Kinsale, Ireland
by Keith Kellett
I think Desmond Castle is the first one I ever visited that stood, not on the top of a hill, or in beautiful gardens, but in a street of houses. It dates from around the late 15th/early 16th Century, and is, actually, a ‘fortified tower house’, with spacious store-rooms.
When the castle was built, Kinsale was a busy port, doing much trade with the Continent, and King Henry VII had granted Maurice Fitzgerald, Earl of Desmond the right to impose a levy on incoming cargoes … especially wine! For this reason, Desmond Castle had the alternative name of the Custom House. The Desmonds rebelled against the Crown in the late 16th Century, so lost this right, along with their lands. Shortly afterwards, the castle figured in what was to become known as the Nine Years War.
England had been claiming sovereignty over Ireland since the 12th Century, but it wasn’t till the 16th Century that measures began to be seriously taken to this end. The Irish, naturally, wanted none of it, and their rebellion escalated to an all-out war. King Felipe III of Spain saw an opportunity here to take a little payback for the defeat of the Spanish Armada earlier, as well as a chance to divert English forces from the Continent, especially the Netherlands, which was engaged in a long rebellion against Spanish rule.
He sent men and materials to Kinsale. They landed there in October 1601, where they fought valiantly in defense of the town against English forces. Eventually, though, they had to surrender, and were honourably treated, and allowed to return to Spain with their colours still flying.
At this time, it is believed that the castle was used as a powder magazine by the Spanish, but following their defeat, was used as a Custom House again.
In the 17th and 18th Centuries, the castle was used as a prison for Spanish and French PoWs during a succession of Continental wars. It even housed a few American prisoners from the War of Independence. In between wars, it was used to house ‘home grown’ felons, until the 1840s, when it became a Famine Relief Centre and a workhouse, then used for various military purposes until it fell into disuse.
Now in the care of the Office of Public Works, it’s home to … the International Wine Museum!
An American travel writer once told me that Ireland only has one vineyard, which she visited some years back. I shan’t repeat her opinion of the wine, for I’ve never had any, so can’t say whether I agree with her or not.
The Wine Museum mainly commemorates the fact that, over the years, there’s been much emigration from Ireland, fleeing from unsuccessful rebellions, famines or just in search of a better life. These emigrants were often shown as ‘wild geese’ on ships’ manifests, so that the shipowners who carried them avoided displeasure at a practice which was officially frowned upon, if not illegal. So, they became known by this name.
Some of these emigrant families either established vineyards or otherwise engaged themselves in the wine trade … the name of Hennesey is probably the most familiar … thus were dubbed the ‘Wine Geese’
In most places where wine is made, even today, there’s at least one family of Irish descent there … and all are commemorated in this museum.
Cobh Shore Excursion: Blarney Castle, Cork City and Kinsale Private Tour
If You Go:
Kinsale is on the Irish coast, about 12 miles south of the city of Cork. It has no railway station, so, if you don’t have a car, the only practicable way to reach it is by taxi or bus from there.
However, Cork does have an airport, which can be reached from most airports in Ireland, and some in the United Kingdom and Europe. (www.corkairport.com)
It is also possible to get to Cork by rail (www.irishrail.ie) or long-distance bus (http://www.buseireann.ie) Accommodation of all kinds is plentiful. This can be arranged through the Tourist Office kinsaletio@failteireland.ie or telephone (+353)(0)21 4772234. Information at www.discoverireland.ie.
Desmond Castle: Cork Street, Kinsale. Tel: (+353)(0)21 4774855 email desmondcastle@opw.ie Admission charge (2011) €3.The castle is in the care of the Office of Public Works, and, if you wish to visit a number of their sites in Ireland, you might consider buying their Heritage Card (2011 price: €21) Details at www.heritageireland.ie
About the author:
Having written as a hobby for many years while serving in the Royal Air Force, Keith Kellett saw no reason to discontinue his hobby when he retired. With time on his hands, he produced more work, and found, to his surprise, it ‘grew and grew’ and was good enough to finance his other hobbies; traveling, photography and computers. He is trying hard to prevent it from becoming a full-time job! He has published in many UK and overseas print magazines, and on the Web. He is presently trying to get his head around blogging, podcasting and video. keith-kellett@tinyworld.co.uk
All photos are by Keith Kellett.
Leave the theatre and cross the Piazza del Plebicito to the Church of San Francesco di Paola. Its design is based on that of the Pantheon in Rome. At 53 meters in height, the dome is 10 meters higher than its Roman counterpart. While the San Francesco oculus is covered, the Pantheon’s is not. The white marble church interior features thirty two Corinthian columns circling the perimeter and an altar inlaid with lapis lazuli and precious stones.
Returning to the Piazza del Plebicito, cross the Via San Carlo to the 19th century Galleria Umberto I. The refined galleria is an octagonal structure, enclosed under a glass and iron dome. Stylish shops and businesses fill this indoor mall.
