Ireland 6 - Roadtrip Day 3: The Aran Islands

This post is dedicated to Enda from Fisherman's Cottage Restaurant. His cynicism and chocolate oat slice made my trip to the Aran Islands unforgettable.

I had to use that cow pic as the first pic. I was walking all over the island, came across this most beautiful cow, I asked her to smile as I had the camera poised, and she turned her head and looked straight at me giving me this magnificent picture. You can see the amazing drystone walls in the background - these walls wander all over the island. Some are new, and some are centuries old.

Anyway, I get ahead of myself. Sorry.

Doolin is a jumping off point for the Aran Islands, and when I arrived in Doolin I knew I had to spend a night in the islands - I had romantic visions of cream Aran Sweaters and lacemaking. I booked a night on the smallest of the three Aran Islands, Inisheer (the biggest island is called Inishmoor, and the other one is Inishmaan).

So, the following morning I rocked up to the Doolin pier, was ushered onto one of those little boats (pic 2) to get out to the bigger boat (pic 3), then a 40 minute roly poly boat ride followed, landing us finally at Inisheer. I hopped off the boat (through another boat and up a very steep wacky ladder) and found my B&B for the night, South Aran House. WONDERFUL WONDERFUL room in a cute little cottage (pic 4) run by the magnificent Enda and Maria, who also run the Fisherman's Cottage Restaurant next door.

This place is amazing. It's a small island, I criss-crossed it twice, saw all the ruins, and grabbed some supplies, all in an hour and a half!!

You can see the ruins above - a couple of churches, cemetery, and a wonderful fort to keep an eye out for Napoleon! All this amongst real farms and houses still active in their livlihood.

And food. Yummy food. Enda is a magician in the kitchen. You can see his handiwork there in the local crab linguine with lemon and chilli, and in the Lemon Posset with Lemon Biscuit. What's a Posset? I hear you ask. Glad you did. A posset is a very old English dessert - it's a mixture of cream and sugar gently boiled till thick, then mixed with some lemon juice making it set like a very heavy mousse or panacotta even, only much much better. DELICIOUS!!!!!!

And while we're on delicious...the afternoon before I had grabbed a slice of Enda's choc oatmeal slice to give me energy on my walk...OH MYYYYYYY...SOOOOOOOOOO YUM. I begged for the recipe, which I have for you readers...oh yeah baby! Now, it makes a huge slab, so halve the ingredients for a normal lamington tin, and heads up, it's in the old fashioned measurements...oh, and I've changed the name...

Enda's Aran Slice
1 lb oats
12 oz butter
8 oz sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tsp vanilla essence (or extract if you have it)

Melt butter, add the syrup and vanilla, stir in the sugar and oats and bake for 30 mins in 350F oven. Cut when warm (it sets really hard), and ice with chocolate icing or a ganache.

Give that one a bash!! I will when I get home...mmmm they gave me another slice before I left yesterday, and I can still taste it!!!

Thanks Maria and Enda, it was "class"!

Ireland 5 - Roadtrip Days 1 & 2: Kinsale to Doolin

Well it's roadtrip time!!! OH YEAH!

I picked up my rental car from Cork airport and was ready to go go go. I had 13 days to circumnavigate Ireland based on a map of MUST SEES from the Irish Girl and her mate, BJ. I had my map, the sat nav, and some Fruit Pastilles - I was all set!

My first stop was the YUMMMMM town of Kinsale. Kinsale is the supposed gourmet capital of Ireland, so for any decent foodie, a visit was a must. So off I trotted, to track down the famed Fishy Fishy Cafe that I head heard so much about.

Kinsale is only about 20 minutes from Cork, and is soooooo cute, it sits on its own little harbour and was a passing spot for the Spanish Armada. The place is packed full of cute colourful shops (pics 1 & 2), cafes and restaurants, including the aforementioned Fishy Fishy Cafe.

The Fishy Fishy Cafe has both a new posh restaurant close to the water (pick 3), and their original take away spot further back. I ate at the posh one. And oh my...it was fantastic. After delicious home-made brown and white bread with home-made houmos (pic 4), came my higgeldy piggeldy meal. I couldn't decide on one dish, so I had a tasting of 3 (pic 5)!! You can see the best oysters I've ever eaten (I originally just ordered one, but after eating it had to have another to finish the meal), so salty and pure taste of the sea, then the local Stonecrab Claws in this gutsy chilli and lemon cream sauce. I just closed my eyes and let it overtake me - the sauce was amazing. And then there was the local Seafood Chowder, which though good, probably could have done with a bit more guts. This was all topped off with a fresh decadent Autumn Fruit Trifle...omg...sooooooooo good - creamy, fruity, tangy and sweet all combining together (pic 6). Sigh. Wonderful food.

I waddled back to the car to head off to the Ring of Kerry. This is a famous drive of a loop of a big peninsula in County Kerry. It has the most hauntingly beautiful scenery and even a really good French Chocolaterie complete with donkeys on the route (pic 7)!!! But the scenery...it took my breath away (pics 8-10). Ireland really is a stunning country.

Now the Ring of Kerry is about 160km long in a loop - I stopped for my first night at Waterville, which is a wild and woolly place right on the sea (pic 11, 12). I loved it. I stayed in a wonderful old manor hotel called The Butler Arms, and it was superb. I walked along the waterfront in the rain (it's now always raining!), ate my first Fish Pie (local seafood in a white sauce with mashed potato on top) for dinner there that night, and slept like a bloody log.

