April 22, 2005 - Kinsale in the rain.

We awoke to a steady rain and had to alter our plans, such as they were, accordingly. Deciding to see Kinsale despite the rain, we walked downtown to the visitor's center where the inlet stops and the town begins. This time the visitor's center was nine-tenths a gift shop, but there was also one tenth of the store over in a corner that had some real free informational brochures. That free information, moreover, was quite useful and included pamphlets for 4 walks in the Kinsale area. Each walk covered different aspects of the town's history and all were from 3-10 miles in length. We also saw a sign outside for Herlihy's historical tour at 11:15 and decided to take that to get a feel for the town.

After whiling away an hour in the many different shops in the area, we started the tour on time and worked our way around the old section of the city. Our tour guide was an elderly man who delighted in stopping at various places to tell us in great length about the history and appearance of the city of Kinsale. This would have been great, if a bit boring, on a nice sunny day. However, on a rainy day with a cold wind blowing we got wetter and colder and even the dog that was walking with us started to shiver.

However, we learned that the earliest village of Kinsale was settled by Anglo-Normans around 1200. They built a wall around the village for defense and that determined the basic shape of the town center. It also explained the extremely narrow, crooked streets that give the town such a quaint atmosphere. And we got wetter and colder.

Kinsale became a major port and fishing center, and the English built two forts on nearby promontories to defend the harbor. James Fort was constructed after an invasion by a Spanish armada in 1601, and Charles Fort was constructed across the channel in the late 1600s to prevent any French incursions. Both forts lie a ways out of town, so we didn't actually walk out to them, but rather circled back into the newer section of town. And we got wetter and colder. The newer section of downtown Kinsale was built on filled-in harbor land. Part of the fill was from the stones of the old town wall and more stones were quarried from the side of the hill where our B&B was located! The hill was composed of solid slate, which was easy to quarry with the crude tools of the time and only a block or so from the harbor, so the transportation of the fill was not a problem. And we got wetter and colder.

All of this history was fascinating, but we were so cold and soaked that we were glad when the tour ended and we could seek out a warm den like Gina's Café to have lunch. There we fell into conversation with the proprietor and he gave us ideas for searching out one branch of our family tree that had reputedly been somewhere in the Kinsale area. In particular, he mentioned that in Ireland a couple would always be married in the home parish of the woman, not the man. So if my great grandparents were married in a local church, it would imply that my great grandmother had lived somewhere in the area.

Being warmer but still soaked, we decided to do something indoors after lunch and headed a couple of blocks over to the Kinsale Regional Museum. The museum had two floors that contained an almost bewildering miscellany of artifacts related to the town's history. I was fascinated by some of the shop tools on display as well as nautical artifacts such as a Fresnel lens and pieces from local shipwrecks. The most famous shipwreck was the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-boat, which resulted in the U.S. joining World War I on the side of Britain and France.

On a lighter note, did you know there was song entitled "The Boatsman of Kinsale"? Well, now you do and hopefully there will be some time you can work that into a conversation in such a way that it will astonish your enemies and bore your friends. Even better would be to practice singing it and launch into a rendition at any party you would really rather not be attending. I expect when sung in 3-part harmony, say in a barbershop quartet, it would clear the room quite quickly.

The museum was unheated, however, so we were getting cold again even though we were out of the rain for the nonce. Afterward completing the museum we hiked back up the hill to our B&B to get warm and change into dry clothes, and I took the opportunity to take a nap for an hour or so. In the meantime Lois had called the Rector of the St. Multose Church to do some genealogical sleuthing. The rector's wife informed her that apparently it was our great-great grandparents that were married there in 1831, but that at least gave us some exact names and dates to carry our investigation forward (backward?).

By the time we reassembled for dinner and marched back down the hill to the Spanish Armada pub, the rain had let off but the entire town was cloaked in a thick fog. It was interesting and made for a cozy dinner, but the photographer in me was understandably frustrated. Photography not being an option, we returned to our B&B for a quite evening of reading, crossword puzzles, and journal writing.