Category Archive

I took a trip to Purple Mountain in County Kerry this weekend. Purple Mountain is the highest in a small cluster of peaks directly across the lake from the town of Killarney.

We started our trip by the tourist centre at Kate Kearney’s cottage. From there we walked through the Gap of Dunloe, a spectacular narrow valley cutting through Ireland’s highest range of mountains. A low cloud accompanied us for the entire distance. It was magical.

As if on cue, the fog lifted just as we began our ascent. We spent an hour and a half climbing uphill beneath an unrelenting sun.

Dry blanket bog gave way to loose stone during the last few metres of the climb to the summit. The mountain is well-named: the old red sandstone gives the mountain a purplish hue from afar. While we were there, a helicopter flew through the Gap. You don’t see a helicopter flying beneath you every day.

We proceeded on to Tomies mountain where we were rewarded with one of the most spectacular views in all of Ireland. To the West rose the Magillicuddy Reeks and Carrauntoohil. To the North, the Dingle Peninsula swept into the sea. To our East was Killarney, Lough Leane and the mountains beyond. 

The sounds of thunder could be heard in the distance. Rain swept down in torrents near Mangerton. The rumbles began to get louder. It was time to go. 

What a day.. not too hot, not too cold, a refreshing breeze, good company and delightful scenery throughout. This was the charity cliff walk from the small village of Ballycotton to the even smaller village of Ballinrostig in East Cork.

The walk stretched 20 km (13 mi) along beaches, over cliffs, through dense bushes and across fields with the walkers never too far from the coastal margin. Over 360 people attended today, raising money for the local Chernobyl charity.

I am very familiar with the local coastline, although my walks tend to be along the rocks, where I constantly have to be alert to changes in the tide.

It was a long walk. We started at 11.30 am and didn’t finish until after 4.30. Many people (the serious types) managed it in much less time. At the end of the walk, there were sandwiches and soup waiting for us. They tasted utterly delicious.

I was in Brittany a few weeks ago, attending the wedding of a good friend of mine. My elder kids and my mum came with me. Even though we only had a week before the kids went back to school, we managed to see a lot of the Breton countryside (as well as a few places in Normandy too).

Carnac is one of the busiest beaches in Brittany - soft white sand, calm waters and one of the best ice-cream shops I have ever visited in my life. Oh, and they do sand sculptures too. Pah! Easy-peasy. Anyone could do it.

Carnac is famous for its 6,000 year old megaliths - granite pillars of varying size, aligned in rows and columns over a distance of almost 4 kilometres. Some people say it was a vast army turned into stone. Others claim it had a religious and astronomical purpose. I think myself it might have functioned as gigantic spreadsheet for Bronze Age accountants.

I found a number of imposing World War II fortifications in Gavres - a small village overlooking the city of Lorient. Lorient was a major U-boat base during the war. The city was practically razed to the ground during the first months of 1943.

Le Mont St Michel, in the extensive mudflats of western Normandy, is one of the great “must see” places in Europe. Built on a granite outcrop and accessible via a long narrow causeway, the monastery dates back to the 8th Century with the main fortifications dating from the 15th century. It even served as a prison for a while after the French Revolution. More recently, Peter Jackson used it as his template for Minas Tirith in the Lord of the Rings. Yeah, yeah, it’s touristy and kitchy inside, but even so, it’s an impressive and inpirational place. The views take your breath away.

Here are my kids in a classic “James Bond” pose on a concrete defense in Utah Beah, the most northerly of the main landing beaches in Normandy. The invasion sequence in the film “Saving Private Ryan” was shot in Ireland, on Curracloe Beach in Wexford. The similarities between the beaches are incredible. Now quiet and placid, it is impossible to imagine what the beach would have looked like during the summer of 1944.

Finally, a sunset scene: taken from the ship on our way back home.

I took a short business trip to Warsaw earlier this week. It was my first time ever in Poland, and my brief impression of the place and its people was overwhelmingly positive. Up until this week, Poland was something of a mystery to me. Although there are lots of Polish people in Ireland at the moment, I know none of them, and thus I had no reference point.

