Unfortunately, despite the hot tub soak I woke up the next day and was still broken and suffering from scenery overload. I’d not be driving anywhere today and instead Jane and I decided to stay and relax at the house. Meanwhile Adrian and Pam drove all the way to Mizen Head which was 2 and a half hours drive away! Joyce and Enid stirred themselves in the afternoon to drop into Tralee and enjoyed their visit to the Museum where they learned all about the ‘Rose of Tralee’ history and then joined a pipe and drum festival in the park. A fitting way for Joyce to spend her birthday.
Jane and I stayed at home and decided to watch ‘The Hunger Games. Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes- a strange choice considering Jane’s phobia of snrrrrs. We’d enjoyed the previous films but this one really is rather poor with some terrible dialogue and earnest acting.
The highlight of our day was when there was a ring at the doorbell. I went to the door to find a man hopping about from foot to foot dressed in dirty overalls, wellies and sporting a comedy ginger beard. He said ‘ A diddly diddly fiddly biddy diddy Dave , didly didly?’ I looked confused and said ‘er no’ not understanding anything he’d said except the word ‘Dave’. He repeated himself and pointed at his tractor parked up outside in the road. I still didn’t understand but figured maybe he was at the wrong house. I said ‘Er no, we are only renting this house’ ie I don’t know where Dave lives! He smiled and hopped off down the drive.
Anyway, the reason that Jane and I were reserving our energy, was that that evening we were determined to go out in search of the ‘craic’. This is that mythical Irish ‘good times’ where there’s a bit of fun, a jolly atmosphere and surely must involve some traditional Irish music. Jane had found a bar in the Grand Hotel in Tralee that served up Trad music and also a decent meal. We’d tried to book a table but been told that this wasn’t possible and that we should ‘just turn up at 6 o’clock and we’ll see ya right.’ So we did, Pam kindly dropping us all into town so that we could enjoy a glass of the ‘black stuff’ or in my case ‘red stuff’.
When we got there it didn’t look terribly grand from the outside but inside it was all wooden panels and very busy. We were given tables in the sunny window in a section where they’d only just finished serving smoothies and afternoon teas. The nice Irish Waiters kept referring to us as ‘Lads’ even though clearly Adrian was the only actual lad. Apparently, ‘lads’ is the Irish equivalent of ‘guys’. There was Euros footy on the TV in our section and Gaelic football in the noisy, main bar,
The ‘craic’ was building but then we found out that the music would not be starting until 10pm. It was highly unlikely that this group of lads would stay awake until then!
Gradually, the football fans and other diners left and we only had ‘Tommy the Toothless’ to enjoy the craic with. Jane tried really hard to engage with Tommy but the problem was that he was another fella who it was impossible to understand!
Getting fully into the swing of the evening I ordered a sherry trifle for pudding and by 9pm we all agreed that it was time to call it a night.
What I’ve learned then is that you perhaps can’t search out the craic – it just happens. I’m not sure it did happen at the Grand Hotel that Saturday evening in Tralee. But thinking about it, we’d already found it the night we stumbled upon lovely Helen’s Bar in Kilmakilloge. Now that was ‘Savage Craic- a great night all together with everyone on top form, the Guinness flowing and great stories/jokes/memories being made’.
Our journey home on Sunday was straightforward and it felt like we were the only people in Cork Airport. The Duty Free shop was full of lovely gift items and I stocked up on a lucky pen and lucky Irish Wishing Jar for Mum and lucky Irish chocolates and a penny whistle for me!
Where shall we go to next? 