[ Edited: 10/25/2025 this is a repost of a series i wrote in 2022, migrating it to the new nostr website ]

DAY SIX HIKE: ~22 miles
TOTAL MILES: ~103 miles

[NOTE: i am home early and finishing up the outlined posts i have in my draft queue. i am okay, disappointed to be home early, but on the mend.]

something isn’t right with my leg. if this is what overused feels like, i don’t want to think about the marathon training i have to start in about a month. are these shin splints? i’ve never had them before. maybe i have a stress fracture? can i continue on at this pace? should i stay in tinahely another night and crash that wedding? thoughts race through my head as i get ready for bed, wanting nothing more than a fresh pair of socks to soothe my throbbing feet. i need to consult my running friends about shin splints, get some advice. i dig through my ruck sack for my charger, and i miraculously remembered that, as i was walking out of my west philly bedroom, i threw one more pair of clean socks into the tiny pocket under my water bottle. was that a dream, or did i really spoil myself? i eagerly sought to find out, tearing open the zipper and — out popped the overstuffed clean fabric of two waterproof socks. i didn’t think i could be so happy from a pair of clean socks. i immediately put them on and laid down in comfort, ready for sleep. i don’t usually sleep with socks on at home, but the tightness of these waterproof socks was instantly soothing.

i woke up at 7am. my body feels rested from a good night’s sleep. my right foot calmed down but my left foot and lower leg still had the echos of the previous day’s 20-mile hike. i knew when i started hiking, that echo would turn louder into a full-on scream. but the show must go on.  wake, yoga, teeth, pack. ready for my full irish! the typical breakfast was served from 9 to 11 am. because i requested an earlier exit, the chef himself sat me in an empty dining room. this was great, because it gave us time to chat.

“finishing the wicklow way, huh? ugh” he says with a dismissive swipe of the forearm in disgust. “this last part isn’t worth it. don’t do it. it’s like 70% on roads with cars. the only good part is the shebeen.” 

“the what?”

“the shebeen. illegal pub.”

“oh! like a speakeasy. where’s that?”

“look for ‘the dying cow’ pub. there’s no sign, just a white building. it used to be a shebeen. legit now, tho. it’s been in the same family for the last three hundred years.”

i looked it up really quickly to see how far off the trail it was. “oh man, it says it doesn’t open until 11 am. i will be passing by around 10.”

“oh just knock up! tha woman who runs it will serve you a pint. she’s 90 years old. knock loudly!”

i devour the complimentary full irish, and realize i don’t have any coins for a tip. i told him i would be right back. i walked over to the fruit stand and got 2 apples for my hike and brought my man back a €2 coin for a tip, for which he was surprised and grateful.

i grab my bag and set off for the day. instead of backtracking up to the trail 1.5 miles, i take the road that goes right to ‘the dying cow.’ the routes took roughly the same time to traverse, and the bar is right on the wicklow way, conveniently. it would take me about 2 hours to get there.

more gorgeous than sausages?

i follow the gps and pass a lot of cars heading to work or driving children to school. i was definitely walking with a little bit of a limp, with my left leg not fully cooperating. i pass several old men gardening, and exchange a g’mornin’ with each. with a white building in my field of view, atop a hill looking down on cow pastures, i get excited for a cold guinness. i start walking down the hill, watching google maps to see which of the white buildings on the horizon might be this unmarked shebeen.

crosses and cows

lots of white buildings, where’s ‘the cow’

two young guys approached me, looking more lost than me.

“hey bruh. can you help? you know how to get to the shops?”

“i can try. you see this backpack tho?” i said pointing to my back. “i’m just passing through! what shops?”

“i know there are shops close to here. he says it’s that way,” he said pointing northwest, “but i think it’s that way”, pointing due south.

“umm, i just came from a little village about 1.5 hours away that has a bunch of shops,” i mentioned, throwing my thumb toward the southeast direction behind me.

“no, it’s closer than that.”

“ok, let’s see if i can pull up google maps satellite.” we search the nearby areas for what might appear from the sky to be shops. most look like farms or solo structures from above, nothing really resembling a town center. “where are you coming from?”

“up the street bruh” they pointed to where i was headed.

“oh do yo know ‘the dying cow’?”

