Innocents Abroad

11 - Ballynahinch Castle, Connemara

Thursday, 12 May 1955

We leave Dublin, with friend B, at 9:30 AM for Murray’s Car Hire and check out in a tan 1955 Ford Anglia with right-hand drive. It’s a bit complicated getting used to it, particularly in knowing where to look for oncoming traffic and negotiating around roundabouts; rotaries to us. It’s cloudy and then it turns to rain as we pass many beautifully crafted signs with impeccable typography on stores and pubs. We also see tinkers’ wagons, gypsy caravans that look like beer barrels cut in half and attached to wheels. The tinker kids inside seem to all have red hair.  

Foliage and landscape lovely, the general level of poverty is sad to see. Cows and sheep block the way on well-paved asphalt roads. Cowherds and shepherds are polite and accommodating, to a man – or child as the case might be. Stopped for tea at the C.I.E. Hotel Great Southern in Galway, cold as a tomb. An American couple there looking disillusioned and seemed to be wishing they were home. 

 

Friday, May 13, 1955

We forge on through desolation and the rocky road to Ballynahinch Castle, recommended by Mr. Sheehy of Fogra Failte, where the accommodations are excellent! We were given a double room with bath, just over a kitchen so it was slightly warm (but not too comfortable, at least by American standards. We warmed ourselves up a bit with Irish whisky, sweet and palatable, and went on to enjoy seven exquisitely prepared and served courses that included an entrée of salmon that had been recently caught on a beat adjacent to the hotel. It was proudly displayed on a counter for all the guests to admire on their way into the dining room. 

 

Ballynahinch Castle is still accommodating guests who fish for salmon and visitors who do not. This May it would have cost us 190 Euros plus 10% gratuities for bed and breakfast. 50 years ago we paid $US 9.25 for our two Irish whiskies, bed and breakfast, and two fabulous dinners, including tips all around.

 

That's Ruth standing amidst the luxuriant growth on the castle grounds

12 - Ashford Castle, County Mayo

 

  

Friday, 13 May 1955

Walked around the grounds and island of Ballynahinch before our delicious breakfast. Left at 10 AM on a beautiful sunny morning. Got petrol in the garage of Ballynahinch Castle where a bespectacled and courteous young gentleman in a suit and tie worked an ingenious contraption that pumped a gallon at a time from two large glass bowls. The sketch shown here is only an approximation since it would have required a mechanical engineer to get it right. 

Drove to Roundtree on the advice of the British ladies we talked with last night. It was spectacular. The clouds alone were magnificent and in constant change. Donkeys and carts were always in the road which was piled on each side with mounds of peat. It was rugged country populated by friendly souls with whom we exchanged waves of acknowledgment as we drove past.  

 

We arrived at Ashford Castle, in Cong, at 2:30. This was an experience! The grounds and the interior were magnificent.

After tea, we drove off to see and investigate Ross Abbey in Headford, County Galway, where we climbed the old tower stepping on old birds’ nests and bracing ourselves against the waxy walls. 

As we dodged children, cows, chickens and kittens while driving away from where we had parked near the ruin, a woman caretaker declared, “The traffic gets pretty heavy here sometimes.” Click on the photos to enlarge them. We had a fabulous dinner at Ashford Castle that consisted of smoked salmon, cream of celery soup, Galway sole Orly, roast pork loin, two varieties of potato, cauliflower, strawberry souffle and coffee for ten and six, or US$ 1.47 at the rate of exchange. There were little flags on each table, mostly Stars and Stripes. After some dinner talk livelier than Ballynahinch, but mostly conservative. A loud American male voice vulgarly blamed Roosevelt for the downfall of the U.S. so we left them to themselves.

 

The scenery here in County Mayo more lush than rocky austere Galway. On the castle estate are giant evergreens, birches, and exotic gnarled trees, plus large hollies. Birds sang large choruses of melodies unknown to us. This is where director John Ford filmed the classic The Quiet Man with Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne. On the roads we see old women with black shawls, busy long-haired border collies worrying sheep into position on the left of the road so we can pass; shepherds on bikes, scared baby lambs running to their mothers’ sides.

13, 14 - Killarney - Cashel

Saturday, 14 May 1955

We left Ashford Castle under clear sunny skies but storm clouds inside the plucky little Anglia. B complained about the cold at breakfast of excellent smoked kippers. Ruth and I got another warmer room somehow. Everything is downhill after the splendor of the castles. These turned out to be the most elegant meals we had in all of Europe. That’s in seven months, not a couple of weeks. We stop for tea in Castle Island in a place that turns out to be dank and drab. 

