We Could Slip Away! We Could Go Astray!

Wood Sorrel to some...to me, shamrocks.

I know you're tired
And you ain't sleeping well
Uninspired
And likely mad as hell
But wherever you are
I hope the high road leads you home again
To a world you want to live in

~ Jason Isbell, Hope the High Road

January makes me restless. And the past two restless Januaries have led to Ireland. That need to leave, to break the routine, to see something old and new always seems to hit me in the dark days of winter. And so we began to plan an escape from the day-to-day and the dreary "gottas."* And, if we were going to be there a week or so anyway (for a music tour), why not go early and stay late?

The schedule worked for us to venture to the Clonmel Junction Festival once again. Last year we heard Ye Vagabonds** in the Mitchelstown Cave (and they were brilliant). This year we had tickets for a pub concert and a storyteller as well as a cave concert. Happy days!

The street scene at the Clonmel Junction Festival.

Now, shall we confess that we had no clue who we would be seeing, but took it on faith that most experiences with music in Ireland will be good.*** We also take it on faith that we will enjoy our trip, meet wonderful people, and start to look longingly at the properties for sale in every town we visit.

Faith. We needed a bit of it for this trip.****

We stayed in Clonmel town this year so we could walk home from the pub (and other venues) and avoid driving down narrow and unfamiliar lanes late at night (on the left hand side of the road).

Clonmel is a small town with many of the features one expects - a river, churches, a walking area downtown, a heritage site  with the ever helpful and friendly OPW***** staff. This time it was The Main Guard building, originally a courthouse. One of the staffers, Colum F.,  was lovely and helpful. He pointed out our man, Thomas MacDonagh,****** poet, professor, patriot, and martyr of the Easter Rising 1916, was the local subject of an art work hanging in the entry. We shared our 2014 journey and discussed MacDonagh's family when the other staffer commented that MacDonagh was widely known as being the first man in Ireland to be proud to push a pram down the roadway.

The Main Guard

Thomas MacDonagh

We walked the Clonmel streets and familiarized ourselves with some of the common birds of Ireland as well as the iNaturalist phone app. [Little did we know how important that program would become as we traveled and documented what we saw. iNaturalist helped us with identification throughout the trip - rarely failing to identify a bird, insect, or plant and helping us remember this long adventure.]

ART

Inside The Main Guard was an exhibit - Exit Strategy by The Project Twins & Peter Nash was very interesting.

At first I thought this some kind of carved wooden candelabra. It was actually a series of "talking heads" operated by a series of strings attached to a windup mechanism.

Detail of one of "talking heads."

This piece and others also had windup features.

Not a part of the festival, we found this mural on a wall in Irish Town. [From what I have seen, many cities and towns in Ireland had separate sections for the Protestant Anglo-Irish and Irish Catholics. Irish Town or "Irishtown" generally was located outside the city walls and a poorer section of town as the cities grew up around them.]

We also attended a joint exhibit at the South Tipperary Arts Center called Sticks and Stone with works by Denys Lynch and James Horan.

Horan works in Kilkenny marble. Lynch works in mixed media. Both showed brilliant work.

You may not be able to see this man is sitting on a grenade with the pin in his hand.

A baby sleeping on bullets. It is no accident that these works are on oil barrel pedestals.

Masks represent the real and spirit world

THE STORYTELLER

Thursday saw us with a crowd of children, parents, and Edmund "Eddie" Lenihan, Irish Storyteller extraordinaire. We watched Eddie capture the audience with story after story. In one he told of the landlord who entertained "other beings" at night and then the fellow who advised his boarder "not to lock the door" when coming in from the pub.

That night the boarder came in very drunk and he couldn't remember if he was supposed to lock the door or not.

  "'Do I lock the door or not lock the door? Lock the door or not lock the door?' he thought to himself," explained Eddie. "And what do you think he did?" Eddie asked the audience.

"HE LOCKED THE DOOR!" shouted the children. Eddie had them in the palm of his hand. He had us all in the palm of his hand.

