Nora Roberts's Travelogue of Ireland:
Around Sheen Falls—8/28/04
After I wrote this earlier today, it just went away. So here we go again.
We want a lazy day around the hotel and grounds and are lucky with the weather. Wake to sunshine! We walk over some fields where the grass is still wet from yesterday's rain, and full of purple clover that keeps the bees busy. The river is the color of strong Irish tea, but very clear. At one point I walk down a little slope, hedged in by thick ferns where the ground is soft. I see tracks even I recognize as deer who must have strolled down to drink earlier.
There's lots of birdsong, and the sound of the water, and where a narrow path is beaten, imprints from the horses' shoes who've been ridden this way. A large stone gray house is in the distance, obviously abandoned, and in the distance is the roll of green fields gleaming in the sunshine.
When we walk back, we see fish jumping in the river.
We decide to wander the other side, and hike the little path through the bigheaded hydrangeas, and the thick pools of the intense orange flowers with lily-like foliage I've seen in masses along roadsides. Must ask what they are. The water tumbles over rock here, foams in pools and passes in falls under a pretty stone bridge that's smothered with ivy. Some of the rocks jut out into the water and are covered with moss. BW thinks he might try to walk across them, further out to get better pictures of the falls. I remind Mr. Grace of the dicey balance on the slippery moss. After a step or two, he allows I'm right and keeps to the bank.
We walk along, and he moves down the bank, I up the green hill to one of the hotel terraces to sit in the sun. Moments later the little French waitress comes out to ask if Madam would care for a drink. Well, now that you mention it, Madam would love a cup of tea. In short order she brings out a pot, pretty cup and saucer and a plate of pretty little sugar cookies. The sun is almost hot, and I think--maybe even say with intense pleasure--Oh God!
I realize after a bit that I can no longer see BW, and wonder as I sip my tea if he's fallen in. Contemplate just what I might do if this is the case. He's a good swimmer, and the water goes from active to calm just there, so . . . Then I see his head, so all's well.
He joins me and we decide we'll walk on down to the graveyard on the edge of the hotel's property. It's a nice, short hike in the sun. The graveyard's bigger than I expected, and as most are here is a long, wide field of uneven ground, tufted grass and stones spearing up. There is a small ruin of St. Finian's church, sacked by the Vikings in the 800s. They're letting nature take it, so it's covered with ivy and the black raspberry bushes like the ones that grow on my land at home. They're ripening, and taste like home, too.
A little ways further is a mass grave for the famine dead, and a plaque to mourn them. It's unbearably sad. They don't know how many lie here as Kenmare was hit hard. They've died at home, on the roads, on the streets of town, on doorsteps of strangers where they wandered in from the countryside looking for help that wasn't there. There are no names, and this just squeezes the heart.
There are lots of O'Sullivans in particular who lie in this graveyard, old and young, plots where families lie together. Many have, as many do here, plastic and fabric flowers, or tended shrubs. But one I see has fresh lilies lying on it, no more than a day old.
The children's playground is just over the wall. It's heartening, I think, to hear children laughing and playing, even the one who's crying pathetically, as I walk among the dead.
BW and I have wandered our separate ways, and I see a marker for St. Finian's Holy Well. I call out to him so he knows, then go down a skinny sloping path, through a tiny gap in a stone wall and am on the shale of a spit of beach. BW finds me and we walk a little ways to the well, a square of stone, with water pooled in it, and a branch overhead where people have tied cloths. I remember from St. Declan's that this is a kind of tribute, but have nothing to leave behind.
I step back, hit a moss covered rock, slimy enough to take my leg out from under me. I have the digital, and at least the wit to think to lift it over my head as I go down. But I fall on the fat part of my ass, so no harm done but the moss stain on my pants. If it doesn't come out, I'll think of it as a momento.
It's about time for our afternoon treatments, so we head back so we can change and take a quick swim. It's such a pretty day we have the indoor pool to ourselves. Just lovely. I then have possibly the best facial in the entire world.
Oh, earlier I stop by the stables to visit the horses. They look horrendously bored. The pony Paddy disinterestedly allows me to pet him, but the enormous Danny has no time for the likes of me and won't even come over to the door.
BW and I top off the afternoon with a drink on our bedroom terrace and discuss evening plans. We decide we'll go into town, poke around, have a meal and stay for music.
So we do. A bit more Christmas shopping is accomplished, and we have burgers so big I can barely get my mouth around mine in a pub called The Wander Inn. Music is billed for about nine, which in Irish time translates to half-nine or ten.
There's a plasma TV, and we've arranged ourselves so we can watch the Olympics. Three Irish are in contention for a medal in the equestrian singles event coming up. I'm surprised there are so few in the pub. Sporting events bring people in, and Fri evening is a big night. But in this place--easily twice the size of most pubs, with a bar on either side, there are no more than twenty.
The smoking ban has, no doubt, caused some of this. I know, I know, smoking bad. But so is screwing the publicans by crushing their income.
There's a young woman and her two little girls who've come in to watch. I know because they're talking about it, and are arranged, like us, so they can see the TV. The woman and I have eye contact several times during the event, and are both thrilled with young Cian O'Conner has a flawless ride. And when he closest competitor faults twice, we grin at each other. He wins the gold, the first for Ireland, and tears slide down his face as they play the Irish National Anthem. I know the news will be full of him for days.
Nine comes and goes, some wander in, some wander out. A man comes in, near to stumbling drunk. Happy and harmless he loudly announces, many times, that Ireland has a gold.
Still no music, and no crowd at half-nine. But at just before ten, the musicians come in. Two men, guitar and accordion, and a girl on the fiddle. They tune up, set up, tune some more, get pints and tea, tune a little longer. Then they rip.
And it's worth the wait. They're marvelous, fast and lively, and the music brings in more people. The place fills with music and voices and starts to look and sound like a pub.
Then I hear raised voices on our side of the bar, and glance over to see a group of four or five men arguing with the publican. The girl is singing now, a ballad, and I admire her composure that she doesn't miss a note as these guys shout and swear. I can't understand much, as it's fast with heat and thick with passionate accents now. But the reader who once wrote me that no Irishman would EVER use the F word has obviously never been in a pub fight brewing in Kenmare on a Friday evening.
The publican calms things down, but I see his face when he moves off and he's furious. Within twenty minutes, arguments ensue again, and he's head-to-head with them. It seems almost certain fists will fly and we'll have ourselves a donnybrook right here while the fiddle tears up the air in a jig.
But they leave, and no punch is thrown.
It's a little disappointing.
Nora
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