The Emerald Shores of Ireland - Part 21

The Emerald Shores of Ireland
A trip journal by David Bowers
9/2/08-9/11/08
Part 21

We headed into the town of Avoca, well known as the area where Ballykissangel was filmed. We passed Fitzgerald's pub which is a pub used in that British television series. Just on the other side of town we reached Avoca Handweavers. We crossed a stream and turned into Avoca at first driving past the visitor's center to park in the coach parking in the rear. A representative of Avoca boarded our bus and gave us the orientation speech. It seems Avoca is Ireland's oldest surviving business, let alone oldest mill. It started as a co-op for the isolated community, turning sheep's wool into yarn and textiles and corn into bread. For a long time the clothes and blankets only came in natural white. Later on in history the fashion community took over Avoca and introduced colored dyes and their cloths became famous. After that the mill was about to close down when it was bought by a sole family again who have since turned it into a successful clothing, food and cookware store.

She explained that they are proud to still operate two old fashioned looms that are each over100 years old. These were, in fact, controversial when they were first installed. Before then weaving, even though assisted with a loom, was an all manual process, having to thread the shuttle through each row individually. The new looms, which still qualified as hand weaving, introduced the fly shuttle. This greatly sped up the process as the weaver could hit one control and hold open the threads to prepare for the shuttle to zip across the entire row at one time when activated by the weaver. Now instead of being a tedious all manual process, an entire row of weaving can be accomplished in a matter of seconds. The weavers of the day had a great fear that these fly shuttle looms would put them out of work, after all one of these fly shuttles could way out produce a manual loom. This led to the early vandalism and destruction of the new looms to stave off this new threat.

In modern times, of course, most of their work is performed by completely automatic power looms that are merely supervised by the weaver. The move to a power loom was necessitated by the sharp rise in demand for their product. Our host confided that she was glad the weavers have seemed to welcome the new power looms without the destruction caused by the predecessors a hundred years ago. She used the phrase "I'm not trying to pressure you" which usually sets off all kinds of alarm bells in my head. But she did advertise the specials available in the discount loft. We were then given about 2 hours or so to explore, and it was decided that would include our lunch stop for the day. John, our driver, mentioned that even if we weren't ready for a big lunch, that we would be remiss not to at least try a pastry or desert, as in addition to clothing, they are well known for their bakery and other food items. We got out of the bus and before taking the tour, we went into the visitor center to use the rest facilities then regrouped outside to tour the weaving shed.

We walked across a bridge over a rapidly moving stream as we headed to a rustic looking building titled the "Weaving Shed" The signs invited us to come on in. Our host did not come with us, instead this is a self guided tour, with the first room set up to show you the entire process. In one corner of the room the wool from the sheep is spun into yarn, any color dying is done out of sight. Along the front half of the room you see a big metal frame holding numerous rolls of thread. You then come to a big drum looking machine that is spinning fast, and you see the machine is being fed by its workers from the rolls of yarn on the big metal frame. According to the sign here, the goal is to prepare a drum with the yarn all in the right color sequence to be fed to the looms. We walked the tourist trail around that machine and came to the two original fly shuttle looms they have on public display. Here we took quite a bit of time admiring the process, I didn't quite get the idea of the fly shuttle until Father pointed out to me where to look to watch the shuttle zip back and forth. You are pretty much free in this area to walk all the way around the looms and get a real good view of the action. You then go through a doorway into the next room, here you are restricted to a small walkway along the side and you can observe a room full of power looms humming away. This isn't nearly as interesting at the older looms. You then exit out another door and walk back along the stream to the bridge back to the visitor's center.

