October 19th
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Cork City Gaol |
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We start the day with a healthy breakfast, meet up with Jim and Turly and it's time for some walking. Our first destination is Cork City Gaol. The view from up here of the city is pretty nice. The gaol's a little cheesy, since it's populated by mannequins, and the tour consists of a walkman-like device you carry around. These individual sound tours always bug me, since they never go at the pace I want. This one is particularly annoying, since there's only play and pause, but no fast-forward or rewind. You're stuck going at the pace of the tape and no faster, and parts of the gaol just don't merit as much time as the tape takes to explain.
After the taped tour, there was an audio-visual presentation (read that as slide show) with one of the slide projectors non-functional. It covered the history from 1800 up to the revolution. More dead (and imprisoned) Irish. I'm beginning to understand why the Irish aren't exactly best of friends with the English.
Lunch was at a pub near the Gaol, and then it was in the taxi for a ride to the train station (with a
free detour past Shandon, the four-faced liar, and running commentary from the taxi-driver). We're
trying to catch the train to Cobh ![[Footnote14]](images/foot.gif){kind=small}
. Somewhere along the way, Turly explains to us
that the reason for the funny spelling of names Irish is due to the limited alphabet. The cab driver
(whose name is Paul, and is quite talkative, and fun to listen to) also tells us how long it will take
to get to the ferry at Ringaskiddy tomorrow, and tells us there's a pub near the ferry terminal.
The train-ride to Cobh is fairly short. We're back in clouds. It seems much of this vacation has been cloudy. While that's typical for Ireland in October, it's also a bit disappointing. When we arrive in Cobh, we can see the sun shining down on Cork. We seemed to have zigged when we should have zagged.
In Cobh, we go through the interpretive center talking about the exodus of Irish to the US. Most of
them left through this harbor, and it's kind of depressing when you think about what a large percentage
of the population left. This was also the Titanic's last stop before running into an iceberg.
There's also the Genealogy Centre
, which Jim wants to see, what with him being Irish
and all.
Time for another cathedral. This time it's St. Colman's Cathedral. It's a fairly impressive building, and the walk up the hill to it is no small deal. Once we're there, a plaque informs us that St. Colman's was built largely with money sent back to Ireland from folks who'd emigrated to the states.
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Another interesting thing in Cobh is the crescent. It's a set of houses built by the richer folks who wanted to get uphill from the bustle of the port. It's not that far up the hill, but far enough, apparently. Each of the houses is now painted a different color, which makes it very picturesque when the sun pokes through the clouds.
We stop for a beer at a pub in Cobh. Jim plays the jukebox, and gets a few looks when he puts on Irish music, but most of his selections seem to meet with the approval of the clientele. The jukebox gets turned up a bit so the folks in the front room (we're sitting in back, with the pool table) can hear it, too. A group of younger adults come in and shoot some pool, and they feed the jukebox. They end up leaving before their songs are done, and the jukebox gets turned down again, so Jim's selections seem to have gone over better than theirs did.
On the train back to Cork, I notice a couple things. The first is that, once again, our rail passes don't get stamped. Turly points out that it would be silly to stamp them for what's a couple-pound fare, and I can't argue with that. The second is that while the train has toilets, the signs on them say "engaged" for the entire ride. I suspect they're just not open. Especially after stopping in a pub, this is noteworthy, and I'm glad it's a short ride before we get to the station in Cork.
After stopping back at the B&B to drop off the cameras and such, we're off for dinner and another
(shorter) pub crawl.
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