11-05-2019, 09:57 AM
Day Seven - All day Limerick
Since I am the lord of the travel plans, I set the supreme schedule. In my largesse, I gave the Queen a day off from the daily forced march to historic sights. Let’s face it, I over program. I can no longer just sit in a foreign place. I must move. I must photograph. I’m the Great White Shark of travel.
The Queen and I did share breakfast at the Strand Breakfast Buffet. When you go to Limerick, this is a must-do thing. They have such a variety. How many buffets have you been to that serve fresh honeycomb? Of course, I only had scrambled eggs, sausage and toast, but that’s not the point. I did contemplate staying in a different hotel, but after eating breakfast, I’m glad I came to my senses and stayed at the right hotel. Plus, I got to see their disaster carpets, especially mold outbreak carpet on the fourth floor.
My plan was to walk around Limerick until I couldn’t walk anymore. I have a bunch of spots I go to that I have shot many times before. I like to see how the city has changed over the years. I do keep photographing King John’s Castle, but that remains pretty much the same year after year.
I’m bad at the street names for my Irish home town, mostly because they change from block to block and I can’t keep them all straight. I crossed Sarsfield Bridge, which affords many chances to photograph King John’s, and entered the city center proper.
I photographed Burgerland which is where I did my first real job. It’s been closed for aeons and has been a sports store for at least two decades. I walked by Cahill’s Tea Shop which is the oldest retailer in Limerick. I didn’t know it existed until about a month ago. I wandered by the Milk Market and the churches in John’s square.
Another thing I didn’t know existed where walls of the medieval city. I follow a woman on the interwebs named Sharon Slater who is an Irish Historian and pointed out the walls in several of her blogs. I decided I needed to see them. The ones I saw used to encircle Irish Town. They are pretty good size but sadly neglected sitting between two housing projects. At one point, I was able to climb atop them. I found the remnants of a fire pit in the center of the wall. It was also disheartening to see the boarded up housing opposite the wall.
From there I made my way to the path that follows the Abby River. Now, the Abby River isn’t an actual river. It’s a canal that cuts through a bend in the Shannon River. The canal makes it possible to sail up the Shannon. Because in the middle of the bend is the Ardnacrusha dam and power plant. Yes, I am voting Ardnacrusha as the best name for a power plant.
What’s important to me about the Abby river path is it’s the path my father used to take on his walk from our house in Castletroy down to Limerick. He wouldn’t back from Limerick to the house. No, sir. He would make his son drive into town to pick him up.
I met the path where I used to park the car to wait for my father at the end of his evening stroll.
The path runs arrow straight along the canal. They have finally pulled out the sunken boat where the Abby River meets the Park Canal so I have one picture that will finally look different.
I met plenty of people walking their dogs. All I could think was the Queen was going to be so jealous. At one point, I came across three horses let to run wild. I believe they belonged to the Travelers or Tinkers. Eventually, they will come by to collect them. You use to see Tinker ponies all through the streets of Limerick.
I petted them for a while and got bit for my troubles. When I left them, one of the ponies, the one that bit me, followed me thinking I had not completed my scratching of his head. Again my thoughts were about the Queen’s jealousy that I was out petting horses. Ha!
When I set out I was only going to go as far as the end of the canal and turn back to town. When I got to the end of the canal, I figured I might as well got to Athlunkard Bridge since it wasn’t that far.
Since I’m at Athlunkard Bridge, I might as well head up to Corbally Baths to see how they look in the bright morning sunlight. if you go to Corbally Baths, you of course have to walk to the Mill Road to get home. It’s all good. I’ve got plenty of time. I’m meeting dogs. The sunlight shines beautifully through the trees that arch over the path. I’m taking plenty of pictures. I’m collecting stories of animals to make the Queen jealous. It’s like the perfect day. I am light on my feet without a care in the middle as I spot a new ruin across the river at the Mill Road Parking Lot.
Have we talked about the stupidity of the Queen’s husband, that certain strain of madness in his psyche that clamors for trouble and untenable situations? If you aren’t aware of this mental health issue, it will be my pleasure to give you as fine an example as they come of the staggering idiocy of the man-child.
The road to take back from the Mill Road Parking lot is naturally the Mill Road. It’s kind of noisy and congested after the idyll along the footpath next to the river, but it cuts straight back into town, ending at King John’s Island. It’s the road to take for the smart set.
