English as a Foreign Language

As we are in an English-speaking country, you would think that language would not be an issue here. But I think sometimes I have an easier time of it in France. The Irish (Gaelic) is of course a huge mystery to us, and since so many of the place names are derived from the Irish, we're often at a loss.



For example, if I want to get to Dun Laughaire, I might ask, "Which direction to Dun LOW-gair?"

The kind Irishman in the tweed cap looks at me quizzically.

I try again, slightly louder of course, because as all Americans know, speaking louder makes us more easily understood. “Dun LAO-jair?," I venture. "Don Low-HAIR?  Dun LOG-hair?”

He walks over to see where I'm pointing on the map. “Aah! Dune Leary!” And then proceeds to give me directions I can't understand anyway.

 

 

It’s not just the accent. Or the spelling. Sometimes, it simply doesn’t seem like English at all. Of course, sometimes it isn’t English. Many of the names are given in Gaelic, such as “An dInbhear Mor,” which, according to my trusty guidebook, means Great Estuary. I sound this out as “An DIN-bare MORE” though it is, as I’m sure you have already astutely guessed, actually called “Arklow.” I feel so slow.

In Tipperary, you will find a little town called “An tAonach.” And I’m sure if you were driving along wanting directions, you wouldn’t think of calling that“Nena” either, so don’t laugh. Sure sometimes they write it as “Nenagh,” but how is a non-Irishperson to realize that’s even referring to the same place? Guidebooks, maps, and signs don't always list the towns in the same language.

  

By the way, according to my Irish friends, nobody actually says, “Top o’ the mornin’ to you!” except the leprechaun from Lucky Charms which are, I’m sure you’re aware, magically delicious but absolutely not Irish. Nobody says “Faith and Beghorah!” either, though I have heard quite a few “Jesus, Mary, and Josephs!” In trying to sound like a native, I am told I hit it dead on about once out of every, oh, 40,000 attempts. The other 39,999 times, I sound more like Apu, the Indian Kwik-E-Mart owner from the Simpsons.

Language difficulties aside, we're having a bit of the craic over here. That’s pronounced “crack”, and it doesn’t mean we’re smoking any form of cocaine. Rather, that’s the Irish way for saying we’re having a rip-roarin', grand ole’ time.

 

Dingle

The thing to do from Killarney is to drive around the Ring of Kerry. But the truth is, the Kerry peninsula drive is scenic on a large scale, in every sense. You need clear skies to see far to get the most of the long drives whose main purpose is the view. So instead, we do the Dingle drive. First of all, I love the name. Any place named Dingle already has points in my book.

Also, the Dingle Peninsula is more compact so it's quicker, even though it's further from Killarney. The scenic aspects are close in, and there are more places to stop, see specific sites (and sights), and get out and stretch. Dingle does not disappoint. I don't know if Anthony or the kids feels it, but there is something magical about this place to me.

  

We get down from the cliffs to sea level so the girls can touch the Atlantic, their first time from this continent.

The peninsula is filled with antiquities, more even than the Ring of Kerry. One of the greatest things about this place is that it is a treasure trove of ancient sites. The ancients used what they had -- stones -- and some of the excellent and enduring stonework (corbelling, tilting down and out for rain runoff but stacked without mortar) reminds us a little of of the mastery you see in Peru. The first place we visit is Dunbeg (Dún Beag) Promontory Fort. Through carbon dating, the experts estimate use of this site as early as the 5th century, being regularly inhabited by the 10th century. It's hard even to put that in context for the kids, but all we can tell them is to go by our family benchmark: "It's about twice as old as Notre Dame Cathedral." Anthony is often our source of information; he likes to read all the placards, even as the rest of us are running for shelter.

 

 

  

 

Our second stop is one of the many famous beehive huts that dot the coastline. This one, specifically, is called Cathair na gConchúireach. And no, I can't tell you how to pronounce that. It was said to have been built and inhabited somewhere up to 1200 AD, so somewhere around 1000 years old, or more.

 

Taking a break from the on-and-off rain, on-and-more-on wind, car, and ancient buildings, we stop at Louis Mulcahey pottery shop and café, where we have delicious warm soup (the girls say -- correctly? -- that the various Irish soups we've eaten are, on the whole, the best they've ever tasted), hearty brown bread, hot chocolate with marshmallows, and a chance to relax. We buy some books, and the girls read up on their Irish tales. Also, before Anthony or I can exactly realize what's going on and stop them, they manage to yell out some dirty Irish limericks from across the room.

 

 

This is where I buy my new cheese tray, a platter-sized version of the bread plate above. Luckily, it survives the trip better than the stone cheese platter I bought in Morocco. Here's a sneak peak (flash forward to Paris) at how amazing my Louis Mulcahey pottery looks hosting a bunch of French cheeses:

And back to ancient Ireland. Now warm and well fed, with a few fun souvenirs in the car, we head out to visit the virtually perfectly preserved Gallarus Oratory; that's preservation, not renovation. It has looked like that, if you believe the official information, for the past 1300 years. As a sudden, brief downpour hits while we're there, I can tell you form experience that it is, in fact, still completely water-tight. There are two stone loops to tie up a curtain of some sort over the door, and while the wind and rain rage outside, we imagine how cozy it would have been with a fur or wool curtain, and perhaps a small fire inside (would they have had fires inside? Or would that be too smoky? In my clearly romanticized view of the ancients, there's a fire to keep us warm, but it ventilates well. Oh, and we have modern clothing, shoes, food, shampoo, and medicine).

One small detour to see Kilmalkeader, a 12th century church.

