SB Poets Take Ireland: Day 12

And so we've come to the final day of our tale, my friends. Thanks for stopping by George's Pub, and if a one-way conversation can be craic, I hope this was edifying, illuminating, and intoxicating, at least at one remove. (Yes, we actually flew out the following day, but I'm not doing a post about airport food and a taxi ride. You're welcome.)

Read

What's read all over? Ireland!

Bed

Here's the view out our window from the Sligo Park Hotel.

Yep, good old Ben Bulben out past the car park. Turns out it would be yet even more of Yeats day than we imagined, as we'll get to in Toured.

Then we do have one more night in Dublin, since we flew out early the next day--that meant we could drop off the rental car this day, walk about, and just taxi to the airport. While our first place was right in town on the Liffey, this time the Air BnB was in the more suburban-feeling Portobello, in an apartment in the land of rowhouses--it felt very Baltimore or Brooklyn. There was laundry. It was a bit quirky--the living room, of all things, was dominated by a painting of New York City (where we were headed next--I wonder if they do that for all their guests?), but for a night it was perfect.

Fed & Poured

One last hotel breakfast buffet--you do a few of these and you wonder if there's just one central kitchen that caters them all. Quite pleasant, certainly filling, but nothing to blog home about.

As we did so well while traveling, we sort of were preoccupied through the lunch hour (and more), as we had to make the drive from Sligo to Dublin, drop off our suitcases at the Air BnB, then drive to the north side of Dublin to drop off the car. Then, us being us, we walked back from there to the heart of things. But sneaky Chryss had led a thought since we left Dublin, and it was this: Pieman.

It's very hard to take pictures of walk-away food as your hands have better things to do--stuff your face--than click away. But Chryss had a veg and I had to have a steak and stout, as that seemed only appropriate if I was only going to have one--start with the traditions, then try other things. (It's just like writing poetry--you can't rebel if you don't know what you're up against.) Flaky, meaty goodness. Gone in 90 seconds, probably.

Then we dinnered pretty quickly atop that, too. Our DK guide seemed high on The Market Bar in its pub section, so we went there, a very large space that likes its turn over--there's a limit to how long you can keep your table (it's reasonable, but still, it's like the meter's ticking). The draught list is big, but not necessarily in a great way--lots of what you might expect (Heineken and Heineken Light)--and it also featured a beer with a name that bugs me. Just like I find San Diego's Belching Beaver just too rude to reward with my business (whether the beer is good or not--c'mon guys, grow up and don't flatter the incels), Ireland has a brand called Cute Hoor. As in, "I'll have a Cute Hoor." Hahaha. Pass.

Instead I went the bottled route. Tried to order a Third Circle Rye Stout, but they were out. Luckily they did have the Third Circle Saison, which survived being agitated on the way to the table (I assume), as I ended up with a very heady pour.

So Dublin itself can brew some fine craft beer. The saison was a mildly sour one as the style goes, but had some character and kick and a surprising amount of hops, too.

For food we went about as traditional as we could for our last pub supper in Ireland. Chryss had the fish and chips; I had bangers and mash (and onion rings--we should have invited Paul, who actually was still in Sligo anyway).

You know how food can satisfy but not intrigue? There you go. I have to admit what looked like too much gravy wasn't, but, of course...gravy.

To be honest, it wasn't fair to drop this meal as a capstone on all the rest of our two weeks of eating, so much of it revelatory. Turns out you can go out with bangers and with a whimper. I'll show myself out...of the country...tomorrow.

We did think about following that up with one last pint at a pub, but it was Friday and we were mostly in Temple Bar, but even south of that crowds were the norm. If you want to rob houses in Dublin, do it on Fridays from 5-7 pm, because everyone is at pub, and every pub takes over as much space on the sidewalk and sometimes street in front of it as it can. It's as if a liquor license covers any space that contains a drinker who could bump elbows with the next drinker, back to the bar itself, kind of like some ant colony a-swarming with a mighty thirst for stout and the weekend. While I refuse to judge, I also couldn't get up the energy to join the scrum, what with the impending weight of "early a.m. international flight" on my brow. I mean, I look sort of stupid silly here, don't I, and I've had all of one beer?

Toured

Since we had the time to do it--the drive from Sligo to Dublin is two and a half hours--we headed back in to town before we left town, if for nothing else than to see it on a nicer day (cloudy, not drizzly). Poor Yeats, though, gets the bird drizzle.

