DAY FIVE “REST” HIKE: 7 miles

my initial impression of tinahely, as i shuffled through the streets to find murphy’s hotel, was that covid hit it kind of hard. there were several boarded up shops, including maggie’s pub and a black tom’s bar. both had good reviews on google so i’m assuming they were covid fatalities. it was a small village, with a unique triangular “town square” in the middle of it (how irish!).

after being checked in, i did as anticipated: a hot soak almost immediately, right after taking my boots off the second i walked in the door. i counted four blisters either forming or fully developed. i had a weird bruise at the base of my big toe. i stayed in the very long tub for a very long hour. it was a luxury to have a tub a tall man could actually fit in. they know what’s up. i cleaned my feet well, and noticed a weird ripple of skin on the underside of my foot, like a peak and valley i climbed earlier that day. touching it didn’t feel great. but it felt like the foot was starting to prune up. so i got out. i laid down and told myself 5 minutes.

an hour later i got up and went down for a burger and a beer. i tried to strike up a conversation with the bartender, with the locals i sat next to, with anyone but a sheep or a cow. no one was very chatty. and the accents were very hard to chew through. i’m decent at hearing and deciphering a brogue, but for them i certainly needed subtitles. maybe it’s just because it was beer o’clock, and my brain was as tired as my legs.

that’s odd. this is the first irish town i’ve been to that didn’t feel very welcoming to me. i knew that couldn’t be true: it had to just be my mood. murphy’s hotel pub might just be a quiet type of bar. i finished my meal with enough pleasantries and small talk, but mostly overhearing the bartender chat up the guys that probably sit on the same stool every day. “brendan fell asleep making a pizza. the fooker burnt it black. luckily i came home and took it out of the oven. whole place filled with smoke. he woke up and looks at me an says ‘the fook did ya do to me pizza?’” they let out a belly laugh. that part i understood. laughter is a universal language. i was beat, and so i went to bed at maybe 9.

i woke up feeling more myself. i should have apologized to my bag for kicking him over but the emotions of the day got to me. i did some yoga, and noticed that my lower legs still really didn’t feel great. the tops of my feet felt like a taught rubber band about to snap. the blisters contorted to my boot’s insoles but didn’t burst. i went down for a “full irish”. my dad would have been appalled that it took me 6 days in ireland before i had a full irish.

full irish

a full irish is a hearty meal fit for field work — or a hiker. 2 eggs, gorgeous irish sausage, irish bacon, white pudding and blood pudding (these are akin to scrapple, kind of), mushrooms, grilled tomato, and baked beans. complete with tea and irish brown bread slathered with kerrygold butter, it’s a dang feast. i don’t usually eat the mushrooms or the blood pudding — the mushrooms make it taste too fungus-y and the blood makes it tastes too iron-y for me. but this hotel had a pretty good one. “can i add another night to my stay?” “sure t’ing!” i gobbled it up and went to check out the town a bit.

green cuisine: fresh fruits and veg

around the first bend, the first thing i see is a fruit stand. and what do we do when we see a fruit stand? right, we check the prices! my dad couldn’t go by someone selling fruits and vegetables without checking out the quality, the price, and if there was any varietal he didn’t know. the only thing that was different here, though, were some of the names (not “red delicious” but “red chief”, not “arugula”but “rocket”). it’s kind of wild that our food is so similar thousands of miles away. this store was screaming vibes of tony’s produce and flounders’ produce, my dad’s old produce stores. i looked around, chatted up the proprietress, and bought a couple of apples. and smiled the whole time.

i kept walking through town. noticing the different stores, many were named murphy’s like the hotel. murphy’s butcher, murphy’s leather, murphy furniture warehouse. and then there was coffee dlite and o’connor’s bar and lounge. i took mental notes to return to those two. no one was really walking around town, so i went back up to my room to do a little writing. an hour or two later, i come back down for the coffee shop. i notice a sign in the town triangle that had lots of nearby landmarks listed. some of them would have been cool to check out with a car.

one landmark at the bottom right caught my eye. Toberpatrick Holy Well. wait, patrick, huh? what’s that! i read the little description and see it’s wicklow’s best preserved drinking well from the time of — and blessed by — st. patrick. and there is a hawthorn tree there onto which people tie personal belongings, symbolizing “handing over our personal challenges to the Divine.”

the signage in town:

“St Patrick’s Well, one of Wicklows best known heritage sites is said to have been blessed by St Patrick on his travels around Ireland, some one & a half thousand years ago. The well in turn gives its name to the local area of Toberpatrick, “Tober” being the irish for “The Well”, thus “the well of Patrick.” The well provided a source of excellent spring water for the families in the local area. The water was transported by a locally designed and built, horse drawn water cart. “

i randomly happened upon a town that was so close to a well that was called “the well of patrick”? because my legs hurt and i couldn’t go on farther? it was meant to be: i definitely need to leave some ashes at “the well of patrick.” but it’s a 3.5 mile walk on my rest day. the taxi app has nothing available in this area. i checked google to see how easy the walk may be.

