The short cut to church on Cape Clear and goat cheese

We headed up the road indicated by Archie. Maureen asked What is a turnstile? and I happened to know so explained that it was like a small wooden or stone ladder or stepping stool on both sides over a fence so people could come and go without opening and closing gates but cattle or horses could not. It would be my first turnstile so I was excited.

As we walked along we saw to our right off in the distance what we thought was a castle and maybe a lighthouse.

I knew that I would be walking over there before leaving the island. We passed two houses on the left that were not yellow but about 100 yards later the next house was yellowish. We went past and looked for the turnstile but it was not there.

Concerned that we had

misunderstood our excellent directions we did continue on down the road discussing the giving of directions in Ireland. We saw a house on the left up on the hill about 100 yards away from the

road that was yellow but thought why would they put the

post office so far away from the road.

We persevered and went the 200 feet past its road and low and behold there was a turnstile!

It was a charming turnstile, small and efficient and we were over the wall in no time. The path that we had to follow was good but narrow and parts were covered by some pokey, prickly, bushy plants. We did not see the bull or any cattle at all for that matter so we thought Archie was kidding.

Over the first hill we did see goats.

Over the next rise we saw the other side of the island and the church. When we arrived, with minutes to spare, Maureen went in and I went down the road to see if I could find the Goat cheese place I had seen a sign for.

Now we were on the other side of the island and there was a strong breeze off of the ocean or the channel and even though the sun was beating down on us there was no fear of overheating.

Cape Clear Island is the southern most tip of Ireland and has a warmer climate that the rest of the country. It is gaeltacht which means that Irish is the first and main language spoken. With its long history there are lots of historic sights to see and is a great place for bird watchers too. Something for everyone. But right now I was on the hunt for cheese.

I proceeded down the road and wondered how much some of the old stone houses would cost to buy and for some how much would they cost to fix. the views were marvelous. I walked for about 10 minutes and met a young girl walking down the road who, when I asked, told me it was just down the road. I kept going and eventually came to the house with the sign that said Goat cheese and Ice cream.

At first I went to wrong door. There were a few men sitting at a table inside and one gentleman came to the door and told me that the store was on the other side of the house so I went up and around to the other side of the house. When I got there I knocked on the door the same gentleman who had told me to come to this door came to take care of me. He had his dog with him a beautiful big german shepherd.

I thought he was blind as when I asked for the cheese he felt his way to the freezer. I picked out some post cards with goats on them that he pointed out were not available anywhere else as they were his goats. The young girl who had given me directions showed up and helped with the change. With my cheese purchases safe in hand, I was not brave enough to try the goat milk ice cream, I went back to the church to meet Maureen.

By the time I got there The mass only had another 5 minutes to go so I did not have to wait a long time. Maureen told me the mass was in Irish but the priest must have known she did not understand because he did throw a little english in. the church was simple and lovely and pink. My favorite church window in Ireland was here. It was stunning in its simplicity. We stayed for awhile enjoying the quiet.

We decided to follow the road back into "town" to see what we could see.

Downtown Cape Clear Island

Upon departing from the small ferry we were greeted by the Cape Clear bus driver who offered to take us or if we wanted to walk, just drop our luggage off at the hostel for 2 euros. Maureen said yes without reservation. I had reservations. What if our things got lost? That would be sad. How far was it to walk? Where the heck were we going? In the end I agreed and we loaded our small bags onto the bus which is actually a van and we explored downtown Cape Clear Island. The first thing you see of course is the dock. This runs into a smallish road and brings you past St Kieran's Well and Holy site where his hand print is in the rock and he had a well. It is marvelous. Every where you go in Ireland there is another new saint that you have never heard of. St Kieran was born on the island in the 4th century. How long has this island been populated? Just a little farther around the bay and down the road was the Store on the main floor and social club upstairs. Outside the grocery/liquor/hardware and cafe store were picnic tables that were at the moment full of people getting ready to either depart the island or go exploring it.

The Island has a year round population of about 120

with the summer months bringing tourists who might be only day visitors or who might be staying for a while. Today there were a few but it was not too bad. Our next stop was the gift shop where we purchased postcards of course.

