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Kilkenny
So what's a lonely ex-pat antipodean supposed to do when he's living in Dublin and the city fills up with obnoxious American tourists whinging about the fact their economy has gone to shit and their currency isn't worth piss against the Euro and how darn expensive Dublin is?
Leave.
And so I did. 4:50pm Friday came and off I ran (ok, waddled quickly) to change from monkey-boy shirt-and-tie to the infiniately more comfortable but much less respectable travel clothes. Out the door and down to Busaras to hop the 5:30 service south to the fabled medevil city of Kilkenny.
As has been the common thread to my travels throughout Ireland, I was completely unprepared for this trip. No accommodation booked, and no idea of what I was going to do at my destination. Other than search out the finiest glass of Kilkenny in Kilkenny.
Now, I don't think I have adequately described for my readers the "service" that Bus Eiranne offers its customers. Now to my thinking, its not hard to run a bus service in a respectable manner. Important ingredients would be buses that are in good mechanical order. They should preferably have a clean interior. The person employed as the driver of the bus should a) be sober for the duration of the trip and b) have some idea of where they are supposed to pick up and/or set down passengers. The scheduling of the services should in some manner reflect when customers can expect that their bus will depart and arrive.
Bus Eiranne apparently thinks that none of the aforementioned principles should govern its operations. But hey, this is Ireland, if I don't like it, I should piss off or shut up right.
Shut up it is then.
Back to Kilkenny. Why Kilkenny you ask. Well, the town is so good they named a beer after it. Isn't that enough? But the truly deciding factor was the lure of sleeping in a 16th century Norman castle for the night. Yes, the An Ogie hostel outside of Kilkenny is a cool old blockhouse castle. My dreams of playing Knights of the Round Table haven't had a decent run since Warwick Castle in England, so it was time that that urge was satiated again.
So the instructions on the website say that rather than heading right into Kilkenny, one should alight at Castlecomer and catch a cab out from there. See, this is a really good plan if two things happen to coincide: I know what bloody town I am in, and the bus driver knows that he is supposed to stop in the town. Neither of these events occured and so on to Kilkenny it was.
Thankfully the Kilkenny Tourist Hostel had a bed and with that sorted, it was off to find the finest pint of Kilkenny there was to be had. It is at this point that I should quote from the bible:
[Kilkenny] has more than 65 licensed pubs, which amounts to roughly one drinking establishment for every 300 inhabitants.
Lonely Planet: Ireland (6th Edition)
This was going to be one solid weekend :)
Well, that was what I thought until I encountered the first of what was to become an oft-repeated look of bemusement from various bar staff. Apparently, Kilkenny the beer doesn't come from Kilkenny the town. Now, maybe it was stupid of me to think that it would. I mean, Guinness comes from Dublin, and as far as I am aware there isn't a town called Extra Dry, let alone it producing such a fine lager. But surely this wasn't an unreasonable assumption? I mean, you only get Kilkenny beer in shockingly fake "Irish" pubs in Australia. And there is only one Kilkenny in Ireland. There's logic there.
Now me being the thorough person that I am, I had to make sure that all these people weren't just havin a laugh, so I attempted to purchase the now-fabled pint of perfect Kilkenny in numerous pubs throughout the town. That might explain the hemorage that my wallet appeared to suffer, and the amazingly strong urge for large quantities of grease-laden food on Saturday morning (my first attempt at white and black puddings - the white wasn't too bad, but I just couldn't go the black. Blood is not a food colouring people!) 
After many hours of wandering around in the rain and being stalked by Umbrella Woman (see photo right) I managed to lose both my seedyness and said stalker (thankfully only the seedyness found me again the next day).
Now comes the most amazing part of the weekend, and something that is not generally a hallmark of my travels. Before I caught the (only) bus out to Foulksrath Castle (cool castle I was supposed to stay in on Friday night) I actually had the forethought to call them and check that they had a bed for the night. And wouldn't you know it, they didn't! Sometimes I amaze myself. Damn I am good!
So after negotiating the blind women who ran the B&B down to €20 (from €30, I was happy) I had sleeping arrangements sorted for Saturday and the hunt was on again. Unfortunately, the conspiracy to prevent me from having Kilkenny in Kilkenny had spread and all the publicans in town had been clued in to tell the aussie that they didn't serve it and in fact they had never heard of it. So although I didn't find Kilkenny, I did meet up with a English dude who proceeded to give me the impetus to imbibe in a few more than I had planned. And so the scene for Sunday was set.
Two days, two hangovers. Life should always be that consistent really. It would make it much easier. And girlfriends. They should also strive for such consistency. In fact, I pledge that if a female is willing to attempt to be consistent in their emotional state throughout their life, I will attempt to be consistently hungover for the rest of my life.
But off that. So what's Kilkenny like then? Well, from what I remember, it's a kinda dark amber colour with a thick creamy head and takes some time to settle (but not as long as Guinness). I haven't had one in a while. I will have to try and find one some time. Oh. You mean the city? Like the rest of Ireland - green, wet, old, full of fun Irish people, but with lots of cobbled streets and churches. And a big castle at one end. And stalkers. Bugger it, just check out the photos. I am off to get some consistency back in my life.
23 March 2004
