Chasing Leprechauns

In the end, the one thing that really defines our trip to Ireland -- more than castles, ancient druid sites, pubs, or sheep -- is hunting leprechauns. When she was around four, Gigi used to construct elaborate leprechaun traps at our house in the States. Now she's old enough to laugh at the futility of that, and seven-year old Pippa joins in since she sees the humor in trying to trap leprechauns in San Francisco. Now that we're in Ireland, though, all bets are off, and throughout most of the trip Pippa is convinced she will capture one.

 

 

Our first close encounter with a leprechaun is on our hike in Connemara. On the road, Pippa is convinced she sees a flash of a tiny white leprechaun shirt as we drive quickly by. Then, on the hike, we see off in the distance the tip of a hat running away from us. I see the tip of the hat, too, and it does look extra tiny because the child wearing it is on a sunken path. I say child, but could it be a leprechaun? Pippa is convinced that's what we've seen, and she checks out all the likely secret hiding spots for one of their homes. She is a detective, hunting for clues: the inside of this bush looks recently disturbed. They've been here and run away when they heard us coming!

Between hunting for leprechauns and a strange "Gangnam Style" dancing game that Anthony invented, the girls are cracking up for most of the hike.

It's hard not to believe in leprechauns when we see something like 15 rainbows over the course of our trip (literally, we stopped counting).

One day we see the most glorious rainbow and can't help but chase after it. We pull off the road, into a private drive, where we see the end of the rainbow clearly landing in the middle of a farmer's cow field. Admit it: You see it, too, and you know the pot of gold is just behind the ridge. So we do what any sane American leprechaun hunters would do, and we climb over the fence and chase after it.

But of course where this is a rainbow there has been, recently, rain. And where there is a cow field, there has been, recently, a herd of cows. Together that makes for some very squelchy, squishy, mucky walking. We just can't get to the end of the rainbow, especially since that pesky end just keeps moving further and further into the field the closer we get.

After we begrudgingly admit we can slog no further, Pippa bursts into tears, and we have to console her. Uh-oh. Perhaps we've gone too far. We have to start on a new campaign of talking about how much leprechauns hate being found. They're hard to catch, those wily, tricky, mischevious leprechauns! According to Pippa, that means we may just be the most successful leprechaun hunters around -- having seen their home and hat and all. According to me, we already found the pot of gold: It's the memory of trespassing in this farmer's field, chasing through the mud and muck after the end of the rainbow on an impromptu family adventure while the cows look on, bemused.

This is important enough to us that we make a pilgrimage to the National Leprechaun Museum in Dublin where we learn interesting factoids, like that leprechauns are originally Scottish. And that they used to wear brown coats and red hats, and the point was to steal the hat in order to get the pot of gold. Credit for the current image of the leprechaun -- with green clothes and red beard, slightly mischevious but not downright nasty, guarding his pot of the gold at the end of the rainbow -- goes to...... Lucky Charms and Disney. Yes, really. They are magically delicious! The king of the leprechauns in Walt Disney's film, Darby O'Gill and the Little People set the standard in America for their current look, and it was the film and Lucky Charms that brought that image back to Ireland.

 

 

And so we say good-bye to Ireland. Pippa writes a song about the trip, with a little help from me and her guitar teacher, that pretty much sums it up perfectly (Her spelling in italics. Translation follows):

 

We sreached for lepercon's on the maintins. In the wilooold's of Kanamra.

We searched for leprechauns on the mountains, in the wilds of Connemara.

We sreached for lepercon's in the cow feld's at the end of the ranbo.

We searched for leprechauns in the cow fields at the end of the rainbow.

 

We hunted hi and low.                                                               We hunted high and low.

Wer did they all go?                                                                  Where did they all go?

I gost d'ont no.                                                                           I just don't know.

 

We sreached for lepercons by the clear strem's in the would's of Klarni.

We searched for leprechauns by the clear streams in the woods of Killarney.

We sreached in the fairy glades and gardin's at the castole of blarni.

We searched in the fairy glades and gardens at the castle of Blarney.

