March 11 – Sunday – Slept in until 8:30, I made myself a nice Irish breakfast, walked to the Rose Abbey grocer for the Sunday paper, and we walked down to Acton’s hotel to listen to the Cork City Jazz Band. Made it home about 3:20 and after a apple for lunch, I walked to the bus stop to catch a ride to Cork Airport to pick up the car. Got a Modus, never heard of that, it’s a manual transmission, which came back to me right away, even with the shifter in my left hand. After a late supper we watch a TG4 program called Ardan, a one hour talk show. TG4 is the all Irish channel here, and that means they use the Irish language! At least they used English subtitles for us.
The show included the Elders along with several other musicians and other guests. The Elders played “Moore Street Girls” to open the show, and closed it with “Racing the Tide”. I wanted to get someone around here to tape it for me, but VHS and DVD recorders are not widely used with the people I spoke to. So I resorted to the old fashioned method, I used my camcorder to video the TV, crude but effective. The show was recorded last Sunday in Dublin and it was fun watching the boys play again. I saw Ian’s mom and sister in the audience, I didn’t recognize anyone else, although the host mentioned the crowd was from Kansas.
After the show we walked to the Armada, Lisa wanted to listen to the “Two Johns”. After listening to one song we decided to move on, not our cup of tea, and not very good to boot. Making our way back to the Lord Kinsale we found Kevin playing again, so we stayed for a while. A couple songs later Kevin invited the locals to come up and sing again. I can only describe it as “Irish karaoke”. From the inebriated to the talented, it was quite a show. John and the boys from Wales were there enjoying the singing, they leave for home at 6:00 am tomorrow morning, and Tom from Milwaukee, a retired middle school principal who sang a “miner” song that I never heard before. But the capper of the evening was a 25-30 year old local who sang “You Will Never Walk Alone”, he had a nice voice, and the entire crowd joined in with singing and dancing! Not something I would ever think to see in a Irish pub! Great craic!
March 12 – Monday – Very sunny morning, we decide to drive to Cobh and visit the Heritage Center. Taking the road through Scilly and down by the Bulman, then up the hill and stop at the lookout to take some pictures of Kinsale from across the harbor. While I am taking photos, a tour bus stops and wants to park where I am, so we move the car and let them in. I ask the driver if he know Jim Powers (Chip) who the driver for Bus #3 in 2002, he said Jim was a good friend of his. When I asked what happened, he said Jim had his motorcycle stored in Killarney during the tour season, and was taking it back home when he lost it on a curve. No one else was involved. I had heard this from Mike Cleveland and wanted to see what I could find out. The driver said that Jim used to drive for Brendan Tours.
We continued on to the Heritage center, nice place, interesting exhibits, but not something I would do again. Leaving there we went back to Midleton to walk the town center and have a toasted special for lunch. This is the first day we can walk around in our shirtsleeves! Wonderful! This is what we have been waiting for since we got here. On the way home we swung through Grange and picked up a few things at the Aldi there. Got pizza for supper, and I plan on going to the I-café after to update the pictures and blog.
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