Cork

Birthdays

15 February, 2016
Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

My mother’s birthday was on February 1. I went down to Cork the weekend before for a birthday lunch which passed off peacefully and which I hope she enjoyed.

Preparations were rendered somewhat stressful by my brother’s decision to re-organise the bottom of the [very large Victorian] bookcase where a lifetime’s supply of ware had nestled peacefully for decades. All that he had deemed worthy of salvation had been returned in ordered piles to the bottom of the bookcase but the dining room table was piled high with items about which he had his doubts. My parents, I discovered, are the owners of the largest collection of toast racks alive in captivity. I may well be responsible for their above average holding of Kwak glasses.

In advance of lunch I found homes for many of the items – intended as temporary but likely to become permanent, I fear – the trolley and the sideboard are now more heavily laden than previously. On the plus side, the dining room table was clear. With the blessing of everyone in Cork, I liberated a toast rack and a jam pot which made it safely back to Dublin. “Ah,” said Mr. Waffle, “the 50s are back.”

I have discovered that if you want your toast to stay warm, a toast rack is utterly useless. However, if your daughter has cold toast for her daily sandwich (don’t ask me), it is ideal for ensuring that the toast cools speedily so that you can minimise the danger of condensation in the sandwich bag. Don’t mock the afflicted.

The other birthday is my brother’s which was on February 5 and for which, as yet, he has got no present from his loving, elder sister. I’m sure it will be even better for the wait. I wonder would he like a packet of stroopwafels.

Quote of the Holiday Season

14 January, 2016
Posted in: Cork, Ireland, Princess

Herself, upon being required with her brothers to unload the dishwasher in her grandparents’ house having just done so in the house we were staying in in East Cork: “I was not put on this earth to unload the dishwasher.”

Christmas and New Year

11 January, 2016
Posted in: Cork, Dublin, Family, Ireland

We went to midnight mass on Christmas Eve. For the first time, all of us managed to last until the end. This is not the achievement it might be given that it starts at 9pm (notwithstanding the inaccurate title). I must say that our parish priest makes every effort to extend the ceremony but we did manage to get home by 11.

Herself and Daniel were in the choir and were also selected to carry the baby Jesus to his crib after the Gospel. This filled me with fear as I couldn’t quite see how they were both to carry the porcelain figure. However, it transpired that Daniel was following with a candle rather than carrying the arms while his sister carried the legs. They were both clean and wearing their new Christmas clothes and they were suitably solemn. I was very proud.

On Christmas Day, Santa came and, I think, was reasonably successful. He didn’t get everything on Daniel’s list but it was a long list. We had my parents-in-law around for Christmas lunch and then afterwards, we all went briefly to visit the cousins before returning to collapse at home in exhaustion.

On the 26th we went orienteering with the cousins. As always, it absolutely lashed rain. Obligatory photo of damp children in the rain on St. Stephen’s Day:

Afterwards we went to the usual pub in the Dublin mountains for lunch. This was not a success. I waited for 70 increasingly bitter minutes for them to deliver to me a small breakfast. All of the food was slow but mine was the slowest. The service was appalling. Each time we asked where the food was they said it was coming but it did not come. And then they said we hadn’t ordered it. And then when my small breakfast finally appeared, it was nasty. I am still bitter but I suppose we will go back there next year as it is not as though there is a lot of choice in that neck of the woods. Sigh.

On the 27th we drove to Cork. My sister gave the children an enormous bag of presents each. Joy was unconfined. There was personalised nutella.

And Minecraft t-shirts:

We were staying in our friends’ house in Garryvoe in east Cork. The flooding made the Cork-Garryvoe drive quite dramatic and exciting but we survived.

We went to Kinsale and had lunch at the Bulman.

The view was a bit gloomy.

But, as nothing, compared to the weather they saw later the same week – although I did notice that there were some sandbags against the wall of the pub. I hope they helped in the face of this.

Alas, Charles Fort was closed for the holidays.

Despite our walk in Kinsale, outdoor activity was pretty limited due to the more or less constant lashing rain. Herself got to stay overnight with her aunt and go ice skating with her uncle both of which she very much enjoyed. We took the boys to Milano’s.

And then we scuttled back to Dublin. The countryside was absolutely sodden but we were safely on our elevated motorway. I started to get sick (again, for heaven’s sake) on December 30 and spent the remainder of the Christmas holidays snuggled up by the fire.