But that might just be what happens when you head out wearing your own words. We also tried to check out spots with Yeats memorabilia, and while the Sligo Library and County Museum (note the telling order there, btw) is quaint, it offers things like a replica of Yeats' Nobel Prize. And no photos allowed.

Then there's the Yeats Building Visitors Center, which seems tangentially associated as it's the home of the Yeats Society. When we were there summer school was in session so you couldn't get into most of the rooms, anyway.

All that said, it's still a lovely town along the Garavogue, even without early evening lighting making it a pointillist's dream.

Speaking of lighting, how cool is this lamppost in Dublin?

It's as if almost everything popped out of the Book of Kells, ornate as an illustrator's wildest dream.

But when it comes to fascinating, it's hard to beat bog bodies form the Iron Age. So yes, we visited the National Museum of Ireland, Archaeology, as it's not every day you get to see remains from 2000 BC. (Except, maybe, in the mirror the morning after a hard hard night before.) It's a bit tricky when you have to share your viewing with hordes of schoolchildren, who, it turns out, are just as rowdy and bored as American children, but if you wait the busy buggers out, you get to have a viewing with something as stunning as Old Croghan Man.

That's a person. Think about that. How can you not think about that.

That hand, if not for the coloring, could be anyone's, yours. Plus 40 centuries. If it moved you wouldn't jump; it's almost more shocking it doesn't.

This one is a bit more skeleton in the closet.

They think most of the bog people were sacrificed. We like murdering each other when we can pretend it means something.

To finish, though, where else could we go on this trip of words but the National Library of Ireland? We didn't get into the great reading room, even, no matter how I adore those, cathedrals to books and the people who love them, each a priest for the religion of reading. Instead we explored the exhibit "Yeats: The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats," and ended up finding more than we ever dreamed even Sligo might offer.

The NLI knows how to put on a show. Different aspects of Yeats' life and career each got its own nook, from Maud Gonne to Easter, 1916 to An Occult Marriage. That nook would be decorated to fit the theme, and include poems and letters and well-done videos we didn't have enough time to dive into.

But then there was this. The lapis lazuli Harry Clifton gave to Yeats that inspired the poem it's named after. Generally it's just in the Yeats family, but they loaned the stone out for the exhibit. I felt like I was seeing something I shouldn't, a before too brilliant for my eyes to spy. The poem is posted aside, so you can read it, and then realize how much Yeats created, the lapis small and the faces of the figures inscrutable. Yet Yeats writes:

Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

The poet, and the lapis, and the lore and lure of Ireland, they all ask us to delight to imagine. What lives as long as a the draw of a bog body's mystery? Mournful melodies ring exact rhymes with our glittering eyes. How much beauty we mine from the tragic scene.

Go back to the post on Day 11 (Sligo).

SB Poets Take Ireland: Day 2

For a quick summary of what's up this day, we motored from Dublin to Letterkenny, Donegal, a three-and-a-half or so hour drive that takes you in and out of the UK on the way (and the borders are unarmed, mostly unmarked--think of their history, and no walls). And, it's time for the first of the seven readings!

Read

This day's event was hosted by North West Words, a wonderful organizations of poets and writers that hosted the PLs with a grant even, as part of their 2018 Arts Council funded series. They have great posters to stand next to.

Organizer Deirdre McClay was a gracious host, even getting us a place to stay. The program was emceed by the drily witty Eamonn Bonner, who gave away poetry books and wine for trivia questions, such as, "What's the distance between Santa Barbara and Letterkenny?" (5,069 miles, if you were wondering.)

David, Paul and Chryss decided to do a round-robin style reading, where their goal was to come up with a poem that somehow connected to the previous poet's work. Soon we learned such segues might be a tad tenuous--"my poem, too, it turns out, has words" kind of thing--but that only added to the fun. And the three PLs exhibited their very different approaches and styles; David the sharp-eyed cynic; Paul offering odes to nature; Chryss displaying a mastery of form and feminism.

The full artistic program of the evening also featured local singer Hannah McCosker, who not only wins busking contests, but just happens to be studying medicine in her non-musical time. Eamonn joked for our group he asked her to play older songs--a highlight was her slow-burn gender turn on Bruce's "I'm on Fire."