After lunch, ride the Funicalare Centrale back down to the bottom and follow Via Toledo through the heart of old Napoli – the Spaccanapoli district. Naples earns its reputation from these chaotic, unkept streets. Common sights include laundry hanging from balconies above the colorful shops and street vendors hawking goods with their operatic voices and theatrical gestures. Enjoy some window shopping as you walk between tightly parked cars and dodge oncoming vespas on your way to the National Museum of Archeology.
After passing your afternoon at the museum, continue your tour at the 14th century Gothic Duomo. Displayed within the Chapel of San Gennaro, a silver reliquary bust of the saint holds his skull and two vials of his congealed blood. Tradition holds that if this blood fails to liquefy on each of three festival days during the year (the first Saturday in May, September 19 and December 16), disaster will strike the city. Remember that Mount Vesuvius is a short distance from Naples.
Dinner time is likely upon you as you walk back to the train station. And this is your opportunity to enjoy original Neapolitan pizza. At the train station, board the R2 bus and experience a genuine Neapolitan traffic jam as you ride to the first stop on the route. Exit the bus and walk through the maze to L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele.
We started in Dublin, where Grafton Street has become a pedestrian mall. On any afternoon or evening, here we encountered a carnival atmosphere: people going both ways in streams or else standing in circles, entranced by one of the jugglers, musicians, comedians, or acrobats. At the foot of Grafton, we had no trouble finding the risque statue of that fictional fishmonger Molly Malone. The locals call it “the tart with the cart.” Turns out every statue and even the new Spire has a nickname, though most are unprintable.
Dublin is a writers’ city. Ireland has a population of just over six million, combined north-south, yet four Irish authors have won the Nobel Prize: William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney. We started at the Dublin Writers Museum to get a feel for the tradition, and then walked down the hill to the James Joyce Centre, and went on one of the numerous Dubliners walk.
The stone buildings here date from 500 A.D., when a monk called Saint Kevin settled into a cave and spent seven years wearing animal skins and communing with birds and small mammals. Walking along the lake to the ruins is half the fun, as one of the glories of Glendalough is its situation between two picturesque lakes in a forested valley. You can see why Saint Kevin chose this spot to go hermit, and also why throngs of fellow monks turned up and put an end to his solitude.
Directly ahead, one hour and twenty minutes away, you find one of the world’s great drives: the Ring of Kerry. From Killarney, the road takes you past abbeys, castles, and picturesque cottages, and offers fantastic views of cliffs and ocean. You can’t miss the dramatic 
The town of Dingle, just over an hour from Killarney, is colourful, bustling, and sophisticated enough to have charmed such visitors as Paul Simon, Dolly Parton and Julia Roberts. We strolled the winding, hilly streets lined with craft shops, restaurants, and pubs. Deidre’s Cafe on Orchard Lane serves a superb seafood chowder with brown bread, and the jam-covered scones aren’t bad either. Dingle harbour is home to Fungie the Dolphin, and if you get onto the water for a short cruise, he will probably turn up to cavort alongside your boat. Really.
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by Jane Parlane
The bus back dropped us at the Piazza Indipendenza, the site of one of Europe’s most beautiful castles. The Royal Palace of Palermo, dating from the ninth century for many centuries housed Sicily’s rulers and even today it’s the seat of regional government. Local politicians are lucky enough to govern from such an architectural gem with its beautiful mosaics, painted roof and marble walls.
In our rental car it was an easy one-hour drive east to Cefalu, originally a fishing port. Now it’s an attractive cobblestoned tourist town with a sandy beach – not completely lined with recliners. Our accommodation was in an old stone house just a minute from the cathedral and main square. It was easy to find a restaurant table overlooking the sea and over a chilled Sicilian wine watch the bright pink sunset explode while families paraded past.
Taormina has many bars where you can sip a Marsala or Campari martini and just people watch. Most evenings you’ll see Sicilians decked out in their finery strutting the streets. Alternatively book an opera or concert at the Ancient Theatre dating from Greek and Roman times – sadly the opera was cancelled during our stay. But the swordfish at a trattoria washed down by a local wine and tiramisu to follow eased the pain.
It was an easy day trip the next day to the ancient limestone towns of Modica, Ragusa and Noto, the latter famously rebuilt in 18th century in the baroque style after an earthquake destroyed the town in 1693.
Our final destination for the day was Agrigento, famous for its Valley of the Temples. It was exhilarating to look out of our hotel window and see Greek temples standing there. This once ancient city, Akragus, was dominated by seven great Doric Greek temples built in the sixth and seventh centuries BC. Today several are still wonderfully preserved making the area one of the world’s most important archeological sites. It’s easy to spend two hours with a guide wandering the site, especially in late afternoon when the sun lights up the temples. A bonus for us was the spectacular exhibition by world-renowned Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj cleverly placed among the ancient structures.
It was an easy drive on the autoroute to catch our flight from Palermo airport the next morning – just over an hour.
