Friday August 9 we left Waterford and entered County Cork,
visiting the towns of Cobh (pronounced “cove”) and An Bhlarna
(Blarney). Road signage in Ireland has both the Irish and English
place names. We learned several town name prefixes: An (the), Baile
(village of), Cill (church), Dun (fort), and Glen (valley).
On the way we passed more road art. There was a sequence of four
or five pillars, a memorial to the Choktaw nation’s sending relief
during the Famine.
Cobh is a small town on an island in Cork harbour; it was the
last stop the Titanic made on its only voyage. It was the embarkation
point for a lot of crossings, particularly emigrations. Cork Harbour
is one of the largest natural harbours in the world, and was used by
the British Navy before independence.
Cobh waterfront buildings, with a view of the cathedral.
Memorial to the sinking of the Lusitania, with an angel
representing the desire for peace and exhausted figures representing
the local fisherman who rescued several hundred people from a ship
that sank in minutes.
Our guide,
Dr.
Michael Martin, told us that the Lusitania is now known to have
been carrying munitions and thus was a legitimate military target
which the shippers surrounded with human shields (something that is
now considered a war crime). It also was never mentioned in the
American debates over whether to join the Great War, so the legend
that it brought the USA into the war is false.
Dr. Martin also told us about the Titanic. At the time number of
lifeboats was set by ship tonnage, not number of passengers on board.
The ship indeed had too few lifeboats, by a factor of about two, but
that was the law of the time. As with the Lusitania, there are false
legends, in this case “women and children first.” There were
plenty of spaces for all the women on board, but classism kept people
from steerage off the lifeboats entirely until the 8
th or
10
th (my memory fails me). This building was where people
would have embarked – the upper classes being allowed to wait
inside, while the lower classes had to stay outside.
After Cobh we went to the village of An Bhlarna just outside the
city of Cork and visited Blarney Castle. On the way to the castle
there are beautiful grounds, and there are gardens on site, but it
was quite rainy that day so I didn’t see much of them.
The castle itself is a single large blocky tower.
The Blarney Stone is at the top, up a claustrophobia- and
acrophobia-inducing circular stone staircase, slippery wherever
exposed to the elements -- and it was raining moderately heavily. To kiss the stone (to get the “gift of gab”)
you need to lie on your back with your upper body hanging across a
half-metre or so gap, and bend over backwards to reach the specific
stone in the wall. In that position you can’t wear glasses or
having anything loose in your pockets. I couldn’t face the
challenge, but my writer friend Bill Tracy did.
The stone is behind his head, low down near the bottom of the
wall. Note the drop over his right shoulder.
Afterwards, we drove to County Kerry and the city of Cill Airne
(Killarney), where we had dinner and spent the night.
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