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ventaWho put West Cork so damn far away, that's what I want to know. Schull is five or six hours drive from Dun Laoghaire, which is an hour and a half on the jet boat from Holyhead, which is about an hour and a half drive from Criccieth, which is about six hours on the train from Oxford. A long way to go for a weekend.
Boojum, my occasional rapper team, have been up to their old tricks again of arranging weekends in far flung places. Okay, Schull seemed a lot closer to home than New York, but it took nearly as long to get to.
On the way to Schull we stopped overnight in Cork - and I discovered just how seriously Ireland takes Good Friday. The bars were shut. The pubs were shut. Restaurants were open and serving food - but most definitely not serving alcohol. The streets were unnaturally quiet and empty. Mind you, the betting shops were all still open. So a glass of wine with your spinach and ricotta pasta on Good Friday is right out, but you can gamble yourself into oblivion if you so choose. I've still not quite worked that one out.
I was also vaguely surprised that Schull, where we stayed, had a Sunday market. Somehow I'd expect people who observe Good Friday so carefully (many of the shops were also shut, particularly during Holy Hour (3pm-4pm)) to have qualms about Sunday trading.
Schull is one of those towns which always makes me slightly sad - picturesque, but almost entirely full of holiday cottages. We were staying in some of them, and would have had lovely sea views had someone not built the Garda station right between us and the beach. The beach was great, though - Sue and I spent a fascinated half hour staring into a rock pool, watching a crab and some shrimps gfighting over a mollusc before we had to go home for tea.
During the time we were there we wombled round West Cork on a bus, accompanied by a local dance-scene bigwig and an imported team of Welsh dancers. Bertie (the bigwig) was constantly chattering into the bus's microphone about the sights we were passing - sadly the shite sound quality and his thick Dublin accent meant I only got about one word in three.
One of our jobs as imported entertainment was to provide the "spot" at a ceilidh on Easter Sunday evening. Several things took us by surprise: firstly, the ceilidh didn't start til half nine at night, with a projected finish time of half one. Secondly, it was a set-dance ceilidh. Now, here's the difference:
If you were to go to a ceilidh, barndance or similar event in England a dance would be announced and anyone who got up to do it would be walked and talked through the dance, then once the music started there would be shouted instructions so you didn't forget. Irish set-dance, however, doesn't work like that. The caller will merely say, for example, "The Claddagh Set" by way of announcement and people will get up, form themselves into sets, and dance it. No instructions are given, and all dancers are expected to know the figures for themselves.
Which is kind of scary when you've no idea what's going on. Fortunately, a couple of people in Boojum do Irish set-dancing, and so we all got by. Like most dance-forms, it's easy enough to fudge along if you're female so long as you're partnered by a competent bloke. The dances themselves aren't hard, and are surprisingly social and chatty events.
What surprised me more than anything, though, was the amazing mixture of people at the dance. 200 or so people varying from teenagers to very elderly, arriving in groups or arriving singly, dressed for a night on the town or dressed in sscruffy jeans. People seemed friendly, and very willing to help out when some benighted foreigner was getting it wrong. And they had a break half way through the evening for tea, sandwiches and cake. How civilised.
Of course, if you're very juvenile (which I am) there's endless fun to be had by reading signs in Cork. "Cork Domestic Appliances" - do you find your existing vacuum cleaner too heavy ? "The Cork Button Company" - discreet buoyancy for the discerning gentleman. "Cork Council Offices" - built on the cheap. "Cork Rape Crisis Centre" - ok, I admit even I couldn't do much with that one.
I've also verified, by careful experimentation, that I like Beamish more than Murphy's and Murphy's more than Guinness. Pintwatch believes in doing as the Romans do, so has willingly consumed stout all weekend, but is now rather looking forward to a proper pint of beer again soon.
Boojum, my occasional rapper team, have been up to their old tricks again of arranging weekends in far flung places. Okay, Schull seemed a lot closer to home than New York, but it took nearly as long to get to.
On the way to Schull we stopped overnight in Cork - and I discovered just how seriously Ireland takes Good Friday. The bars were shut. The pubs were shut. Restaurants were open and serving food - but most definitely not serving alcohol. The streets were unnaturally quiet and empty. Mind you, the betting shops were all still open. So a glass of wine with your spinach and ricotta pasta on Good Friday is right out, but you can gamble yourself into oblivion if you so choose. I've still not quite worked that one out.
I was also vaguely surprised that Schull, where we stayed, had a Sunday market. Somehow I'd expect people who observe Good Friday so carefully (many of the shops were also shut, particularly during Holy Hour (3pm-4pm)) to have qualms about Sunday trading.
Schull is one of those towns which always makes me slightly sad - picturesque, but almost entirely full of holiday cottages. We were staying in some of them, and would have had lovely sea views had someone not built the Garda station right between us and the beach. The beach was great, though - Sue and I spent a fascinated half hour staring into a rock pool, watching a crab and some shrimps gfighting over a mollusc before we had to go home for tea.
During the time we were there we wombled round West Cork on a bus, accompanied by a local dance-scene bigwig and an imported team of Welsh dancers. Bertie (the bigwig) was constantly chattering into the bus's microphone about the sights we were passing - sadly the shite sound quality and his thick Dublin accent meant I only got about one word in three.
One of our jobs as imported entertainment was to provide the "spot" at a ceilidh on Easter Sunday evening. Several things took us by surprise: firstly, the ceilidh didn't start til half nine at night, with a projected finish time of half one. Secondly, it was a set-dance ceilidh. Now, here's the difference:
If you were to go to a ceilidh, barndance or similar event in England a dance would be announced and anyone who got up to do it would be walked and talked through the dance, then once the music started there would be shouted instructions so you didn't forget. Irish set-dance, however, doesn't work like that. The caller will merely say, for example, "The Claddagh Set" by way of announcement and people will get up, form themselves into sets, and dance it. No instructions are given, and all dancers are expected to know the figures for themselves.
Which is kind of scary when you've no idea what's going on. Fortunately, a couple of people in Boojum do Irish set-dancing, and so we all got by. Like most dance-forms, it's easy enough to fudge along if you're female so long as you're partnered by a competent bloke. The dances themselves aren't hard, and are surprisingly social and chatty events.
What surprised me more than anything, though, was the amazing mixture of people at the dance. 200 or so people varying from teenagers to very elderly, arriving in groups or arriving singly, dressed for a night on the town or dressed in sscruffy jeans. People seemed friendly, and very willing to help out when some benighted foreigner was getting it wrong. And they had a break half way through the evening for tea, sandwiches and cake. How civilised.
Of course, if you're very juvenile (which I am) there's endless fun to be had by reading signs in Cork. "Cork Domestic Appliances" - do you find your existing vacuum cleaner too heavy ? "The Cork Button Company" - discreet buoyancy for the discerning gentleman. "Cork Council Offices" - built on the cheap. "Cork Rape Crisis Centre" - ok, I admit even I couldn't do much with that one.
I've also verified, by careful experimentation, that I like Beamish more than Murphy's and Murphy's more than Guinness. Pintwatch believes in doing as the Romans do, so has willingly consumed stout all weekend, but is now rather looking forward to a proper pint of beer again soon.