 

We hunted hot and cold                                                              We hunted hot and cold

For that pot of gold.                                                                     For that pot of gold.

We hunted hi and low,                                                                 We hunted high and low,

Wer did they all go?                                                                    Where did they all go?

I gost d'ont no.                                                                             I just don't know...



  

 

Home on the Grange

Earlier this week, in county Limerick, we detoured to see the Lough Gur settlement, which includes the roughly 4,000 year-old Grange stone circle, the largest stone circle in Ireland. It has 113 standing stones set in a diameter of 45 meters/ 150 feet, aligned with the summer solstice. Stonehenge, for comparison, is "only" 33 meters in diameter with 30 stones (17 still standing).

I can't honestly say Lough Gur is more impressive than England's Stonehenge, mind you. But this one has its own charms namely: that it is filled with grazing cows; and also that the person who mans the entrance lives across the street and saunters over once he sees us there. There are no tickets per se, so we give him a euro for a somewhat blurry summer solstice postcard to support the site. He proudly shows us a 30-year old book on the Children of Ireland, in which his own kids are featured playing in this very circle.

 

If you do play inside or near the stone circle, beware! Look carefully; one of these is not a stepping stone, but rather a squared-out cow patty.

 

From Grange to Newgrange which is, despite the name, not very new at all. We head about an hour north of Dublin in County Meath to see the Newgrange stone-age passage tomb. This one dates from around 3,200 BC which makes it over 5,000 years old and older than the Pyramids (Egyptian, Mayan, Aztec or other), Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and basically every other old man-made thing you can think of.

 

Newgrange is a burial mound, with a winter solstice phenomenon where the light passes through the upper window in a precise line to illuminate the interior. They still bring people in to see the solstice, if the weather cooperates (has to be sunny for the sun to shine...). But since there are about 2700 applications for 100 spots over the five days centered around the solstice, you're unlikely to see it then. But even on a random Tuesday, between the re-enacted solstice lighting and the stone construction itself (only the outside of which has had to be reconstructed), it's quite impressive -- much more impressive than expected.

 

 

The entire site is very mysterious, with lots of theories but very little actually known about the exact purpose or meaning of anything. What are the swirls carved into the giant boulders? Nobody knows for sure. But the theories, like the site itself -- and like my husband -- can be way out.

 

 

 

 

 

We're Number One!

We have visited the #1 most-visited site in Ireland! At least five of them!

The Guinness Storehouse in Dulbin claims to be the most visited tourist site in Dublin and, as my Irish friend Brendan points out, they have the turnstyles at the entrance to count the proof. On the other hand, the Cliffs of Moher have existed and been famous for, well, millenia. So they have a pretty good claim, too, especially if you think of it as cumulative. The Blarney Castle claims #1 status; it's a cliche practically, but with steady streams of visitors for the past two hundred plus year, it seems vaguely plausible.

Even the Kylemore Abbey, which is remote, built in the 19th century, and only recently opened claims, to be the #1 visited site in West Ireland, in which the Cliffs of Moher and Blarney Castle are also located; clearly it does not stand a chance of actually being the #1 most visited site anywhere (except at Kylemore Abbey itself. Slogan: "Kylemore Abbey's #1 most visited site is...Kylemore Abbey!")

This morning, leaving our B&B in the coastal town of Kinsale, we stop at Fort Charles, where we discover it's the women who are No. 1. A stone placard makes it official. Yeah, women!

 

 

And then there is the Rock of Cashel, which you've probably never heard of unless you are really familiar with Irish history, but which, nevertheless, claims to be the most visited tourist site in Ireland this past year. I must say that this seems like the most dubious claim of all, and methinks somebody here has kissed the Blarney stone one too many times. The guide boasts that the new found popularity is due to the visit of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in May 2011.

 

 

queen/prince photos from www.zimbio.com

The good news for us is that while there is, frankly, not a snowball's chance that the Rock of Cashel is Ireland's most visited tourist site -- and we're here at low season on top of it all, so we practically have the place to ourselves -- it is at the very least a worthwhile stop. Even if one is not wearing a fetching hat.

