Eventually, I’ll get to the poems but first the day...we started at Griffins Bakery #21 Shops Street, guided there by two young and charming police officers. They thought they could take us there because they knew of a pub nearby, gorgeous beginning! At exactly 10:30 AM we were joined by 10 young men and women from Galway, Pennsylvania, other parts of Ireland, and Germany and our guide Sheena. Her tour is highly recommended by Rick Steves and for good reason. And so we began at the bakery with a sample of a scone and a cream filled donut. One of the tiny young ladies, claimed it was too much. Dennis and I refrained from offering to eat her leftovers though we discussed it as we walked to our next stop. So delicious!
We next went to McCambridge’s Shop and Restaurant for a whiskey sampling, great way to start the day! We had several kinds of whiskey, including poitin (Irish moonshine) accompanied by two kinds of cheese and two kinds of salami. Several people discarded their portion of the poitin. Dennis offered to drink it. Sheena, “Really?” He didn’t press the point though I could see he might like too.
From there we went to the Saturday market to The Bean Tree for wonderful curry and then to the Brown’s Oysters and Egg concession. This is run by Michael’s father. Michael and his girlfriend were on the tour with us. He was in the shucking contest for the last two years but declines to do it again. The oysters were served with a dollop of buttermilk on them and sucked down with gusto, at least
by some and by some, a bit timidly. Interesting.
We then went to a very old bar, Sehan Ua Neachtain with fantastic food. First we tried sushi by a friend of Sheena’s—a traditional tuna sushi and a turnip sushi which she used to successfully introduce sushi to Ireland. The point of Sheena’s tours is to get away from the stereotypes of what Irish food is and to showcase the new farm to table success stories. Then we tried samples for the bar itself with two beers, Kojak, a dark beer and a Galway Hooker, an IPA plus two open faced sandwiches on homemade bread that were just fantastic.
On we went to The Hazel Mountain Chocolate shop which imports cocoa beans from all over the world and then creates magnificent chocolates based on the flavors of the beans. We ended with hot choclate which was melted chocolate with a bit of water. Amazing!
This was followed by a trip to the Cupan Tae, an Irish tea house for a bite sized tea cake filled with a bit of tea and iced with frosting that includes tea. Yum!
We finished across the river at Kia Cafe which has a Michelin star and was won prizes across Europe with a prosciutto, jam, nut appetizer.We waddled away about three hours later and headed in a haphazard manner for the King’s Head
The King’s Head brings us to Mr. James A. Kelly who admitted with no promoting at all, that he was exceedingly drunk. According to Mr. Kelly’s new 2016 edition of his book, The Poems of James Anthony Kelly, no part of his work cam be produced in any form without his permission, so I am unable to share any of this work with you. Suffice it to say, we enjoyed our encounter with the poet. He gladly (after I slipped him 10 Euros) warmly autographed the cover page, “Welcome Home, to Sindy & Denis.” Many sweet sentiments, hugs and kisses later, we bide him adieu.
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