It turns out that the Polish have a lot in common with us Irish. We are very similar in how we see the world. The Polish people I came in contact with were very friendly and seem to live in a world where people are continually putting up with less-than-stellar service and rules. If there’s a law, a regulation or a proscription, there’s a way around it. The Poles laugh a lot: always a good sign.

Compared to many countries in Western Europe, Poland still has some way to go. That doesn’t mean it won’t get there, however. There are clear similarities with the Ireland of 20 years ago. Back then, Ireland was still a backwater: a peripheral little fiefdom struggling to extract itself from decades of neglect, indebtedness and corruption. Few people could have imagined the social and infrastructural changes that would take place since then. The transition into a self-confident state, where things actually worked, was utterly unforeseen in the 1980’s. And yet, looking back, it now seems obvious that Ireland’s economic success was no accident and that many of the crucial factors were in place.

Well, that’s where I think Poland is now - on the cusp of a major economic and social revolution. It will take time: the current bunch of politicians there would make the Keystone Cops seem super-organised by comparison. The infrastructure is poor (Warsaw has only one metro line for a population of 3 million people), and inefficiency is the order of the day if the airport check-in procedures are anything to go by. But there appears to be a mood for change. The Polish who have left the country in recent years have a reputation for uncomplaining hard, high quality work. They love their country, and there’s a young population there who want their lives to be substantially different than what their parents settled for. In addition, the multinationals are entering Poland in their droves. You only need a few big names to enter to create momentum, and these names are now beginning to appear there, establishing substantial distribution and customer service operations.

My time there was short, but I’ve been given a flavour of the country, and I’d like to get back there again - to see more of Warsaw, the Baltic coast, Krakow, the Tatras Mountains and the Bielowieza Forest. Some day soon, perhaps.

I managed another trip to the Galtees last weekend. This time we took a different route, ascending the valley by Lyreacappul (Ladhar an Chapaill), traversing the ridge of Monabrack and descending into the valley by Sliabh Cois na Binne: a gigantic horseshoe route that took over 5 hours to complete. Apart from the occasional rain-shower, it was a magnificent day. The views from the top were incredible. The entirety of the southern half of Ireland is visible from the summit. What was missing was a view of the sea: the Galtees are Ireland’s only inland mountain range.

Click on the photos to enlarge

Last Sunday, I journeyed with a few like-minded souls to Coumshingaun in the Comeragh Mountains in Co. Waterford. The centrepiece is a corrie lake caused by glaciation during the last Ice Age. The corrie has a classic “armchair” shape: two gently ascending narrow ridges with precipitous drops on all three sides.

The journey upwards was quite difficult, compared to Galteemore. It’s a more challenging ascent due to the preponderance of rock outcrops and winding, up/down paths.

It took us about 2 hours to reach the top. Here’s a view of the ridge by which we ascended.

The “summit” is pretty flat, owing to the fact that the Comeraghs are about 350 million years old. Significant weathering, not to mention a few Ice Ages thrown in for good measure, have reduced the mountains to a uniform boggy plateau around 700 metres high.

Coumshingaun lake is impressive - a mile long, dark, mysterious, fed by gently gurgling waterfalls. Strewn around it are tons of piled up debris from ancient landslides.

We completed the “armchair” circuit in good time, returning to the car park in just over four hours. Just the antidote for those Monday morning blues!

Yesterday I went on a walk to Galteemore, the highest inland mountain in Ireland, just over 3,o00 ft high and the smallest of Ireland’s 14 munro’s.

Galteemore is part of the Galtee range in South Tipperary. The mountains stretch about 20km in an East-West direction - roughly-speaking from Cahir to Mitchelstown. The main Dublin-Cork road skirts around its southern and eastern flanks. The Galtee’s are part of the same mountain building event that formed the extensive ridge-valley system of South west Ireland. North of the Galtees the sandstone ridges begin to disappear and the flatter terrain of the Irish Midlands begins.