“oh course man! we were there last night. so fun! no one is there now. we just moved here from south africa. just trying to figure out where ‘here’ is tho.”

i tell them what i am doing, walking coast to coast, spreading my dad’s and bill’s ashes. and that i am about 85 miles into my trek. i laughed and continued to hunt for stores. “here’s a town about an hour away. but it only looks like 1 or 2 shops.” 

“nah, not it. can i look?” i hand him my phone and he starts scrolling through the map tiles. “oh this looks like it… tinahely.”

“that’s where i just came from!”

“oh man, and it’s an hour and a half walk? that’s sucks” 

“just about. but i have a back pack and a limp, you can do it faster.”

“here we are complaining about 3 miles, and dis oom’s walking 380.” the quieter of the two spoke up, laughing.

“make a left at the stone cross down that hill, and it’s basically straight ahead. good luck guys!”

tallon’s ‘the dying cow’ pub

what a drinking view!

i walk up the hill and immediately noticed small signage for ‘the dying cow:’ proof the chef probably hadn’t been here in a while. the place was empty, the doors were shut, the lights were off. after my 20 minute chat with the south africans, it was around 10:40, so i figured i could wait until the advertised 11 am opening. i dropped mr. osprey and looked around. there’s a great tree trunk carving of a hiker and his dog across the street. there are two seprate seating areas with small fireplaces adjacent. this was very clearly a small side addition to a farmhouse where the proprietress probably lived. this would have been an incredible pub to hang out in for a few hours. my breakfast chef told me they were very welcoming to hikers and allowed people to pitch tents in the backyard all the time (i wish i had known that and planned for it!). not only did the pub have a sign, it also had two historical plaques with two different stories about the name of the pub (so very irish), which i combined into one for clarity here:

wood carving outside the pub

“The name of the pub originated from an incident said to have happened around the 1920’s when a group of people were caught drinking there on a Sunday night. According to the rules, to qualify for late night or all day drinking on a Sunday in Ireland and Great Britain, one is required to have “travelled in good faith for a distance of three miles, by public thoroughfare, from the place they spent the night.” Travelling in good faith meant that you could not be “travelling for the purpose of taking refreshment”… the elderly landlady tried all her charm to the Guardi claiming “Sure you wouldn’t summons an old woman! These men were only helping me with a dying cow.” … The pub has a long tradition of card playing and an assumption upon entering that you leave your feelings and emotions at the door.”

and here’s an even more elaborate and colorful irish retelling of the story — which i highly recommend you read. https://medium.com/@mtallon245/an-irishmans-story-part-one-36dfe4d0a330

at 10:55, one of the doors swung open. i assumed it was the owner opening up. i walked into those doors very excitedly, anticipating a cold guinness… but it was just the water closets. no one was around, no entrance into the main pub. a wind gust must have opened the door. how disappointing!

i walk back outside, walk all the way around the building, and peek into any window i could. it’s so painfully adorable in there, but it’s also dark and still. no one is around. 11 am hits. no one opens the door. 11:15, i knock on the front door to the pub and to the farmhouse. no one answers. i think back to the hotel chef telling me that the owner is a 90 year old woman. “let her sleep in, brian!” i waited 5 more minutes, and left disappointed. my heart as empty as my stomach. no guiness for me. no dying cow drinking story to relay when i got home. i made a mental note to come back here next time i come to ireland. this is my kind of place.

straight outta ‘the birds’

as i hope back onto the trail, i feel like i am in the movie ‘the birds.’ hundreds of crows are cawing and swooping through the gorgeous skies. it’s as if there actually IS a dying cow and they’re all waiting to eat.

i thought about my dad’s love of horror movies, and how he passed that along to many of us. i thought about how he would wait until the climax right before a scare, and throw a pillow at you from across the room with a loud yelp of terror. (this got you every time, and you’d jump out of your skin, even during movies you watched with him a dozen times). i thought about his love for halloween, and our resultant traditions of dressing up to scare the trick or treaters, haunted house style. and how amazingly fun it is. they were fleeting thoughts, but they were a nice distraction from my left leg.

