A Little Irish Travel Primer

June 14, 2019

A Little Irish Travel Primer

I’m in Galway now, and I won’t go hunting for the Sisters of Mercy laundry and Bohermere cemetery till tomorrow. So in the meantime, here are a few handy things I’ve learned about traveling in Ireland so far…

1. Bathrooms:

· There are no washcloths in Ireland, only giant towels and hand towels. I’m not sure why.

· Irish hotels don’t usually supply shampoo and conditioner. They supply all-purpose “shower gel.”

· Showers often have a half-door, a glass door that only goes halfway back in the tub, so no splashing around, please.

· “Bathrooms” are called “toilets” here.

· Toilets (the actual toilet) usually have a “small flush” and a “big flush.” We should adopt that one.

· Toilets in public places often cost €.20 to get in, so people are pretty crafty about holding the door open for the next person. When there’s a turnstyle, however, you fork over the dough or jump.

2. Help: People here will answer any question for you (if they speak a language you can understand), but not unless you ask. No matter how lost, flustered, out-of-place, or forlorn you look, you’ll still have to ask. Like the other day, when I was standing in line at a methadone clinic, only I thought it was a line at another bus depot. I had my pretty purple wheeled bag, my pretty purple flowered satchel, and I stood there for a few minutes smiling at people until it hit me. Then I asked, “Do you know where the bus depot is?” and a kind young woman in line giggled and gave me directions.

3. Laundry: If Pauline hadn’t finally offered to let me put in a load of wash back in Cork, I’d still be wearing the same few clothes I started with May 30. Laundromats are not a thing here. If you’re quick enough and staying at a hotel long enough, you can send out your laundry and get it back the next day. Or, you can spend two hours hanging around the outside wall of a petrol station, watching your clothes wash and dry in the TWO machines (a washer and a dryer) built into the wall, so no one comes along and takes your stuff out and puts their stuff in, which I guess, IS a thing here. Otherwise, you get pretty crafty about hanging things out the window (there are no screens), washing clothes in a bathroom sink, or hanging them in the shower and “steaming” them for a few minutes. Pack perfume.

4. Old lady travelers: If you’re, let’s say, a slightly older middle-aged lady traveling alone, you’re sometimes invisible. This can be a good thing: Nobody wants your luggage with your grannie panties and Noxema; people assume you don’t have any money; and they don’t want to risk hearing stories about your ten grandkids. On the other hand, when you go to restaurants or pubs or phone stores, staff assume you’re waiting for someone or ducking out of the rain, and they ignore you, until you finally go up to someone and say, “Am I in the right place to pay/order (food, a pint, whatever)?”

5. Some of my favorite Irish translations of English words and phrases:

· Oh my yes = Awgawdjyeah (oh god yeah) = aw + gawd + j + yeah, all run together as a 3-syllable word. As in, “Does it rain here every day?” “Awgawdjyeah.”

· Would you like = Will you be wantin’_____ then? (more coffee, a receipt, etc.)

· Of course = Ah sure. As in, “Ah sure you’ll be wantin’ the 51X [bus] then.”

· Great = lovely or grand. These can be used interchangeably, but lovely is usually reserved for people, and grand is used more often for EVERYTHING ELSE. As in, “She was just lovely to visit.” “Aye, it was a grand time, it was. And she’s looking just grand after the surgery. Isn’t it grand how everything turned out?”

· Elevator = lift

· Back or trunk of car = boot

· Trash = bin (can be verb, as in “I’ll bin that for ye,” or noun, as in, “Give it a toss in the bin”).

· 7.6 miles from here = “Aw, just down the road,” or “Sure, it’s just past Ballycogswaggle. You’ll be there in no time.” Also, everything, no matter how far, is “About a 15 or 20 minute walk.”

6. Food:

· “The Full Irish” = the full, traditional Irish breakfast. This includes eggs, sausage, black pudding, rashers (wide bacon, more like sliced ham), brown soda bread, baked beans, and half a grilled tomato. I’ve asked English people, Irish people, Americans; NO ONE can explain the beans and tomato.

· Black pudding and white pudding = coarse pork sausage made with some kind of cereal, like barley or oats. Black pudding has added pork blood, which gives it the black color. White pudding doesn’t have the added blood.

· Cream is either “pouring cream” or “cream” (whipped cream). Pouring cream is not used for coffee. Except by me. Milk is used in both coffee and tea.

· Brown bread = brown Irish soda bread. This is manna, simply put. Heavy, coarse, dark bread. This flour is now in my Amazon cart, and I suspect it’ll end up being “subscribe & save”: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IDM67GC/ref=ox_sc_mini_detail?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3SZ6LJQO3TMI8

· Irish stew = this is stew made from whatever you have around, plus carrots and potatoes, plus lamb (some people are now using beef).

· Carvery = buffet.

7. Coffee: I tried to love tea. Honest, I did, because Irish people do not have the same appreciation for the sanctity of coffee that I have. Hotel rooms offer a water kettle and either teabags or instant coffee in little paper tubes. Restaurants have a weakish sort of “church luncheon” coffee. I never thought I’d say this, but thank the Universe for Starbucks, which seems to be everywhere.

Tonight, I’ll have dinner right here in the hotel restaurant, and I’ve been told there’s a band. That usually means 80’s music (I’ve heard more Phil Collins on busses in Ireland than I’ve ever heard in the U.S.), unless they call it “trad,” which means traditional Irish music. I haven’t done much pub crawling in Ireland because in spite of this being a grand country in which to travel solo, I’m female, this is a highly patriarchal country, and those two things still make me more vulnerable, especially alone, in bars, and at night. Although if I can find a poetry reading somewhere…;)