 

Woman of letters that I am, I absolutely love the two ancient language stones here. On the stone pictured below, called an Ogham pillar, the notches are actually an ancient form of phonetic writing, used to write Archaic Irish, Old Welsh and Latin between the 4th and 7th century AD. This one says "ANM MAILE-INBIR MACI BROCANN" ("the name Mael Inbir, son of Brocan"). Do you notice the "Maci" in there that means "son of"? As in MacDonald, McNeill, etc. The system itself looks like chicken scratches, and is way too complicated for me to absorb and explain. If you're really curious, check out this explanation.

  

 

The American part of me that's used to everything of historical value being roped and sealed off feels a little bad that Pippa is leaning against the pillar. On the other hand, it's been sitting in a still-used cemetery in the open, under the Irish rain, for nearly two thousand years, so perhaps this is really the least of it.

Another pillar in the churchyard contains the Roman alphabet, and is said to be from the 6th century or earlier. The assumption is that it was used as a teaching tablet. It stands vertically, but I've put it on the horizontal and enhanced the contrast it to try to make the letters more visible.

 

Anthony, man of science that he is, prefers the following stone, which is an ancient sundial. Yes, we see the irony in this, too, given we are in Ireland and on a very typically overcast, rainy day. More than that, the hole in the rock is not carved all the way through, as you can see from the backside. So it does beg the question, how could it have worked? We can't interpret the carvings, but find them lovely nonetheless.

 

 

It's too cloudy, and we will be too carsick, to go over the famous Conor pass, so instead we retrace our steps along the officially less scenic (but still spectacular) and drastically more efficient road back to Killarney, where we're staying for a couple nights. Along the way, we stop at a little aquarium in the town of Dingle for what will be our last hoorah for the day. With very low expectations, we are, frankly, pleasantly surprised. It's a great way to give the girls something that's a little more kid-friendly. It's actually quite an impressive aquarium, out here in a tiny town, on a tiny peninsula, in a tiny country. 

 

 

  

 

There are a couple signs that tickle my fancy here. One, on the piranha tank:

 

But my favorite is the sign on the petting tank. Check out rule #4: "Avoid the Thornback Ray's Spine. It has THORNS on it's back." Woman of letters that I am, my pet peeve is not that they unwisely stuck a thornback spine into a children's petting tank, but rather that they incorrectly stuck an apostrophe into the "it's".

 

 

The one thing we don't stop for on our tour is "world-famous" home-made Dingle ice cream. Mostly because we are too cold, and partly because living on Ile St. Louis, near "world-famous" Berthillon, we get a whole lot of ice cream in our lives already. When I wonder aloud what the local specialty flavor might be, Anthony answers, "Of course...it's Dingleberry!" Really, I just walked right into that one.

 

 

 

Happy Samhain!

Happy Samhain! And what in the Sam hill is Samhain? Well, first of all, let's start with the pronunciation. I know "Sam hill" and "Samhain" sounded good to you until right about now, when I tell you that Samhain is pronounced SOW-en (rhymes with chowin'). Samhain is a pre-Christian Irish pagan holiday, and the source of a lot of our Halloween traditions.

Like the Day of the Dead, Samhain is considered the time during the year when our world and the world of magic, spirits, souls of the dead, and fairies are closest. A PhD candidate in Irish folklore explains to us that while people were cooking for the ancient festivities, they would send their children around to get supplies from neighbors (apparently, "May I borrow a cup of sugar?" has been around since even before there was sugar). But to protect them from any harmful spirits, they would hide the children's identities with masks and disguises. And voilà! They're trick-or-treating.

Except that now it's not a cup of sugar, it's more like an enormous bag of individually wrapped blocks of sugar.

We thought only Americans really did Halloween, but showing up in Ireland at Halloween time turns out to be a happy stroke of luck. This country is fully decorated and crazy for the holiday. Our Halloween actually started two days early, at Bunratty, when the girls dress up with their new Irish friends (the daughters of my old Irish friend, Brendan). One thing we notice is that the children in Ireland tend to dress up with traditional scary/creepy costumes. We don't see one single princess, and the only foofy dresses are the torn ones on the bloody brides. At a place as Disney-picturesque as Bunratty, it's utterly refreshing not to have even a whiff of Disney princess (or Star Wars for that matter!).  Heading out from Brendan's farmhouse, where we're staying for the week, we have Ellen as a witch, Gigi as a gypsy, Pippa as a leopard, and Catherine, the black cat, who is far too adorable to bring anybody bad luck. 

 

 

By Halloween itself, Ellen and Catherine and family are back in Dublin. So left to our own devices, we find out from a group of teenagers where the trick-or-treating hotspots are in the town nearest to the farmhouse, which is Athenry, County Galway. We are now experts on where to get the goods in this town. The trick-or-treating looks a lot like what I knew growing up. The rules seem to be the same; if the house is decorated and/or lit up, it's fair game. Despite how lonely the scene looks in the photo on the left, the truth is that there are plenty of other children in costume and making the rounds, as you can see when several groups converge on this obviously-open-for-candy household.

 

Yes, prowling around the graveyard of the nearly 800 year old Athenry abbey ruins is spooky. And certainly the gypsy and leopard are scary....

 

But not as scary as several huge bags of candy and junk food. Among the candies, you will notice there are none of the American-style bite-sized Snickers I sneak out of my girls' bags each year, nor any of the Toffifees I was hoping would end up in a European trick-or-treat bag. Sigh. Doesn't look much like a North American trick-or-treat haul, does it?

But wait. It gets weirder. Yes, weirder than Banana Skids, Fizzy Pops, and Fruit Pastilles. Try looking through your kids' Halloween booty and finding snack bags of Worcester, Salt & Vinegar, and Smoky Bacon chips or, worse yet, Chickatees -- the chicken-flavored puffs.

Now that's scary!