i continued the hike. this chef was correct in that this segment ran along a lot more roads. but i was still enjoying it. i started walking along a road with cows grazing on both sides of it. on my left, in the much bigger pasture full of heather flowers, grass, and sun, i see three groups of cows. they are separated from each other. but they all take a break from chewing to look at me. i laugh, thinking back to a road trip to my dad’s brother Jim’s farm in upstate new york. we are driving along in our 25 foot van, lovingly called “the fish tank” by my friends growing up. i’m sure it was a perfect time to stay inside your own head with random thoughts: 10 kids packed in like sardines, without air conditioning or a radio, for an 8-10 hour drive (uncle steve loves to retell this story, but i’m more remembering one random thought he shared along this ride). as my dad is driving, he’s watching the cows in the fields. deep in thought he blurts out, “do you think cows have gangs?”

we all laughed, but as i watched how they stayed in packs, you can definitely see why that thought popped up. i keep walking. i notice the field on the right is much smaller, not as sunny for whatever reason, and only had one cow gang in it. these guys must be from the wrong side of the track, i think to myself proud of my dad joke, walking on the physical track of which i speak.

but they didn’t find it funny. the cows started following me! every time i turned around they would stop moving and pretend that they weren’t obviously trailing me — running at times! i started laughing hard at this. i couldn’t believe they were doing it. i finally took out my camera to try to record them, and they stopped all together. busted! they were made!

now, this reminded me of a gary larson cartoon. my dad and i loved the far side comics. i kept waking and laughing in disbelief. i’m assuming the cows thought they were about to be fed? it got me pretty good tho.

gary was a genius

i kept walking, kept the pace. i tried to ignore the fact that every step after about 5 miles in, was agony. i need to at least finish the wicklow way. i can’t stop before that! i took a break on a stone wall and ate an apple. i pulled out my map to strategize. at the start of the morning, i had about 18.5 miles in total to get to clonegall, the end of the wicklow way and the start of the south leinster way. i was about 3/4 of the way there. i had checked online multiple times for a place to stay in clonegall but i couldn’t find anything. there were some wild camping spots that were my original destination target, but i needed wifi to have a zoom meeting for work (ugh, i know). i was disappointed i couldn’t escape work, but some things only i can handle. i scouted a town nearby (~1.5 hours by foot) that had a hotel, so i booked that and figured, what’s another 3.5 miles? with the hotel booked, i continued on to clonegall.

there were parts of this trail that got dangerous. not because of the terrain, but because of the speeding cars driving on not-wide-enough roads. several times i jammed myself into a thorn bush overhanging the road to give a farmer’s equipment room to get by. i got to a safe cutout, the entrance to a sheep farm, and drop my bag. i take a knee and have a piss. i haven’t seen anyone most of the day, so was surprised when a sheep farmer asked if i was okay. “i’m good! just having a rest!” i quickly finished relieving myself before he came over — but he went to opposite direction to tend to his flock. whew.

clonegall: picturesque indeed!

i finally make it to clonegall, and i am relieved. THE END of the wicklow way. this is a very picturesque village, but it was almost too much like a painting in that there was no movement at all, aside from the flowing river.

man this is anticlimactic!

at the end of the wicklow way, i didn’t know what to expect. but a town with no one walking around, no one there to say ‘hey good on you!’, was not it. i recalled what mickey said to me when i was questioning whether to reactivate social media for this trip: “remember, you’re not doing this for anyone but yourself.” that applies here too; i guess i don’t need to see anyone here. i’ll check out the village really quickly and then head to the town of bunclody for my hotel.

off in the distance, the lovely couple ready their pub for tomorrow’s opening

as i’m taking some photos of the nearby castle, and trying to capture the cuteness of the town, i see an old man and woman come out to clean the light on what looks like the only pub in town, OSBORNE. okay maybe they are just about to open!

by the time i walked up to the bar, it’s just the old man on the ladder, cleaning the inside glass of the light. he clearly cared about this place.

“hi there! are you open?”

“no, no.” and that was all he said. i paused waiting for anything else, but it didn’t come.

“oh, okay. is there anywhere open here to grab a drink or lunch?”

“are ye starting the wicklow way?” he looked away from the light and at me for the first time.

“i just finished!”

“oh! come in. come in. my wife has a certificate for you.”

“oh really? that’s great!” he slowly gets down from the ladder, as a septuagenarian should. i offer to carry his supplies in, but he just motions for me to go in ahead of him. 

