Beamtown
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2006
1
35
110
Trip End
Apr 01, 2008
Cork,
Ireland
Sunday, August 20, 2006
So last month, I aborted my planned trip to Ireland when the Irish Whiskey Championships were cancelled, but I was sorry because I did want to see how Ireland has changed in the sixteen years since I did a summer semester at Trinity College in Dublin, so I bailed on Morocco (better for when I am doing more of a backpack trip than this one with a huge suitcase) and found a budget fare from Malaga to Cork, Ireland. Cork appealed to me because I never visited it in 1990. We did weekends to Galway, Limerick and Kilkenny, but not Cork, so here I came.
And it rained
Beamish Brewery
. Not that rain in Ireland in August is all that unusual, but every local felt the need to tell me how this had been the best summer ever, sunny from May unitl I came. Thanks. As for Cork itself, it's okay. It's Ireland "second city" with a whopping 160,000 inhabitants, but all of the things touted to do in the tourist office involve leaving the city - go to Blarney Castle for the Blarney Stone, take walks in the countryside, play golf. Well, it was bloody, focking raining, and I am not going to kiss/lick some stone previously slobbered on by countless tourists, so that left town.And in town, the primary visitor attraction is a museum showing how gaol (jail) life was in the nineteenth century. Well, I don't need to pay 6€ to know that it was bloody, focking miserable, so I went to the Beamish factory instead. Ireland's oldest brewery, although it is now owned by a British conglomerate, and they also brew and bottle Foster's, MGD, Carling Black Label, Kronenbourg 1664, and others according to the formulas set forth by those brewers. Interestingly, each of the big American brewers is affiliated with each of the Irish stouts - Beamish with Miller, Murphys with Coors, and Guinness with Budweiser. But Beamish appeared to have the slight lead in the Cork market, which makes sense since they are the local boys, and were normally 25 cents or so cheaper than the other two, and there really is almost no otherwise notable difference between the three in taste
Beamish Jenius
.Also, I found interesting that Irish drinking taste has changed over the last 16 years, whether due to marketing or something else, though, I don't know. Before, people either drank stout or ales - Smithwick's being the most popular. Lagers were basically limited to Carlsberg and Harp. Now, nobody drinks ale (some pubs don't even have an ale on tap) and the most popular drink, by far, is cider. Cider poured from a bottle or can into a glass with ice and constantly topped off from the bottle or can. Otherwise, it is stout or lager, and the American lagers have made a huge penetration into the market. I have seen tables littered with Bud and MGD bottles. Who knew? So much for the Irish having some sort of drinker's palate.
The food, however, has improved noticably. Sixteen years ago it was mostly classic pub grub. Dublin had one Mexican restaurant - Judge Roy Bean's - and it sucked big-time. Some Indian and Chinese and that was it. Now, even the "second city" has shii-shii asian places, Italian, vegetarian, Thai and upscale steakhouses. I assume this is a byproduct of Ireland's huge wealth increase since the creation of the EU, but some of it must come from other sources. One is clearly immigration. In 1990, anyone with skin darker than russet was still an oddity, and black tourists would be openly stared at
Monument
. Now, Africans are much more common, and I was blessed to hear a diatribe in a pub from a "born-again christian" who was waiting for the anti-war meeting to start about how the government needed to stop letting Nigerians enter the country. I have also noticed several stores catering to Poles.One the other hand, publicans have suffered, and pubs are being sold to take advantage of a booming property market. Apparently, less people are going to pubs, instead drinking at home, because of the smoking ban and a crackdown on "drink-driving." Nevertheless, I suffered no shortage of pubs with live music. I got in the first night (Tuesday) to late to go really go out, since pubs have to close at 11:30 unless they are a "late bar," but most of the late licenses are for Thursday - Saturday only. On Wednesday, I found a place featuring a couple songs each by various singer/songwriters, and enjoyed it immensely. There was more talent it that room than a stadium full of American Idol wannabes.
Thursday, however, was a different story. On Thursday, the nation's high school seniors receiving their "Leaving Cert" test scores, which effectively determine what university programs, if any, they can get into. This apparently was cause for every 18 year old in the county to descend on the Cork bars and drink excessively. While it was funny for awhile, it grew old and only place to escape to was an "over 23" bar. Great idea. We should have them in the States, except for some lawyer would probably contend it was a violation of civil rights. Focking lawyers, asswipes all of them. Nutting exciting to report (I'm working on my accent), though, except that it is nice to be understood in a pub, and be able to understand other people, without having to talk slow and avoid 8-bit words. And, with that, I took off for:
Tralee, Ireland (The Rose of Tralee Festival)