Continuing up the road past the smallest mailbox I had ever seen, about one foot tall by 8 inches deep, was Cotter's pub and restaurant.

A little further on up a steep narrow road was a most charming building with green windows. I found out that long ago they had a 'window tax' in Ireland and the bigger the window the higher the tax. That explains why there are so many buildings with small windows.

About five minutes further down the road was O'Driscolls pub

and restaurant and about five minutes further was a great view of the bay on other side of the island.

The road that we had just walked was the narrowest point on the island in between the two bays. the whole island is only about three miles long and one and a half miles wide.

It was a lovely hot walk as the sun was out and we were sheltered from the wind.

The hostel that we we staying at was just over the hill and around the corner. It is an old coast guard station that the current owners have fixed up wonderfully. Archie or 'just call me Henri' was a real comedian. Lots of fun. Our luggage was there! Good old reliable Cape Cleire bus people.

Once we got shown our room and shown around, he gave us very explicit instructions on how to get to the catholic church who had a mass at 2 pm, in about 45 minutes. only a 30 minute walk away by his reckoning if we took the shortcut.

Just up the road, about 200 feet past the yellow house that was the post office there was a turnstile. Go over the turnstile, through the field and over the hill following the path. Just watch out for the bull and you'ld be fine.

Bull?! We thought he might be kidding as he was a kidder. We sallied forth on our quest for the Church.

On Our way to Cape Clear

The sun was shining and the road was yellow. A sign said Skibereen 8 miles. We passed the turn off for Russagh Mill Hostel and Adventure Center on R596. We wondered what kind of adventures. Farming, maybe boating as they were close enough to the bay for a quick drive and then sailing or kayaking? We knew we were getting closer to Skibereen when we noticed that there were lines on the road and a sidewalk. We navigated a small traffic circle and then we were through Skibereen. Well actually the outskirts of Skibereen. On our way to Baltimore we passed through Carrigfadda and Gortshanecrone before we came to Loughine which is about half way. The road narrowed and we passed a pretty little golf course. The sign said Golf Club. You would think you would need more than one club. Why, I know people who have a whole golf bag full of them. We entertained ourselves. Maureen actually groaned when I said the golf club line.

The scenery was very nice, farms and fields, villages and narrow roads and all in sunshine. Then there was this very large blue truck in front of us. I would have been happy staying behind it for the rest of the way but Maureen wanted to try and get by. At one point we came to a corner and realized it was a tractor pulling a very large blue trailer. We waited for a safe stretch of road and passed with out incident. My, we were getting braver weren't we.

After the excitement of the tractor trailer we thought that it might be nice to not have any more excitement like that but the road narrowed considerably and kept us in a state of anxiety for quite some time.

We pulled into Baltimore and found the docks with only a little bit of trouble. Parking was another story.

We had left the castle early so that we could catch the noon ferry over to Cape Clear. We arrived at 1130 in Baltimore so thought that we had at least half an hour to get ourselves arranged and in order before we would have to leave. When we pulled up to the docks there was a ferry there already, so we parked in the one hour parking and went down to enquire what time they left.

They said they were leaving almost immediately which threw us into a small panic as we were not ready.

They did seem most helpful in that they told us that we could park in the area that seemed to be under construction to become a parking lot and was marked no parking. They told us that the town had run out of money and that it had been like that for quite some time and on top of that it was a long weekend and no work was ever done on a long weekend anyway.

Well, we did not know quite how to take this. After all, if we went to the island for two days and came back to find the

car towed away somewhere or with a ticket for some exorbitant amount of money because we had parked in the wrong place which was clearly marked No Parking, would we not be a little upset, inconvenienced and sad to say at the least? But all the other parking lots were full so we decided to live on the wild side, believe the ferry people and just do it. So we parked in the clearly marked No parking under construction parking lot, grabbed our bags and hurried down to the ferry.

One the the ladies who worked on the ferry came to meet us halfway down the pier said we had to hurry as the ferry had to leave as the next ferry was coming. Now this confused me all to pieces but she had already taken my luggage and was climbing into the boat. We jumped on and purchased our return tickets.