I found the walk to the top quite easy, not to say picturesque. The col between Galteemore and it’s smaller sibling, Galteebeag, shows signs of ancient “bog bursts”, or landslides, where entire sections of peat seem to have fallen into the corrie lake below, exposing the solid rock base.

From the summit of Galteemore it is possible to see an amazing amount of southern Ireland: Waterford, Kilkenny, Cork, Tipperary, Limerick: possibly even Kerry, Clare and Carlow. Unfortunately I was unable to see anything at the summit as quite a dense fog closed in.

Yesterday we went down to Cobh to see a huge ocean liner arrive into the port.

The town of Cobh* has a fascinating maritime history. For decades, before the rise of air travel, it was the departure point for millions of Irish people as they set sail for the New World. It was the last port of call of the Titanic before its fateful crossing. It received the dead bodies from the Lusitania, when it was torpedoed off the Old Head of Kinsale. And it is a later addition to the Republic of Ireland, a “treaty port” ceded to the State by Britain just before the onset of World War II. The headquarters of the Irish Navy is just across a narrow channel from Cobh, on the island of Haulbowline.

The ship, the Navigator of the Seas, is one of the largest cruise ships in the world with a weight of 140,000 tonnes. It can carry over 3,000 passengers. In this case, the boat was on a short weekend trip from Southampton. The passengers must have been amazed when they were greeted by a large crowd of onlookers. It was a holiday weekend here, with a local festival happening in the town.

My kids were well impressed. A floating hotel of this magnitude is an impressive sight, no matter what age you are.

* Cobh is pronounced, and means, “Cove”: unusually, an “irishisation” of an English word. Most of our place names are anglicisations of Irish Words.

These ones are a bit different, but I thought I would share them with you anyway.

The Niagara Falls (Horseshoe Falls) from a slightly different perspective.

Reflections on a building in North York

Whirlpool, Niagara Gorge.

CN Tower from Centre Island

Today is our last day in the beautiful city of Toronto before we return back home to life-as-usual. And what a week it’s been!

My sister’s wedding was wonderful - the location was terrific, both of them were in wonderful form, nothing went wrong all day, and she looked utterly beautiful! My son and nephew got top marks for their behaviour and their presence added to the family occasion of the visit, earning them a visit to the Disney shop the following day. Here is what Big-A picked up for himself! (Why am I not surprised?)

We managed to pack a lot into the week. We visited Centre Island (twice), the Science Museum, the (rather cloudy) CN Tower, the Niagara Falls, and we got some shopping done between trips. My son managed to learn how to swim somewhere along the way too. We have both been visiting the swimming pool here almost daily.

Toronto is impressive from a number of angles: it’s a decidedly multicultural city (more even than Chicago or London) where people seem at home with each other. I’ve a feeling it’s a model for many cities and communities around the world. It’s clean, polite (people readily open doors for others and random acts of kindness are commonplace, even from the most unlikely-looking of characters).

Driving can be a nightmare at times though - I witnessed some beauts yesterday! On my way back from the Falls, one guy in a SUV crossed three lanes in one sudden movement in order to exit the motorway at the last moment. It was like something out of a cop movie.

I’ve had one of the best weeks of my life - not just because of the location, but because of the people I was with. It was a perfect family occasion, many thousands of miles from home.

I’ve just uploaded a selection of my favourite photos from the past few years and I’ve set up a permanent “My Photos” page on the blog for easy access.

Most of the following pictures relate to places I have visited in Ireland. Click on the thumbnails to be brought to a bigger photo. I’ll try to annotate them soon if I get a chance.

It’s just a reminder to me that I live in a beautiful country.

Panoramas

Connemara 2004

Achill Island 2005

Wexford 2005

Kerry 2005

Clare 2006

Cork 2006

After a hectic week last week in Chicago, I flew up to Toronto for the weekend to see my sis and her hubby-to-be. The temperature on arrival was freezing - even by the standards of the previous week it was a bit of a shock to the system.

After a fairly quiet night and sluggish morning we headed out to the Glen Eden ski resort situated about 40 minutes from York Mills, where I was staying. The ski resort is relatively compact and popular given its proximity to Toronto. It was packed with people from the very young to the very old. The queue to get our gear was long, but eventually I made it to the front where I got fitted out for boots, skis and poles. I was ready to go.

