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| All these fishing ports have memorials to those lost at sea - a sad reminder. |
After a magic downwind sail from our anchorage at Kilmore Quay, we pulled onto the visitor pontoon in the pretty fishing harbour of Dunmore East. It's a busy place, fishing boats coming and going, a bird rookery on the cliff at the harbour mouth and the resident seal who pops over for a g'day now and then.
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| Chinook at the visitors' pontoon, amoungst her metal-hulled brethren |
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| These wee fishing boats are much more seaworthy than you might initially think |
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| Incredibly quaint thatched-roof cottages ... right by the sea |
The weather is stunning, still on the chilly side but Ireland is (thankfully) not living up to her less-than-inviting reputation of rain, rain and rain in spring! Taking advantage of the glorious weather, we hiked the Dunmore East Cliff Path. Yet another gorgeous hike along the cliffs, down into pretty inlets and across muddy farmland. Spring is coming with daffodils and snow drops blooming. The trees are budding and birdsong fills the air along the trails.
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| East of Dunmore East |
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| A friendly reminder to look away from the view and glance down at the path from time to time |
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| Our walk almost turned into a swim at this point! |
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| Our route |
To reward ourselves, we popped into the pub - Powers Bar - for a beer. It was empty but for us - the barman assured us he was open for business. We ordered a Guinness each and looked around to notice the place was filled with nautical memorabilia. Some musical instrument cases were piled in one of the corners and we asked the barman (Mr. Power, it turned out) if there was live music here. He confirmed that there had been last night and that we could come back tomorrow evening at 7:30 pm to hear the local fellas if we so desired. At that, we finished our Guinness' and vowed to be back tomorrow.
The next day came and we arrived at the aforementioned time and sure enough, the place was much livelier. The local boys had arrived and had guitars, a banjo and fiddle in action already. Hooray!
We ordered drinks, plopped ourselves down and were soaking in the atmosphere. Irish lilts filled the place the way smoke used to. Chatter and camaraderie spilled out from the different groups. Shortly we were approached and our story of where we were from and that we had sailed there from Wales was extracted.
"They are getting better," quipped one of the locals, "they have only been playing here for 25 years!" It was a very jolly evening, great music, some beautiful voices singing in Gaelic, all rather well-lubricated with the local ale. Sean held his own (in English) and blasted out a couple of tunes after being handed a guitar by one of the musicians.
Fortunately for us, the boat was a short stumble down hill!
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| Hey, who's that chap with the guitar?? |
Shaking off the bleariness, we jumped on the bus next morning to explore Waterford. Ireland's oldest and second largest city, it has a millennium of history for us to absorb. We wandered the pretty streets with their interesting shops and pondered which of the many museums we would visit. We landed on the Medieval Museum and were rewarded with most amazing insights into history. The museum starts you in the wine cellar of a medieval friary.
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| Down Kate goes into the cellar |
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| A model of the walled Norse (viking) city |
The vikings chose this spot as the place for a settlement around 853 AD as it was well-protected and the river was deep enough at this point to bring big ships. It was an established trading port for hundreds of years and changed hands between the Norse, Gaelic, Anglo-Normans and Romans. King Henry II stepped ashore in 1171 AD and claimed it as a royal city. The English (Cathlolic at the time) set up shop and took over the trading there. Waterford was the biggest importer of wine for many centuries and became rich on the taxes collected.
This wealth allowed the leading merchants to pay indulgences to the church to reduce their time in purgatory rather than by repentance and good deeds* (pious bunch they were). One rather wealthy chap, they believe, paid for the vestments in 1468. Magnificent garments of Italian silk embroidered with 24 carat gold thread. They were used for a couple of centuries then hidden away from the marauding Oliver Cromwell. They were rediscovered in 1797 and are quite amazing. Not something I would fancy wearing, they must have been rather weighty to wear.
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Medieval Gold Cloth Vestments
Photo credit goes to the Medieval Museum - it was impossible to take photos in the low light |
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| There was a series of these lovely benches scattered around the city |
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| Part of the medieval fortifications along the old city wall |
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| Street art showing a once-common sight in town - a sedan chair |
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| Reginald's Tower - part of the original Viking fortifications |
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| A pub with a lunch menu? Too good to pass by! |
* Not being up with canon law, Kate did a little research and confirm that you can no longer buy your way out of purgatory. An "indulgence" granted full or partial remission of the punishment of sin and the debt of forgiven sin could be "repaid" through good works and charitable acts in this life. Around the 11th century, things went a little sideways and monetary payments could be made in lieu of good works to help one achieve eternal salvation. This continued until Pope Pius V abolished the practice in 1567.
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