A few personal notes on touring in Ireland

[Andre Jute]

The full ride in which this symbol appeared is described in two photo articles:
http://coolmainpress.com/BICYCLEKilmacsimon1.html
http://coolmainpress.com/BICYCLEKilmacsimon2.html

Of particular interest to the bicycle tourer, in Ireland there's a government-approved and inspected chain of guesthouses with private landladies (they display a cloverleaf -- photo above), that you can stay at but in a busy season you must book ahead, telephone numbers in a book you buy at the Irish Tourist Board online or at their local offices.

These guesthouse keepers are an important source of local knowledge, which, as I've demonstrated in the Rides 2021 thread, is crucial unless you want to cover 200 miles a day (for scale, from where I live to Dublin is only about 160 miles -- Ireland is a small country). There are a gazillion smaller roads not shown on any map of the whole of ireland, but most landladies will have a local map, and some country family hotels too; and their local knowledge is invaluable to a tourer.

You can park yourself with a local family for several days in a small town in the deep countryside and discover enough interesting and pleasant rides to keep you busy and entertained.

I feel sorry for the cyclists you meet occasionally who land in Cork and ride hell for leather around the coastline to Belfast and fly out on the third day, and then claim, in such time as they can spare from discussing their aching limbs with their physio, that they've "done Ireland"; that's just a waste of time and energy.

Also, there's a series of footpaths around the country (unfortunately not all connected, which is the eventual plan) that you can ride your bike on, exceedingly scenic and pleasant.

The best idea in Ireland, for a cyclist, I think is always to consider two points on the map and then to choose the indirect route on the smaller roads, and not to try and bite off too much in any day as the most interesting and beautiful parts of the country are all pretty hilly.

For those who'd like to try touring on an electric bike, the cafes and pubs and restaurants you stop at will usually let you recharge the battery; I've never been charged for this service but when it gets more common, I expect to be charged.

Also, another oddity, if you decide to take the bus quickly to link touring sites, letting you put the bike in the luggage is within the driver's discretion, depending on how many passengers he has with luggage, but whether he charges you for the bike is also within his discretion and the price is fixed at something under ten euro (or was, the last time I asked, years ago -- I don't know precisely because I've never been charged), regardless of the distance.

Out here in the countryside, and in Cork City the bus drivers are agreeable and friendly to bicyclists -- the middle-aged guys sitting on the rail near the bike rental at the bus station are bus drivers between trips and you can go talk to them and discover exactly on which country roads they don't like seeing cyclists  because there just isn't space, and which main roads have hard shoulders all the way and are therefore safe for cyclists.

One approached me in local supermarket to ask me to tell another cyclist, a commuter to the city, to stay off the old main road to Cork -- the road I live on, described in a post in Rides 2021 (http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=14104.msg106636#msg106636) as a road I cross often but nowhere travel along for more than 200 yards -- and to take the safer new road instead.

See also the pronunciation of "scone" in Ireland at
http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=14104.msg106655#msg106655

[Danneaux]

My! What a wonderful insider's view on touring Ireland, Andre. Much appreciate your time and effort.

Till now, my favorite resource on the matter was Eric Newby's 'Round Ireland in Low Gear -- which a friend pinched!

A good read, often available used. For new, see:
https://www.amazon.com/Round-Ireland-Gear-Eric-Newby/dp/0864426275

Best,

Dan.

[Andre Jute]

Thanks, Dan. It doesn't quite reach up to your thesis-level, referenced guides, but then, as it says in the title, these are personal notes, and by a committed small-scale tourer at that, in a country which preeminently suits small-scale touring because if time presses the cyclist misses simply too much that matters. It's a country that rewards iterated daily tours to a limited horizon around a point.

I had a copy of Newby's book -- I seem to remember I discovered it on this forum -- but I gave it to a cyclist I found hurt on the road and took to the surgery to be stitched up to pass the time until he could continue his tour.

It'll amuse you to know that the Nodding Madonna -- in Newby's blurb on Amazon described as the "moving, miracle-working statue of the Virgin" is down the road here, the turning point of one of those figures of eight around the town I mentioned recently in Rides 2021. It was a favourite ride of my friend and doctor who, on our last ride to Ballinspittle before he died, regaled me with stories of getting lost in the countryside hereabouts on house calls when he was a young doctor -- we arrived in Bandon about the same time: I wasn't even unpacked when he turned up at my house in whites and said, "I hear you're an athletic intellectual." -- which must have been quite a problem because the current centralised out-of-surgery-hours arrangement has a professional driver for the doctor on night and weekend duty to ensure he finds the right country house.

