Well today is the day you’ve all been waiting for – The Pubs!
But let me work up to that.
I have not been doing as well as I thought I was. This is the 11th day I’m here and it is also the first time I saw this huge anchor in the even more huge porthole along the stairway that I’ve gone up and down several times each day. I finally picked my head up!
Later, Patricia took me for a walk up to the Statue of St. Patrick on The Reek. The Reek is the name of the mountain, Croagh Patrick, to the locals, and it means a triangular shape. When cut turf is set up to dry before bringing home, it is set up in a triangle called a reek too.
We drove from Westport, through Belclare, which I believe is a part of Murrisk, where Grace O’Malley, our Gráinne, was born. It’s the likely place where Gráinne’s father was living and ruling at the time of her return to O’Malley territory after her first husband’s death.
There’s nothing there now to mark where the castle – or more likely, another Tower House – was. But the view of Croagh Patrick above Murrisk is worth a moment.
If you’re wondering how I keep all this straight, it’s through the magic of AI (That’s Artificial Intelligence, or Al (short for Allen) to my friend Katie). My friend Chris, software engineer extraordinaire, is a man whose integrity I respect enough (a high bar) to take his advice to try using AI to help me organize and track the 600 pages of research I had to begin with, and then add what I’m learning on the trip and more.
The tools create Working Documents in Word and then track everything in Excel, like this. (I don’t expect you to read the photo, just seeing it will send you for another cup of tea.) There are 22 Sheets in the Workbook. I don’t touch them. I only use it to look up stuff (That’s the scientific term for crazy small details.) It keeps track of the sources and the dependability of the sources for the info that I have not experienced myself. It also has a list of questions called Scholarly Dialogue for when I meet with people.
Anyway, that triangular, pointed mountain is Croagh Patrick, the Reek, or the Mount of Eagles depending on what era you’re in and where you’re coming from. And, this is where things get steep.
I wanted to get to higher ground in Murrisk so that I could see the islands in Clew Bay, like I see in photographs from the top of the Reek, which I know better than to even think of climbing. It takes a fit person close to four hours to go up and back down, and I am not fit.
“Would you like to walk up to the Statue,” Patricia asks. She thinks it’s possible. When we get there, I wonder.
The first video[1] is from the Statue looking down into Clew Bay where you can see the islands. It’s a much more intimate scale than I understood from the photos on the internet.
The second video[2] is looking up to the top of the Reek. That stony road is the way people hike, not the smooth stairs we climbed just to the Statue. It used to be that on Reek Sunday, the last Sunday in July, as many as 120-150,000 religious people would climb the mountain. There’s a chapel at the top for Mass. I have no record of Gráinne climbing this mountain, but I love the scene below.
Some people crawled up on their knees for penance. I hope they did something worthy of the atonement.
The final video[3] was for myself – just a moment to appreciate the sky, the land pushed up by some giant in the center of the earth, and the absolute beauty of this O’Malley, and my family, place.
Now, you may be wondering will we ever get to the pub?! Indeed we shall!
First up is Moran’s Pub.[1] [2] It’s about as big as Terapin Bakery in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, OH, which is to say quite small, and with the old wood walls. You can feel the same caring in the room there, too.
You come here for a quick grocery stop, but mostly to check in with the barkeeper and your friends. You can hear yourself think. Patricia and I compared notes about our lives and friends.[3] I would like living here with them. And she would like mine. She also made a lot more notes, as you can see here, about places to show me and people to meet. I’m telling you, if you ever come to Westport – or just go ahead and make a plan to come – get with Patricia. She dives into what you are interested in and adds her own interests and the result is rich and full.
Then on to the famous Matt Malloy’s. Very fun. Very packed. Very energetic. Everyone, literally everyone, keeps the beat. There’s no Bodhran keeping rhythm for ye.
Here are the videos:
It’s probably true, with all those people climbing the Reek on their knees, that Ireland is the land of Saints and Scholars. But it is also a land of Angels. Patricia had barely dropped me off when she sent this photo taken for me by one of her friends.
These posts do build on information included in earlier posts. If you would like to read them in order from the beginning, here is a link: https://thegrainneproject.com/260809-2/
[1] In Westport, this name is pronounced, MORE-ns.
[2] This photo is from DavidL120584 on Trip Advisor
[3] https://youtube.com/shorts/SfwIoX8tO_I?feature=share
[1] https://youtube.com/shorts/NZTZ2v5kJ1s?feature=share
[2] https://youtube.com/shorts/QjatB39RWlA
[3] I’m not sure if you can see the differences in the text when I’ve added a hyperlink. For this video, here is the direct link: https://youtube.com/shorts/fLDY01PwBNo?feature=share