Now I say that this confused me as, when I was researching the access routes to the island ,the ferry only ran twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. So what other ferry was she talking about? I thought, maybe there were ferries to other islands and thought no more about it, just enjoyed the views.

The trip took about an hour and was lovely. The Captains of these vessels must certainly know the waters well as in some of the channels that we went through I saw rocks just under the surface seemingly not so very far away from the boat. We pulled into the very sheltered little harbour at Cape Clear island safe and sound. We past natural caves in the steep rock walls on our way to the dock. Once we were moored and off the boat we were so ready to start our first small Irish island adventure.

Sunday Morning In Castletownshend

Woke at 5 am. “Birds”

Dressed quietly and headed down to watch the horse channel but there was only cooking on so tried to sneak around the castle which is impossible with its creaky floors and squeaky doors so ended up going outside for a walk.

The morning was as calm as could be and the bay was like glass.

I walked over to the public dock and ran into the two dogs that we had met yesterday. They are very good company. Tigger the cat was still in the castle sleeping on a chair in the second floor hallway.

The sun came up like Homers rosy fingered dawn except that it was a golden fingered dawn. I got some real nice reflective shots of the castle,the boat house and dock and some of the boats out on the water. It was a gorgeous morning and so peaceful.

Went back inside and had a cup of tea and watched a little TV. There were some great houses, more horses and a bit of news. I wrote in the journal next until I was caught up. Maureen and I had a lovely breakfast of fish and tea on the terrace and then we packed up the car. Tigger was up and about too and caught a shrew out on the patio.

Last night at the restaurant we had asked what time church was in the morning as we were going to be leaving and did not want to have to try and negotiate the hill at the same time as lots of other vehicles. We obviously let enough people know that we were going to be leaving that morning as there was no one on the street when we left.

We found the road to be very bumpy but we made it to the top with no problem! High Five! At that moment we were great!

We swung by St Barahanes, the catholic church at the ‘top of the hill’. Very quiet, very lovely and simple ‘. It had one of the most beautiful paintings of St Teresa I have ever seen. A really nice church.

After that we were on our way to Skibereen, Baltimore and Cape Clear.

The Church in Castletownshend

At the bottom of the hill there are three options.

Straight ahead is the Castle.

On the right is the short road to the boat launch and pier.

On the left is the steep road up to the church.

We went left. The hill is just as steep as the main road but not as long thank goodness.

At the top of the road we were impressed by the long set of stairs to the church yard and I saw my favorite celtic cross in Ireland.

The sun was warm and the air was fresh and we were catching our breath after the stairs. The cross had all the detail that I had seen in pictures.

It was marvelous. I don't know how old it was but I think it must have been quite old. In Ireland the graveyards are very close to their churches so we looked at some of the stones before we walked around to the front of the church

and found that there was parking at the top of the hill by a different access road.

We had been wondering if everybody walked to church because the way we had come there was no parking and that road and those stairs would have been hard on the older folks in town. Maybe it was their weekly workout, going to church.

The front door of the church was impressive with a great old arch and gorgeous doors.

Inside there was an oar and a plaque about the Lusitania.

It seems that 27 victims of that terrible incident were brought to Castletownshend. It makes history seem so much more personal when you see the impact of events in peoples lives.

There were several gorgeous stained glass windows set in the thick walls. The church must have been from the same time that the castle was built which would make it around 1750.

A very intricate mosaic tile floor with snakes and golden crosses greeted us as we entered the church proper.

A very large and impressive pipe organ filled in the loft. It seems that every town church has a giant pipe organ.

It was beautiful. I would have loved to hear it play.

I'm sure that it would have sounded as good as it looked.

We took lots of photos and poked around for probably an hour just admiring all of the beautiful things inside.

The sun coming through the windows really showed them to their best.

It really was a nice church.

On the way out we noticed a brass plaque on the inside door which was very apt.

I should make a book of all the doors in Ireland that I have taken pictures of with this as the first page.

It would be fun.

