Sligo

No, we hadn't heard of Sligo either.  Apparently Yeats spent his childhood summers here, so the town lays claim to him as so many other Irish towns do.  (Don't underestimate the important of Yeats to the Irish psyche; he's huge.)  The town was on the decline, then they did some revitalization a few years ago, touristed it up, and it's a nice little town now.  Though much shop space is still empty.

We were a bit tired from our Aran Islands bike odyssey, so admittedly we didn't do much in Sligo.  We could have bussed about & done a little hiking, though this is really inconvenient - in the North of Ireland, you really need a car to get around efficiently & to see the natural sights.

Sarah soaks up downtown Sligo

Our Sligo home

We actually got an inexpensive room in a huge old hotel that is being remodeled after after being turned into a Best Western.  This brings me to an interesting tidbit: external plumbing in Ireland.  Apparently, indoor plumbing is such a new invention that many homes in Ireland do not feature it.  That and (I suppose) mild winters means that many homes' drains are routed on the outside, and feed directly into a sewer grate.  Like our Galway B&B.  And even this enormous Sligo hotel.

I'm note sure how they install electrical wiring and hot and cold taps within walls, yet are forced to put the drain pipes on the outside...

The latest in Irish drain technology

Yeats certainly is a funny-looking fellow.  Here he is wearing a shirt with some of his writing on it.

Nice little river runs through town.  A bunch of whitewater kayakers were out on it (several of them quite pro), though I'm not sure what they were doing as there didn't appear to be any rapids nearby.

We had a very tasty, inexpensive, and all homemade & locally-sourced meal at Hargadon's - a pub restaurant with a surprisingly cozy interior.  Highly recommended by us.  Here Sarah waits patiently for her food at the wood-slab table (while I have flashbacks of early 1980s Mr. Mike's tables).

Sligo - nothing wrong with it, but all nearby activities seem to be, well, somewhere else.  At least we got a good sleep!

Quick Aran Islands note

Sarah did an admirable job of keeping the blog going with the Aran posts - hats off to her.  I added a bit of colour commentary to the last few posts.   A couple of other thoughts about Inis Mor:

• Yes, they sell traditional Aran Island sweaters there, and they're very nice.
• There's quite a bit of livestock scattered about the island, though not too densely - mostly cows and goats, followed by horses, chickens, donkeys and others.
• There are pheasants all over the place - you can hear them squawking all day long.  You can even see them, as there is no long grass to hide in (their usual habitat).  I can't imagine that they're native, but there seems to be a lack of natural predators, so they flourish.
• In Victorian times there were "kelp factories" on the island.  They made hemp-like fibre (I believe), and there were even factories that extracted iodine from the kelp.  Some man-made lagoons from these times still exist.  Lots of kelp around still - you often get a sulphur-y whiff at low tide.
• Inis Mor appears to have two and only two land-based natural resources: tiny bits of scrub grass/shrubs, and LOTS of rock.  The whole island is a big limestone rock, with smaller chunks of rock scattered everywhere.  It's obvious that growing crops is impossible, other than a small garden plot here and there where someone has managed to save up some dirt over many generations.  Animals able to graze on the short, stubby grass were clearly a better food source - hence the grazing livestock.
• This brings up the stone fences.  The ENTIRE island - 12 km long, around 2 km wide - is a latticework of stone fences between 2 and 8 feet high.  These don't just divide the island into big fields, they divide it into very small yards or pens.  I can't imagine how much labour or how many generations it took to do this work.  However, the fences seem to be a by-product of rock-clearing efforts: I think the fences were simply the most efficient way to stack the loose rocks that were cleared in order to make room for a bit of grazing area.  And since there aren't any trees for fence posts or rails, rocks are a good choice for a fence.  You could easily cover the whole island with the rocks that are stacked into fences.

Sorry for the pictureless post.  Next ones will have more to look at.

Irish beer options

And another new hoplog blog post about "other" Irish beers encountered:

http://hoplogblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/irish-beer-options.html

Enjoy!

On Ireland

I have learned a lot about Ireland in the few days we've been here so far (museums have a way of helping out with that, I suppose).  But some things one must learn on the street.

Lesson 1: If you as local government want to stop people from doing something, it is not considered effective (as it seems to be in Canada) to simply say "Don't do X or we'll fine you a bunch of money".  Instead you need to try different approaches for your warnings.

Be ashamed, people who throw litter on the street!

"A Stolen Ringbuoy - A Stolen Life".  In other words, don't be a murderer.

Why throw gum on the street when you can throw it in the garbage while doing a back bend?

Lesson 2: Some stereotypes are true.

Found in a local bookstore.  Not pictured: the Lucky Charms cereal I saw at a grocery store today.

More to follow from the front lines...