Ramble
Quest - Rainbow Over the Rock (Cashel, Cork, Cahir).
The Rock of Cashel in County Tipperary, perched above the town of Cashel, is one of those spectacular travel sights that doesn't seem real when you look at it. I relish its mysterous feel, delaying a visit for a day and a half while I examine the small but pleasant town. I bunk at the Cashel Holiday Hostel, which is quite good.
From below, the Rock of Cashel looks like the imposing fortress that it once was, and you forget that it's a ruin until you get inside. St Patrick visited to baptise a king in the 5th century and it later contained an important medievel cathedral. Today, the winds howl through the limestone remains and birds perch in Cormac's Chapel. While it's certainly more thrilling from below, I very much enjoy the visit inside. The views out over the town and plains from the surrounding cemetery are marvelous.
The ruins of Hore Abbey can be seen from up on the Rock, so I take a short walk down and then through a field to get a closer look. It's all very nice. I randomly start winding my way back towards the town, often stopping to look back at the Rock, which draws my eyes like a magnet. Then I turn to see one of those truly memorable travel sights, one of those magic moments that gets photographed in your mind forever, because it is wonderful, but even more so because it is unexpected and spontaneous. I see a full rainbow over the rock! The Rock of Cashel is perfectly framed under a glorious rainbow and only for perhaps 10 seconds. I know it sounds funny to state that such a brief and seemingly insignificant moment was uplifting, but it truly was.
I spend about half a day in the nearby, somewhat larger town of Cahir, mostly to visit the castle there. I wound up visiting many castle ruins in Ireland, many of which are hardly worth a mention, but Cahir Castle is one of the better preserved ones. Parts of the movie "Excalibur" were filmed here. They do a good job of relating the 13-15 century history of the castle, going into great detail of the siege by the Earl of Essex.
A funny thing happens to me on the way to Cork city, but first I'll jump ahead to say that I spent a day walking around Cork and it's a fine city, with interesting building and a bustling feel, but I don't stay because I'm just not in the mood for cities at the moment. I take a very crowded bus there, and right from the moment I board, the driver is continuously berating an obnoxious drunk sitting near the front. I find it a bit sad in a way, but I seem to be the only one, as every one around me on the bus finds it quite amusing.
The sad part, to me, is that I seemed to run into these stereotypical drunks all too often in Ireland. They were older guys with large bellies, badly dressed (some with ropes for belts!) and smelly like a bum, and they all carried a liquor bottle in one hand and a cane in the other, and they all seemed to be bursting out in boisterous song or continually babbling on in drunk-speak. No doubt you've seen these guys in older, non-pc films, but surprisingly they seemed common enough. OK, so ignoring the tragic aspect of this guy, there's plenty of comedy involved with him as well, especially since the driver is so incensed with him and all my fellow passengers are amused.
An older woman sitting next to me wickedly instigates an idea to a trio of young toughs standing in the aisle to get the drunk off the bus. As an aside, I'll note that it says something about the gregarious nature of the Irish when you see an old lady, even a wicked old lady, get into jovial conversation with three young toughs on a public bus. The idea she plants is to persuade the drunk that we've arrived at Cork city, as the drunk keeps popping out of his seat at every stop, asking everyone if this is Cork. Never mind that Cork is the final destination of the bus and that all of the stops on the way are small cities that no one, even me who has yet to see Cork, could possibly mistake for Cork city! You can never underestimate the effects of severe inebriation! They actually do manage to persuade the drunk that a stop is Cork: "look, there's the river", followed by laughter. He gets off, and everyone on the bus, including the driver (and I might add myself, who despite feeling sorry for the drunk didn't do anything to stop the situation)lets him go. At my final sight of him, he's wobbling down the street, waving the cane and the long empty liquor bottle, asking for directions.