The mostly 12th- and 13th-century remains were once the traditional seat of the Kings of Munster. The history of the place goes back before that to the 5th century, when it was the site of the original conversion of the first King of Munster by St. Patrick, himself, thereby bringing Christianity to Ireland.

Though legend has it St. Patrick rid Ireland of snakes, it turns out Ireland never actually had a snake problem, and that this is probably more metaphorical (meaning, he rid Ireland of paganism). We also learn the origin of the shamrock as a symbol of Ireland; it was here that in order to explain the tenets of Christianity, St. Patrick was supposed to have picked up a clover and showed how out of one stem (religion) came three leaves (Father, Son, Holy Ghost).

 

Traditions with this very old Celtic cross (actually, because of the deterioration, as you can see, the original has been moved inside and an equally-deteriorated facsimile has been left outside). Anybody who can hop around it in 9 hops (or is it 7?) will be married within the year. Naturally, the girls try and, I am happy to report, only get about 10% of the way around in 9 hops. So we're safe till they hit the double digits. Also, the reason Pippa is hugging it is because legend has it that anybody who can hug and get their arms to touch around the backside will never suffer from hangovers. I think it's a bit premature for the girls to be worrying about marriage or hangovers, but the Rock of Cashel is a wild and rockin' place. It's practically Las Vegas, as you can clearly see.

The cemetery outside the church ruins had a burial just last week, but there will only be a handful more. About 50 years ago, they decided that only people living in the area at that time whose parents were buried here could sign their name into a book and have the right to be buried here themselves. After that, no more descendents could ever claim this right. Over the years, of course, those whose names are inscribed have been buried here, with just a few remaining.

 

 

It's a beautiful place to be buried, with a stunning view over the sheep-filled fields and, of course, in the shadow of Ireland's number one most visited tourist site.

 

Kissing the Blarney Stone

It seems to me that no trip to Ireland would be complete without a visit to the 15th century Blarney Castle.

 

 

Kissing the Blarney stone is not just a saying but an actual tradition, and since it bestows up on the kisser the gift of eloquence, how can I resist? Of course, eloquence is the nice way to say it. Gift of gab being the other. In 1602, Queen Elizabeth I's Deputy in Cork demanded that Lord of Blarney Cormac Teige MacCarthy swear allegiance and hand over ownership of his land to the Queen. His responses were constantly flattering, florid, and long-winded and managed to hint of undying loyalty without ever actually committing to anything. A true politican, in any era. It was the queen herself who is said to have coined the term, exclaiming at the latest psychophantic yet empty letter from MacCarthey, "This is all Blarney!"

Kissing the stone may not have started as early as 1602, but it is not just a modern crass-commercial tourist trap either. The tradition dates back at least to the 1700s (famous kissers include Winston Churchill and Mick Jagger). It's just that nowadays you have to pay admission and a tip to the people whose job it is to help you get in kissing position, and there's a safety bar to prevent you from diving headfirst approximately 90 feet to the ground.



I've read reports that women utter around three times more words per day than men. Scientific American puts rest to this common myth -- of questionable origins and blown up by the media as a fun sound byte -- with studies that show that, in reality, women speak on average only slightly more per day than men: 16,215 words compared with 15,669. However, while destroying the myth, Scientific American has also provided me with a new explanation for the disparity in our household. While coming up with the averages (which are just that: averages), researchers discovered a range of verbosity from a highly taciturn 500 words per day to 47,000 words per day. I like to think the girls (particularly Pippa) and I are not at the upper extreme, but it's clear that we're people who are bringing the average up. And Anthony, who's a chatty Cathy compared to the 500 word per day guy, is still bringing, if not the national average, at least our family average down. Let's just say that it's a good thing I'm a writer and have some sort of outlet for all those words swirling around my head. It's one of the reasons I love foreign languages: words, words, and more words!

So kissing the Blarney stone seems a little redundant for us, at least for the loquacious segment of the household. Poor Anthony, he probably should spend some quality time making out with the stone if he wants to catch up to the voluble levels of his three female family members. But no, he just gives the stone a friendly little platonic peck. Meanwhile, Pippa accidentally gets the stone with her whole face, so now we're afraid that her nose will be as garrulous as her mouth.

