Eire 2007

Circa May 2007..
From Rosslaire harbour on the south-eastern tip of the country, a good three hours solid, simple scenic driving took me to Cork. I stopped to refuel, have another couple of dry biscuits and a handful of dates, thinking I was probably now under an hour away from my destination on the westerly side of the country. Shortly after smaller, bumpier roads began persuading me otherwise. They stretched and wound on and on, under the never quite total darkness. As I chased the sun, villages and small towns came and went, sometimes without even a signpost. By 10pm I was growing tired, knowing I was on the right track, yet the road just kept unravelling like a magician’s hankerchief. By 10.30 I began thinking that the Atlantic Ocean was just a cunning ruse and I was sure to hit New York soon any time soon.

Signposts for Bantry, Glengarriff; I was nearing, it was getting close. I was actually on the right road they’d given me directions to by 11.15. There was still, unbelievably a very dim ember of sun which it felt like I’d been pursuing for hours. New York couldn’t really just be over the next hill, could it? I accidentally drove through some oceanic wormhole?

I grew paranoid about overshooting my final destination bar / campsite / hostel / boarding house / whatever the hell it was that I'd booked on a whim without looking to closely. I stopped at an isolated pub to ask two men exiting the building if they knew of the Glenbrook Bar. I needed to listen hard to interpret the man’s words, obscured by accent and alcohol into one punctuation-free dirge of sound. They knew it: 3 miles further on the right hand side. I hadn’t passed it already. Excellent news.

A young man serving at the bar ticked me off my list, handed me my key, and gave what proved to be wholly inadequate directions to my room: out there, round the side, and up the stairs - giving the impression that the room was in the same building. Precise and deliberate in his manner, I presumed that it wouldn’t be difficult and heaved my bags to my shoulders, looking forward to seeing a bed. I looked outside, round the side of the building, the back of the building, the other side of the building, the front of the building. No open doors or anything looking faintly like accommodation. I re-entered the bar again. He came out and showed me, apologising for not showing me the first time. While we walked I asked where could I hire a bike for tomorrow. Ah, they’d stopped renting them out here, I was informed. But, the chap furrowed his brows, stopped walking - as if walking and thinking this hard at the same time was a tall order. He looked down at the floor, concentrating hard. He put me in mind of Father Ted’s sidekick priest, Dougal, his anxiousness not to get the detail wrong. “Right,” he said, like he’d now prepared all his words. “If you go to the next town, Castletown Bere, and a store called Supervalue, ask for Denys. He’ll sort you out.”

With that drama resolved, he pointed me towards a narrow exit through the corner of the back yard, and a small lawn over which I needed to walk. The building itself was the other side with a small light over the front door. He could have told me to take my car from the front of the pub and drive it into the site and up a short drive to the front of the building. How did he think I’d got there?

*

Sure enough, the next morning I drove the short distance further along the sunshine-dappled coast to Castletown Bere. One of the first shops on the main street parade was a Supervalue, opposite which was a car park overlooking the pretty harbour. I parked, went to the store and asked a timid looking eastern European checkout girl if Denys was about. She didn’t understand me so I asked a native (Siobhan, her name badge reassuringly said), if Denys was about. Siobhan gave him a call. Denys arrived promptly and cheerfully, sporting a red face which appeared like it might always look a little drunk. He showed me a short way up the street to a small hut full of bikes, and lifted one out from the mesh of steel and wheels. He handed it over to me, saying was easiest to ride. It looked a fine steed, light and durable. I took it away and kitted up beside my car, swiftly changing trousers for shorts in the driver’s seat, in what I hoped was a swift and discreet style.

The best part of a day’s pleasurable yet unplanned cycling around various parts of coastline, hills and mounts was blighted halfway by my first bout of irritating hay fever this season. Much sneezing, eye-wiping and nostril clearing was relentlessly required. A stunning day, bright and warm, left me with predictably sunburned neck and upper arms where my T-shirt had ridden, a bruised inside left knee – from a precarious rocky hill descent , and a regional back bruise from the edge of something in my rucksack which I lazily never rearranged.