A particularly fun part of this evening is that North West Words asked the SB PLs to send a poem each that Irish poets could then write response poems too. It was fascinating to see the Santa Barbaran works seed others' thoughts. Even better it got all of us introduced to Teresa Godfrey, a very talented writer who will be back in this story when it gets to Enniskillen, where she lives.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the great site for this event, Florence Food Co.,  a just hip enough coffee shop with plenty of space for an event like this one but even more the heart to hold it. Plus, check out the photos on this wall and think about its name.

Bed

One of our three nights in hotels on the trip, all paid for. (That's correct, people paid for poets to stay someplace. Civilized countries.) Dillons was a fine place to spend a night, a couple of blocks down Letterkenny's main street from the reading, and a few the other way to our dinner pre-reading...in the next section, eventually.

Fed

Since we need to start with breakfast in Dublin. We were so impressed with the Winding Stair the first night that we returned to its sister restaurant Woollen Mills for breakfast. To be honest we spied it out the evening before, mostly hoping to poach WiFi, but then we got instantly intrigued by the food on display.

Supposedly James Joyce worked in the building back in the day when it was its name and not a restaurant with its name (kind of the US equivalent of naming the new housing tract Christmas Tree Farms....), so there's that. More importantly for today, well, just look at that photo. Killer coffee, lovely baked goods. Scone better than croissant, but hey, what country are we in after all? What was I thinking?

Lunch proved there's plenty of meh in Ireland if you don't bother to look for it and just stop into a town and try a luncheonette. About half way between Dublin and Letterkenny is Monaghan, a cute town if sort of undistinguished (especially in a one hour visit), so we picked Caroline's there and have a perfectly serviceable lunch. Here's fish and chips and mushy peas, if you please.

Dinner, though, more than made up for the ok lunch. The Lemon Tree Restaurant is in an odd spot in Letterkenny, down off the main street backed up to a mall that seems to only contain shops that are going out of business, like it was designed to be a mall for the lost. And then this place. Larger and a tad fancier than you'd expect given the town and even more so they actual location by the mall of the dead, but not stuffy at all, either. And, like many places in Ireland, they do an early evening menu that turns out to be a "you will eat more than you should" bargain--first course and main for 20 Euros.

All six of us were eating together, and we feasted.

That's a fish cake, definitely mostly seafood and little filler,with some piquant tartar sauce and just enough of a salad to add a bit of crunch. Even more adventurous was their beetroot (it seems crucial in Ireland to call it by its full name so no one things you're just serving the greens) salad, complete with a beetroot ice cream in the center, delicious, unusual creaminess to set off the earthiness of the rest of the plate.

For a main I couldn't resist the nationalist call-to-arms that is Irish steak burger, matured Irish cheddar, Irish bacon, brioche bun, and chunky chips. I'm not sure why they didn't insist the chips were from Irish potatoes, beyond, I guess, that's just given. Oh, and that tomato compote, so much more than a ketchup (sorry, Paul!).

It truly was the kind of burger that hits every "that's what a burger should be" sensor--very flavorful beef cooked to the right medium rare temp, cheese that had a bit of bite, bacon that you really had to bite. Chryss, shaming meat-eating me, went with the veggie dish, which was no less lush, though, mushroom arancini, parmesan, mushrooms,toasted almonds, buttered broccoli.

Poured

Not a big drinking day, to be honest, and one of the lessons learned back at the bar at Dillons after the reading for a nightcap was even good breweries, when they start trying to expand the brand, can end up making Ireland's Blue Moon. (I'm looking at you Guinness's Hop House 13 Lager.) Another fascinating lesson was you can consume liquor cheaper than ale; a Guinness cost 4.70€ when a Powers on the rocks cost a mere 4.40. Drink hard, my friend.

Or drink one of my favorite beers on the trip, and not just for the goofy art or the grungy name--Hairy Bollocks (please, trust me, don't Google this name brand, especially at work). Sure, I might enjoy this American style pale ale as its features Cascade hops, but it's just darn tasty, and all at a mere 5%. And I dare you not to giggle when you learn the following from their website: "Boghopper Brewery is an independently owned micro-brewery situated in the town of Muff, on the Inishowen peninsula’s Wild Atlantic Way."

Toured

Please look closely at Chryss's left wrist. Thank you, Hertz, for life-saving jewellery.

