Galway

This morning we left Barry's Hotel by taxi, and were driven by a man who claimed once to have been a getaway driver. I think I believed him, too...

He dropped us off at a car hire place, and in next to no time we'd been set up with another vehicle. We set out from Dublin, bound west for Galway. One of the most delightful things I found when travelling around Ireland was that place names from the folk music I play back home crop up everywhere. "Galway Tom" was one of the first I ever played...

Recalling one of Nigel's suggestions to dad, we stopped in Tullamore to see the Tullamore Dew distillery. The whiskey is made elsewhere now, so the old building has been converted into a rather quirky museum - not just displaying the whiskey-making process, but also giving snippets of the history of Tullamore (like the time the pub was burned down in a fire started by a hot air balloon... I kid you not at all). The distillery seems to have formed the backbone of the town's economy, and there were wonderful newspaper cuttings recounting the day the distillery owner drove Tullamore's first motor car through the town. There was also a fascinating video of a master cooper at work; making a milk churn rather than a barrel. To get a watertight seal simply from heat-moulded bits of wood is an impressive piece of mastery.

The "bonus feature" of the tickets to the distillery museum is that when you're done with the display, you can sample Tullamore whiskey or liquor (except for poor Pippo, of course, who's under the drinking age). Oh gawd. I went for the whiskey, and really oughtn't have. It's... errr... "nice"... but in the same way that pouring battery acid down your throat might be "nice", if it tasted good. That stuff burrrrns. Mum asked for the liquor, which I also tried... less harsh, but sicky-sweet. I think I'll be avoiding whiskey from now on. The aftertaste (more like aftershock) made me lightheaded - like sniffing petrol. Pip, of course, thought this was riotously funny. (It probably was...)

We stopped at a bakery for lunch, which we ate in the car - sitting in a park would have been nicer, but it was too cold. On we went...

We reached the outskirts of Galway around 3 pm, and settled upon the first open-for-winter B & B we came to. Turned out we were not actually on the outskirts of Galway itself, but a little commuter town close by - Oranmore. The B & B was, however, very comfortable, so we stayed put.

Around 3 we set out to take a look at Galway, and explore in the hour or so before darkness set in. We ended up in a network of streets aimed squarely at Christmas shoppers; lit with Christmas lights on each side. I stopped in a music shop at one point to buy a book on Irish fiddle technique; it's one thing to have lots of music, but you can't interpret technique just from sheet music. Around the shop I noticed there were cases and cases of tin whistles, and lots of posters advertising bodhran lessons in the town.

We wandered around a bit further; at one point ending up in a string of fairly seedy back alleys, which were an interesting contrast to the "prettified" streets only a few blocks away. We didn't spend long, though - it was chilly and dark, and we were all tired. Quite soon after evening fell we drove back to Oranmore for dinner in Keane's pub, where I managed a quarter of a pint of Guinness. Dad was very happy to finish the glass when I suddenly realised I couldn't.

We pottered home to write more travel diary, and I sat beside a stuffed pheasant in the sitting room to make a phone call to Pat that I probably oughtn't have. Emotionally it was worth it, if not financially. And then, after such a long day yesterday, bed was a welcome prospect!