The last time I walked this path, I saw some lads take a different route. They headed off a short lane that I thought came to a dead end. But no. If you go past the bushes, you find a path that leads to a bridge over the mill channel. It’s paved for a little bit more but then just becomes a foot path along a raised berm between sort of a marsh to the left and the river Shannon to the right. It’s like stepping into an Irish Fairy tale as you walk this hidden road through the tall bushes, the sounds of the city dropping away behind you. The Queen would burn with envy when I told her of this magical place.
I continued to walk and the condition of the trail started to deteriorate. I had to navigate more low spots filled with water. I flashed backed to the bog at the Ardgroom Stone Circle. But these areas were far more manageable. Thorny branches frequently snagged my socks. I began to think the Queen would not be enjoying this stretch of my secret magical trail.
Up ahead I heard the train go by. One of the gotchas of this trail was that you had to climb a bit of a hill and cross the railroad tracks. No signs. No special crossings. Just up and over. Then you had to find the trail on the other side. Not too difficult, but it was something to be aware of. Since I had heard the train pass, I wouldn’t have to contend with dodging when I got to the tracks. Life was good, even I was dodging mud and pulling brambles out of my socks.
Except when I got to the railroad tracks, I found to my surprise that someone had erected an eight foot tall fence across the path. There was a gate in the fence, but the lock had been welded shut. Seriously? A fence? And it stretched a long way in both directions. They seriously didn’t want people crossing over the railroad tracks.
Or did they? See, just to left of the trail there was a rather large opening under the fence where people obviously had climbed through. It was bit muddy but it could probably be done by some Gen-Xer or Millenial.
See if you can guess the dumb part. Or the initial dumb part. The beauty of the Queen’s Husband is not that he does something dumb, it’s that he compounds the dumbness with more dumb. It’s like exponential stupidity.
It was a long walk back through the brambles and the mud to the long road that would take me back to town. Of course I had to see if I could fit under the fence. I only had to put my knees in the mud for a little bit to make the crossing.
I knelt down. I put my camera backpack through first. And then I climbed under the fence. I was up the bank to the tracks before you know it.
Now, I couldn’t see what was on the other side of the tracks because the bank was too tall in front of me. But in my unassailable logic, I figured since there was a hole in the fence on this side, the hooligans before me must have made a hole on the other side. It would be foolish not to. Right?
As I stood on the tracks and looked far to the left and far to the right, I couldn't see any thing but eight foot tall green metal fence. To be fair, the fence did stop at the bridge which crossed over the river Shannon.
So, I turned around, crawled back under the fence and made the long trek back to the Mill Road to hike back sensibly into the city.
Yeah, no. There had to be opening somewhere up ahead where I could get back onto the trail. I could also see the road up ahead. The tunnel for the train went right under it. I was positive the best course was to walk along the tracks until I go to the road. Either I would find an opening to get through the fence or there would be an opening at the road. QED.
The Irish are pretty serious about people not getting on the railroad tracks. Probably because it’s a dangerous and stupid thing to do. There was fencing the entire good strong fencing. I thought I saw place where the fencing had been pushed back to make an opening but it had been welded back together.
At this point the Queen was no longer jealous of magical trail adventure. I’m sure she would be looking for a ditch to dump my body after she shot me. But since the fence on either side of the tracks was so close, there wasn’t a lot of room for a ditch for a body.
Yeah, I started to worry. The closer I got to the road, the more secure the fencing became. I kept waiting to hear the sound of a train whistle behind me or see the light of the train in front of me. There wasn’t a lot of space on either side of the tracks to avoid the train.
When I was within about 100 yards from the road, the eight foot tall metal fence gave way to a four foot tall barbed wired topped fence protecting a farmer’s field. The majority of the fence was metal wire in a 6 x 6 grid. But the top two feet was strung with for strands of extraordinarily new and taught barbed wire. It was much to high to leap over, especially with my gazelle like grace. But I needed to do something to get away from the tracks.
First I put the camera bag over the fence in a spot I knew I could retrieve in case I couldn’t get through the fence. First rule: Always protect the camera.
I pulled the lower two strands of barbed wire as far apart as I could and then slid my leg between the wire. One of the advantages of wearing shorts is no material covering my legs to catch on the barbs. Always a plus.
Someone should have been there to take a picture of me mid-passage, with a strand of wire pressed firmly pressed into my crotch. My back up against the wire above snagged on more barbs. That should have been the time for the field owner to pop out and ask what the fuck I was doing. But my passage through the wire went unnoticed I think. I did get some rips in my jacket for my trouble. I believe some blood was shed. Now, all I had to do was get through the field.
I wanted to just open the gate and go but it was locked with some hundred year old chain. The gate was at a tremendous lean towards me so I had to get some momentum to get my fat self over it. I spotted the dog next to the house. But the dog had more interest in looking in the house window than whatever I was doing. I was very glad not to see anybody staring out the window at me.
