Day 7

Day 7: Today we slept in. It was our day to take the drive into Cork and drop Eric off at the Train Station for his journey home. Tom and Laura and Eric drove in one car and Cindy, Clare, Lisa, and Bill drove in another. To avoid having to caravan through Cork in the madness of the city center, Cindy’s car group went off in the direction of Kinsale in order to wait for the rest of the party. We thought it would be a peaceful bayside walking respite to idle away the time. Instead, when we got to the center of town there was some sort of madness going on, with cars lined up for miles in either direction, all the parking spots full, and streams of people flowing from all directions.

We turned down a small two way side street to find that half the street was blocked with cars pulled up onto the right hand sidewalk. This left one lane in the middle for two-way traffic. We thought we were going to make it through (mind you we’re driving on the left here) but all of the sudden we were at a T-junction with cars ahead, cars behind and cars coming from the side, and we were stuck. Very stuck. We couldn’t go forward and couldn’t back up and the cars on either side were in a similar pickle. Finally, a man in the car next to us rolled down his window and said “You couldn’t drive on the footpath (sidewalk), could you?” This was less of a question and more of a demand, so we took it. Lisa jumped out of the car and cleared a twelve inch path by turning the tire of a bike chained to a pole straight, picked up a sandwich board ad in front of a store and led Cindy up the sidewalk around the traffic. With millimeters to spare and side mirrors flipped in, we made it around the crowd and continued up the street to find a way out of Kinsale. Cindy drove on the sidewalk!!

Meanwhile Tom and Laura had dropped off Eric in Cork and were fighting their way out of the one-way streets of the city center. We texted them to say we were giving up and heading out of Kinsale for a tiny little town called Ballinspittle (REALLY!) to see what was going on. When we got there we found out: nothing. It’s two streets, one lunchy pub and a tiny grocery. But we were hungry and it had to do.

Tom & Laura made their way from Cork to Bandon and found a narrow road following the Bandon River down to the coast and to Ballinspittle. Tom thinks the towns name comes from the old technique of loading muskets. Ball down the barrel, gunpowder, paper and spit on the firing mechanism.

We lunched at Hurely’s Pub. Then we stocked up at the grocery and headed back to Derryfunchion cottage. Laura and Cindy made a lovely spaghetti and garlic bread dinner with a crispy salad to celebrate Tom and Lisa’s 8th wedding anniversary.

téigh in éag (means: to end!)