Wanderung 30

We steamed again into the harbor of Cobh like we had done on our Spring cruise to Southampton, but this time we did indeed get the coveted berth right by the Cobh Heritage Center adjacent to downtown Cobh. That made it easy to walk straight off the ship and into town.

Monika was in the second day of her cold and coughing occasionally, but still felt game to try to walk around Cobh a bit. Most folks head directly from Cobh to the much larger, more central town of Cork, but we had seen that on our Spring trip over to Germany, so we thought this time we would look at Cobh instead. Plus, being "next door" to the ship would let us cut short our perambulation at any time if Monika started to feel too weak.

Monika is especially fond of Irish pub lunches, and we were hopeful that we could find a pub somewhere in Cobh to satisfy that longing. Although I enjoy Irish pubs a lot, I was mainly interested in finding out about my Irish ancestors. Cobh has a Heritage Center dedicated to the port history in general but also to the massive emigration of 1/3 of Ireland's population during the Great Potato Famine of roughly 1848-1855. Since my great grandfather and grandmother on my Mom's side, James and Sarah Holmes, had emigrated to Canada in 1852 according to family tradition, I wanted to check if the manifests of any of the ships sailing from Cobh to Canada that might have their names listed. Many of those ships were called "Coffin Ships" because so many of the poor, malnourished passengers died en route, but James and Sarah had some kind of property, so I suspect they were traveling above decks rather than in steerage where the conditions were so abysmal. In any case, I was curious if I could find the exact date and ship of their journey to the New World.

In the end, we were both frustrated in our goals, but had a nice day in Cobh despite that. The Heritage Center was more of an immigration museum and did not do searches of ship manifests--I apparently was recalling the immigration center on the wharf in Halifax, Canada, or perhaps the immigration center between Hamburg and Harburg, Germany, not sure. Oh well, back to Ancestry.com!

The sun was shining brightly out of a clear blue sky, and we walked a few hundred yards to the center of town, which was surprisingly pretty, with the pubs and storefronts painted in vivid colors. Clearly Cobh was an Irish "Tidy Town" as whole blocks of buildings had been painted in various pastel hues.

We wanted to see the town cathedral, Saint Colman's, which is located on a hill and quite visible when approaching Cobh from the sea, just like St Michael's church in the port of Hamburg. We had to wait for a mass to end, but we were very glad we did because the interior of the cathedral was exquisitely pretty. Although it was smaller than Belfast's cathedral, we both liked it better. The marble columns and intricate round stained glass windows were part of that, but the whole church felt warm, well-cared for, and inviting.

One evidence of that ecumenical welcome was a large printed banner with Pope Francis on it and his call for a year of action. I like Pope Francis as he is one of the very few spiritual leaders who would accept someone like me into a congregation--I get the feeling I could be good friends with Pope Francis despite disagreements on some fundamental issues. Otherwise, the Unitarian Universalists and maybe the Dalai Llama would make someone like me welcome, but this is the first Roman Catholic Pope in a long time that has been so widely welcoming.

Monika was already starting to tire, so we headed back downhill on Cathedral Place and continued on Harbour Hill road and Harbour Row road. (As in Germany and most of Europe, streets change their names willy-nilly as you walk or drive along them, which is confusing to many Americans.)

We came to the edge of town and could see another road just below us right along the waterfront (Lynch's Quay road), but could not see how to access it. Then an old Irish gent sitting with his dog on a bench told us about the Secret Entrance: You take a paved switchback path down to the beach (which is a bunch of ankle-twisting stones), then hobble back along the beach to the end of Lynch's Quay, then climb up the rocks to the fence at the end of the quay, and then go around the end of the fence on the uphill side! It worked! We returned to town along Lynch's Quay, puzzling over a high, beautifully crafted octagonal-shaped brick chimney sitting all by itself right beside the shore. There has to be some kind of story behind that chimney, but we could find nary a plaque nor person to explain it.

By the time we got back to the center of the town it was noon and time for lunch, but Monika was simply too tired to stop in a pub for pub grub. Instead, we bought some Paddy's Irish whiskey and headed back to the ship for a small meal. Although we had tried to take it easy during the day, Monika was tired and coughing that afternoon, so she rested while I quickly went on shore one more time. My main goal was to buy some decongestant pills and throat lozenges for Monika, hoping those would allow her to sleep better that night, but I chanced across a quite small but nice gift shop where I picked up some tiny birthday gifts that I thought she might enjoy on her upcoming birthday.

That evening we attended a small but fun show of Irish dancing put on by a local kid's group. They put the show on in the ship's large central atrium, and passengers just packed the balconies all around the atrium for five stories up to see the kids do their dances. The youngsters were quite skilled, and seeing them "strut their stuff", so to speak, was quite enjoyable.