A few steps later, I was on the mill road heading back to town. The sweat from adventure started to cool on my brow.
I walked down the Mill Road thinking myself a lucky, lucky man. Also very lucky that I had left the Queen in the hotel.
The rest of the day was far calmer. It was mostly hitting sights that were important to me. I walked over to King John’s castle. I was disappointed to see they had white washed over my favorite mural called eye-scream. It was a pretty trippy mural that was completely out of place next to the castle. Someone had tagged it a couple months back and rather than fix the mural, they decided to replace it.
I walked along Clancy’s Strand back to the Strand Hotel. I took more pictures of the Treaty Stone and the Castle. I should have about a million of each by now.
I bumped into the Queen as she left the hotel. She looked rested. At this point, I didn’t recount the tales of her husband’s stupidity. I did finally contact a friend of my father’s I wanted to meet with in town, Brendan Bradshaw. I used the time honored method of contacting his daughter on Facebook and getting her to contact him and telling him to contact me. It worked. We had lunch. We swapped stories. It was good. Disappointed thought that the River Restaurant in the STrand no longer carries pizza. When I mentioned it to the servers, they gave me the puzzled look and asked “We served pizza?”
Since I had had a long day, I opted to spend the rest of the evening in the hotel room resting.
Ha! No. The sun was out. There was more photographs to take. I got in the car and went to my old High School. Fortunately the kids were on break for the week so I didn’t frighten anybody as I prowled the grounds. Then I went up to the Lynch house on Kilbane and took some pictures there too. I wonder if the owners every see me and wonder why I keep showing up every couple of years to take photos. Probably a question for a therapist as well.
I dumped the car back at the hotel and then ventured back to the streets for more wandering. I went by the oldest still running shop in Limerick, Cahills. They sell tea and tobacco. I photographed the train station and Perry Square. I popped into the Frank McCourt museum since this was the second to last day it would be open. I had brought my mother here back in 2014. McCourt wrote the seminal Limerick novel Angelas Ashes. It was sad to see, especially since people come to Limerick because of Angelas Ashes. The proprietor, Oona, gave a piece of brick from the museum as a keepsake.
I spent the last bit of my walk along the Shannon photographing the seagulls and the swans. It was a perfect Limerick day except for the rampant stupidity.
Since I am the lord of the travel plans, I set the supreme schedule. In my largesse, I gave the Queen a day off from the daily forced march to historic sights. Let’s face it, I over program. I can no longer just sit in a foreign place. I must move. I must photograph. I’m the Great White Shark of travel.
The Queen and I did share breakfast at the Strand Breakfast Buffet. When you go to Limerick, this is a must-do thing. They have such a variety. How many buffets have you been to that serve fresh honeycomb? Of course, I only had scrambled eggs, sausage and toast, but that’s not the point. I did contemplate staying in a different hotel, but after eating breakfast, I’m glad I came to my senses and stayed at the right hotel. Plus, I got to see their disaster carpets, especially mold outbreak carpet on the fourth floor.
My plan was to walk around Limerick until I couldn’t walk anymore. I have a bunch of spots I go to that I have shot many times before. I like to see how the city has changed over the years. I do keep photographing King John’s Castle, but that remains pretty much the same year after year.
I’m bad at the street names for my Irish home town, mostly because they change from block to block and I can’t keep them all straight. I crossed Sarsfield Bridge, which affords many chances to photograph King John’s, and entered the city center proper.
I photographed Burgerland which is where I did my first real job. It’s been closed for aeons and has been a sports store for at least two decades. I walked by Cahill’s Tea Shop which is the oldest retailer in Limerick. I didn’t know it existed until about a month ago. I wandered by the Milk Market and the churches in John’s square.
Another thing I didn’t know existed where walls of the medieval city. I follow a woman on the interwebs named Sharon Slater who is an Irish Historian and pointed out the walls in several of her blogs. I decided I needed to see them. The ones I saw used to encircle Irish Town. They are pretty good size but sadly neglected sitting between two housing projects. At one point, I was able to climb atop them. I found the remnants of a fire pit in the center of the wall. It was also disheartening to see the boarded up housing opposite the wall.
From there I made my way to the path that follows the Abby River. Now, the Abby River isn’t an actual river. It’s a canal that cuts through a bend in the Shannon River. The canal makes it possible to sail up the Shannon. Because in the middle of the bend is the Ardnacrusha dam and power plant. Yes, I am voting Ardnacrusha as the best name for a power plant.