“It is situated on Baileys Farm in County Wicklow. The owners, the Hayden family supply milk for Baileys Irish Cream.”

sold! i’ll make the trek, bagless and it shouldn’t be too bad. i head back into the hotel to grab some water and my steripen, in case the well is still in use. it would be cool to drink from patrick’s well. i check in with the new bartender, a very pretty young irish girl who was very cheerful. and easier for me to understand than the older woman last night.

“is the walk to toberpatrick easy to follow?”

“yes very! it’s a wee far tho.” she replied.

“i noticed.” the times on google map make me laugh for everything. 3.5 mile walk: 1 hour and 40 minute walk or … 7 minute drive. the hills’ll getcha! “any interest in driving me there for €20?”

“i’d drive ye for nuttin, but i’m working till half 8!”

“alright, i’ll be back in 3 hours!” it was 3 pm already. this would be a nice walk before dinner. “last question. is the well still used?”

“i wouldn’t!” she laughed.

the walk was mostly on roads just barely enough for 2 cars let alone pedestrians. and the cars never seemed to notice you walking until the very last second. it was warm and my fleece started sticking to my sweaty arms, so i took it off. about 2 miles in, google tells me “turn right on unnamed road for a half mile, make a left on unnamed road.” you have to love that. i don’t know what we would do without modern gps and mapping technology. as recently as a couple months ago, the girl i was dating smacked my phone out of my hand “you and your google! let’s wander around until we find somewhere to eat or something that looks fun.” she wasn’t wrong! i do that all the time when i’m traveling, but in my hometown i like to be direct i guess. but not as direct as my deceased friend pat mulhern. that man would put his gps on even if he was going 3 blocks away. we used to bust his balls for that all the time. i laughed to myself when i thought about just how crazy that was, and thought maybe i should try the wander method more at home.

st. patrick’s well

i arrive at the religious well, a serene and very calming and unassuming landmark tucked behind an old wooden fence. i snap a photo of the sign and advance toward a craggily twisted tree with lots of pieces of clothing tied to the branches. there are personal photos, i assume of sick or dead loved ones. there are statues of st patrick and candles surrounding the well that has a spring running from it.

tying personal belongings to the tree

there’s a nice bench to the left. i sit down and have a rest, and think about those that i’ve lost over the years, including my grandparents, uncle vince, aunt helene, uncle tom. and i take out the glass vials of ashes from my pocket and rest them on the bench. the well started bubbling up, air escaping from the rocks below? water filling the well from the water table? my dad patrick or patrick mulhern saying hello?

https://blossom.primal.net/f8806464b0afae112bb7e50100c79a080eb57d54177c4aa5743035bc163c7b70.mp4

bubbling well

i decided not to put the ashes in the well water, just in case it was actually used. i opted instead for scattering them at the roots of the hawthorn tree. i opened both vials and tapped the rims to let the ashes out.

https://blossom.primal.net/477012cd00e134104060c157e5d053adf051c146db99264ea6d0e3093eaaa173.mp4

spreading some ashes at “patrick’s well“

i grabbbed my hydro flask and dumped out the rest of the water and then filled it with the well water. why not! i’m here! i used the steripen for 90 seconds to purify the water. i took a small sip to taste any obvious bad tastes. tasted like pure spring water. i chugged half a liter, a little too aggressively. some spilled out near the corner of my mouth. oops! hurriedly, i screwed the cap back on as it was about to start raining (the first rain i would see so far on my trip). i looked down to wipe off any obvious water drops from my shirt. at that moment i realized i was wearing my “phrolic” tshirt with my dad’s face on it. how appropriate!

looking down to wipe my hand along my chest to knock off spilled water, i stopped and started laughing. the water drops look like two teardrops from my dad’s eyes. i shit you not! now if i was a religious man, i would see this as a sure sign from the afterlife. and i know some of you reading this will assure me later that it was! but i took it as a comical coincidence that honestly, my dad would have thoroughly loved.

don’t cry over spilt water

story time! before my oldest sibling sara was born, my mom and dad had a miscarriage. naturally, they didn’t think that they would be able to get pregnant as a result. my dad claimed he had 3 dreams where the blessed mother came to him and told him “fear not paddy, you will have a beautiful daughter. and you will name her sara.” he wrote those dreams down on a piece of paper, sealed it in an envelope, and kept it forever. as you are aware, they did indeed have a daughter, and they named her sara. he added some flair by making her middle name maria, in honor of mary. my dad had always felt a special connection to the blessed mother. a few years before he passed, he started to give away his possessions. he wanted to be there to watch us receive his treasures (his scab collection, his shrunken head, his vinyl collection… all the good stuff). it’s more fun to watch your collections be cherished by someone new than to sit stuffed in a box. especially something as meaningful as his sealed dreams, which he gave to sara and she still has yet to unseal to this day.

it started drizzling, so i quickly packed everything and threw on my raincoat. i started walking back to the hotel. it rained for only about 10 minutes.

when i got back to the hotel, i soaked my legs again. they still weren’t feeling right. but the pain was tolerable. later that night i headed out to the only other bar in town that was open, o’connor’s. what a difference it was than the one last night. as i’m walking in, a limo bus pulls up. i hear a bar employee say “oh yer that rugby players innit?” he was. who that was, i don’t know. i continue walking in and the bartender asks “are you with the wedding?” oh boy! here we go!

it was a monday night, so i was surprised a wedding party would be arriving. it was 3 buses of irish, from 12 years old to 80 years old.