We finally get to our destination, Killarney. The first hotel we consider is a letdown, looks and feels like a beachside fire trap and is cold as a tomb. A clean small guest house proves to be better but still cold. I swear they leave the doors open because it’s warmer outside. It’s where my fingers are so stiff from the cold that I have trouble signing the guest register. We meet Jackie and Leonard G, from San Francisco, who have spent the winter in Europe, he playing the famous golf courses and writing about them. He’s going back to the States to work on staff at Collier’s, a weekly magazine whose new editor, had been his boss at the S.F. Chronicle. We have a bad meal together at the International Hotel and talked of freelancing stuff to magazines. I saw his byline many times in many books later through the years following our chance meeting. We speak of the Irish coffee at the Buenavista in San Francisco with a degree of nostalgia, but apparently no one at the International has heard of Irish coffee. Our guest house doesn’t seem as cold upon our return but maybe it’s because we’ve had food and drink, even if we can see our breath in our room.

Sunday, 15 May 1955

Today’s scenery much more spectacular around Magillicuddy’s Reeks and the famous lakes of Killarney, though not up to that of Connemara. Had a delightful lunch at Victoria Hotel in Cork for five shillings and sixpence, which came as a surprise.  

 

Street scene in Castle Island on a Sunday afternoon

 

 Cormac’s castle in Cashel 

Black metal Celtic crosses with Gaelic legends mark the spot of ambushes where Irish nationalists were killed during the Troubles. Back in Dublin the Anchor Hotel has no vacancies so we are back at Wynne’s. Try again for Irish coffee and this time a wild-eyed night porter says he will bring us some Gaelic coffee. After about an hour he returns to the lounge with a long story about why it is quite impossible to arrange. Apparently.

15 - Return to Dublin

Monday, 16 May 1955

Two priests and a boy at Wynne’s for breakfast. One of the priests says, “This man will order for himself.” Kid grins from ear to ear. Returned the plucky little Ford Anglia at Murray’s Car-Hire where Mr. Russell, the manager, had my $50 traveler’s check cashed at a bank to give us the best rate of exchange. What a nice guy! Off with Ruth in the AM to buy tweeds for her and odd shopping. The lovely Sybil Connolly is there herself in her very haute couture boutique and too expensive for Ruth who loved everything (particularly the Connemara shawls and red petticoats) but said we couldn’t afford anything, we are already over budget. We have spent $170 so far and this is just the start of the trip. St. Stephen’s Green is a little green oasis in the middle of Dublin with a pond and gulls and lots of flowers.

A decent lunch at Bailey’s Restaurant is solemnly served by a young waiter assisted by a little boy in uniform. The waiters are all formally dressed but plaster is coming away from under the window sill, surfaces are painted and slightly clean but there's a hint of great dirt underneath. We find a cobbler in a shop that looks very Dickensian. He pounds what look like 10-penny nails into the delicate heels of Ruth's expensive shoes. 

When we meet for dinner, B. has a guidebook which recommends the Dolphin Restaurant. Nobody seems to know where it is but we found it, unfortunately, in a shabby part of Dublin. Our waiter has dried egg-yolk spills on his black trousers, sweaty edges on his bow tie. Our sauce Bernaise is curled up like an omelet. Maybe it’s what he’s wearing. B. tells us it will get worse in Italy. [It didn't.] Return to Wynne’s for some more Irish coffee. It helps cheer us up.

B. wants bookkeeping done immediately. How about that? In three columns no less and right away. She wants to pay her share of the expenses but she doesn’t have an accounting of what her meals cost and won’t settle for a third of the dollar amount. I quickly discover there is no way I can divide pounds, shillings and pence. (At Murray Car-Hire I notice that they must rely on a printed chart to determine costs and taxes.)

Order another Gaelic coffee and watch the townies who come in for a round or two. So ends this day, as the old ship’s logs say.

16 - Dublin to Belfast

Tuesday, 17 May 1955 

Walked over to University Hall to see the great stained glass windows by Evie Hone. Ruth knows all about things like this and I haven’t a clue. She’s carrying a heavy handbag she made of the same material with which she reupholstered the front seat of our 1949 Ford convertible.

Ruth and our car she reupholstered

It seems as heavy as the car seat was to carry into the house. We take turns lugging it. At Trinity College we climb battered stairs in a dingy building with a striking barreled ceiling to see the famous Book of Kells. This is a scan from a postcard we bought there, The Arrest of Christ, from the late 8th century.

Ruth ventured into the imposing National Bank of Ireland to get a shiny, brand new Irish penny. (All the coins are beautifully designed. Irish pennies are supposed to bring luck.)
She’s assisted by a huge guy dressed up in a red coachman’s outfit with a top hat and a red waistcoat. Back to Wynne’s Hotel for tea with B who tells us she climbed to the top of the O’Connell monument. Ruth describes the guy in the bank who seems right out of Dickens. I’ve got mixed feelings about tea and the limp little crust-less sandwiches, though Irish bread is superior to spongy so-called American bread back home. We cab to Dublin’s Amiens Street train station with all our bags jammed into another old American-made taxi from a junk yard and catch the 5:30 PM Enterprise of the Great Northern Railway to Belfast.  Arrive Belfast city limits and see people in white playing tennis and cricket from the train window. The train stops and we see a factory town but it appears much cleaner than cities in the south. Everything seems better organized. We get in a spick-and-span shiny taxi for a change, the driver in livery. The ferry we are sailing the Irish Sea is Royal Scotsman, bound for Glasgow. It’s an overnight passage and contrary to what we were led to expect, it’s a smooth journey. We have an ell-shaped cabin, with B. next door. Cooks Travel office sold us saloon-class tickets so we have a problem spending the evening with Jack, one of our friends from the Ryndam whom we discovered on board because he's in steerage. We have fish and chips and ice cream with him in his steerage-class dining room. His fellow passengers look to be very poor. Later we sneak Jack upstairs to saloon-class territory for catch up chat and some drinks.

Sonny, Mum and Dad on the Irish Sea ferry

17 - Edinburgh

Wednesday, 18 May 1955

B. sounds reveille at 7:30. We’re all beat from a bad night’s sleep. The towels supplied in our alleged state room (saloon-class as it were) seem to be dirtier than rags that gas stations in the US use to check your oil. We lug our gear off the ferry and catch another well-turned-out taxi to Glasgow’s railroad station and the morning train to Edinburgh.

We arrive at 9:40 AM after a dreary ride through factory areas and urban blight. Check the bags at the station and go over to American Express for suggestions where we can find good bed-and-breakfast accommodations. We’re sent to a Mrs. W.but the clerk doesn’t make the address clear. After several unsuccessful attempts by various trams, we get there with the kind help of our fellow passengers. They are “vairy ‘elpful.” The Scots way of speaking English is delightful. We love the way they say, “rrrrrrright ye are,” and “doan ye noooit.”

Edinburgh reminds us a bit of Boston, has an air of gentility but not a whole lot of it.

It’s very gray and gingerbread-y with granite and brick and jig-sawed wood trim. It’s not small-town and Georgian as Dublin was, and the weather is cold and raw.

Mrs. W’s is a steep walk-up tomb near the university. It’s crummy and no bargain, but we take it. We rush back into town to buy some warm sweaters and socks. Shops on the whole appear pretty dumpy and the sales people kind but not too helpful.

We have lunch in a department store restaurant which is crowded and a good sign. Sit with a couple of Scots ladies who are very friendly. One suggests we take a trip to Oban, a charming fishing port in the Highlands. Then the biggest hailstones we’ve ever seen come crashing down as we leave for our digs.

Mrs. W. blames them on our A-bomb experiments.

We have dinner at the Brown Derby, recommended by a fellow guest. It’s also cold and clammy but the meals are adequate. Ruth got a look at the cook, says it’s a good thing that I didn’t. Apparently his apron was as dirty as a coal man’s overalls.

Uniforms are everywhere to be seen in Edinburgh. The drawing is that of a bank messenger. He is wearing a military cap with visor protected by what appeared to be a refrigerator bowl cover. He wore campaign ribbons from service in World War II and hash marks denoting years of service below a sergean's stripes. He wore white gloves and slung a shiny leather bag from one shoulder. His hob-nailed boots thundered along the sidewalk as he marched with arms flailing in a most military manner. The look was one of urgency and grim determination.

We got the hell out of his way.

18 - Edinburgh

Thursday, 19 May 1955

What cold! Our breath is visible and in cloud formations even though the sun is shining outdoors. Ruth has the sniffles and a sore throat. 

A gong resounds throughout announcing breakfast. Bongggggg! We both exclaim, “Terry - and - the - Pirates,” in the voice of a radio announcer from our past. And what breakfast it is! limp corn flakes that must have been set out the night before, cold fried bacon swimming in fat that smells like machine oil, and a lukewarm rubbery egg. If you don’t make it exactly at gong time, you miss out on the first course as Ruth did. In with all the fat are fried slices of bread. Tea is the only beverage. Yack! This is a tour bus day [proved to be our last of the trip].

We take Tour no. 26: Abbotsford, Melrose and Dryburgh Abbey, and Bemrsyde, home of Field Marshall Haig, of World War I fame, or infamy, depending upon how you feel about his role in the slaughter. In Haig’s home, the first stop, it was so cold it seemed unbearable to me. No one else seemed to mind. Ruth and I huddle around a small electric heater while the gang of visitors tramps upstairs to observe mostly World War I relics and memorabilia. Sir Walter Scott is buried at Dryburgh Abbey. It has oak beams and white  walls. The gardens are beautiful. Border collies are all business sneaking up on sheep, crawling on their bellies and rushing to and fro, so very efficient and working a lot harder it would seem than the shepherds who whistle at them.