What’s important to me about the Abby river path is it’s the path my father used to take on his walk from our house in Castletroy down to Limerick. He wouldn’t back from Limerick to the house. No, sir. He would make his son drive into town to pick him up.
I met the path where I used to park the car to wait for my father at the end of his evening stroll.
The path runs arrow straight along the canal. They have finally pulled out the sunken boat where the Abby River meets the Park Canal so I have one picture that will finally look different.
I met plenty of people walking their dogs. All I could think was the Queen was going to be so jealous. At one point, I came across three horses let to run wild. I believe they belonged to the Travelers or Tinkers. Eventually, they will come by to collect them. You use to see Tinker ponies all through the streets of Limerick.
I petted them for a while and got bit for my troubles. When I left them, one of the ponies, the one that bit me, followed me thinking I had not completed my scratching of his head. Again my thoughts were about the Queen’s jealousy that I was out petting horses. Ha!
When I set out I was only going to go as far as the end of the canal and turn back to town. When I got to the end of the canal, I figured I might as well got to Athlunkard Bridge since it wasn’t that far.
Since I’m at Athlunkard Bridge, I might as well head up to Corbally Baths to see how they look in the bright morning sunlight. if you go to Corbally Baths, you of course have to walk to the Mill Road to get home. It’s all good. I’ve got plenty of time. I’m meeting dogs. The sunlight shines beautifully through the trees that arch over the path. I’m taking plenty of pictures. I’m collecting stories of animals to make the Queen jealous. It’s like the perfect day. I am light on my feet without a care in the middle as I spot a new ruin across the river at the Mill Road Parking Lot.
Have we talked about the stupidity of the Queen’s husband, that certain strain of madness in his psyche that clamors for trouble and untenable situations? If you aren’t aware of this mental health issue, it will be my pleasure to give you as fine an example as they come of the staggering idiocy of the man-child.
The road to take back from the Mill Road Parking lot is naturally the Mill Road. It’s kind of noisy and congested after the idyll along the footpath next to the river, but it cuts straight back into town, ending at King John’s Island. It’s the road to take for the smart set.
The last time I walked this path, I saw some lads take a different route. They headed off a short lane that I thought came to a dead end. But no. If you go past the bushes, you find a path that leads to a bridge over the mill channel. It’s paved for a little bit more but then just becomes a foot path along a raised berm between sort of a marsh to the left and the river Shannon to the right. It’s like stepping into an Irish Fairy tale as you walk this hidden road through the tall bushes, the sounds of the city dropping away behind you. The Queen would burn with envy when I told her of this magical place.
I continued to walk and the condition of the trail started to deteriorate. I had to navigate more low spots filled with water. I flashed backed to the bog at the Ardgroom Stone Circle. But these areas were far more manageable. Thorny branches frequently snagged my socks. I began to think the Queen would not be enjoying this stretch of my secret magical trail.
Up ahead I heard the train go by. One of the gotchas of this trail was that you had to climb a bit of a hill and cross the railroad tracks. No signs. No special crossings. Just up and over. Then you had to find the trail on the other side. Not too difficult, but it was something to be aware of. Since I had heard the train pass, I wouldn’t have to contend with dodging when I got to the tracks. Life was good, even I was dodging mud and pulling brambles out of my socks.
Except when I got to the railroad tracks, I found to my surprise that someone had erected an eight foot tall fence across the path. There was a gate in the fence, but the lock had been welded shut. Seriously? A fence? And it stretched a long way in both directions. They seriously didn’t want people crossing over the railroad tracks.
Or did they? See, just to left of the trail there was a rather large opening under the fence where people obviously had climbed through. It was bit muddy but it could probably be done by some Gen-Xer or Millenial.
See if you can guess the dumb part. Or the initial dumb part. The beauty of the Queen’s Husband is not that he does something dumb, it’s that he compounds the dumbness with more dumb. It’s like exponential stupidity.
It was a long walk back through the brambles and the mud to the long road that would take me back to town. Of course I had to see if I could fit under the fence. I only had to put my knees in the mud for a little bit to make the crossing.
I knelt down. I put my camera backpack through first. And then I climbed under the fence. I was up the bank to the tracks before you know it.
Now, I couldn’t see what was on the other side of the tracks because the bank was too tall in front of me. But in my unassailable logic, I figured since there was a hole in the fence on this side, the hooligans before me must have made a hole on the other side. It would be foolish not to. Right?
As I stood on the tracks and looked far to the left and far to the right, I couldn't see any thing but eight foot tall green metal fence. To be fair, the fence did stop at the bridge which crossed over the river Shannon.
So, I turned around, crawled back under the fence and made the long trek back to the Mill Road to hike back sensibly into the city.