For the most part driving wasn't too bad (I'll save the scariest for later). The highways are very well taken care of, the only bad thing is suddenly a divided comfy roadway can become one lane each way and still be a major-ish road. Plus they like to paint the lines dividing such a road with white paint, which here in the States usually means that's all in one direction. That's a bad thought to have in Ireland. And then there were some odder things, like trying to figure out what this sign meant:

Wear a coonskin cap? Beware caterpillars on the road? Eventually, thanks to nature doing what the sign meant to warn us of, we figured out it was the sign for gusty winds. It wasn't a breeze to figure that out.

Speaking of the weather, as I said, it's such a scarily literate country, and that covers their weather forecasts, too. I'm not sure any of my poems reach the gorgeous heights of this posting in the Dillons elevator. Ah, ambiguity passes like a sudden cloud.

Go ahead to the post on Day 3 (Letterkenny).


Go back to the post on Day 1 (Dublin).

SB Poets Take Ireland: Day 1

It's time for a tale, as three of Santa Barbara's Poets Laureate decided to book a 7 events in 9 nights tour of Ireland because the town's former mayor, Helene Schneider, had a great time at Dick Mack's Pub in Dingle once. (That's the simplest way to put it. There's plenty of un-simple to come, so let's just move on.) Please join me as I chronicle the trip, featuring David Starkey (PL III: 2009-2011), Paul Willis (PL IV: 2011-13), Chryss Yost (PL V: 2013-15) and their spouses, one of whom is me (a non-laureated poet--think of me as Stu Sutcliffe without the aneurysm). So expect some travel, lots of poet-talk, and, of course, food. George Eats knows no boundaries.

So Chryss and I red-eyed into Dublin with a day to spend before the tour took off.

Read

David, who did the heavy-lifting of booking the tour, discovered you've got to slam to perform in the big cities, and our PLs are gentle folk, even when they write bitter things about old you know who in the White House. So no performances in Dublin (or Belfast or Galway).

Bed

We mostly Air BnB'ed our way about the two countries, and above you see the view of the Liffey from our first evening in Dublin. Great location, mere minutes from all sorts of sites I'll get to in a different heading. (Sections: they give shape and squeeze you too.) The place itself was a bit down on its heels, a tad shabby, but heck, you wouldn't want Shane McGowan to have pearly perfect whites now, would you? It's Dublin, it's supposed to be a bit dirty and dear. And there's something almost comforting when a building's hallway smell (what was it? cleaner that didn't quite do its job?) doesn't follow you into the apartment you're renting.

Fed

So this is the part you've expected from a blog named after me being gluttonous. We got off the red eye and the bus to town hungry, with stomachs in different time zones, but wandered into Bewley's on Grafton Street, which is sort of Big Coffee for Ireland, but even better is in a gorgeously decked out old building, with stained glass, lovely wood; think Charles Rennie Mackintosh if he wasn't Scottish (I've ruined all of these Irish blogs now, haven't I?). And "frotties"--as the item on the coffee menu that looks like "frothy white" is pronounced. (Trying to keep track of when things go hard--"th" losing any of its "h-ness," so that number after twelve, for instance, is "tirteen"--or when things elide, for that town spelled Cobh is of course pronounced "Cove," was not easy. And we won't even get to Gaelic/Irish/Ghaeltacht until we drive out west....)

Lovely fruit scones, and then all the accoutrements--preserves, cream, butter that's practically cream. I might be wearing this breakfast still, that is if I could tell it apart from any of the other early morning moments with calories. Sure the place might be a tad touristy, but hey, we were tourists.

Then dinner, with David joining us (after he defused his rental car's wacky GPS that after five minutes auto-defaulted to the airport), was at the Winding Stair, not only named after a Yeats poem, but it also features a winding stair to the second-floor restaurant, as the first floor is a bookstore. They like writing and reading, the Irish. That's going to be a theme. It's going to be reason to want to go back. And maybe stay.

Dinner kicked off with Chryss and I sharing this Burren smokery, Terry Butterly and Stephen Kavanagh’s smoked fish plate with Dillisk bread, crème fraîche, pickled cucumbers and caper berries. That pate blending into the handle, that was the star.