Edmund Lenihan, Seanchaí

Eddie also told us about the Hawthorn, well know as faerie trees across Ireland, and the specific Hawthorn that caused the delay and rerouting of a motorway in Clare. He did NOT tell us that it was he who raised the objection to the destruction of the Hawthorn for the M18. Apparently Eddie held that this particular Hawthorn was the place the faeries from Munster and Connaught meet (with the implied "there will be trouble" if the tree were destroyed).

We later heard that Eddie was the man who raised the issue from a fellow at the car rental place who advised us where to look for the famous Hawthorn as we drove north at the end of our trip. We drove the M18 twice and never saw the tree. Perhaps it's just as well.

ALL IRELAND

In the evening we headed down to Bakers Bar for some traditional Irish music. We sat with a brother and sister who were lovely and fun. She is a teacher, mother of five (God bless her), and farmer's wife from near Nenagh and he is a veterinarian and professor of veterinary surgery in Edinburgh. Really.

You see I started to talk about the pets and tell a story about veterinarians.  "No one here is a veterinarian, I hope?" I asked before I confessed "lying" to our vet. They burst out laughing and explained that he was a veterinarian. How does this happen?

He reassured me he would not divulge my tale and then the music started.

We heard Martin Hayes on the fiddle and David Power on the Uilleann pipes. They were beyond incredible. It was definitely not your usual pub crowd largely ignoring the music. These folks had come to hear these performers and "talkers" were soundly hushed.

The bar was packed to the point that you better be happy with what you have to drink. You won't get more until the music ends.

Martin and David...odd lighting

[More on all the musicians in a separate post - Musicians and the Music 2017]

INTERESTING

Looking out at the Glentees Mountains.

The Glen of Aherlow is over in there somewhere. According to Eddie Lenihan, there be faeries aplenty in the glen.

It's a lovely cave and the walk down into the depths (and back up again) is not hard, but awkward (and old ladies may emerge a bit out of breath).

Our Friday evening concert in the Mitchelstown Cave was fun, but probably not what we expected. The first act was Peter Broderick followed by Loah.

The performers definitely performed and music was good, but not our "cup of tea."

Loah

Peter Broaderick

[Again, more  on the music in a separate post.]

CAHIR and ST. PATRICK'S WELL

Cahir always deserves a visit. There is a lovely and long path near the river that is a wonderful walk. Mallards, domesticated geese, and Mute Swans can be found swimming at the base of the castle. We spent a good part of our morning there after a peaceful visit at St. Patrick's Well, just outside of town. It was beautiful and special. See Thin Places Revisited.

We love Cahir, the long paths beside the River Suir, the Swiss Cottage and the castle. It is a pleasant stop. Just off the parking lot near the castle children fed the birds - Rooks, Jackdaws, gees, Mallards and Mute Swans. And these resident swans had a cygnet!

Rooks and Jackdaws - These guys became constant companions across the country.

Love this sculpture at the start of the walk. The birds love it too.

Ice house...looks a bit scary.

We stayed on the paved path on our last trip. This time we wandered a bit.

There were a number of "faerie doors" on the trees. I don't mind one. But it was a little over the top here.

It's always amazing to see how plants will out. The tree fell, but then continued to grow.

Love the ferns...

The paths went in many directions and we had to choose.

Then it was back to the paved path.

We found an autograph tree.

Interesting...it appears DH has been here before.

This track is part of the national network of hiking trails or "ways." We'd see many more of these signposts in the west.

Brambles, blackberries, dewberries....berry vines were still blooming, but also starting fruit. We saw only a few ripe berries on our whole trip (come in September if you want to pick berries).

The path adjoins a golf course where this little fellow was gathering nuts.

Later in the trip we discovered what these were. They had been a mystery for over a year. They are the fruit of "Lords and Ladies" a jack-in-the-pulpit type wildflower - every part of which is extremely poisonous. The fruit turns red, often luring children to eat it. Don't!

I found these seeds and thought "clematis." I couldn't find a flower until later, but eventually gathered some seeds.

Okay. Don't save seeds unless you know what you are doing. These eventually stuck to everything - clothes, headphones, suitcase meshing. Just don't.

Our first butterfly, but not the last.

I always think this path is along the river, but it is not entirely "river view." Still, it is special.

There are huge trees along the way, but we did see some damaged by storms.

