There is wild fuchsia growing in the hedgerows which gives a striking burst of color on a grey day.

I walked along the coast today, taking pictures. I caught a bush full of fluttering goldfinches.

I’d been looking for black backed gulls, and was just sneaking up on a group of them when a dog ran along the beach and startled them all. There are great and lesser black backed gulls in this bunch, as well as herring and black headed gulls.

Oh, argh…. several days later. The past two evenings we have been out listening to music in pubs in the evening, so the blog did not get written. Thursday we were at The Local in Dungarvan.

There the band alternated mournful ballads and animated jigs, or perhaps they were reels or maybe even hornpipes. I had difficulty telling the tunes apart, let alone the unfamiliar musical forms.

Friday we went out to Dungarvan again for a visit to the museum…

… and the castle.

The castle was built by the Normans in the 12th century, and was in use as a fort, barracks, or police station pretty much continuously until the 1980s.

The barracks buildings are still in the middle of the castle.

They now have various historical exhibits, including one commemorating the time the IRA occupied and then burned the castle during the Irish Civil War of 1922-23.

After the Irish had finished fighting the British for independence, they fought each other over how much independence they needed to have. This was not the usual catholic vs protestant tension, but the result of a split in the Irish Republican Army that had fought for independence. The two main political parties in Ireland today are the descendants of this split.

When the tide goes out in Dungarvan, the moorings in the middle of the harbor get a bit shallow.

We had dinner at a bar called The Moorings. I took the chance to have one last slice of banoffee pie.

This combination of bananas, toffee, and whipped cream in a crust was invented at the Hungry Monk restaurant in Sussex in 1971, and got a boost in popularity when Maggie Thatcher said it was her favorite pudding. It hasn’t made it to America, so we have to do something about that. I have the original Hungry Monk recipe, and I’m not afraid to use it.

On we went to a roadside pub called the Marine Bar with a different approach to music. It was a drop in session, with several guitars, an accordion, a concertina, and a kid playing bagpipes. There are also a number of people willing to sing unaccompanied. Our host called people out in turn and invited them to sing. It felt like a genuine cèilidh (pronounced KAY-lee). Paula was persuaded to play guitar and sing, and though I don’t sing I gave a brief presentation on the science of Irish Coffee. The funniest song was the story of the German who wanted a bodhrán (pronounced BO-RUN) drum. Here are the lyrics. It was a delightful end to our visit to Ireland.

Today we drove to Cork airport, and discovered that we should have printed our boarding passes or installed the Ryanair app before getting in line. Never mind, Irish technology came to the rescue. This was my boarding pass.