We next headed to their restaurant, again a cafeteria style operation, but upon getting to the front of the line none of the entrees really appealed to me. Father was in front of me in line, and he ordered a real nice looking slice of rhubarb pie. I am one of the few people that are fans of rhubarb pie, and its so rarely seen back in the States, that I saw the temptation and I went running for it. My lunch time meal was a large slice of their homemade rhubarb pie, served with a big scoop of cream, and a cup of coffee. Note that by cream, I mean whipped cream, not ice cream. When I got to the cash register I looked in my wallet and realized I had a €50 note and nothing else, but I did have a pocketful of change, even if I had been working at trying to get rid of that to. My tray totaled to just over €6, and $9 is admittedly high for a slice of pie and coffee. The cashier was not eager to break a €50 for me and asked me if I had anything smaller. I got my pile of change out of my pocket, and after we counted that up, I found out I had just enough with maybe about 25 cents or so to spare. At least that took care of the pocket change.

We claimed a table and I looked and there for my coffee was a small pitcher of milk and a bowl of sugar cubes. I didn't see any tongs or anything for the sugar cubes, so I admit I just plucked a couple out with my fingers and dropped them into the coffee. I then headed for the rhubarb pie and it was a huge slice with lots of filling. The filling was very tasty and the crust wasn't just a flat curst, it had crumbles on top. As I was enjoying my pie, it became the subject of curiosity of many of those waiting in line for food. Bob bought a pastry or two, but also went with a bowl of mushroom soup, and he reported he was so glad, after a week of Jury's Inn Soup, that their mushroom soup had actual mushrooms in it.

After eating, we headed into the gift shop, including the bargain loft. Bargain being a relative term, and neither of us bought any of the woven goods. I hit the general Irish souvenir section and bought a wall calendar for my office. In the various stores there were series of posters like "Castles of Ireland", or "Doors of Ireland", or "Pub signs of Ireland" , well the calendar has a miniature version of one of these posters for each month. I also bought some music CD's of traditional Irish music. Bob bought some stuff from the cookware and general souvenir sections as well. I noted they did have their pies for sale as well as cookbooks and stuff. I was sure to also grab a brochure before we headed out to the bus. We had some time before we were to start loading, so we were able to get John to pose in front of his 59 seat super coach for some photos. As we were loading outr bus another of those bright green tour busses arrived, yes, the Paddywagon, just like we saw at Cliffs of Moher. Some more chuckling ensued as we were leaving Avoca. The turn out of Avoca onto the small thin roadway took great skill on John's part to not run off the edge of the road on the turn. We shoed him great applause as we headed back through Avoca, the town.

On our way out of Avoca, Jerry announced that the limerick contest is now closed, and he read each of the three submissions. There was one submission about John the bus driver, another about a man from Cincinnati who went to visit Bunratty, and the third was about Fathey Barry, making fun of he fact he slept most of the tour. We voted, the winner was announced and the prize was a toy Irish tour bus that Jerry had picked up at one of the souvenir stores we stopped in.

We next started our drive through the Wicklow mountains but not before passing through a village where I think I see my family has a bookmaking parlor, "Terry Rogers Bookmakers", it's even spelled right. After that we went through a nicely forested area with thin tall trees. Our next destination is the day's Mass stop at St. Kevin's Church. It's true that St. Kevin is credited as being the abbot of a monastery at Glendalough, but on our way there we are stopping at the still operational St. Kevin's church located a few miles from the famous site. Jerry told us that St. Kevin was a very patient man, which is why his statue shows him with a bird resting in his hands.

We didn't drive all the way to the church, acting on the advice of the church we parked at a community center down the road from the church. Jerry reminded us that the local custom is to walk in a single file line on the side of the road facing traffic, in other words the same thing we do, but having to remember traffic is reversed from what we are used to. We walk up the first stretch of road, which is uphill and then the road split between the school and the church. When we first entered the church gates I was a bit unsure of what looked like a series of rollers in the ground, but in reality they don't spin. Bob informed me that these do help to keep livestock from continuing up the hill.