“is the whole place rented for a private event?” i asked, seeing if i needed to sneak in.

“nope, have a seat at the bar!” with pleasure! if i know irish weddings, i knew i was about to meet some people at what would be the busiest place in the building that night.

the bride’s sister was the first to come up. the bride and groom have been together for 15 years, but he finally popped the question so this was going to be “a BIG celebration.” she asked to do a shot with me, so of course i obliged with a hearty slainte. the bartender told me that the families rented out ballybeg house, a short way down the road. i wonder if i passed it on my walk to the well. this place does many a fancy wedding, and you have to rent the entire place out for 3 or 4 day affairs, usually a couple years ahead of time. they usually do at least 2 weddings a week, he said. having attended mick and ann marie’s 4 day fest, this wasn’t a terrible surprise to me. this was the pre-celebration, with the wedding the following night (tuesday). i found that rather interesting. i’ve never been to a tuesday wedding, but the ballybeg house sounded like an economic engine for this small village in county wicklow.

i met two of the brothers of the groom. the first came up to me “are ye irish?” “nope, american.” “hah, i win. he’s not.” they had bet if i was irish or a tourist. they actually both have lived in nashville, tennessee for the last 10 years. i commented “oh wow you still have your accents!” the older brother replied “i come back often. i hafta keep me accent. it’s how i get tha girls!” i met the father of the groom, who seemed to be paying for the open bar. incredibly gregarious and grateful for the turnout. and i met the youngest guy at the bar who shyly asked the bartender for “a schmirnof ice. BUT it’s not for me. i’m prankin’ me father.” the bartender laughed, didn’t mind his prepubescence, and gave him the ice. i watched him sneak it under his dad’s seat, and when he returned from the bathroom, asked his dad to grab something he dropped under his seat. ICED! his dad had to chug the rather disgusting drink. man, i hadn’t see that in years and had a good chuckle. the son was laughing hysterically. i met some friends of the bride and friends of the groom, many of whom started the conversation with “yer the yank, huh?” or “yer the guy from philly, yeah?” by the number of people that offered me a shot (i only did a couple with the bridal party members), i could tell the wedding would be a fun time.

this soup course took me back to 2003, my first time in ireland. when all i could afford was soup. i’ll still contend that ireland makes some of the best soups i’ve ever had. this one was superb.

between meeting wedding goers, i had a fabulous meal and discussion with the two bartenders, oisín and aoife. oisin was a young irish guy, born in puerto rico, lived in panama, but mostly has lived in every area of ireland. he has an american passport but has never been to america since his toddler years in puerto rico, even tho his sister lives near lake tahoe in california. aoife was a gorgeous young irish girl, with a charming smile and a very thick accent. her eyes twinkled when she smiled. she has lived here her whole life. both gave me their suggestions about where i should go (connemara and the ring of kerry seemed to be consensus. “perfect! that’s where my trip ends!”) both said the last leg of the wicklow way was the worst, because it’s on a lot of roads. but neither had done it for themselves, so i ignored that. aoife “couldn’t be caught dead” drinking water from random sources. “what are ye, mental?” oisin wasn’t into hiking, and would rather play football. when i asked why no one in the wedding party was drinking guinness, but instead drank heineken, oisin said “let me put this in terms ye’d understand. yer in red neck country! we have no taste.”

i was glad i stayed in tinahely a second night. my impressions of it changed rather quickly when i actually was in a better mood myself, and when i sat and talked to the lifeblood of the town. this is the kind of town i really enjoy visiting. i feel like you get a much better taste of irish culture here than from dublin or cork or killarney. it’s not that i don’t also love the bigger cities, but i feel like a lot of times in those cities, you end up meeting americans or other travelers — when what i’m here for is the irish.

the wedding pre-party was slowing down, saving their energy for the big night i guess. either that or the open bar was closing and they’d head back to drink at ballybeg house. so with that, i also settled up and started to head back to the hotel myself. my lower leg was starting to throb, and i wanted to give it ample rest before a long trek tomorrow. as i was leaving, the brothers said “if yer in the area tomorrow, crash the weddin!” i considered staying again in tinahely. but i only had 2 change of clothes total for my trip, and neither hiking pants or hiking shorts are wedding-worthy. and both were getting stinky. the next laundromat or male’s clothing store were miles away. “i will!” i lied. “have a blast! and congrats!” i throw back the rest of my guinness.

my glass was empty but my cup was full.

10:30 pm 🤷‍♂️

it was roughly 10:30pm when i left the bar. and it was still dusk lighting. that throws me for a loop every time. goodnight tinahely, thanks for giving me a break and letting my tired legs recover.

#travel #ireland2022