Robyn writes: This morning dawned foggy and cloudy and quite cool - a change after several nice sunny mornings. First, we headed over to Skibbereen in pursuit of family history information. On the way though, we decided to go via Kilcoe to check out the burial ground there and it's also where Jeremey Irons has renovated Kilcoe Castle. We had a really good view of the castle, which he's done an amazing job on. It's been finished in an orange limestone wash which was very controversial at the time and many people moaned about it, but I really like it and think it fits well in the countryside. If you're a Jeremy Irons fan (or a castle fan), you can read his account of the controversy at:
http://www.jeremy-irons.com/press/archive/56.html
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| The highly controversial orange Kilcoe Castle - I like it! |
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| Baltimore Castle - Shakespeare the Parrot! |
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| Inside the castle - they've turned it into a beautiful family home |
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| View over the harbor from the castle roof |
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| Other view from the castle |
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| The castle itself |
We checked out the burial ground there as well, in and around a very old church. Extremely picturesque but a bit scary underfoot with huge mounds and dips all covered in long grass. And no Connolly graves, of course (but a nice view of the castle).
Then we headed on to Skibbereen and back to the Heritage Centre where we were able to talk to Margaret, who is in charge of the genealogy section there, about Connolly family records. She had someone coming in shortly but promised to research the sources she had and we're going back on Thursday morning to see if she's been able to find anything.
After that, we drove down to Baltimore, a little town on the bay, to see about a cruise out and around Clear Island. Unfortunately it was ten past eleven by that stage...and the eleven o'clock cruise had just left. There was another one at 2.30 so we rang and booked it. It was starting to rain lightly by that stage, so we went up into the small town area to see what was to be seen there.
The most interesting thing in the town was Baltimore Castle, dating back to the 1100s originally when the Normans came to Ireland. It was almost a complete ruin by last century but in the 1990s it was bought by the McCarthy family who have done a wonderful job of renovating and rebuilding, and it's now their family home. It's much, much smaller than English castles tend to be and we really enjoyed looking around it and finding out the history of it and the district. The area was a haven for pirates for hundreds of years, mainly based out of the castle - they specialised in attacking Waterford, where we were the other day! Finally they did one too many attacks on ships and goods bound for Waterford, so the town retaliated by destroying most of their ships. Greatly deserved, I may add. On the other hand, during the 1600s the town was attacked by Algerian pirates who carried off over 100 of the townspeople - men, women, children and babies, and sold them into slavery in Algeria. None of them were ever seen again.
We were talking to Mr McCarthy about their rebuild of the castle - a massive job but he said that they were lucky that the original stone walls were still in very sound condition. He of course knows Jeremy Irons (being neighbouring castle renovators, they've used the same expert craftsmen, compared notes etc) and was saying that Kilcoe still has a massive problem with damp and they constantly have dehumidifiers running in every room.
Following our castle visit, we found a nice pub across the road (The Waterfront) to have a very enjoyable lunch of barbeque chicken, salad and chips. Then we still had a bit of time to kill before our trip so wandered around the harbour before going over to the boat, the Liscannor a bit before two o'clock. To our surprise, the captain was busily checking the waiting group of people to see who had booked - it could only take 12 people and we were all there by about 2, so we left very early! The weather by this stage had really turned on us - it was getting greyer and greyer and by the time we'd been underway for about 5 minutes it was raining, and continued to rain all the way to Clear Island (about 45 minutes). My theory is that he knew the rain was coming and wanted to get us underway, as if it had been pouring rain we might have all bailed on the trip at 2.30! The boat only had a small cabin (Lex and I were very sensibly inside) but most of the rest were German tourists who stoically stayed outside and got SOAKED despite their rain jackets. It was really quite rough and the boat was bouncing up and down and of course you couldn't see a thing. Not enjoyable. I'm a reasonable sailor but was starting to feel a bit yuck when we thankfully reached the island (still raining) and got off for our fun-filled three quarters of an hour visit. There was one small cafe open and nowhere else to go. Did I mention it was still raining? We contemplated a cuppa but it was packed and we decided we'd rather go walk in the rain! Thankfully it finally eased off and then stopped, so we looked at the holy well (St Ciaran was born on the island), the pillar stone and the church ruins and then it was time to head back to the boat. The trip back was much better, as the rain held off and we were able to sit out the back and actually see the islands this time. There were even a couple of dolphins jumping nearby. We were back in Baltimore Harbour at 4.30 and were very glad to head home for a cuppa and a good lie down! At 25 Euros each it was the most expensive boat trip we've been on this trip and the least enjoyable. Definitely not a good day for it.