We started out on some very small nursery slopes but I quickly got bored of it. Even though I collapsed spectacularly quite a few times, I wanted something a bit more challenging, so we crossed the road towards the “grown-up” slopes. Nursery shmursery.

A ski-lift brought us to the top of the slope. I soon found that I could only ski in two ways: a) bat-out-of-hell mode and b) crumpled-up-in-a-pile mode. Bat-out-of-hell mode was easy. I would just point my skis ahead of me and go for it, picking up speed all the time. I would keep going faster and faster down the hill until quite suddenly I would switch over into the much less satisfactory crumpled-up-in-a-pile mode. This usually involved a quite ungainly somersault involving the loss of skis, poles and hats followed by the nightmare task of attempting to get upright again. Most of my ski-attempts involved both techniques, and I got quite good at them by the end of the day.

I would be an excellent skier if it were not for two small itsy-bitsy flaws. 1) I can’t brake and 2) I can’t steer. Otherwise all is well. I’m sure I would be a champion at rudderless kamikase skiing. Also, if there a prize for the most awkward looking skiier, I would be well in contention. My sister told me that it was amazing that I could stay upright for so long given my unorthodox style of leaning back on the skis with my knees and legs bent in a particularly unattractive fashion.

When it comes to skiing I am absolutely fearless. I am also absolutely clueless. A dangerous combination, I think.

We were absolutely wrecked by the end of the day. I had a very pleasant Indian meal in Burlington followed by a few drinks close to my sister’s apartment.

On Sunday, I headed into town with my sister to a shopping centre in Dundas for a spot of shopping. It’s a lot safer than skiing. I didn’t fall down once. I’ll wait to see the size of my credit card bill before I do that..

I had a relatively uneventful flight back home (well, I *did* lose my passport and my car keys, but enough said about that) and I’m back safe, sound and jet-lagged in Ireland. The weather is moist, relatively warm and there’s not even a hint of snow. I’m missing Toronto already.

I harbour a strong desire to spend a few weeks travelling around the US. I’ve been there many times, but normally just to the big cities on business. Many a time in the recent past, I have been sorely tempted to turn left on the I-90 heading south towards O’Hare.

Well, here’s someone who is doing just that, right now. Every day he writes up a blog entry (or three) eloquently describing his experiences as he tours the US in an RV with his wife. Superlatives fail me. I’m enthralled, amazed and astonished by the places he describes, the photographs he is taking and the experiences they have having as they visit lesser-spotted America.

Rock on, Fred. May the road rise to meet you.

My friends and I went on a trip to the Field Museum in Chicago this weekend. It’s one of America’s greatest natural history and cultural museums, and like many similar places of learning around the world, you would need a week to see all the exhibits.

The museum bears a resemblance to the Natural History Museum in London. Instead of a diplodocus, “Sue” the Tyrannosaurus Rex is there to greet you, alongside two massive elephants under the watchful eye of a pair of great totem poles. We spent an hour with the birds and animals of the World, listening to the sounds made by these creatures - the song of the Loon was extraordinary: how ancient explorers to the continent must have been petrified when they heard this bird for the first time.

We then took a trip through the geological section. PC showed us a geode that her dad donated to the museum and we also saw a fine collection of meteorites. The museum has a very fine “history of life” exhibit where the public is invited to walk through a number of galleries ranging from Pre-Cambrian times right up to the post-Ice Age (Holocene) epoch, interrupted now and again by a Great Extinction. The Cambrian Period room is particularly good. They have a huge video display showing us what the animals of this time might have looked like and how they might have behaved, and in glass cases are the Burgess Shale fossils of bizarre creatures such as Wiwaxia, Hallucigenia and the Pikaia. I could have stayed hours in that room alone, but even greater delights were on display in other rooms - a full size Apatosaurus skeleton, the small “Tully Monster” fossil: an unknown creature from the Carboniferous Period, as well as impressive mammoth and megatherium skeletons. One of my favourites were the intact fossils from the Santana formation in Brazil - flash-fossilised fish that still show their scales and soft body parts. The last exhibit on the way out of this section is a display that tells you how many species have been made extinct since the museum opened that day.