The board for one could have been dinner (as it was for late-arriving David). Our love affair with Irish bread begins here, so much goodness, and not just Irish soda bread. And who would have guessed an island would provide impeccably fresh fish? Well, Chryss, for here was her main, the evening fish special.

As I remember it (it's already a month ago!), it's skate wing with peashoot tapenade and mini-leeks for just enough of that onionness such a dish requires.

While I went for a bowl of the whole ocean, as it never quite seemed to empty no matter how many shells I plucked of their sweet meatiness, steamed east coast cockles, Connemara mussels and Clogherhead crab, which was sort of reduced to a sauce but still making the bowl even richer. (Thanks Deirdre O'Connor for this wonderful restaurant suggestion.)

Poured

It's Ireland, and while of course they get annoyed about the Irish drunk image, it is an easy place to tip a pint or three. It helps most of their beers are lower in alcohol (Guinness is a mere 4.3% ABV), so certainly sessionable. And even the microbreweries--you didn't think they were only a U.S. trend, did you?--tend to take things lighter than in America. (Ah, our country, fists of ham and ales brewed from water from the Lethe.)

And while we wandered about Temple Bar the area, and saw the actual Temple Bar, we know what Santa Barbara's State Street can be on a Saturday night too, or at least remember it from our youth. So instead we had to visit Cassidy's, in honor of our daughter, and sure enough Bowie piped up on the PA within minutes of walking in. It's a perfect grungy-old-charming, scrawled with graffiti, lit with real candles pub, and indeed, the Guinness is better in Dublin, smoother, deeper, creamier.

But I have to admit I still prefer a Russian imperial stout to a dry Irish one (check the last name? check my desire to drink heavy?), so for the most part on the trip I was on the hunt for local microbrews. One of the best, per-recommended by old friend Mary Finnegan, was Kinnegar, which we failed to get to, but their bottles (and even once their drafts) were available. Particularly the Scraggy Bay IPA.

Surprising heft to it, given it's only 5.3% alcohol. Not a West Coast hop bomb, but pleasantly bitter and balanced, so a perfect food pairing. (Oh, and Winding Stair also offered some amazing wines by the glass--those cockles really washed down well with a peachy, flowery, zippy Chateau Dereszla 2014 Dry Tokaji.)

We closed the evening at the Dingle Whiskey Bar, as a sort of prelude to our visit to SB's sister city. We opted to share two flights, one Irish Pot Still and the other New Ireland, as it's good to get a lay of the malted land, no? The Irish Pot Still featured Green Spot, Powers John Lane, and Red Breast 12; the New Ireland offered Slane, Silkie, and Dingle Single Malt. For two sips or so for each of us, each seemed worth further exploration, though I had a soft spot for that Powers that left my mouth pleasantly peaty. It's a cool spot, with helpful, informed service, good tasting notes, and you pretty much feel like you're aging in a barrel yourself, given the walls are made of curved staves. Who wouldn't want to be full-flavored and complex?

Toured

So of course we saw stuff, too. Davy Byrnes before it was open, and thought of Leopold Bloom's Gorgonzola sandwich. Forget to get a photo. Didn't get to do any of the other Joyce stuff (so I have to go back!). There are churches, lots.

And everyone likes to polish the bosom of the Tart with the Cart.

Nobody polishes a scary squirrel.

And then we hung out at Trinity College, as universities have this pull on us. We visited the Book of Kells, so crowded it was hard to enjoy it as much as we knew we should. Just think about the persistence and faith and steady steady hands of those illustrators. And if you followed that link, how amazing is it there's not one image on that page of information? How academic of you, Trinity College.

I sort of preferred The Long Room, as there's nothing that beats storeys of books. Just the smell of it. It proves knowledge has a scent, a bit of past, a hint of death, and so much we don't know. All the busts are of men, though. Ah, history. And all that barreling sort of takes me back to the Dingle Whiskey Bar. Maybe aging isn't so bad.

Of course you have to watch really thinning out. For we also went to the Zoological Museum, as we're lovers of animals and the bones and taxidermy they leave behind. Most of the exhibits are old, too, so you get that lovely doubling: here's what people then thought was fascinating from an even more distant then. Like this guy.

Or our favorite, who gets a bit obscured by the glass he's behind, a sloth not that indolent to fail to express his dismay--forever, it turns out--to become a display for posterity.

Go ahead to post 2 (Dublin, Letterkenny).