Kilkenny

Fields near my hosts' house, Kilkenny, Ireland

            Tonight marks my last night with my spectacular hosts, Mary and Tom, in Kilkenny. Mary has kept me up to my ankles in tea and sweets while I helped out around her guesthouse, weeding a polytunnel, painting a picnic table and deck chairs and getting the guesthouse ready for visitors arriving Saturday. If you're ever looking for a self-catering accommodation in the southeast of Ireland, let me know and I can pass along her contact information -- lovely rooms, good location, quiet, but lots to do nearby. I've been working the mornings, coming in for lunch (lunch and dinner all include variations of pork, including thin sliced ham, thick sliced ham, bacon and sausage, all which seem to fall under the name "bacon"), and then getting suggestions about what to do with the rest of my day (go into town, bike out to the village of Kells, climb the round tower), all of which turned out to be great.

            The city of Kilkenny -- literally "Church of Kenny" -- was the medieval capital of Ireland. A castle occupies the center of town, with a green lawn that goes rolling forever behind it and trees around the edges that make for a nice shady walk. On the sunny days, tourists and locals were sprawled out on the lawn with dogs and picnics. 

Castle lawn

Across from the castle is the Design Center, housed in the old stables, selling sweaters, scarves, pottery, jewelry (straight from the smiths' workshops in the courtyard, where you can watch them work). 

House and gardens behind the Kilkenny Design Center

Dog "parked" at the Design Center

In the four days I visited town, the square in front of the castle was occupied at different times by a youth brass band, buskers, and a farmer's market. Today, two women were performing a skit set in medieval Kilkenny, one woman playing a vendor of a drink called caudle, described as a kind of terrifying blend of ale, eggs, honey and spice.

            Pubs abound in Kilkenny. Looking for some Irish traditional music, I tried a pub called "The Fields," where a giant autographed hurling stick hangs above the bar. I had a BLT (triple decked -- ridiculous), and listened to a guitar duo. They pulled me aside as I was about to leave and had me sing John Denver's "Country Roads" with them -- maybe not the best decision, as I haven't sung that song all the way through since I was five. I tried my best lip-reading the parts I had forgotten, which, as would be imagined, didn't work at all. It was declared when we finished that I "would not be a contestant for America's Got Talent."

            I went on two biking excursions while I was here, the best to the village of Kells eight miles away (not the Book of Kells, Kells, but still lovely). There was a huge ruined priory in a field of sheep, accessible to pedestrians, but not to bikers without the combinations to their bike locks (a borrowed bike, code unknown). The whole spot was beautiful, surprisingly marshy downhill from the main part of the village. The photos will probably give you a better feel than text can:

Kells

 A sampling of children's poems from the Kells Poetry Path next to the mill:

            On one of my bike rides, I stopped about 30 seconds out because of this gorgeous horse

Gorgeous Horse

staring at me over the fence. The horse didn't really want to be touched, and I asked Tom about him (or her, I didn't check) when he drove past. Tom said the horse belonged to the Travellers. My vague idea of the Travellers was that they are an ethnic group, said to be possible descendents of some of the earliest Irish people, that move through Ireland, are fairly secretive, and that (like the Roma) there was often a history of mistrust between them and the locals. I told Mary later that I didn't know much about them, and she said that they "are not to be crossed." A year or two earlier, she said, a group of Travellers had been preparing to cross through one of the farmers fields with their greyhound dogs. The farmer told them not to cross his lands, they did so anyway, and he shot one of their dogs. Shortly after, one of his buildings burned down. The horse I had spotted disappeared later in the week, and I didn't spot any other signs of a presence.

            In all, I don't think I could have found better hosts for my first stay. After the strangeness of the first situation in Roscommon, it was a delight to land somewhere where I felt welcome to join conversations about the U.S., religion, exchange students and family at the table, watch golf and rugby and Indiana Jones in the evenings, and be addressed as "lovely." I worked hard, but I'm sure in the end that what I received outweighed what I gave. A fathoms better experience of Ireland than one I could get staying in a hostel, and nice to feel useful.