I never saw the Madonna nod and, since ladies from Ballinspittle know my wife, I cannot confirm a fellow writer's notorious analysis of the moving madonna being a trick of the light shimmering through leaves...

[PH]

I feel sorry for the cyclists you meet occasionally who land in Cork and ride hell for leather around the coastline to Belfast and fly out on the third day, and then claim, in such time as they can spare from discussing their aching limbs with their physio, that they've "done Ireland"; that's just a waste of time and energy.

An interesting read, thanks for posting.
But no need for your sympathy, or derogatory comments, I'm going to put them in the same bin as those critical of riders touring on electric bikes.  People out enjoying their ride is always a good thing, and it's be a bit boring if we all liked the same things.  I've done tours where the daily mileage is the same as the weekly mileage on others, they've all been good fun.

[Andre Jute]

Try me again in December, Paul. I might have time then for pointless bickering. Now I'd rather ride.

[Moronic]

Andre, thank you for posting this. I've just got around to reading it carefully, along with the two photo essays you linked to.

Although I've been as far afield as Paris, international travel isn't among my favourite hobbies and so I may never get to Ireland (from Australia). Reading these posts though made me feel as though I were there enjoying the misty weather and the scenic lanes. Should circumstances take me there I'll arrive much better educated about the touring possibilities, and much more interested in exploring them.

- Ian

[Andre Jute]

Reading these posts though made me feel as though I were there enjoying the misty weather and the scenic lanes. Should circumstances take me there I'll arrive much better educated about the touring possibilities, and much more interested in exploring them.

Thanks Ian. That's well put. I've often felt that reading of the tours large and small of more adventurous cyclists is a vicarious ride with them. Now that I rarely need the excellent technical advice which first attracted me to the forum, I think that's the greatest longterm advantage of a good forum.

[John Saxby]

Lovely stuff, Andre, both photos and prose.  More, please, when you can.

It must be said, tho', that it was Dan's mention of Eric Newby's splendid tale that nudged me to put fingers to keyboard. (Yer in pretty good company, mate, when that point of comparison is the issue.)  One text-and-visual image still sticks in my mind, from your neighbourhood, if memory serves: cycling along, he passed by a bloke in a nearby field resting on an enormous two-handed scythe and clothed in sweat-stained cotton.  Said Newby, "He looked like a survivor of the Peasants' Revolt."

Your photos convey a dense and varied beauty in a small place. But could the greens be overstated/rated?:  My once mother-in-law (how does one make such a reference delicately?), born and raised in Dingle, once said this to me about Ontario pastureland: "How can this possibly be so lush? Our poor Irish cows would choke on such grass."

Cheers,  J.

[Andre Jute]

One text-and-visual image [from Eric Newby] still sticks in my mind, from your neighbourhood, if memory serves: cycling along, he passed by a bloke in a nearby field resting on an enormous two-handed scythe and clothed in sweat-stained cotton.  Said Newby, "He looked like a survivor of the Peasants' Revolt."

Several Novembers ago, I was cycling along at dusk when I had a transient ischemic attack and fell off my bike. I wasn't hurt and the bike was fine because we both landed in the lushly overgrown ditch. After a while I came to and rode on but, as you can imagine, in a morbid mood. Coming my way over the hill before me on the small country road I saw first a huge scythe like you describe and then by stages a small man with a gargoyle face, half hidden behind an unkempt beard, appeared over the brow of the hill. I thought my time was up. I slowed down, and then some more, and then some again, but he kept walking inexorably towards me, the scythe familiarly over his shoulder on its long handle and, when he was close enough, the sound of the tune he whistled, happy about his work. I noticed my heart rate rising on the iPhone on the handlebars, until he called out a cheery good evening and passed me without scything me. He was a farm worker on his way at dusk to his well-earned dinner.

I know you'll forgive me for not spending what I thought were my last moments taking a photograph.

Your photos convey a dense and varied beauty in a small place. But could the greens be overstated/rated?:  My once mother-in-law (how does one make such a reference delicately?), born and raised in Dingle, once said this to me about Ontario pastureland: "How can this possibly be so lush? Our poor Irish cows would choke on such grass."

A real estate agent I know says that, like everywhere else, the more expensive your neighbourhood, the greener. A few years ago Ireland was the most expensive country in the world to live in, though I can't say I noticed it becoming greener. On the contrary, before that, in the warm 1990s, which were wonderful cycling weather, it became noticeably more yellow, with even brown at the edges.

But neither the land nor the cows are poor in Ireland any more: the EU has turned once-poor peasants into rich, efficient farmers, as probably the greatest disseminator of sound agricultural practice since the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages.