Ireland Day 4 - 27th Nov. 2004

Those guys did everything!

Birr Castle and Gardens ~ then on to Moycullen via Galway
Ireland Weather: Partly Sunny - Low 50's

…and HOLY COW what a shower! If I hadn’t turned the water pressure down, I’m not sure I’d still have all my skin.

This morning we woke to a crisp day with some clouds and after another large breakfast we went to visit the Birr Castle gardens and Demesne (French for Domain)…135 acres of spectacular gardens with over 1000 varieties of plants on the grounds. It also straddles the county line between Offaly and Tiperrary (I was the first into County Offaly).

^ Elevated Formal Garden at Birr Castle ^

At Birr, the family’s former greatness includes an enormous telescope (The Leviathan) that made Birr the center of astronomy for many decades beginning in the 1840’s – the largest mirror had a diameter of 6 feet!

Other inventions reported (by the guy at the desk) to have come out of Birr Castle are:

• The Incandescent Light Bulb - one year prior to Edison...although a cursory glance at a history book indicates that it was invented in England by a man name Swan and the patent was ultimately purchased by Edison, but we simply oohed and ahhed like good little boys and girls listening to the man’s story.

• The Turbine Engine – installed in 1879, a turbine driven by the waterwheel on the river running through the property provided the castle and the town of Birr with electrical power until the 1950’s. The Parsons family was granted a patent for a ‘leaf arrester’ to prevent leaves from clogging the flow of the water into the turbine house in 1901.

• The earliest suspension bridge in Ireland – built on the castle grounds in 1826.

• The steam ship Turbinia – a 104 foot long boat with a width of 9 feet had a steam turbine engine that propelled it at a speed of 34 knots (40mph) – and this was done in the North Sea! Achieving 2,000 horsepower at its peak, it had 3 shafts with 3 propellers each. The initial runs had only one axel with one propeller – yet it still achieved 20 knots.

• Artificial diamonds – although the methods Charles Parsons described didn’t actually work for him in 25 years of trying, they provided the basis for current methods that have been applied successfully for some time.

The major things the Earl(s) of Rosse – the Parsons family – are known for are Astronomy (William Parsons) , Photography and Botany (Mary Parsons) and Steam Turbine Technology (Charles Parsons).

Sometime in the late 1700’s, boxwood hedges (buxus sempervirens) were planted in the formal garden. Some of them are still alive today and are over 10 meters tall…the Guinness book of records lists them as the oldest and the tallest on earth.

^ Giant Boxwood Hedge ^

They have all manner of trees – Magnolia – Giant Sequoia – Coastal Redwood – etc. While Birr may not have the textbook ‘ideal’ conditions for every species, the environment is supportive enough to allow most to thrive.

At Birr, we asked the man at the counter for a lunch suggestion. He said, “If you were to ask me to lunch, I’d like to be taken to The Riverbank on the road to Galway”…and that’s exactly where we went.

We finally found the restaurant and had a very pleasant meal. The manager was from Galway and suggested we get drinks and dinner at a restaurant on Quay Street called, appropriately, The Quays.

So we took the R489 road to Portumna, then the N65 road to the N6 and then followed the N6 all the way through Galway (through its umpteen roundabouts) to the N59 towards Oughterard and Moycullen.

Once in Moycullen, we needed to follow local roads to Tullkine and find Hurney’s pub. 100m past Hurney’s we take a right and the instructions given to me over the phone were ‘go until you give up hope, then go a little further…be persistent…we’re here!”

The Portarra Lodge B&B was absolutely wonderful, and very business like. The lady expected two people – Mark and David. Not two rooms - one for Mark and one for David. We worked it out and there was no major hassle, so we headed back into Galway for an evening of food and drink at The Quays.

The Lonely Planet guide to Ireland describes The Quays as a ‘cavernous bar with many nooks and crannies’. It GROSSLY understated the facts. It also failed to mention that a simple fish and chips dinner would cost €20…where it cost a maximum of 12 anywhere else in the country. It was filling however and I don’t know what we’d have done if they hadn’t served beer.

On our way out, we saw a VERY large man leaving – we used him as a fullback in order to make our exit…and on the journey, we heard a woman shout to her friend “…look at that fella, he’s a big fucker!”

That phrase found a place in some of our conversations from then on.

A good night’s sleep was exactly what everyone needed, because the next day would be very scenic and fun.

^ Treaty Stone ~ handshakes through the hole sealed treaties in times past ^