“he just finished! he needs a certificate!”

shelves appear to float and maintain gravity’s laws at the same time… how did i not ask this couple for a photo with them, they were amazing!

the bar is dark, and in slight disarray. but it looks like something out of a harry potter set, with unleveled shelves somehow delicately holding up racks of bottles, with a bar-top made out of surplus coffin lids, with atmospheric lighting welcoming you deeper into the bar and if you’re lucky, into the back room that has a fireplace. i learn that they are only open thursday through sunday nights. this was a wednesday, so sadly i am left out again. she confirms my suspicion that their hours are due to covid lockdowns and the travel sector not fully revived yet… but i think their old age may also have something to do with it. it was wednesday and they were finally getting around to tidying up from sunday’s open hours.

“can i pour ya a pint?”

“i’d love to buy one” i say, making sure she knows i’m not looking for a handout. man, i love this irish couple so much.

WOO HOO! official date stamp and everything!

i learn that they have been giving out these certificates since the wicklow way opened, some 30 years ago. i’m sure she has seen it all, heard every story. she told me about a girl last week from australia that broke down in tears at the bar. when she asked what was wrong, the girl told her that she had just completed the wicklow way in seven days. she was fine for the first four days, but she was so incredibly lonely the last three days. she couldn’t handle it, and kept trying to find a way to quit. so i asked, “were these tears of joy that she finished?” the woman replied “i don’t think she knew!”

i told her that i started at poolbeg lighthouse, 9 miles from marlay park. and that i took the day off yesterday to heal. so leaving the trail like that for a hotel, and more importantly a bath that i could soak in, presented me with lots of people i could talk to. i haven’t really felt lonely at all on the trip. i had read lots of reviews about people taking these long multi-day hikes and feeling very lonely. i guess i just know that i’m close enough to a town that i could walk to and start up a conversation? it also helps that i have my cell phone on me, with data turned on (i couldn’t negotiate my way out of that, work required it. my original plan was no cell phone. my mom would have killed me if i tried that tho). her husband walks in with the ladder as i’m finishing my second pint. i felt weird drinking while they were cleaning, but they seemed to enjoy the company.

“this war isn’t ending anytime soon. putin won’t stop.” he says out of nowhere.

“yeah it’s terrible! if he gets away with taking ukraine, he’ll roll into the next country right away.”

he paused in thought. “greed is an odd thing, isn’t it” he says shaking his head. clearly this man does not have a greedy bone in his body. working the same small bar for decades in a simple and happy life. “do you have a place to stay? lots of refugees right now.”

“i couldn’t find anything in clonegall so i’m headed to bunclody.” i finish the small bag of potato crisps that they gave me, and drank the last sip from the third pint. i had walking to do, as much as i’d rather hang out. i remembered ben franklin’s quote “fish and company smell after three days” and assumed it applied to beers at a closed pub as well. three pints and don’t overstay your welcome.

shillelagh detour, cute af

town famous for their walking (band battle!) sticks made of blackthorn

i load my pack onto my back and head south. every step i make with my left leg feels like someone is stabbing me on the shin and dragging the knife up to my knee or down to the top of my foot. it was not comfortable. as i’m walking, i take out my phone and check to see if bunclody is big enough for a routine bus schedule. (many small villages don’t have public transportation options, or have a once or twice a week bus roll through). bunclody has 2 busses to dublin tomorrow at 6 am and 7:50am. BINGO! i’m going to go back to dublin in the morning and swap out this huge backpack for a smaller day bag. the next section of the trail can weave through a town every night, so i can carefully plan my route to avoid camping (and about 30 lbs of gear). this is my answer! i’ll come back to dublin in a week and get the camp gear for the kerry way and beara way. surely this will relieve whatever is going on with my leg.

friendly greeting by two asses

i’m so distracted by my thoughts that i don’t realize i’m already almost in bunclody. i arrive, find my hotel, and ditch my bag all in short order. i take off my shoes, and i sit staring at my left leg. it looks like the pillsbury dough boy wearing a sweater three sizes too small. i am so swollen. my right leg feels pretty great, all things considered. the rest of my body felt fine. i thought it was weird to get shin splints in one leg. so i started thinking maybe it was a stress fracture. maybe i shouldn’t be doing 22 mile hikes, like today. maybe while i’m in dublin i should go get this checked out before i come back down. maybe…

oh shit!

i have a work zoom in 10 minutes. let me look presentable. i hopped in the shower, tried to shift my focus to 3300 miles away back in america.

my body couldn’t have felt farther from my mind than at that moment.

#travel #ireland2022