At the top of the hill we come to a mid-sized stonework church in a classic design. Going inside the church is a very simple design with white walls and modern looking altar pieces. We took our seats and I noted they have the pew dedication plaques like some churches back home, except they mount there's on the top center of the pews instead of the ends. Jerry is able to find the light switch but the sacristy is locked. While Jerry goes to find the sacristan, Father finds a volunteer to lead us in a saying of the rosary while we wait. In one of those moments of great timing the sacristan arrives and gets the church and Father ready to say Mass just as the saying of the rosary ended. We proceeded to share what would wind up being our last Mass of the trip. After Mass we had some time to look around the church before heading back to the community center. On the way back downhill we noticed a strange sculpture in the church yard that we couldn't describe and there was no marker explaining it. What we did note is a marker indicating that this was a site of the 2000 Jubilee year retreat. We then walked back down a very busy street lined with cars. It appears that school has just let out so we are sharing the narrow road down to the community center with cars coming to pick up their students. We carefully made our way to the community center, and took advantage of the fact it was open and had restrooms. Not an authorized rest stop, but a rest stop none the less. The community center had the features you might expect, a gym, multi purpose room, a computer room with internet access amongst other things. Notices indicated tonights line dancing was cancelled. We next headed from the community center to the historical site of Glendalough.

We pulled up at the visitor's center, and after some time for the real rest break we headed inside. Glendalough uses the tactic of having each visitor wear a sticker as visible proof of payment of the entry fee. In this case the sticker was a plain green circle sticker, nothing remarkable but as we entered Jerry placed one on each of us.

We were then ushered into an auditorium where we were shown an orientation video about celtic crosses, dolemans and monastic historic sites, the video was just generic enough where the Office of Public Works could use the same video at several sites. After the show in the auditorium we went through a museum. The highlights of the museum were a scale model miniature of what the monastery looked like in its day, several gravemarkers, a celtic cross and other artifacts.

After touring the museum we waited in the visitors center for a local guide, and were then led outside to a trail to the historic site. Now it had been clear while we were at the church, and while we were experiencing the visitor center attractions, so of course that means as soon as we started up the trail to the site, the skies opened up and a strong rain came down. We made provisions for those who wanted to stay indoors to go to the pub at the local hotel, and then the rest of us continued on the tour.

We started in the gatehouse, where we noted the ground was very uneven, and remnants of the gate structure could still be seen, but the giant arches over the walkway remain. We were told that civil law didn't apply in a monastery, if you made it inside the gates you could hide from the law, which is what happened sometimes. We next walked towards but didn't spend to much time looking at the round tower. We were told it was use as a lookout tower but due to the weather Jerry requested our local guide make it a highlight tour. We then went into the ruins of the main church building. This church ruin is in much worse shape than the cathedral at Cashel. In this case we see the supports for arches that end at the top of the wall, the big window frames are no longer there, and the tops of the walls have started to disappear, whereas Cashel looks like somebody just ripped the roof off and took the windows out, this building is much more deteriorated. Our guide did point out the alcove where the tabernacle is believed to have been in, and the doorway which now leads to nowhere but is believed to have gone to the sacristy.

We then continued through the park and came to a part where one had to decide if it were better to walk through the muddy grass or through a deep puddle on a washed out path. All around the site is a graveyard, which provided our next stop, a high celtic cross. Our guide explained how usually they had detailed carvings on them, but of course we noted this one was very plain. Our guide said, they believe this one was once very intricately painted instead of caved, which reminds me of how a Vatican museum guide told us that the snow white statues we are used to seeing were once believed to be painted in full color.

Also on the site we saw the original St. Kevin's church which had a fireplace under the steeple like chimney, which gave it it's nickname of St. Kevin's Kitchen. Lastly we looked far in the distance to where the priest's house was. After allowing us some time to walk around the park taking pictures, we headed back to the visitors center. Right outside the monastery gate I now understood the name of the carnival style food trailer, which was "St. Kevin's Kitchen" of course. Across the street was an equally temporary looking gift shop. We were able to get Jerry to pause for a few photos for the record. We then headed back to the visitor center, and collected those who waited in the pub, took another rest stop, and I ran back into the visitors center and bought a park guide.