My wife Annie and I are enjoying an eye-opening Alpine sojourn as guests of dear old friends, Margit and Andres, health care professionals who live in Graubuenden but have stayed with us in Canada several times. When not having to work, they drive us around, and we make side trips on our own by train. We had expected beautiful mountain scenery, postcard-perfect towns and a prosperous land of clean efficiency, where the predominant German and French-speaking populations get along. But we had never imagined the full diversity of the rich Swiss cultural tapestry, the quirky and endearing coexistence of the traditional and modern, and the way history is cherished and kept alive.
She takes us to three impressive 13th to 15th century castles that dominate Bellinzona, built by the dukes of Milan to command a strategic river valley and to tax trade along the passes leading northward. Montebello castle, high on a slope, hosts an annual medieval festival, with jousting, period costumes, and roast pig eaten without cutlery from wooden bowls.
Our destination is Poschiavo, an enchanting village in another isolated Italian-speaking region that is part of Graubuenden itself. We stay at the historic Albrici hotel, built in the 17th century and run for 150 years by the same family. The 10 bedrooms feature antique furniture but no phones, TV or other electronics. We dine outside on the cobblestone piazza, which is bracketed by two ancient churches. The owner recommends some regional main dishes. I enjoy flavourful buckwheat noodles in a creamy sauce, garnished with a skewer of endive and slices of salami. Annie savours the tasty spinach dumplings (gnocchi) with melted cheese, similarly garnished.
Even the larger central Swiss cities offer an intriguing mix of old and new. In Zurich, our hotel abuts the beautifully maintained old town. Its narrow streets are lined with medieval towers and intersect at ornate fountains featuring sculptures. We indulge in sweets at an elegant 19th century pastry shop but also take the funicular up to see the renowned technical institute just above, where Albert Einstein got his doctorate. In Lucerne, we walk the massive old city walls and cross the landmark 14th century covered bridge. But we also ride a spectacular cog railway (the world’s steepest) up 2,132 metre Mt. Pilatus, where an ultra-modern hotel adjoins a much older one, and watch a paraglider lift off and drift away on the thermals.
Even within the Swiss-German majority population, we discover, there are minority subcultures. Our friend Andres turns out to be a Walser, the proud member of an alpine tribe that numbers about 20,000 in Switzerland and has sizable communities in neighbouring Italy, Liechtenstein and Austria as well. They trace their history back to the south-central canton of Wallis and an outward migration that began in the 13th century. Historians debate whether the cause was overpopulation, or feudal politics, or possibly the plague. Those who moved northeastward into Graubuenden and beyond were attracted by empty high-elevation lands to settle and privileges offered to them by feudal lords in exchange for doing military service, notably patrolling and controlling the crucial mountain passes.
Andres regales us with stories of his upbringing in the 1960s and 1970s on a subsistence farm high in the Praettigau Valley, just east of Graubuenden’s charming capital city of Chur, where he now works. Like his neighbours, his family had only a few cows, which he helped to feed and milk in winter; in summer they were moved up to higher grazing pastures. A few men from the hamlet tended everyone’s cows, milking them collectively and making cheese every day. The cheese was brought down in autumn and divided up, a festive event that remains an annual celebration. Each family also had a vegetable garden and perhaps a pig, chickens and rabbits. Yet they eked out a livelihood. Andres hiked, or sledded in winter, down to school in the larger village below. He and Margit drive us up switchback roads to a scenic Walser village, Tenna, with a population of around 100 overlooking the Safien valley. There is a two-room school, a cheese-making shop, and a church dating to 1524. The gravestones record only a handful of family names, generation after generation. Houses have huge stacks of firewood and tiny outbuildings that are actually ovens for baking bread. Cows and sheep graze nearby; in May, they have not yet been moved to higher slopes. The weather is sunny and warm, perfect for lunch on an outdoor hotel terrace. We try the barley soup, grilled mushrooms on bread, and local hard cider. Andres greets an elderly couple, who immediately recognize his dialect. You must be from Praettigau, they say, and they are too. They even knew his late parents, but have retired to this distant, yet also Walser, village.
Another evening, Margit and Andres take us to a concert at a pub high in the Praettigau valley, where Andres grew up, in a village with stunning Alpine architecture where one of his sisters now lives. He is the only one of five siblings who has left the valley, although he has not moved very far. Between songs, the band tells jokes in Walser German. Andres laughs along, but Margit, who was raised in Germany and is totally familiar with mainstream Swiss German, can hardly make out a word. But if we were expecting Tirolean um-pa-pa tunes, we were mistaken. The popular local trio—they have performed 1000 times over 20 years—treats us to to an eclectic display of world music: klezmer, gypsy, tango, blues, Celtic, on a bevy of instruments. Andres’ sister tells us that she is leaving in the morning for a cycling trip in Ireland. Everyone is from the valley, but they all seem well educated and most speak remarkably good English. This is 21st century Switzerland. They may be locals, but they are by no means yokels.
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