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| A damp welcome on the island.... |
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| Not a lot to do there.... |
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| Farewell to Not-So-Clear Island! |
Monday, 4th August BALLYDEHOB - MIZEN HEAD
Robyn writes: This morning we actually managed to wake up a bit earlier and decided that we should try to get to Mizen Head again but go as early as we could (having noticed that no-one comes out here until after noon!) So we headed in that direction about 9.30, and this time there was much less traffic. We got there around 10.30 and congratulated ourselves that there were only a few cars in the carpark - vastly different to what yesterday would have been like! We had a nice cuppa and cake in the cafe there before buying our tickets (6 Euros each) to go out to the headland.
Mizen Head is the most south-westerly part of Ireland, and there has been a radio communication station there for many years. You can walk across a bridge (the original was condemned some years ago and the replacement one - an exact copy, but made of concrete, was opened two years ago) to the old station which is now a museum, with some interesting displays on Marconi (his mother was an Irish woman) and how the men lived on the lighthouses and radio stations. Also a very scary list of shipwrecks in the area and a huge list of those sunk by the Germans in WWI. Harrowing reading. As we headed across the bridge, we could see a rain squall coming our way from the Atlantic and sure enough, as we climbed the stairs to the top lookout it came right in and we had 5 minutes of huddling under my umbrella in blowing rain (no shelter at all - this is Ireland - why would they build a shelter?!). Thankfully it soon passed and that was all the rain we saw today until after we were home this evening! The view more than made up for it though - it was amazing looking at the cliffs plunging into the sea, which was a beautifully clear blue-green in colour. The area would be a geologists's dream - you can see every fold and layer in the forces that formed these mountains. Then we went down the steps and along to the museum and lookout there before heading back. In the couple of hours we'd been there, we had noticed that the crowd had built up a bit, but we couldn't believe it when we walked out to find the carpark absolutely chockablock and a big bus had also just dropped off a load of people. Unfortunately, it left before we did, which meant that we were following it - slowly, and with constant stops for oncoming cars to negotiate their way past it on the single lane road. Several of them had to reverse for quite a long way to get back to a safe passing place - at least then we could just sail past in its wake!
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| Stunning scenery at the Mizen Head |
Our destination there this time was the Heritage Centre in the old gas works - it has a display about the Potato Famine, as Skibbereen was particularly badly hit by the famine - in fact, it's generally held to be the worst affected area in the whole of the country. Which was very, very, very bad. It was very harrowing reading - the misery and sheer horror of it is hard for us to comprehend. I must say, though, that on the brighter side, they had Jeremy Irons on video explaining various parts of the famine and I'm rather ashamed to say that I greatly enjoyed listening to him telling me how bad it was! He is very much an adopted local since he bought and renovated Kilcoe Castle across the bay and it is great to see that he puts in for the local community like this. Lex had hoped to talk to someone in the genealogy section, but being a public holiday, she wasn't there, so he has her email address anyway.
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| Jeremy Irons can make anything sound good! |
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| This old building was the Skibbereen soup kitchen during the famine |
We came via the Lidl in Skibbereen to pick up some beer and fruit, then home to cook tea (delicious baked stuffed pork chops from the EuroSpar). We sat out the front in the deck chairs on the lawn overlooking Ballydehob and had a drink while we watched the end-of-long-weekend traffic zoom by on their way home as the rain came back in over the mountain. Thankfully our washing was dry - not something you take for granted here. Then we watched the Anniversary of the beginning of WWI service live from Belgium - William, Kate and Harry were there, the Irish President and the English PM but I am quite miffed on behalf of Australia because I certainly didn't see Tony or Julia there (and we should have been; we were in from day one). Oh well, I'm sure there will be many, many more ceremonies before the end of 2018. It's been another big day - we are loving County Cork (all of it except the roads!)
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