I appreciate that this is a late Christmas entry but I have only tonight eaten the last mince pie in the house (best before January 6) so not, you know, that late.

Happy new year.

Home Thoughts from Abroad

28 November, 2015
Posted in: Cork, Ireland

I was briefly in Cork. I went down last night and am back in Dublin tonight.

It occurred to me that I am 46 and I have spent more or less half of my life in Cork and half out. Those first 23 years make all the difference, I can tell you.

I went to the Crawford Gallery this morning and they had a small exhibition on commerce.

James Barry – From The Triumph of Commerce (The Thames or The Triumph of Navigation)

It reminded me of something that has increasingly struck me over the years since I have left Cork. Cork is all about commerce. Dublin has government and public servants and Cork has commerce. Look, of course, Dublin has lots of commerce too and Cork has teachers and doctors and nurses and so on but the way Cork thinks of itself is fundamentally commercial.

Ireland has traditionally been a very centralised country and still, the machinery of government and governing is overwhelmingly in Dublin and this, in my view, gives Dublin a lot of its identity. Cork on the other hand, had the merchant princes, local businessmen who invested in the city. Even the Crawford Gallery is named after Sherman Crawford, brewer and philanthropist. There were all of the fortunes made in the butter trade and the Quakers and the Dutch merchants. Some of the largest supermarket chains in Ireland started off in Cork (Dunne’s – now in Dublin, Roche’s – now defunct and Musgrave’s – still in Cork). Cork is a city of commerce and proud of it.

Names like Barry, Crosbie, Murphy and Beamish and Crawford are woven into the civic fabric of the city.

When I was in secondary school in the 1980s, commerce let Cork down pretty badly: Ford’s left, Sunbeam closed, Dunlop’s left, unemployment was through the roof and things were pretty grim. But things seem to be back on an even keel now, even after the 2008 recession. The chemical industry in Cork harbour (mmm, I know) is a really good employer, the city feels prosperous. Whereas the boom spread Dublin and made it slightly monstrous, it just improved the centre of Cork and left it compact but revamped (notwithstanding that there are still some closed shops on Patrick Street). It is a delightful place to visit now.

I love living in Dublin, but I will always miss living in Cork. This Cavafy poem about leaving the city is not entirely apt but the idea that wherever you go –

“This city will always pursue you. You will walk
the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods,
will turn gray in these same houses.
You will always end up in this city.”

You never really leave your home behind, you carry it with you in your head for your whole life.

Long Day

6 November, 2015
Posted in: Cork, Ireland, Travel

I woke up in Athlone this morning. I got the train to Dublin this afternoon. I drove to Cork this evening. I haven’t even the energy for a haiku. More tomorrow.

Blarney

30 October, 2015
Posted in: Cork, Ireland, Middle Child, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

We were in Cork at the weekend.

Herself cycled into town with her aunt using a Cork bike. She was very taken by the segregated cycle lanes. She is still alive.

Following my encounter with the people from Colorado, I was determined to take in Blarney Castle next time we went to Cork. While it wasn’t worth driving up from Killarney twice to see, I think, on balance, it was worth the 15 minute drive from my parents’ house.

It was lashing but we wore our rain gear like proper tourists. The castle is like loads of other square fortified castles in Ireland without a roof.

I have to say that they do a fantastic job with the rather limited material available to them. I have visited the castle before but not in years. I retained a vivid memory of the actual stone kissing being rather hair raising. My memory was not at fault. Daniel and Herself refused point blank to kiss it. Michael was the bravest but so speedy that I failed to immortalise the moment on camera. However, Daniel was to hand to record my latest kissing of the stone.

See that gap at the top of the castle in the battlements? That’s where the stone is. Hair raising indeed, I can tell you.

There was some old graffiti. The standard of graffiti seems to have gone downhill over the years, frankly.

After our castle adventure, we went for a nice cup of tea. The cafe was in the stable yard. In the main room there was a delightful roaring fire but no space. We found ourselves shunted to another room where the stables had been turned into rather drafty booths for tables and chairs with, for added authenticity, manger and trough still in situ. Not entirely successful in my view.

There was lots more to see including a cleverly designed poison garden (the gardens in general, however, were not at their best what with it being October) and a small playground. All in all, it wasn’t too bad. We might even go back for another visit.

Updated to add: look at these delightful pictures of Blarney castle that I saw in the Crawford Gallery.