July 1, 1990: Shillelagh to Clonegal

It was another gray morning as we arose for the last day of our walk on the Wicklow Way. I went downstairs to look for a sign of life and found our hostess in the kitchen. She returned our clothes – which had been drying on huge hangers in a warm corner of the kitchen. These were toasty dry now. I handed them out to their owners and we got ready for another day. Gavan reported to me that Elizabeth had not been feeling too well, that she had even had the dry heaves, but at breakfast she reported that she was fine now. Again we had the electric fire on in the dining room. The recent rain had leaked onto a ground floor landing and I reported this to our landlady, who said, “Oh no, not another one; we had a flooded basement last night.” Gavan had wanted to go to mass this morning but we had ascertained that this would not start until a late 10:00. This was ten minutes after we had left town, as it turned out, my own hymn being a variation on a song I sang at the beginning of every day, “Clonegal here we come, lock up your women and your rum.”

We passed the donkey in the town meadow but no one acted on my suggestion that we dump our packs on its back. There was a chilly wind blowing as we gradually gained altitude, passing the farm machinery museum that otherwise looked like a junkyard. There were no raindrops but our landlady had promised us a day like yesterday and we were in full gear at the outset. This made it quite warm as we left the Tullow road and ascended a steep tarmac ribbon at the crossroads.

We reached our turnoff, an arrow post helping us on our way south along a paved farm road. I fished the camera out of Gavan’s pack in order to take a picture of a “farmhouse with hydrangeas” but I couldn’t spot any of these flowers. We were now to ascend one of the steepest hills on the route. Elizabeth got well ahead here and we could see her walking up a portion of the hill backwards. Gavan was fretting over the Nimrod theme from Elgar’s Enigma Variations, a melody he just couldn’t remember. I tried to help him out with all the themes I could recall, but it was only after he accused me of singing off key that I realized I had been unhelpfully offering up sections of Holst’s Planets.

Soon there was a forest on our right and an inviting gate but I insisted that we needed the next turnoff. Gavan said we were to turn right at the crest of the hill but I argued that this didn’t necessarily mean the top. Sure enough we began a little descent and found another road, with forest on the right side, as I had expected. There was no marker but we were agreed that this was the road that would end up at a farm if, according to Malone, we failed to make some critical turnoffs. I had been praying against the recurrence of rain and it was indeed getting brighter; there were wonderful views of the hills of County Wexford to the south.

The walk through this forest was a bit tricky. Gavan wasn’t completely confident that he had clocked all the turnoffs we were supposed to ignore in favor of the ones we were supposed to take. Eventually we came up to the west side of the woods at an iron gate, which we were looking for, at the start of a grassy boreen, which we were looking for as well. Gavan had my whistle and compass around his neck and took a bearing that satisfied him so we continued westward on the boreen. In a few minutes, however, we came up to a farm that seemed to have spread over the track. A woman in a green sweater popped a head over a hedge and suggested we might like to go round the buildings to the right. This we did, somewhat gingerly on wet ground, rediscovering our track in front of the buildings – which we could now see housed some truly gigantic pigs. Sows waddled out chewing something disgusting as we headed west again.

Hedgerows accompanied us on either side as we marched along, another of those sections that seemed much longer on the ground than it did on Malone’s map. Once we even thought we belonged on a parallel road that we could see down the hill to our left but in the event we did meet tarmac, as promised, and turned right. We were a bit confused as to our next turn, which Malone promised as just at the head of a descent but which proved to be well after one. Another mile of road walking followed, with occasional cars whizzing by in an increasingly populated countryside. The weather was getting brighter all the time and we had long ago abandoned our rain jackets. Ahead of us we could even see the radio mast on the top of distant Mount Leinster. Visibility was terrific.

We turned south at the next junction and began to look for a place to have lunch – for we had been making good time and had already covered half of the distance for the day. We found some dry grass at the side of the road and sat facing a sheep dotted hill. Once a farmer and a fat youth accompanied by a racing black puppy climbed into this field and proceeded uphill to check on their stock. I ate my sandwiches and drank some Strawberry Ribena from a carton with a straw. Then, even though I was seated in a version of the lotus position, I fell asleep for about ten minutes, even snoring once – so Gavan told me. Elizabeth, lying on her back in the grass, also dozed off; this is a good indication of how tired we were after almost seven days on the go.

We decided to continue after a rest of about half an hour. I had realized that I had a few more terms on my Freudian vocabulary list that I had never gotten around to explaining; thus I decided to use the next few hours to continue my explanations. I had a good audience. Elizabeth’s mother is a psychiatrist and had been trying to get her daughter to listen for years to many of the same ideas that I was discussing now.

After a long section on tarmac we turned off onto a series of forestry roads through Moylisha state forest. We passed an unusual planting, ornamental cypresses, and emerged at a junction that was without any arrow. Malone had suggested that the turnoff was marked by a growth of fireweed, however, and I was able to identify the first blooms of a patch of rosebay willowherb as evidence.

I was discussing Freud’s theory of the dream just at this point. Gavan had described at length his dream of the previous evening and I was able to trace back some of the incidents in the dream to the most minor matters that had come up in the previous day’s conversation – thereby illustrating the idea of the day residue. Gavan was so impressed by the successful connections I was able to make that he fell to his knees on the forest track in astonishment. As for the latent content, that has to be the work of someone with some real analytic training.

We wound around in Newry State Forest as the sun gradually became more predominant. Our direction was mostly southwest now and it was clear we were making our final descent. After we returned to tarmac we trudged up to a little triangle of grass and had a rest in the T-junction. There was a sign here for our b&b at Park Lodge, but we had no idea how far away this was and we were not tempted to depart from our quest for the end of the WW. A huge fat person, sex indeterminate from behind, inched by, pushing a bicycle around the corner. I was just about to pull off my rain pants and take another nap in the grass when a few drops fell. We took this as a sign to begin the last mile and a half or so into Clonegal.

We crossed a bridge that separated County Wicklow from County Carlow. We were walking on tarmac along the valley of the Derry River and County Wexford was on our left too. The first sight of Clonegal’s church came into view as Gavan and Elizabeth were having a final trailside spat over the proper tone of voice to be used in addressing one another. A horse came over to look at us as we passed the city limits sign. Elizabeth, who had been waving to all drivers for seven days, grew frustrated at a yellow van hauling a trailer because it passed us three or four times.

We started to pass houses on our right and at a t-junction we could see a strip of grass with the roofed notice board containing the same map that we had first seen in Marley Park at about this time one week earlier. It was 4:45 and we had walked an even 100 miles and completed the Wicklow Way!

Elizabeth went across the street to ask a lady, who was working on her garden, to come take our photo. This was not made easy by the resident nervous dog. At last I took off my rain paints. As we were packing up we could see that the reason for the all the trips made by the yellow van had something to do with the transfer of sheep into a field behind the strip of grass.

I was pleased but somewhat surprised to discover that the pub, just up the hill, was open at this hour on a Sunday. In front of it most of the town’s youth had assembled in states of sulky boredom, but there were kids inside as well – playing a video game in a banquette near the dance floor. We ordered some Harps while I went to what turned out to be the lady’s loo. The pretty dark-haired bar maid, Maria, didn’t look old enough to be allowed in a pub, let alone serve in one. We savored our victory lagers. Gavan bought peanuts and candy from Maria and a second pint of Harp after I strolled down the hill to phone Park Lodge, where our hostess, Bridey Osborne, had promised that someone would come to pick us up.

Park Lodge, to my surprise, had a different dialing code than the phone I was using but I got through without much difficulty and Mrs. Osborne said her husband would soon be on the way. I had time to go into an open market and buy Gavan a Yorkie bar. I was waited on by a fat man with a wall eye who said he had seen me taking pictures in Shillelagh yesterday; he wanted to know where we were staying tonight, obviously trying to drum up some b&b business for someone.

On the way back up the hill I took a picture of a roadside shrine. I could also see that all those sheep that had just been painstakingly transferred to their new field had, by now, discovered a way to hop the fence; they were about to do some maintenance work on the grass around the Wicklow Way notice board. I’m sorry that we hadn’t had time to visit nearby Huntington Castle, which two local eccentrics had made into the center of a revived cult of Isis.

Gavan had managed to consume his second pint in the five minutes I had been gone and he was a little unsteady on his pins as we picked up our gear and walked across the street, threading our way through more Clonegal lads with nothing to do. I noticed that except for the Harp and Guinness signs our pub listed no name whatsoever on any signboard.

Almost immediately Seamus Osborne pulled up with his eldest son, Sean, a famous under-11 athlete. The Osbornes were most welcoming. We sped past our grassy t-junction and continued going for several more miles, almost all the way to Shillelagh, it seemed. Later we learned that if we had continued on our first forest road of the day (without following the Wicklow Way turnoffs) we would have ended up on the Osborne farm. All I can say is that I was glad they had a pickup service as part of their operation.

We were shown to our rooms by Bridey, Gavan almost falling over on the unusual arrangement of steps between a first floor landing and our slightly higher bedrooms. We each had a giant double bed, high above the ground. Mine even had a Star of David in mother of pearl. I told Gavan he should take a nap; I took a bath in green water, getting rid of most of my tape at last and bumping my head on the slanted roof. It was past seven when I had finished all of my preparations and thus time to wake Gavan up. I knew that dinner was waiting and it would have been rude to delay it any longer, especially as the Osbornes were planning to join us.

Downstairs we met the two girls, redhaired Barbara, just a year or two younger than my two charges, and a sniffling little sister Sinead. There was also a younger boy in pajamas, but I didn’t get his name. Dinner was very nice. There was orange drink and water on the table, lovely potatoes, cauliflower and carrots (somewhat overcooked, our fault) and local lamb. I was a bit concerned on Elizabeth’s behalf but to my surprise she ate everything on her plate, all three pieces. Mrs. Osborne told us many amusing tales about Wicklow Way walkers ending up in her fields and had much to say about the Isis cultists in Clonegal, one of whom – with eyes that did not match – she described as a witch. For dessert Mrs. Osborne had made both a Bakewell tart and an apple pie; Gavan and I had pieces of both, served with thick cream, and they were delicious.

After our meal I let myself out the front door in order to take a picture of the very handsome Georgian building that was Park Lodge. I managed to get myself locked out and had to be readmitted by Seamus, who was just settling down to watch the England-Cameroun quarter final in the lounge. Soon every member of the Osborne family and we three as well were in front of the fire and the telly, watching an absorbing match in extremely lurid color that needed some fine tuning. Young Sean kept flipping to a second channel so that we could also watch half a million people at College Green in Dublin welcome back their football heroes. It was quite a spectacle and fun to watch with an Irish family. Gavan had expected that most Irishmen would be hoping for an English defeat but I’m not sure that is how it worked out. Seamus wanted England to win (they did 3-2). “They must be Protestants,” Gavan concluded.

It was just about dark when we went up to bed. Gavan had me carve my initials into the little Wicklow Way post that he was keeping as a souvenir. He concluded the evening’s intense chatter in the dark by asking me if it would be all right to say, “Good night, Dad.”

For the second time on our trip we were awakened by a stentorian cock, crowing his little heart out in the front yard. This had also happened at Knockcree on our second morning; now, as the sun shone into the windows of Park Lodge on Monday, July 2, we were weary enough to want a few more minutes sleep. This cock came very close to the house because he liked to look at his reflection in the glass of the front door. We needed to be up early because breakfast was scheduled for 8:00, allowing us an early departure for the train station at Gorey.

We had an excellent meal and loaded our gear into the back of Seamus’ car. It was extremely kind of the Osbornes to get us going on our return trip to Dublin; their willingness to do this took a lot of anxiety out of the end of the trip. Barbara, no doubt fascinated by my two teenagers, joined them in the back seat for the thirty-minute ride. The countryside soon lost its particular charm as contours flattened out into an uninteresting agricultural dullness.

We arrived at Gorey about ten minutes ahead of our train, buying tickets for £9.00 each. A bent old man, who sounded more like a Yiddish peddler than an Irishman, was dragging his suitcase onto the platform; he asked for my help in loading it onto the train. “You’re wondering why I seem to be dressed for a Siberian winter,” he said, patting the outer of two overcoats and looking up at the bright sun. “Well, I need the pockets,” he explained.

I put his case onto the rack when the crowded train pulled in at about 9:15. Gavan and I found seats opposite one another but Elizabeth went to the end of the car, almost as though she had had enough of us. Gavan listened approvingly to a tape of the Dahl Saxophone Concerto. The little old man fell asleep for a while, then awakened when we reached his spot, Arklow. I put his case back on the platform and he toddled forward, his necktie between his knees.

The train moved very slowly in some sections, but the countryside was very nice, hills and distant views of the mountains we had walked over on our left, the seashore on the right. Two dour French girls studied their map next to me. There were quite a few school kids on the train. Opposite Gavan a mother with the face of a punchdrunk boxer played an hysterical game with two of her toddlers – one involving the hiding of money.

We reached Dublin at about 11:45, after two and a half hours on the train. For the rest of the day I kept seeing people from this train wandering around the Irish capital. We were not far from the bus station so we went there first and checked in our bags. I also turned in a shopping bag with my boots and those of Gavan; his new boots, which I had helped him pick just a week before departure, had done very well. How I wished we could have gone straight to the airport. Unfortunately, not knowing how quickly we could get back to the city, we had booked a 6:00 flight. So we were thrown onto the streets of the city for four hours or so, dragging our weary bodies around and trying to find some amusement.

We headed first for O’Connell Street, where I did some serious shopping, going into Cleary’s Department Store and heading for the Waterford counter. Gavan and Elizabeth wanted me to buy an ornate vase for Dorothy but I settled on a much simpler salad bowl. “Haven’t you ever heard of the phrase, ‘Less is more?’” I asked them. I also bought Dorothy a black Guinness t-shirt, the one with “Genius” and a harp on the front.

We walked to the top of the street and Gavan made me stand in front of a statue of James Joyce for a photo. A drunk came by with comments on Joyce while I was posing and a little old nun was walking up and down carrying a placard which said, “No divorce.” I could see why Joyce never came back to Dublin.