Time to head back...rain clouds gathering.

A large part of one of the golf course trees was down and being removed.

Seeds!

The first time I saw one of these I was excited. I thought it might be an orchid. It is Ivy Broom Rape (lovely name) - a parasite on the ivy. [Shhh. I still love it, but not the name.]

See. It is beautiful!

We ended the hike back at the castle and were greeted by the swans and other birds. As the rain began we sheltered across the street for soup and brown bread before heading back to Clonmel.

Mute Swans with a cygnet!

There were a number of resident Mallards....

...and domesticated geese.

One more look at the swans.

This is a castle to see

Soon enough it was time to take the car back to Shannon Airport and meet up with our music tour. It would be the easiest part of the trip - rooms, transportation, hikes,  and music were arranged for us.

Our only regret was having so little time to investigate all the festival had to offer.

Now, all we had to do was get on the bus.

AFTERWORD:

Miscellaneous photos...

No, this photo is not reversed. DH is driving. He was marvelous. No scratches on the new cars we rented. All mirrors survived!

Driving under the Shannon.

If it is 11:10, this must have been Tipperary town. [Yeah, yeah. It's a long way to go.]

The birds found us. This was our first Grey Heron. We learned to recognize Magpies, Hooded Crows, Rooks, Jackdaws, Robins and, of course, Wagtails. More birds to follow in their own post.

One of many memorials. This one along the River Suir that flows through Clonmel and Cahir.

We found many opportunities for our Irish House...aka loads of maintenance nightmares.

Our Clonmel dream house.

Love to walk along the river. In the park we found some kayak runs!

Never enough time. Must go back.

NOTES:

Title from "While They're All Talking" by John Spillane

* You know the gottas - "Gotta do this. Gotta do that." Perhaps it is because by the end of January I have seen all my doctors for the annual checkups the gottas are pretty much done for the year that I begin to hear jigs and reels in my head and my heart yearns for Ireland...

**We found out too late they would play on Sunday, when we would be on the bus. We also learned that they are about to finish their first album...we are not the only ones who have been waiting. http://www.yevagabonds.com/

***OK. Maybe it isn't faith, but past experience. Whatever the case, we have heard/experienced "interesting" music, "good" music, and "brilliant" music in Ireland. I don't remember any bad music (or bad time, save one) in Ireland.

Even the music tour - host, Buddy Mondlock, http://www.buddymondlock.com/ , was a mystery to us beyond recommendations from friends and some great Youtube videos.

****Just a month before we were scheduled to leave I came down with a particularly violent and persistent bout of vertigo (I had never had it more than a day or two - always viral induced, we thought. This time it lasted over 6 weeks.). At one point we weren't sure if we would make the trip at all and then thought we would go and make the best of it, even if I could not participate in all we'd planned. Thankfully, we discovered the modification of the Epley Maneuver that cured me in one try on the Friday 4 days before our flight. God bless Dr. Peter Johns, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZgUx9G0uEs !

*****Office of Public Works, a huge department of the Irish Government over a variety of things, including heritage sites. http://www.opw.ie/en/heritage/

****** We were introduced to MacDonagh in 2014 when YC traveled to Dublin to research his papers in the National Library Archives. She graciously allowed us to come along on that trip. We have been reintroduced to him with each visit to this part of Tipperary where he is a local hero.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_MacDonagh

For more on the artists:
Exit Strategy by the Project Twins & Peter Nash: http://www.junctionfestival.com/events/2017/5/10/exit-strategy-by-the-project-twins-peter-nash
Denis Lynch:  http://www.celticicon.com/p3.htm
James Horan: http://www.jameshoransculpture.com/

For more about Eddie Lenihan: 
http://eddielenihan.weebly.com/
http://www.irelandinpicture.net/2010/04/fairy-tree-that-delayed-motorway-ennis.html

For more about Martin Hayes:
http://www.martinhayes.com/
Six time winner of the All-Ireland Fiddle Competition

For more about David Power:
http://www.davidpowerup.com/

For more about Peter Broderick:
http://www.peterbroderick.net/

For more about Loah:
https://www.facebook.com/LoahMusic/