Exploring Yeats Country

July 18, 2023

We set off for Sligo early in the morning, before the Rusty Mackerel staff showed up at 8:00 am.  It was supposed to be another big hiking day.  The plan was to hike the two big mountains around Sligo - Benbulben in the morning and Knocknarea in the afternoon.  But the Sliabh Liag hike took its toll on both Kati's and Tyler's knees, so we called a bit of an audible and decided to skip the morning hike in order to preserve their knees for the afternoon.  Instead, we decided to stop off at the Glencar Waterfall in County Letrim.  It was an easy 0.4 mile "hike" from the road along a paved path, but Kati's knee was still bothering her a lot, so she opted to nap in the car while Tyler, Morgan, and I headed up to the waterfall.

The path to Glencar meandering along the side of the cascading stream, up through the wooded glen to the main attraction.  It was easy to tell when we were close to the waterfall because the temperature dropped by what felt like 15 degrees.  At 50 feet tall, the romantic waterfall is something to behold and it's easy to see how it inspired William Butler Yeats's poem 'The Stolen Child':

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From Ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

The shores of Glencar Lake, into which the waterfall flows, were also serenely beautiful and calming.  It turned out to be the perfect interlude for the morning drive into Sligo.

From Glencar, we drove to the Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery. The name Carrowmore comes from. the Irish Cheathrú Mhór, meaning "the great quarter." It is a very fitting name for one of the largest clusters of megalithic monuments and tombs in Ireland (and in Europe). There are 30 surviving tombs at the site, all constructed around 6,000 years ago in the 4th millennium BC. The most in-tact and impressive of the tombs is Tomb 51, known as Listoghil, which reaches a height of approximately 8 feet and included a chamber large enough to walk in. It was very cool!

Our exploration of cairn culture continued with Knocknarea (Cnoc na Riabh). At 1,073-feet tall, it is a striking mountain overlooking Sligo and the Atlantic coast. At the top sits Queen Maeve's Cairn (Miosgán Meadhbha). Outside of Brú na Bóinne in County Meath, it is the largest cairn in Ireland, measuring 180-feet wide and 33-feet high. Legend has it that mythical Queen Maeve (Medb) is buried there, standing upright in her armor and holding her sword and shield, facing north toward her eternal enemies in Ulster. The hike up Knocknarea was a beast! The path seemed to get steeper and steeper the closer you got to the top, but the view was well worth it. The cairn was pretty incredible, but the views of the surrounding area were the real stars.

The summit offered an outstanding view of flat-topped Benbulben (Binn Ghulbain), which at 1,726-feet is visible from any point in County Sligo. Though I was sad about skipping our ascent of Benbulben that morning, the real beauty of the mountain is looking onto it, not out from it. It really was something! The other interesting sight we saw from the top was in Sligo Bay. The tide had gone out considerably and there were dozens of cars just driving across the partially dried up bay! We all agreed that the idea of driving across that soft sand was not something we wanted to try.

After carefully descending Knocknarea, we headed over to Strandhill, which is a quaint littler surfing town. More importantly, it's where we were going to have a seaweed bath! I had booked these baths months ago and yet remained skeptical about whether I would enjoy sitting. in a bath with slimy seaweed when I don't like touching it to begin with. Nevertheless, it has been a traditional therapeutic technique in western Ireland for centuries, so I felt like I had to try it. Plus, I'd read a decent amount of scientific literature discussing how seaweed baths lower body stress, relieve skin conditions, treat muscle aches, and joint stiffness, and improve circulatory problems. They started us off in a steam room to open our pores, and then Kati and I hopped in our side-by-side bathtubs overlooking the Atlantic ocean. Somehow the experience was both gross and enjoyable all at once. They encouraged us to drape the seaweed all over our bodies and in our hair. Doing so left a really slimy film that felt very similar to the inside of an aloe leaf. Still, I kind of loved it and there is no denying that the experience left us all relaxed beyond belief.

Having thoroughly explored the surrounding area, it was time to head into Sligo proper. We were staying at The Glasshouse, which is a very modern, mostly glass, hotel built in the middle of downtown Sligo, right on the Garavogue River. The modernity of the hotel caused a bit of an uproar with the locals when it was built a few years back, but it was a great spot and we had balconies overlooking some rapids on the river. We took a whirlwind tour of the town, stopping to see the memorial statue of W.B. Yeats and peeking into the Sligo Abbey, which was built around 1252, burned down by an unattended candle in 1414, rebuilt, and then further destroyed during a rebellion in 1641. The quaint little town also has several beautiful bridges crossing over the river along the gently curving streets of shops and pubs. We ended our tour in Thomas Connolly's which is the oldest pub in Sligo, having been first licensed in 1861. Thomas Connolly himself even became mayor of Sligo in 1890!

We had dinner reservations at another gastropub in town - Hargadons (est. 1868). It is a charming little place with uneven floors, antique signage, and snug corners. Plus, the food and drinks were outstanding. Thus far in the trip, Morgan had found a somewhat surprising and embarrassing drink that she really liked - the Pornstar Martini. As we were ordering drinks, she gravitated toward the passionfruit martini. I asked her if she was sure she didn't want a Pornstar Martini, at which point the waiter quipped, "They're the same thing." Between the four of us, we got an ungodly amount of food - seafood chowder, flame-grilled Irish ribeyes, and mussels. We ordered two things of mussels and they brought out two large pots full of them! It was so much food that we didn't even come close to finishing them. The other funny moment happened when I went to the bathroom. There was an English guy in there who insisted on talking to me and asking me where I was from. I politely told him and asked him where he was from. He said, "Lincolnshire, England" and asked me if I'd ever heard of it. I said that I had, though I wasn't super-familiar with it and offered up the fact that I had lived in England for a number of months as a child. He asked me where, and when I said Woking, he said he'd never heard of it!

After dinner, we headed back to Thomas Connolly's for live music. It was a trio of girls who looked like they may have been in high school, or perhaps they were young university students. Regardless, they were great and just jammed out on Irish songs on their violins and harp. We ended up sitting with a trio of women from Canada and, after pushing them on where specifically they were from "outside of Toronto," learned that they live in Burlington which is where my best friend and college roommate was from and still lives. Somewhat surprisingly, they didn't know Shawn or his family, but they do all teach at the local high school where we went for breakfast after a freezing cold 10K race a number of years ago! Talk about a small world! We had a blast chatting with them while listening to the music before finally turning in to get some rest for yet another eventful day in the morning.