Snick's Thoughtful Spot: My Irish Wanderings

This being my third trip to the Emerald Isle, I decided to be very focused on ancient sites. When I refer to ancient, I mean very ancient, such as the 4-5000 year old earthworks that are rampant for such an isolated country. Actually, that may be why so many survived. I did throw in a couple 1100-1200 AD castles and abbeys (no time wasted on newbie places that start in the 1500s :P), but was thrilled to visit ancient earthworks ranging from the east to west coast. In fact, the west coast ancient world is represented by the Aran Islands, specifically the main island of Inishmore, which begs to share the retrospectively funny story.

When an Irishman assures you that "it's just a shuttle bus to the ferry with an easy day on the island", take note. Thank the dear Lord that I had my wellies, raincoat, and an already heavy long Aran sweater....

Shuttle bus reality: a coach that takes over an hour to reach the docklands in the middle of absolutely no-where. Paying heed to Crazy Irishman's advise to simply park the car in Galway was the best decision of the day because I never would have found these elusive docks.

Ferry reality: the Irish may call it a ferry with a quick jaunt to the islands. I call it a tin boat of treachery to cross an hour's worth of actual Atlantic Ocean to get to what quickly was becoming a set of islands of which I was losing interest. It doesn't help that I am very easily sea sick.

Island reality: I'm here! Yippee! 2.5 hours later, I survived the craziness so far of what was presented as perhaps 20 minutes out of my way. I consult the local map to these precious Celtic ruins of 4000 years (Dun Aonghasa) and the luxurious ramble about a small island was instantly translated as a 7km distance on a very windy island.

Bike reality: So you just rent a bike, right? Sure. I swore the headwind was horrible, ie, I was actually blown to either side of the road despite reasonable leg strength of a martial artist, but it would be better going back, right? (FYI it wasn't headwind - it sucked both ways and was simply that windy everywhere). Thankfully, I have no ego and when the bike rental guy took my driving licence as hold for the bike (not enough cash on me) and told me to use the low road because the high road gets windy, I took his advice. I just wonder what in the world the high road was like.

Ancient site reality: Dear God. I'm finally there. I can't breathe, my legs are rubber, I'm still a bit nauseated from the sea trip, and exhausted. My one error in clothing was the lack of a hat, and my old 25 year old ear ache started really going at it. I run into a sweater shoppe and get a hat, not particularly caring if they want my first born in order to get it. I ask how close I can get to the site with my bike ... "oh, there is bike parking a bit up the road, then about a 30 minute hike up the hill....". Great. I have no doubt that this prehistoric stone fort was a complete waste of energy because 1) nobody would want to have the damned place, and 2) it was complete overkill of a building project.

So here is proof that I made it to the very top of this insanely old fort that served, in my opinion, absolutely no purpose. The huge joy for me besides triumph over nature and a Dramamine on the voyage back was the discovery of a wild seal colony! I was so lost in my happiness that I apparently missed the hail storm that I was standing in as I looked down a long while later to find hail everywhere. Wow.

The best part? You can imagine the hunger at this point. I find a pony and trap driver and ask politely, "so where is a good place to eat?" He ponders for a second and replies that he didn't think any are open right now. The response to my query of what time did he think they'd be open since I was trapped there until 5pm was "I'm thinking sometime in May". Lovely.

As another quick funny story, I was determined to find another ancient earthworks called FourKnocks. The very fact that I located this precious site in a single line of text of a totally non-tourist book that discussed possible interpretations of Celtic rock symbols should have been an indication of possible issues. However, I blithely fill the petrol tank and zoom off to the country. Despite the fact that County Meathe is really pretty settled to me, I would like to note that there are certain rather abandoned areas with very poor signage. Since these so-called B roads appeared to me as more appropriate as Z roads, ie, are these roads anyway, the difficulties increased. However, once again, dogged determination once again triumphs, only to find a locked gate on private property with this sign....