Yeah, no. There had to be opening somewhere up ahead where I could get back onto the trail. I could also see the road up ahead. The tunnel for the train went right under it. I was positive the best course was to walk along the tracks until I go to the road. Either I would find an opening to get through the fence or there would be an opening at the road. QED.
The Irish are pretty serious about people not getting on the railroad tracks. Probably because it’s a dangerous and stupid thing to do. There was fencing the entire good strong fencing. I thought I saw place where the fencing had been pushed back to make an opening but it had been welded back together.
At this point the Queen was no longer jealous of magical trail adventure. I’m sure she would be looking for a ditch to dump my body after she shot me. But since the fence on either side of the tracks was so close, there wasn’t a lot of room for a ditch for a body.
Yeah, I started to worry. The closer I got to the road, the more secure the fencing became. I kept waiting to hear the sound of a train whistle behind me or see the light of the train in front of me. There wasn’t a lot of space on either side of the tracks to avoid the train.
When I was within about 100 yards from the road, the eight foot tall metal fence gave way to a four foot tall barbed wired topped fence protecting a farmer’s field. The majority of the fence was metal wire in a 6 x 6 grid. But the top two feet was strung with for strands of extraordinarily new and taught barbed wire. It was much to high to leap over, especially with my gazelle like grace. But I needed to do something to get away from the tracks.
First I put the camera bag over the fence in a spot I knew I could retrieve in case I couldn’t get through the fence. First rule: Always protect the camera.
I pulled the lower two strands of barbed wire as far apart as I could and then slid my leg between the wire. One of the advantages of wearing shorts is no material covering my legs to catch on the barbs. Always a plus.
Someone should have been there to take a picture of me mid-passage, with a strand of wire pressed firmly pressed into my crotch. My back up against the wire above snagged on more barbs. That should have been the time for the field owner to pop out and ask what the fuck I was doing. But my passage through the wire went unnoticed I think. I did get some rips in my jacket for my trouble. I believe some blood was shed. Now, all I had to do was get through the field.
I wanted to just open the gate and go but it was locked with some hundred year old chain. The gate was at a tremendous lean towards me so I had to get some momentum to get my fat self over it. I spotted the dog next to the house. But the dog had more interest in looking in the house window than whatever I was doing. I was very glad not to see anybody staring out the window at me.
A few steps later, I was on the mill road heading back to town. The sweat from adventure started to cool on my brow.
I walked down the Mill Road thinking myself a lucky, lucky man. Also very lucky that I had left the Queen in the hotel.
The rest of the day was far calmer. It was mostly hitting sights that were important to me. I walked over to King John’s castle. I was disappointed to see they had white washed over my favorite mural called eye-scream. It was a pretty trippy mural that was completely out of place next to the castle. Someone had tagged it a couple months back and rather than fix the mural, they decided to replace it.
I walked along Clancy’s Strand back to the Strand Hotel. I took more pictures of the Treaty Stone and the Castle. I should have about a million of each by now.
I bumped into the Queen as she left the hotel. She looked rested. At this point, I didn’t recount the tales of her husband’s stupidity. I did finally contact a friend of my father’s I wanted to meet with in town, Brendan Bradshaw. I used the time honored method of contacting his daughter on Facebook and getting her to contact him and telling him to contact me. It worked. We had lunch. We swapped stories. It was good. Disappointed thought that the River Restaurant in the STrand no longer carries pizza. When I mentioned it to the servers, they gave me the puzzled look and asked “We served pizza?”
Since I had had a long day, I opted to spend the rest of the evening in the hotel room resting.
Ha! No. The sun was out. There was more photographs to take. I got in the car and went to my old High School. Fortunately the kids were on break for the week so I didn’t frighten anybody as I prowled the grounds. Then I went up to the Lynch house on Kilbane and took some pictures there too. I wonder if the owners every see me and wonder why I keep showing up every couple of years to take photos. Probably a question for a therapist as well.
I dumped the car back at the hotel and then ventured back to the streets for more wandering. I went by the oldest still running shop in Limerick, Cahills. They sell tea and tobacco. I photographed the train station and Perry Square. I popped into the Frank McCourt museum since this was the second to last day it would be open. I had brought my mother here back in 2014. McCourt wrote the seminal Limerick novel Angelas Ashes. It was sad to see, especially since people come to Limerick because of Angelas Ashes. The proprietor, Oona, gave a piece of brick from the museum as a keepsake.
I spent the last bit of my walk along the Shannon photographing the seagulls and the swans. It was a perfect Limerick day except for the rampant stupidity.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm