Paddy's weekend

Our first St. Patrick's Day weekend in Ireland started with a birthday party.

My daughter's classmate had a party just outside Cork in an indoor adventure playground. Basically, a huge steel box filled with padded climbing frames, slides, and about 300 sugar-powered kids and 600 caffeine-powered parents. It's a kind of extreme full-on, full-contact family sport that would scare away even the hardiest base-jumping twenty-something.

As my fellow parent, Michael, said, "The climbing frames are padded, but the kids aren't. It should be the other way round." I had to agree. I've seen rugby matches with less injuries. Despite the dangerously high decibel levels and soft-tissue injuries, the kids loved it and it was a good opportunity to meet other parents.

Considering we have only lived here for a week, we have been made to feel so welcome by the people of Cork and its surroundings that I find it hard to describe. I feel as though I have been here for much longer and known these people for much longer than what is basically just a few days. I really like it here; I feel as if I could easily stay for much longer.

After the noise and chaos of the party, we decided to make the most of the day by driving down to Kinsale, about 30km south of Cork. Kinsale had been recommended to us by another parent as a lovely harbour town with good pub grub and great scenery. It did not disappoint.

Kinsale is like the perfect picture postcard of a quaint and historic harbour town where the hills and headlands come rolling down to soak their rugged rocky feet in the sea. The northern shoreline of Summercove is lined with houses that have been built right up to the edge of the rocks, and if you want to watch the sunset with a pint of Guinness or a glass of wine, nothing can beat the Bulman pub.

Just a few hundred metres up the hill from the Bulman is Charles Fort, described as, "one of the finest examples of a 17th century fortification in Ireland".
It is a very impressive star-shaped fort built to suit the topography of the headland upon which sits and has been associated with key events in Irish history. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the ruins that seem frozen in time, as if the Spanish army had left only a few decades ago rather than a few centuries. The fort dominates the entrance to Kinsale harbour and overlooks the earlier James's fort on the opposite headland.

To end the day we took a walk along the headland heading south away from Charles fort and were treated with a surprise appearance by a seal. Its head just above the surface of the water, it floated there for a while observing us as we tried excitedly not to make too much noise, and then it disappeared. As the sun set the mist rolled in on a wonderful day in Kinsale.

March 17th, St. Patrick's Day

The tradition seems to be that there is a parade in every town and village across the land, so we were spoiled for choice. Within a few miles' radius we could choose from Cork, Ballincollig or Blarney. Cork looked like it would be absolutely crazy and probably not that much fun for the kids, and we also considered Blarney, but we ended up watching the parade in Ballincollig.

We got there early with our green hats and scarves and, at first, stood out a bit. Everyone else seemed to be dressed normally, and I began to think that we had been fooled into believing that the locals get dressed up for Paddy's Day. It crossed my mind that maybe it's just the foreigners and visitors that wear all the silly hats and paint their faces.

I began to feel a little better when I noticed the stalls with all kinds of foods and St. Patrick's Day-related bits and bobs. Virtually everything was green or had something green on it. But the people working on the stalls still didn't look very Paddy'ed up.

Great - spot the English bloke trying to fit in and looking like a right plonker with his sparkly green shamrock hat.

But not to worry, slowly the locals started to appear and the town centre became ever more green, and pretty soon there were plenty of people with sparkly green shamrock hats and Irish flags and scarves and painted faces and, my particular favourite, a huge felt hat with the green, white and orange of Ireland that said, "Who's your Paddy?". Yep, everyone was Paddy'ed up.

The parade took up the entire main street in Ballincollig and was a procession of the local clubs and associations, as well as some of the local businesses that had helped to sponsor the event.
The clubs ranged from vintage cars to Taekwon Do, and basketball to hurling. Everyone who took part in the parade made a really big effort by dressing up either in St. Patrick's Day fancy dress or in their particular club's kit. The local Taekwon Do Club put on an exhibition in the middle of the street
with fully-padded youngsters kicking each other to the applause of the crowd. The local dance club performed their own number, also to loud applause, and there was a procession of classic cars as well as much more.

The weather was, well, Irish, which means it changed every other minute, but the crowed stayed until the end and showed their support for the community.

All in all, a really good experience and a nice day for the family.

The evening turned out to be a bit wet (in the bar) with plenty of people drinking this strange black liquid that seems to be rather popular over here.

Sláinte!