IRA (Interesting Rascal Abroad) -or- I Double Dog DERRY You

Rejected third alternative title: “So a Priest and a Rabbi Walk Into a CASTLEBAR…”

The next day we left Belfast to travel to one of my number-one destinations for this trip: the Giant’s Causeway. For those unfamiliar with it, it’s a natural geological formation caused (if memory serves) by volcanic basalt stone slowly cooling into roughly hexagonal shapes and subsequently cracking into an enormous stairway-like field on the coast of Northern Ireland. There’s a whole mythos behind it, involving Irish folk hero Finn MacCumhaill (sometimes known as McCool) challenging a Scottish giant to a fight, but I can’t remember enough details to do it justice. In any case, it’s a fascinating and gorgeous place, made even cooler by the fact that there are no ropes or fences and you’re downright encouraged to walk all over the thing.

Later on we arrived in Derry (sometimes known as Londonderry), which was home to Bloody Sunday and many other Troubles-related things. Accordingly, there were a lot of big murals and a museum of sorts devoted to the casualties and all that. Truth be told, I don’t know much about the Troubles. I know that there are people (like the Irish Republican Army) who want the entire island of Ireland to be united and free from Britain’s rule. I know that there are people (primarily Protestants in Northern Ireland – do they have an equivalent Army?) who are happy with the situation as it is. The IRA used to commit all kinds of terrorist acts in the North, but they have since become a peaceful organization, and the “Real IRA” has taken its place in violence. Are the murals pro- or anti-Republic, or just anti-murder? This is probably something I should learn about.

I wonder what happens if you order an Irish Car Bomb in Derry.

(3/4 pint Guinness® stout
1/2 shot Bailey's® Irish cream
1/2 shot Jameson® Irish whiskey

Add the Bailey's and Jameson to a shot glass, layering the Bailey's on the bottom. Pour the Guinness into a pint glass or beer mug 3/4 of the way full and let settle. Drop the shot glass into the Guinness and chug. If you don't drink it fast enough it will curdle and increasingly taste worse.)

For the next several days, we stayed in a self-catering cottage near Castlebar. This was really awesome, because our cottage was a delightful refurbished thatch-roofed traditional Irish home. We got our own wood-burning stove and a huge supply of turf (also known as peat), which smells wonderful when burned. Uhh what else. There were fields of cows directly next to our cottage, separated only by 4-foot-high stone walls. There was a bed set into one wall, hidden by a closet-door-sized curtain. There were two beds (used by my sister and I) on a “second floor” that was actually more of a catwalk, and it was totally open to the sitting room and kitchen – all one big, connected area. I also applied something I learned during my WWOOF experience for the first time: making yogurt! It’s incredibly easy.

1. Boil milk, to sterilize.
2. Allow to cool to “not-painful to the touch” temperature.
3. Add plain yogurt as a starter culture.
4. Allow to sit overnight at a constant, warm temperature, such as that provided by a cast-iron woodstove full of embers.
5. Stir up, cool in the fridge, and enjoy!

You can go more detailed, if you want – use candy thermometers and hotplates and such to get the ideal temperatures – but this worked like a charm.

Anyway, there are two interesting things from this time near Castlebar. First, we went to Achill Island, which was simply beautiful. No exciting history or anything, just a gorgeous, sunny day with a nice breeze, a wonderful drive along the coast, beaches with jellyfish, craggy cliffs, sheep-a-plenty…everything one could ask for from Ireland.

Second, Castlebar is very near where some of my ancestors lived! Now, some of you may know (but most of you probably don’t) that my family history is rather poorly recorded. I know next to nothing about my dad’s side, and there aren’t many relatives outside my immediate family, my dad’s mom and his sister to compare notes with. As well, my mom’s side has been heavily debated and passed down orally and in incomplete form. However, there is a portion of the family – the Cooney family, on my mom’s side – that is relatively well-known. Father Mike Cooney, a cousin of one of my grandparents (I forget which) is somewhat of a mine of information, and he directed us to a particular graveyard near our cottage where we could see some Cooney graves as well as a pub owned by some people who might be able to tell us stuff about the old family. We went to the graveyard (very old and overgrown and awesome) and the pub, where we got an extremely long and rambling, occasionally contradictory, but always charming Cooney family history story from a handful of people searching their collective memories.

I’m now on my second WWOOF thing, on Sallygarden’s Smallholding near Carrick-on-Shannon. I’m absolutely loving it so far! Next time!