Gunternation

As mentioned before, Bill and I visited Jerpoint Abbey a few Sundays ago, after our Relaxation Weekend in Kilkenny. Jerpoint is one of best preserved abbeys in Ireland, having been maintained by the Kilkenny Archaeological Society since the mid 19th century and under protection as a national monument since 1880.

This Cisterian Abbey was initially constructed in 1180 with a cruciform church layout with nave, chancel and transepts. The remaining structures dating from the 13-15th Centuries include the Nave, North Aisle, Cloister Garth (courtyard) and Calefactory, the only heated room at the Abbey. The Cisterians were an austere offshoot of the Benedictines. They lived on veggies and beer, and could visit the Calefactory only a few times throughout the day for a total of an hour.

The outstanding feature of Jerpoint Abbey is the carvings throughout, many the work of a famous stone sculptor family from the 15 and 16th Century, the O’Tunneys. Jerpoint Abbey was surrendered to the Earl of Ormond in 1540 as part of Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries. The total holdings of the Abbey at that time included a castle, several watermills and fisheries, comprising around 14, 500 acres.

Three of the Apostles: Peter with the key, Andrew with the cross, and possibly Luke (we can’t remember, and Luke and Mark share the symbol of the book).

The sin of gluttony.

A monkey.

Even though it kept trying to rain on us, we found Jerpoint Abbey fascinating and beautiful.

After a few weeks spent close to home, last weekend Bill and I ventured to Kilkenny. We’ve been to Kilkenny before, but didn’t get to explore the area as much as we’d liked because our car broke down. The Mighty Polo is in better form these days (more or less) so we decided to give it another go. We booked a “Relaxing Weekend” package at a hotel across the river from Kilkenny Castle. A deluge of rain was forecast, but our relaxation package included several meals, 30-minute massages, and 4:00 PM check out on Sunday–we didn’t have to leave the hotel if we didn’t want to. And if we did venture out, Kilkenny’s annual arts festival would be worth checking out.

Bill picked me up at my office Friday evening, and we arrived in Kilkenny around 8:30. We had dinner in the hotel at 9:00. As foodies there’s some pressure to choose the exotic, but sometimes you want basic grub, and the hotel restaurant delivered that quite tastily. The highlight was my whimsically served, tumbled basket of Caesar salad. We both had steaks for entrees. The hotel was host to a world music segment of the arts festival, so at certain points during the meal, strains of an Indian tune or Irish trad mixed with the easy listening melodies in the restaurant, creating a soundtrack “like the mind of a crazy person,” as Bill aptly observed. At least the crazy person ate normal food.

Saturday morning we were happy to eat breakfast in the hotel while rain lashed outside and young and old donned slickers in the lobby before venturing out for soggy seeing. We booked our massages for 12:00 and 12:30, and spent the morning watching Olympics. By 1:00 the rain had cleared, and we ate lunch at a nearby cafe. We wandering through some of the art exhibits, bought tickets for an orchestra concert that night, and visited the Black Abbey. The Black Abbey was built in the 13th C, destroyed by Cromwell in the 18th and rebuilt in the 19th. The church is still actively used by the Dominican order and has an impressive stained glass window from 1892 and a beautiful 15th C alabaster carving of the Holy Trinity. I have to say, it’s hard to visit many historical sites in Ireland without acquiring a distaste for Oliver Cromwell. Bill and I have developed a Seinfeldian Newman! response to his very name.

We’d seen the Ulster Orchestra perform before, but not in a 13th century cathedral. St. Canice’s cathedral is a lovely venue, even if the acoustics were not great for the featured violin. The rain had returned by the end of the concert, and we took refuge in an Indian restaurant down the street where we had a great dinner.

Kilkenny has a dual life as tourist-friendly, medieval city by day, and noisy, stag and hen party haven by night. The nightclubs were coming alive as we walked back to the hotel around 11:30, but the partying had been going on long enough that guys were already puking in the streets. Nice.

Sunday morning was cloudy, but not as rainy. After breakfast we walked the grounds of Kilkenny Castle for about an hour. We were highly entertained by a Little Grebe diving in a pond to find food for its chick. The air was autumnal, which of course freaked us out, as it was mid-August.