I woke to lashing rain, so cancelled my trip to Skaelig Island (dufus that I am, it cleared up within the hour), and headed to Doolin. En route to Doolin, I took the car ferry (pics 13, 14) and picked up a couple of Swiss girls who accompanied me to the Cliffs of Moher (pics 15, 16) which were stunningly beautiful. Then we all arrived safe and sound in Doolin (pic 17).

Doolin is a tiny little place consisting of a few pubs, a couple of hotels, some cute shops, and is a jumping spot to the Aran Islands. Doolin is mostly famous, though, for its traditional Irish music, so of course after a pub dinner it was time to settle down and listen to that eerily magical Irish music. Then to bed at the Hotel Doolin . And another night where the words slept and log are put together!

Ireland 4 - Corkers of Cork

Cork, or Corcaigh in Irish, is the principal city of County Cork, and The Republic of Ireland's second largest city after Dublin. Cork is also where Irish Girl comes from, well from a little village just out of Cork to be completely accurate. I spent a good week and a half exploring the place and have come up with my list of Corkers!!

1. The Blarney Stone (pic 1 & 2)
Of course I had to go and kiss the Blarney Stone - it's probably the tourist pic of the whole trip so far!! It was quite a climb up the spiral staircase of the Blarney Castle ruins, then down on your back, with a very kind man helping you, lean all the way back. There are two rails to hold as you lean as far back as possible, then kiss the stone. I couldn't stop laughing, it just seemed so silly! It's all good though, job done, and now I have the gift of 7 years of eloquence!

2. Sally's Spiced Beef (pic 3)
OMG - this was wonderful. Irish Girl's mum, Sally, ordered this local specialty from her butcher for me to try. It's usually served at Christmas, but now and then comes out during the year for special occasions. It's a roll of beef that's submerged in a big bucket of mixed spices for a few days, then gently cooked like a pot roast in a bit of barely bubbling water for about 3 hours. It's sort of like Corned Beef but with the yumminess of cloves, cinnamon and a whole heap of dark spices! Mmmmmmmm.

3. Annie's (pic 4, 5 & 6)
Definitely the best restaurant in Cork. It's a "gastropub" and is to be found on Sundays Well road. I was told about this place when I first arrived, but didn't get there until the second last night there, so of course I ate there again on my last night. You can see above my first dinner there, oh myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, wonderful sexy pork belly with tangy sweet apple sauce and a big wack of crackling, followed by stuffed baked apple with caramel sauce. Dear me! DIVINEEEEEE.

4. The Butter Museum (pic 7)
Now this is a little gem. Cork was actually the hub of the world butter market at one time, and this museum is a quirky little place, next to the original butter market. It goes through the history of butter in the country, Irish butter's importance in the world, and has some cool old butter making machines and churns. Did you know that the reason butter was originally salted was for preservation?? Well I didn't! Go and check it out.

5. Brown Bread (pic 8)
Speaking of butter...well here's the bread part! I was introduced to Brown Bread on my second day in Ireland (with my Irish breaky) and have been eating it pretty much every day since. It's served with breakfast, lunch, and even dinner!! It's a heavy dark bread, full of grainy bits. It's really really heavy! Fills you up, and keeps that digestion system going!!! The taste is pretty much as it looks, though I've had some that has been quite sweet and moister than the usual dry brown bread. It's funny, because now, after two weeks, I sort of look forward to it!

6. The English Market (pic 9, 10)
The English Market is hidden in the middle of Cork, in alleyways, so go in search. It's a very very old market, and is still used today. There's also a famous cafe upstairs in the market that's well worth a visit. The FarmGate Cafe and Restaurant is a must. Unfortunately I just had one of the local brown scones, but the bangers and mash of the woman sitting next to me had me swooning with desire...it smelt soooooooo good!

7. Other Cork Stuff
Cork isn't too big or too small, and bloody great to walk around. It's on the River Lee, and they have some wonderful parks and walkways along the river banks to stroll or ride up and down. Cork is home to both the tallest and longest buildings in Ireland. You can see the longest building above (pic 11), the Mental Hospital, built in Victorian times, it's eerie sitting up there on the hill, and I was given a drive by at 1am and it was really really spooky! Of course, now, it's half restored to apartments, with not a mental patient in sight!

The last pic up there is the Bourbon Street bar. This bar is where I've been hanging out with Irish Girl - they sort of have a group of them who own it! Oh yeah baby!!! They have live Irish music every night - and many a night was spent here listening to wonderful haunting Irish music and um...well...drinking!!

Ireland 3 - Girls' Getaway to Kilkenny

Another Girls' Getaway.

This time there were 3 of us. Irish Girl invited her bestie, Bestie, to come with. So, she came with. And what a hoot of a weekend.

Again, they gals took Friday off so we had ourselves a big one on both Friday and Saturday nights - sampling the delights of Kilkenny bars and discos! Dear me! I actually danced until 3am on Saturday morning - I was the oldest in the room by 450 years!

Now, Kilkenny itself is a pretty little place. With a huge castle. And of course it was the All Ireland Hurling Finals on Sunday with Kilkenny playing Tipperary. Yep, I kid you not.

Hurling is the Irish national sport - it's sort of a cross between rugby, hockey and soccer (but don't say that too loud, it doesn't go down too well). So, Kilkenny was totally decked out in their colours of black and yellow, ready to win their 5th grand final in a row. They lost.

Oh well. We had a grand time anyway.

We managed to pull ourselves out of bed on Sunday to visit the restored Kilkenny Castle, which was actually really cool, and to be honest, that's pretty much all we did on our roadtrip - eat, drink, sleep, and look at a castle. I think that's the Irish way!