Ireland is where strange tales begin and happy endings are possible.
Charles Haughey, London Daily Telegraph (July 14, 1988)
Dana collected me from the airport at about 6:00 a.m. local time. It was drizzly and we got some coffee at the airport before heading back to her house in Baldoyle, where I got a quick tour. Then Dana and I took a bus to the city center section of Dublin, where we checked out Trinity College, St. Stephen’s Green and Merrion Square Park, the pricey shops on Grafton Street, and walked along the Liffey. For lunch, we ordered homemade soup at the Soup Dragon, one of Dana’s favorite restaurants downtown.
Back to Dana’s place, one of her housemates dropped us back at the airport so we could pick up our rental car, a spunky blue Fiat Punto with yellow Northern Ireland plates, a missing wheel cover in the front and some cigarette burns on the driver’s seat. Other than that, it was in ship shape and of an appropriately tiny size to navigate the perilously narrow Irish country roads.
We set off immediately for Trim Castle (also known as King John’s Castle), which actor/director Mel Gibson used for exteriors in his 1995 film Braveheart.
They’re not keen on Mel there. The village thought it’d receive some nice publicity from the ordeal, but was subsequently forbidden from using photos, video or descriptions from the shoot or the finished film for promotional purposes. In kind return, our castle tour guide, a slight, animated old woman with white hair, relished in detailing some of the film’s gross historical and geographical inaccuracies.
She fit the soft-voiced, sweet old lady type personified by, say, Ellen Dow, yet she was also keen on topics such as beheadings. Some skulls had been recently unearthed on the castle’s site, she told us. Evidence suggested, she related a might too cheerfully, that the persons to which the heads had been previously attached were being punished for some especially heinous wrongdoing, as the blades used for the task were purposely dull to inflict more pain. The heads were then festively displayed on pikes outside the castle to deter future transgressions, she noted.
I nearly took off my own head when I whomped it on a particularly low doorway at the bottom of a steeply winding stair.
- Tour Guide:
- Did you hit your head?
- Me:
- Yeah, but there’s not much in it, so I’m OK.
- Tour Guide:
- [quite seriously] Well, that’s the way it was in Norman times—attackers rushing in would hit their heads on the doorframes.
The castle’s keep, which was erected around 1200, is impressive. Most of the tall, 20-sided building remains, although inside, the second and third floors are missing and replaced by modern catwalks zigzagging across the open space. The marvelously sunny day took a powder as we reached the roof, when it suddenly became dark and drizzly, although in true Irish fashion, it had all cleared up 10 minutes later as we were leaving.
After a rollicking cross-country drive, we arrived in Galway and checked into our hostel, Sleepzone. Although it offered dorm-style rooms typical for hostels, Dana booked us a private two-bed room, spartan but clean and comfortable.
For dinner, we tried to get into this restaurant that specializes in potatoes with crazy toppings, but it was so packed and it was so late that we were denied entrance. We ended up trying out a Mexican restaurant that was quite good and had brightly colored tables, chairs and walls.
We then chose a random pub and Dana bought me my first Guinness in Ireland. As a regular drinker of “the black stuff” in the U.S., I can report it’s much better in Ireland. First, it’s richer. The head is thicker and creamier, like a lather in consistency, and the rest is more fully bodied: rich and “dark” tasting, with a slight but pleasantly bitter cocoa taste. Comparatively, in the U.S., Guinness often has more of a sweetly “sticky” taste and smell. The head is anemic and disappears halfway though the pint, whereas in Ireland, there’s deliciously goppy remnants of cream left in the glass after the beer proper is quaffed.
I’d wager the Guinness is better for at least three reasons. (For more on this subject and other entertaining facts, read the excellent Guide For The Un-Initiated To Buying Guinness In An Irish Pub.) First, they pour it correctly here—with skill and patience. In the U.S., it’s often rushed into the glass and served prematurely.
Second, it’s arguably “fresher” in Ireland, having not had to travel very far from the source, thereby avoiding extended stays in transport vessels and warehouses.
Finally, in Ireland, Guinness is made with tasty local spring water. I’d think that in the U.S., it’s brewed with local water (probably from Canada, since Guinness isn’t made in the U.S.), resulting inevitably in a different, inferior taste.
Having forced myself to stay awake all this time in order to adjust to the five-hour time difference, I slept the sleep of the dead.