We had lunch at the hotel, and lounged in our room to wait out another band of rain. We left around 3:00, stopping by the shop at Jerpoint Glass. Luckily we were able to bypass the guard dog, and bought some candlesticks from the Seconds room. We proceeded on to Jerpoint Abbey. The lingering rain didn’t discourage our exploration of the Abbey, and it was the highlight of our weekend. The Abbey is so cool, that it deserves its own post.

I was surprised to see Dr. Pepper on the shelves of a newsstand where I picked up lunch one day. I brought a bottle back to the office and chilled it for a while (most stores sell beverages on the warm side, IMHO) and enjoyed the refreshing taste of Texas. Since high-fructose corn syrup is not common here, this Dr. Pepper was sweetened with sugar, like the small glass bottles from Dublin, TX. My work buddy had never tried DP so I shared a bit with him. If his reaction is indicative of the population at large, I’m afraid Dr. Pepper won’t be on the shelves here for long. He asked me what flavor it was; I didn’t mention the rumors that Dr. Pepper is prune-flavored. I knew Bill would be excited for a sip of the pepper, and indeed he was. We were quite amused by the slogan on the bottle, “What’s the worst that could happen?” It seems a far cry from “Be a Pepper!” I think the worst that can happen is that Dr. Pepper becomes more popular than Lucozade, or is that a good thing?

The weather here has been quite atrocious lately. It’s been raining almost incessantly for weeks and many areas have experienced bad flooding.

The last weekend of July, however, was quite pleasant and we enjoyed a lovely afternoon in St. Anne’s Park playing boules and smelling the roses. Our plan was to walk through the park to the rose garden, but we were pleasantly surprised to find our friends Caragh and Jasper also enjoying the afternoon with some other friends of theirs playing boules. They invited us to join them and we happily accepted.

After a couple rousing rounds we took our leave and continued our journey to the rose garden. St. Anne’s has a lovely garden with a huge variety of roses. The park also has some wonderful hidden glades with spectacular trees.

Another recent weekend was spent in art appreciation. The National Gallery had an exhibition of impressionist interiors we’d really been wanting to see, so after church we took the DART to city center. A new friend at church, Andrea, wanted to join us, so we met her at the Gallery for lunch before seeing the exhibition. Several paintings by Degas, a favorite artist of mine, were included. We really enjoyed it, though Andrea prefers landscapes. Afterward we parted company with Andrea to do some shopping. Here I am outside Hodges Figgis, a very cool bookstore on Dawson St. near St. Stephen’s Green and the largest bookstore in Ireland. Sharon picked up a few books on the discount cart. Next to the bookstore is Lemon, and we couldn’t resist crepes and lattes. The simplest crepes with fresh lemon juice and caster sugar are the best, and they make some pretty mean lattes, too. Our final destination was our favorite Chinese market on Abbey St. where we bought some frozen dumplings and stir-fried veggies with fish balls. We like to keep an assortment of dumplings around for quick dim-sum dinners, and we enjoyed some that evening with our stir-fry.

The other day I saw Colm Meaney walking down Lower Baggot Street in Dublin. My friend and I looked at each other and said, “That’s Collum Meaney.” Had I seen the actor last year in Austin I would have called him Cohlm, with a long O and the L sliding directly into a short M. I think I would have been wrong. I work with a guy named Colm, pronounced Collum. Like the Irish pronunciation of film, fillum.

I would have thought that generations of trendy US parents had already poached all the Irish names, but turns out there are tons I’d never heard before, and frequently mispronounce when I see them in print. Many of them reflect Irish pronunciation, like “mh” and “bh” having a V sound. That’s probably why we don’t see these more. No one wants their daughter being taunted with “Grainy, Grainy, has no brainy.” I’ve listed some new names we’ve encountered below.

Girls

Boys

It took me a while to learn how to pronounce the surname of one of my co-workers, O’Cinneide. O Cah-nay’-dah. I want to call him O Canada, but I don’t think anyone gets it, so I’ve settled on O’Cyanide.

My apologies for not figuring out how to make the accents for many of these names. I spent all my blogging patience trying to make the tables display correctly. Remind me to hard code the table next time.