 

Melrose Abbey is larger but not as attractive with gardens and a greenhouse across the street. We didn’t go into Scott’s home at Abbotsford, preferring to sit in the bus with sun pouring in the windows creating a warm greenhouse climate. 
At Dryburgh we had lunch in a nasty cold tea shop. It felt like sitting around at home in November with the heat off and all the doors open. No thanks. Dinner at the Brown Derby again. Mrs. W. shoos us up to bed at 10:30 reminding us that we had forgotten to shut off the lights last night. “The police will be after us for leaving the lights on!” she announces.  

Two old men are also staying there, one with a horrible cough, the other crippled with arthritis. He grabs me and croaks, “There's too much heat in America! Central heating is no good for your health.” And just after we had been saying to each other how nice it would be for an old guy in his condition to get out of this horrible climate.

19 - Oban, Scotland

 Friday, 20 May 1955

We leave Edinburgh for Glasgow on a service bus. A very kind and helpful conductor took care of our baggage for us. We checked the bags at the bus station at noon, bought a scarf and gloves. Glasgow appears to move a lot faster than Edinburgh but it’s a huge slum. Ruth’s knee socks are objects of much interest, lots of staring at two uncomfortably cold young Americans. The local kids in skirts and short pants have bright red knees that match their fiery cheeks. 

We lunch at Prince’s Restaurant. A nattily attired local at the next table industriously digs into each nostril as he reads The Times. I think of anglophiles back home who will be certain that I am lying about this. A nice old gardener opened the gates to the park next to the agricultural school so we sat on a bench and ate South African apples we had bought nearby. Two buses leave for Oban, with mostly hikers among the passengers. We’re the only Americans. It’s raining and the bus leaks. The scenery is beautiful as we pass the Firth and what seems like the entire British navy, including carriers and battleships, tied up in the Clyde. It’s very strange to see shipyards with their cranes and dry docks on one side of the road and farms and cottages of the workers on the other. We travel north through the Lochs and the scenery gets really wild. In the Highlands the weather closes in, bleak and severe, which is probably why all the cattle have stringy long hair. Snow begins to fall even if it is the end of May.

A considerable amount of hail follows but our cute little conductorette keeps smiling through it all, opening doors for passengers who run for the bus from the most obscure places. Upon entering Oban we spot a nice bed-and-breakfast place and hike over to it from the bus stop. Mrs. Robertson’s Eskdale turns out to be everything that Mrs. W’s wasn’t. It is spotless and pleasant. We have a warm room over the kitchen, B&B plus tea for three nights, and it is only $US 10.50 for the two of us. And the other guests are friendly as well. Two young women from Rhodesia describe the turmoil there and imminent threat of civil strife. Very sobering stuff.

20 - Oban, Scotland

 
 
  Saturday, 21 May 1955

Didn’t get up for an early morning stroll which we had planned because the bed was so comfortable that we slept in. A good breakfast for a change. The weather is still sunny but cold, with intermittent showers. The townies can’t get over Ruth’s knee socks so she has stopped wearing them. There are mostly old folks vacationing here, no Americans visible. Quite a large fishing industry here, the sky is full of gulls hovering about the boats tied up at the pier. Steamer trips returning from Iona. All the Brit types are represented. Old men and young women with kids in shorts and Eton suits, dads in tweedy caps and plus-fours. (I dare not say knickers because that’s what women’s underpants are called.) The moms are homely and devoid of make-up, just well-scrubbed. Except for Ruth I haven’t seen a good looking female since we left Ireland. Lots of big English cars in Oban, not everyone is hurting. Had dinner at the Columbia Hotel where the well-kept Brits stare at Ruth in a rude manner. We must be an oddity, they can’t be this oafish all the time. Having a few pounds hasn’t done much for their manners, or their appearance.

21 - Oban, Scotland

Sunday, 22 May 1955

A terrible day for weather, rainy and cold. Caught up on our reading and correspondence. Dinner at the Argyll Hotel. Roast chicken is quite good. Boorish English guests back at Mrs. Robertson’s. Glaring at us and yawning out loud, then persisting in conversing with us so they could recite their laundry list of all the things wrong with our country. On the other hand, an older English couple who had ridden in on a motorbike (despite the nasty weather) were very pleasant.  

Right! 'Ere's the toff and his missus, as we encountered them. No hesitation at all in enlightening us with what was wrong with the U.S.A. Or the Irish, Scots (who wanted their damn Stone of Scones back, Jews, Italians, those froggies across the Channel; damned Bolshies, Atlee and Labor; and the Americans who come over with more money than brains or good taste, and wot? Jolly good, I say. Let's have another round! Where did you say you were from?

[Apologia] In their experience we came late to a war in which they had greatly suffered.

Moreover, ten years had past and their food was still being rationed. They had restricted funds -- if any -- for travel.  We must have been a source of great irritation.