 

 

  

Between the ancient, narrow stairs you need to climb and the fact that you have to contort yourself upside down about 90 feet off the ground, it strikes me that you'd have to be free from vertigo and claustrophobia to enjoy this experience. But really, in order to visit the Blarney Castle, you should also be free from:

Hibernophobia - Fear of Ireland, Irish culture, ect.
Atephobia - Fear of ruin or ruins.
Climacophobia - Fear of stairs, climbing or of falling downstairs.
Philematophobia - Fear of kissing.
Hypsiphobia - Fear of height.
Lalophobia - Fear of speaking.
Logophobia - Fear of words.
Mythophobia - Fear of myths or stories or false statements.

...and let's not forget:
Aeroacrophobia - Fear of open high places.
Agoraphobia - Fear of open spaces or of being in crowded, public places.
Altophobia - Fear of heights.
Ambulophobia - Fear of walking.
Androphobia - Fear of men.
Anemophobia - Fear of air drafts or wind.
Asymmetriphobia - Fear of asymmetrical things.
Batophobia - Fear of heights or being close to high buildings.
Cathisophobia - Fear of sitting.
Chiraptophobia - Fear of being touched.
Claustrophobia - Fear of confined spaces.
Cremnophobia - Fear of precipices.
Phengophobia - Fear of daylight or sunshine.
Pluviophobia - Fear of rain or of being rained on.
Sciophobia - Fear of shadows.
Sociophobia - Fear of society or people in general.
Stenophobia - Fear of narrow things or places.
Verminophobia - Fear of germs.
Xenophobia - Fear of strangers or foreigners.

(So exciting! In the course of my research, I learn that the word for fear of Halloween is "Samhainophobia", and now we know why!)

We are treated to a stunning rainbow over the castle, sort of like a divine benediction for all those extra words we're about to utter. Poor, poor Anthony.

 

The grounds of the Blarney Castle are filled with magic, myth, and legend. Not only are the gardens like a magical fairyland, they officially contain a fairy glade. With fairy slipper flowers. For the fairies, natch. The stairs in the middle photo below are the wishing steps, and we all dutifully close our eyes and walk backwards down the steps, then up again, in order to make our wishes come true within the year. The photo on the right is of a boulder called the Witch's Stone, for the obvious reason.

But when all the magic, flowers, fairies, rainbows, sweetness and light get to be too much, there's something for the boyish side...

First of all, the history of the castle also involves Robert the Bruce in Scotland. Cormac McCarthy, the King of Munster, reportedly sent 4,000 troops to support Robert the Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. And legend says that in gratitude, Robert the Bruce sent half of the Stone of Scone. This is now the very stone we kiss high up in the battlements. Or not, since other historical accounts state the English removed the Stone of Scone (or Stone of Destiny) a hundred years earlier. So really, even this story could all be blarney.

The castle's history also involves Oliver Cromwell who finally managed to break into the King of Munster's stronghold only to find all the treasure and all the people save two servants had disappeared through underground tunnels.

 

Naturally, Anthony loves the slits for shooting out arrows (wait, I bet there's an official term for that...Yes, just looked it up, and they are called, cleverly enough, arrowslits, arrow slits, or arrow loops). Even better than the arrowslits is....cue ominous music....The Murder Hole. Like the trebuchets in La Dordogne, it's these sweet castle-y touches that speak to the twelve year old boy that still lurks (not too far) below Anthony's surface.

 

 

 

The Blarney castle has the added appeal of a poison garden. You know you're not in the US because some of the plants are enclosed in cages, protecting them from animals and animals from them, with nothing to protect the people. And many aren't enclosed at all. There's no waiver to sign and not even a placard warning you against picking, eating, or ingesting the plants. Basically, it's your business if you're stupid enough to taste plants in a poison garden, each clearly marked with a skull and crossbones and list of symptoms. Will cause nausea, dizziness, paralysis of the throat muscles, hallucinations, and death; want some?