Day 7: Cobh, Fota House, and Cork City

Today was a fairly easy day with little time in the coach. We started by driving to Cobh (known as Queenstown prior to Irish independence). It's a nice little port town that is notable for several reasons. First, it was the last port of call for emigrants on their way to America. Second, it was the first port of call for tourists on their way to Ireland and Europe prior to air travel. Third, it was the last place where the Lusitania stopped before being sunk off the Old Head of Kinsale (just a little down the coast) and it was the place where survivors were taken. Finally, it was the final port of call for the Titanic on its ill-fated voyage. There are monuments throughout the town that celebrate these facts. The monument to Annie Moore is one of the most widely known—partly because it is duplicated in the States.



The Lusitania memorial is particularly grim. Indeed, I'm not a fan of the monument but find it interesting because the Irish Tourist Board spent quite a lot of money on the surrounding plaza and lighting—an odd expense considering that I highly doubt anybody (other than me) would come to Cobh to see a monument!


Of course, we were here to visit a heritage center devoted to both emigration and the experience of trans-Atlantic steam travel, the Queenstown Story.



Seasickness was a problem.

The exhibit does a nice job of explaining how the great liners—the Titanic, for example—were built.

And it goes into detail about what it was like to get on, off, and to travel by steamer. I especially liked this display because it includes the advert for the S.S. United States in the background. The United States was the single fastest ocean liner to ever cross the Atlantic, the final winner of the Blue Riband. The boat is now floating in the Philadelphia harbor and a committee is anxious to try to save the ship—a very good cause because there are literally no other remaining examples of the grand trans-Atlantic steamers left.

After leaving Queenstown Story, it was off to Fota House. During the eighteenth and even into the nineteenth century, power was intimately connected to land. The more land you had, the more impressive your house, the more powerful you were. In Ireland, where most land was owned by wealthy English landlords, this was especially true. While the homes owned by landed aristocrats are called manor houses in Britain, here in Ireland they are referred to as "big houses." Fota, although modest by comparison to some, is a great example of such homes and the tour does a great job of illustrating what life was like for both the landowner and his staff.

The above photo shows the house from the landscaped area behind the home.

Our guide.
The entryway.

Beautiful ceilings, no more fancy than those in my office at UNE (of course).

At one stage, our guide demonstrated a courting seat by chatting up Courtney.

She crushed the poor man by refusing his advances. A sad moment for your man, I'm sure!

Oddly, I'm far more interested in how the staff lived than I am the wealthy landowners. Landowners acquired status by doing as little as possible beyond the occasional hunt, while the staff had to do all of the work.

This is a laundry machine. It makes even the 30-year old antique in my apartment building back home look advanced!

These bells denoted the room where service was required. One might ring at any hour of the day or night, so the staff had to be ready.

I'm always struck by the fact that the rich and powerful liked their meat to be a bit spoiled. Thus, they hung it on a wrack like this.

I seem to recall our guide saying something about the birds hitting their prime when the heads fell off. Sounds yummy.
So much for Peter Cottontail. Poor bugger.

Of course, it wasn't all rotting critters. There were pots and pans to use.

And dusting to be done. [Okay, so this is not exactly a period dust pan. You must admit, though, the photo makes it look as though it would be right at home at the MOMA in New York!]

Lawn decorations matter.

Once done at Fota, it was back to Cork City for a bit of a wander, then on to a fascinating lecture by Dr. Aoife Bhreatnach—the foremost historian of Irish Travellers (a minority population that represents Ireland's "other" and which is horribly treated by the "settled" community). Interested readers would do very well to read her superb book: Becoming Conspicuous: Irish Travellers, Society and the State: 1922-1970.

As for me, when I'm in Cork City I visit the English Market—a fantastic indoor shopping area that features an extraordinary selection of olives, seafood, restaurants, sandwich stalls, t-shirt and hen night shops, and much, much more. I adore the place.




Along the way, I snapped a photo of Shandon—famous for its bells (which visitors can play... they even provide sheet music).

Much to the students' horror, I've been trying to document their trip with lots and lots of candid photos (I actually throw away the bad ones, so how candid can they be?). This is what the student sees just before they hear the shutter...

Just call me the Great Green Hunter.

Day 6: The 1848 War House and the Rock of Cashel

Today we got up earlier than on any other—on the bus by 7am. Or was it 6:30? Too bloody early to remember for sure. There was a method to the madness, of course. We were driving from Enniscorthy to Cork City for a massive hurling match between long-time rival squads Cork and Tipperary. Before the match, though, we had a couple of stops.


First off, we stopped at the 1848 War House—otherwise known as the Widow McCormack's Cabbage Patch, site of short-lived 1848 uprising. In a nutshell, a handful of rebels from a group called the Young Irelanders launched a rising in the middle of the Potato Famine, hoping to overthrow the British government. They found themselves at McCormack's place and were defeated within a few minutes by a small number of policemen.