On Sunday, I drove up to Milwaukee, and spent around an hour there, getting utterly lost mainly. It’s a pretty city - quite old in places with some fine lake-side views. There’s a lot of road construction taking place in the city so it took me a while to find my way out. I spent the next few hours in Gurnee Mills Mall, an enormous outlet store near the Wisconsin border, buying toys for a fraction of the price you would get them in Ireland.

In O’Hare, while waiting to check in for my return flight to Dublin, an old priest started to hand out lollipops to some kids in the queue behind me. I found this very unsettling, and I think their parents did too. A random act of kindness? Maybe. However given everything that has come to light in Ireland over the last 15 years, another inference could too easily be drawn. I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting cynical..

I got about two hours sleep in the plane - the usual - but I have a good book recommendation from a fellow passenger - The Kite Runner. He compares it to To Kill a Mockingbird, so I must read it as soon as I have finished “The Heart of Darkness” - another enthralling book.

I wonder if the tourist industry has cottoned on a new and growing segment of the market: the Internet Meet-up? People, who seemingly have little in common with each other, who live in different parts of the world and who don’t even know each other’s first names let alone ever actually seeing each other, are travelling long distances to get together and have a few drinks. The funny thing about all this is that sometimes these “strangers” know far more about each other than most of their friends, so a memorable experience is almost always guaranteed.

This weekend, I travelled to London to meet a number of friends and acquaintances from a website I’ve been part of for years. We met each other in the London Wetlands Centre where one of the group gave us a guided tour of the site. The centre was formerly a disused reservoir but now it’s an extremely well equipped birdwatching site, complete with hides, information displays, a cafe and an education centre. Apart from the planes flying overhead on the Heathrow flight path, you would be hard-pressed to believe you were in the centre of a large metropolis.

From there we journeyed across town to Holborn, where I met up with a large number of people from the website. It was one of those nights. I vaguely remember talking about “Wanderly Wagon” at one stage. Apparently, it’s quite well known to legions of Dr. Who fans (well, when I say “legions” I mean at least the 3 Dr. Who fans I met in the pub), who figure that Fortycoats was the Irish version of Dr. Who. It’s conversations like this that made the trip worthwhile.

The following day I took the train to Greenwich to see the observatory. It’s wonderful there. The site is undergoing refurbishment at the moment, but nevertheless the visit is a very rewarding one. Fans of Dava Sobel’s book “Longitude” would just love it. I still got a bit of a surprise when I saw the H4 Chronometer sitting beside its more ungainly companions - almost as dissimilar as a MP3 player would be to a valve radio.

After getting a good soaking on my way back (the weather over the weekend was bad even by Irish standards and did I come prepared? No…) I settled into a tasty pizza and salad in the centre of Greenwich. I completed reading “The Wisdom of Crowds” there. An interesting book: I may return to this subject in the near future.

My final trip was to the British Museum. Wow! Talk about taking your breath away! The Great Court, with its domed roof, was hugely impressive. I felt like such an ignoramus! Can you believe it: I accidentally happened upon the Rosetta Stone. I wasn’t looking for it, I had even forgot it was in the museum in the first place and suddenly there it was: probably the most important ancient artefact ever found. In the same room were huge statues from ancient Egypt as well as intricately decorated sarcophagi. It was just amazing - what particularly intrigued me was the variety of stones used for the statues. Egypt must be an interesting place geologically as well as every other way

There’s a room upstairs that gives you a feel for everyday life in Roman times. What particularly impressed me were the toys used by Roman children: tiny camels and dolls, babies’ rattles and pull-along horses. Apart from Roboraptor and Playstation 3, are kids much different nowadays? (Don’t answer that).

The worst thing about a weekend in London is that the time goes by far too quickly. You would need at least a month to really get a flavour of the place. I’ve been there many times and I’ll be back there again, any chance I get.