We crossed the street and headed south, turning into a shopping precinct where Gavan and Elizabeth were convulsed by a clothing store innocently calling itself “Gaywear.” Gavan spotted a priest who had given him instruction at some time in his childhood but he did not renew the acquaintanceship. We turned south and started looking for a likely looking pub, choosing the Lady Gregory. It was full of portraits of Irish literary heroes and still decked out in its World Cup colors. We had some Harp but the menu seemed too heavy for us and I said that I would be just as happy back at the Burger King. This idea was embraced with enthusiasm and we returned to O’Connell Street for burgers (well, not Elizabeth), fries, and shakes. The two young people insisted on wearing Burger King crowns for a photo as we left.

We still had two hours to kill so we crossed the Liffey and went to Trinity College again. This time Gavan wanted to see the Book of Kells, the ancient medieval manuscript that is housed in a beautiful tall library room on the campus. It had not been open on Sunday, when there had been far fewer tourists about than today. First I went into a college shop and bought myself a Trinity College t-shirt. Gavan and Elizabeth bought nothing this day, having run out of money. I was even advancing Elizabeth some small sums to get her through the day.

We were provided with portable speakers for our tour of the library, but these were always breaking up in crackle and hiss. Nevertheless it was nice to see the ornate volumes and wander around the rest of the building. When we emerged it was raining again so we took shelter, along with a tour group, under an ornamental gateway at the center of the quad.

The tour guide was telling her charges that the dormitory building at the end of the quad was Dutch inspired, but when these people left a father remained behind to lecture his seven year-old son on everything that was wrong with the recent explanation. “Shit, that’s not Dutch influence, that’s just Queen Anne,” he intoned. Then he turned to examining the blocks of mortar in the gateway. “A clever imitation, but not the real thing,” he concluded. His son paid no attention to any of this and when Gavan and I looked up Elizabeth had disappeared. A paranoid Gavan dashed about our column, convinced that she and I were playing a trick on him, but I didn’t know where she was either. Eventually she emerged from behind another column altogether. By this time the rain had stopped so we returned to College Green, site of last night’s hysterical reunion with the Irish football team, and headed down Grafton Street. We wandered off this several times, poking into shopping centers and malls. It was obvious that Dublin was making up for lost time in the modernization department.

It was nearing 4:00 so we passed the Tex-Mex restaurant one more time and headed back to the bus station. The ride back to the airport took a little longer in the weekday traffic but it was still a very short one and we were checking in shortly before 5:00. Gavan had a leaky water bottle that had to be attended to as we checked our knapsacks and I had to unload all my change in order to get through the security beeper. When we went to our boarding area we discovered that most planes were running late; eventually it was announced that there would be a forty-five minute delay. I waited in a long line for a coke at the bar and so did Gavan – until he discovered that he was 10 pence light. He borrowed some change from me in order to buy a last packet of coke bottles from a food-dispensing machine. This wonderful cornucopia allowed me to get rid of all but one penny of my vast collection of Irish change.

Shortly after the plane to Lourdes took off we were allowed to board our flight. We read Irish newspapers for the first half of the trip. Then they served a nice cold dinner as we reached England. It was very clear below and there were wonderful views from my window seat. After a week of Irish patriotism Gavan was obviously looking forward to returning to his English home.

We had a long wait to reclaim our baggage. My knapsack came out almost at once, then the conveyer belt broke and the crowd was turning surly before the baggage crew got it going again. Mrs. Meehan was there to give us all a ride home. I gave Elizabeth a big kiss as we departed and Gavan a hug when we reached Maida Vale after a most successful outing.

The Wicklow Way had turned out to be a most rewarding route. Its scenic charms, which were considerable, were very much like those of England or Wales though it did have perhaps more forested sections than walks usually offer in the UK; it certainly had more than its share of road walking. This was a bit tiresome, especially when the surface was tarmac, but I was tremendously pleased with myself for having completed seven days of walking, a figure reached only in the Lakes in 1985, and for having walked 100 miles on this venture – a record for me at the time.

Footpath Index:

England: A Chilterns Hundred | The Chiltern Way | The Cleveland Way | The Coast-to-Coast Path | The Coleridge Way | The Cotswold Way | The Cumberland Way | The Cumbria Way | The Dales Way | The Furness Way | The Green London Way | The Greensand Way | The Isle of Wight Coast Path | The London Countryway | The London Outer Orbital Path | The Norfolk Coast Path | The North Downs Way | The Northumberland Coast Path | The Peddars Way | The Pennine Way | The Ridgeway Path | The Roman Way | The Saxon Shore Way | The South Downs Way | The South West Coast Path | The Thames Path | The Two Moors Way | The Vanguard Way | The Wealdway | The Westmorland Way | The White Peak Way | The Yorkshire Wolds Way