You'd think that such a failure would be quickly forgotten. Far from it. The next nationalist group to come along, the Fenian Brotherhood, depended on memory of 1848 to inspire and recruit (hence the sign they placed on the old McCormack place).

The 1848 rebels were sentenced to transportation across the seas and some of them took part in another uprising in Australia some years later. It went little better. What did work out was that one of the men, Terence Bellew McManus, died in San Francisco. A crummy, if inevitable, way to go you say? Well, the Fenians promptly loaded him on a slow moving train and sent the body back to Ireland, stopping in stations all across America. Mass was held in New York and Dublin. The funeral was huge. People came out of the woodwork to join the Fenians. Another wave of rebellion was born.

But I get ahead of myself. As we made our way across country, progress was slowed by a run-in with some especially stupid cows that were simply standing in the road.




Eventually a farmer arrived to move them along, but the cows were little interested.

More standing around.


Finally the bloody things started to move. Rather quickly, as it happens... straight at me. I jumped back in the bus!


Freed from cattle gridlock, it was on to the Rock of Cashel, one of Ireland's coolest sites/sights. I focused on taking photos of details, graves, and so on—but also caught one of Hoar Abbey just below.


Believe it or not, there's still medieval paint in one chapel.



Sadly, it was raining during the hurling match. Never very hard, mind, but steady enough that I was worried about using my camera. Thus, no photos. Suffice to say that it was a BRILLIANT match. Cork was much the underdog, but they pulled off a brilliant victory and there was much celebrating.

Two last photos. The first is of our ride: a Mercedes. Don't get too excited. It is electronically limited to 80kph. My calls for hitting the chip with a hammer have been roundly rejected.


Finally, this is a flying rat. Kinda pretty, actually. (I love my camera!)

Day 5: Glendalough and New Ross

After days of beautiful, sunny, warm weather, today the Traditional Irish Weather™ appeared. It was lashing down when I headed out to breakfast and continued on the drive out of Dublin to Glendalough.

Undaunted, the group dawned rain gear and I bummed a giant 'breally from Liam to cover my camera. We were not going to let this get us down.

Glendalough is an extraordinary "monastic city" in the Wicklow Mountains south of Dublin. It is packed full of ruins, an impressive round tour, inscribed stones, and St. Kevin's Oratory. Most of the inscribed stones are now located in the museum.


On a rainy day, one can only stall in the museum for so long... you eventually gotta head out into the world. Here's where things went wrong on my part. Pulling the camera from my bag, I twisted one of the switches. I didn't notice the new "adjustment" for most of the day—dramatically underexposing virtually every photograph that I took. Bummer.

Ah, you say, but there must be a way to fix the error! This is the twenty-first century. You'd be right to a point. Turns out that a little tweeking in PhotoShop allowed me to turn nearly black pictures into something viewable and maybe more than just viewable. Truth be told, I like the results!


This unique oratory (church) has a round tower built in, reflecting the larger round tower nearby. Cool!

As I say, Glendalough is extensive, so we wandered to the upper lake to look at more ruins.

We also watched a really fabulous dog playing "fetch" in the lake. He was having a great time but grew tired by the time I snapped this photo. He informed his owner in no uncertain terms that this was the last run. Fortunately, I got the photo just prior to the mutiny.


It is a beautiful spot.

Next up, we headed south to New Ross—the place where the Normans first invaded Ireland. Our goal was not to look at Norman sites, but rather to check out the Dunbrody Famine Ship. The original sunk many years ago so interested citizens built this replica to give visitors an idea of what it would've been like for those escaping the Potato Famine between 1845 and 1851.


Conditions were cramped.

Actors explain what it was like. This character loses her husband and then dies at sea, her children left as orphans. The story was not atypical. Many emigrants were sick with "famine fever" when they boarded the ship. The disease, carried by fleas, quickly spread to others. There's a good reason they were called "coffin ships."


A second actor explains what it was like for the more well-to-do.


Much of this was explained by our guide.


Fortunately, steerage passengers were allowed above deck for 30 minutes a day. Enough time to snap a few photos. These travelers were very pleased be be up top.
With Dunbrody "bagged," we headed to our final stop of the day: the National 1798 Center in Enniscorthy.

In brief, inspired by the American and French Revolutions, a group called the Society of the United Irishmen launched a rebellion in 1798. It was supposed to bring liberty and justice for all, it instead brought sectarian slaughter. The museum more or less leaves out the sectarian part, but certainly notes that upwards of 30,000 died in only a few weeks.

The story is told using a range of multimedia to fairly good effect.


These holographic heads debate about the rights of man. Actually, they misrepresent Burke a little bit—he was against rapid change and unthinking violations of tradition, not democracy per se—but ya still gotta like the presentation.


Interactive monitors in drums allow visitors to engage with the material.

John and Liam consult on matters revolutionary.