far too slow for these folks. I had excellent views of the roadside shrubbery as Xtina hugged the edge of the pavement, trying to allow the tarrying locals to pass while avoiding head-on collisions.

When I dared look back at the road I shouted the occasional instruction -- "We're coming up on N85, then we need to look for R472" -- to which Xtina invariably replied "No numbers while I'm driving, please!" and WHOOSH, another truck would come barrelling past us.

We made it to Ennis in about 20 minutes and managed to find our way to Corofin in another 20. We saw lovely countryside, quaint yet modern towns, and various crumbling castles along the way -- apparently the O'Brien and Macnamara clans threw up castles around here the way they build condos in California.

Corofin is one-and-one-half street town, population 320 according to our guidebooks. Our rental cottage was somewhere on the outskirts. Our instructions were to "turn right at the grotto (little shrine), take the second right after that, and look for the sign that says 'Ciel na Ciollte'." We found the shrine (a stone wall with a lifesize statue of The Virgin in front) and tried to follow the rest of the directions. We ended up 25 minutes later hopelessly lost, on a barren promontory between two distant farms, surrounded by cows and the Parkabinnia wedge tomb, a burial memorial about the size of a dinner table and roughly 6000 years old give or take a century. We had accidentally stumbled onto The Burren, our ultimate destination.

However, we were nowhere near our cottage, the kids were still asleep in the back of the car, Xtina and I were barely conscious, and we still had two hours to kill before we could check in. So we headed back into Corofin to find some grub.

We peered into one bar, where the locals directed us to the Inchiquin Inn, the only place serving food before noon. The locals were less than the friendly warm and welcoming Irish I had expected. Of course, they've just endured high tourist season and we all looked like extras from Shaun of the Dead.

I ordered the full breakfast, which consisted of sausage, rashers (a ham-like bacon), fried bread, black and white pudding (don't ask), some form of potatoes that were supposed to be hash browns but weren't, and canned baked beans piled atop a fried egg the shape and consistency of a hockey puck. I was reminded of the food I ate while growing up, but not in a good way. Mental note: No more meals at the Inchiquin Inn.

We took a new route on the way back, passing the Shrine and heading into equally beautiful countryside and more crumbling castles. This time Xtina spied a sign saying "Irish cottage rentals" and followed that. We followed this road for a kilometer or two until we found the sign 'Ciel na Ciollte' on a stone wall. Our 'cottage' was a modern three-bedroom home perched on a forested hillside, overlooking farmland and gently rolling hills to the horizon. It was gorgeous.

The owner Noel was still inside with a mop, but he let us in and gave us instructions, none of which I could understand through his accent. It turns out that when you plug something in, you have to turn on the outlet using a switch, then turn it off again when you're done. If you want a hot shower, you must turn on the electric water heater first. To flush the toilets you need to pump the handle five or six times. If you want a fire in the fireplace, you have to find some 'turf' to burn. It's all very sensible from an environmental point of view but totally unAmerican, and thus a little hard to get used to.

We all took a nap and then went for a walk up the hill just before dusk. We got a beautiful view of the Inchiquin Lough (lake), saw more crumbling castles, passed more cow farms. Through a break in a hedge we passed a field of cows and waved. They looked at us. On our way back down the hill six or seven of them were lined up next to the fence, peering at us. They got a good look at us, nodded, and moved on their way. I swear I could hear one saying to another in a charming Irish lilt: "Americans. See, I told you. Damned tourists."