We went back down the hill in the sunshine and went to Maryanne's for dinner around 7-ish. I had chips, salad, a 1/2 pint of Murphy's and a fantastic sticky toffee pudding.

Maureen had fresh prawn stir-fry in mild spices, a 1/2 pint of Murphy's and got her warm chocolate brownie to go.

Our favorite waitress, teresa was there,

but it was much busier as there was a party of about 30 to 40 people so they also had a few more waiters to help out. We were glad we got there early. I did a picture of us sitting at our table by the end of the bar but someone jiggled my arm so the picture came out all wibbly.

Really. It was not the Murphy's.

We saw the dutch lady from the rose cottage that afternoon and she told us that the lady whose plates that I had bought because she had not come back for them, had returned later and was very sad that they were gone. I was not sad as I had the plates. they were made by a local potter Peter. After dinner we wandered back down to the castle.

Anne's father was having his birthday so there was lots of coming and going of family members till around 10 pm.

I wrote in my/our journal and watched a little news.

Maureen added -all I need to add is - what a fabulous find!! the castle, the beach, the boats, Maryanne's!!

After that I don't know what happened as I went to sleep, happy and content in my comfy bed in my castle in Ireland.

A walk on Saturday morning in Castletownshend

We went for a walk. We got about 100 feet from the door and went down onto the beach which was now at low tide. We ended up staying there for about an hour just poking around picking up broken pottery and sea glass. I picked up some lovely sea glass for my friend Diane who makes jewelry and I hoped to make some jewelry with the pottery shards as gifts for my friends and family. I would of course wash it thoroughly before going through customs. We both filled our pockets. just like kids really, quite silly.

We went back up to the room to empty our pockets and have a bathroom break before continuing our walk. Then, refreshed, we headed off down the road and around the corner to find the church that was located up on the hill immediately behind the castle. It was a lovely walk right along the bay with big old trees and flowers of all kinds blooming.

There was a few bad patches that were quite muddy and a very muddy path that went up the hill but we thought that can't be the road.

Up and around the bend were some lovely newer homes who must have great views. Across the road from

these was a field with a mare and foal and we could see the

church but we could not get to it so we had obviously missed the

turn.

We were joined by two dogs a black lab and a golden retriever.

They were nice company for awhile. The sun was lovely and it changed the colour of the water on the bay to shades that were sometimes Caribbean almost.

We walked all around the field and back into town looking at the church across the field most of the way so we decided that we would make another try after dinner going a different route that we now knew would get us there. We stopped off at Maryanne's for the dessert we were too full to eat last night.

I had the Almond Pear Torte and Maureen had a Raspberry White Chocolate cheesecake. The presentation was fabulous and the taste Divine.

We ate outside on the patio at the back. While the sun was out it was hot but a cloud came over and rained on us so the staff opened up this large awning that covered most of the patio.

We moved Back out into the sun once the rain stopped and watched this little Blue Tit taking care of its family in some rocks in the corner. All very peaceful and lovely. We decided to have fries too and asked for them to be crispy. It is amazing that such a small town has such a great restaurant. It won the best seafood Restaurant in 2008, I think for all of the county and maybe the country.

We heard about a garage sale going on at Rose's cottage and decided to go. With directions from a few people at the restaurant we went and did not find it . We wandered here, we wandered there,

we found burros and boat launches, rocks and flowers and finally we found two ladies who told us where Roses's cottage was and we found that too. A very nice Dutch lady who was renting the cottage was helping out to raise money for the local Irish version of SPCA.

We purchased some little things that would fit into our suitcases Earrings , a small dish and two plates were my prizes.

We stayed for a cup of tea and were told about the roads to Skoal and Blatimore on our way to Cape Clear Island.

We had been all set to go to Skoal but the road sounded so scary that we decided to go to Baltimore instead.

She said the road into town was steeper than the road into Castletownshend! We then all went out and said Happy Birthday to John the landlord who had just put in a new wooden deck that the people of the town thought would attract rats. We all laughed.

Back up the hill and then down the hill on the other side to the castle to relax. I did postcards and journaling sitting at the table outside in the sunshine with the bay 10 feet away.