It was a pleasant time in Kilkenny, a touristy place but gracefully so, picturesque and friendly. When we got off the bus we had no idea where to stay, and none of us had bothered to check what time it would be when we got there. It wasn’t terribly late, but it was late enough to make finding a place to stay a bit worrisome after our adventures in Sligo (rhymes with “closed”). We gatihered up our luggage and started the tromp toward the center of town.

We hadn’t gone far when we saw a sign for a B&B. They were full, but they directed us across the street to William Byrne’s Pub. Soon we were installed in a room and free to explore the city at night. After a nice dinner at a Pub (established in 12-something-something by a woman who was married four times, opened an inn or three, then was accused of witchcraft and force to flee for her life — her staff and associates didn’t fare so well and met demises so grisly it’s hard to imagine anyone remotely civilized condoning them), we returned to our “home pub”, set up laptops, and I composed a couple of the previous episodes. (Things are getting a bit asynchronous here; sorry about that.)

Somewhere around closing time the bartender struck up conversation with fuego and me. We talked about movies, Web sites, music, and life in general. It turned out we were talking to Wm. himself, head honcho and owner of the establishment.

The next morning, or should I say later that same morning, we were a bit sluggish as we staggered down the stairs into the pub for breakfast. There was Billy, looking quite a bit more chipper than I felt. Breakfast was among the best I’d had on the trip, the full Irish deal for me (less mushrooms), while the others chose different items off the menu (one advantage I hadn’t considered to staying at a B&B connected to a restaurant is that the options for breakfast are much more varied).

That day we didn’t get a whole lot of sightseeing done, and what we did consisted mainly of wandering around the town aimlessly. I did manage to do a bit of writing, and a bit of napping. That night we finished up at Billy’s again, but although I stayed up working longer than the others, it was almost a reasonable time when I went upstairs to crash.

This morning we were up a little bit before Billy, who rushed down the stairs to open the pub for us. He explained that he had been on the Internet into the wee hours, playing with an internet jukebox type of site. The Internet — an intoxicating thing! We poked around town a bit longer and with more purpose, left Billy with a copy of Pirates and a bottle of Becherovka, and on we went to Cork.

Sweet!

Thanks!

It was a bit warmer today, but the sun is just a memory now and the wind blowing down the narrow streets carries a chill that goes deep. It cannot reach me here, however. I am in The Pump House, a fine pub in Kilkenny in the southern reaches of Ireland. To my left a small fire flickers warmly in the fireplace, on my right is a glass of Smithwicks (rhymes with Phythics), foam clinging in rings to the side of the glass, measuring my progress sip by sip. Were there usable electricity here, it would be perfect.

Sweet!

Thanks!

Last night found the three of us in Athlone, roughly in the center of Ireland. Although we found ourselves about as far from an ocean as you can get on this island, it is still a place with a long maritime tradition. The river Shannon (let me say right now that for no reason whatsoever I find the phrase ‘River Shannon’ to be poetry of the deepest and most moving sort) passes through here, or perhaps more accurately this town is here because it was one of the places land travelers could get across the river.

They would not be crossing today. The river is running high and swiftly; there is flooding downstream. I imagine that the powers that be are trying to allow the runoff from the recent storms to reach the sea with the least overall damage, and things are right on the edge here. Just downstream from town things are looking lakelike, with trees poking up here and there.

Now, of course, there are bridges and all that sort of thing up and down the river, so the rushing waters, while not helpful, can no longer strand travelers for weeks while they wait for the waters to subside. Naturally, those stranded travelers would have wanted to have a nip in the local pub while they waited for the water to calm. Where we sit now, while not in the actual building, is documentably the same pub that travelers cooled their heels in starting around 900 A.D. Yeah, you read that right, and I didn’t leave any digits out.

I was talking to a regular there, Jeffrey (Geoffrey?), whose father was a regular there, and whose father’s father was a regular there, and who’s father’s father’s father… It is possible that some ancient ancestor of Jeffrey sat on the first barstool 1107 years ago, and had a pint of something that we would judge today to be truly awful, but at the time was just the thing.

Compared to that place, that institution, I’m nothing. I’m just a spark, a flash, here and gone. The bar has outlasted all its patrons, the people who lit up the place when they arrived, the people who were greeted gladly by name, the people who mattered to those around them. They are all gone now, and forgotten. You and I, in this noisy-fast world, we don’t stand a chance.

Sweet!

Thanks!