As promised more Black Friday offers (and like all the best Fridays they stretch into the weekend).
It’s always nice to share your favourite hotels with your friends.
Dublin’s delights
in with the fixtures: At the InterCon
And I’m glad to have passed on the charms of my favourite Dublin hotel, the iconic InterContinental in Ballsbridge, with my old pal and multi-award winning Travel writer Yvonne Gordon.
You’ll save 25% off their best flexible rate and enjoy:
A spacious deluxe guest room or a choice of luxurious suites with many with balconies.
And a special recommendation here from my own mermaid who rave about their 14m heated indoor pool and relaxation area.
And their 10% off ESPA products.
There’s limited time to book through Friday, December 3.
And the offers are for stays between Monday, November 29 this year and September 4 next year. And book three days before arrival.
Lusty helpings
Lusty Beggers… can be choosers
And you’ll have lusty helpings all right with the famous hospitality in Northern Ireland.
The deliciously named Lusty Beg Island Resort in Fermanagh is giving you 40% off a B&B courtyard stay for two for £105 per night.
Or book two nights B&B courtyard for two for £265 and receive. £70 voucher to use during your stay.
The offer is open from January 1 to March 31 and is open through tomorrow.
Donegal Mammy
Search and replace: That couple could be you
And, yes, no dip into Ireland can be complete without a namecheck for its northernmost county… my Donegal Mammy would never forgive me.
The scenic Harvey’s Point, set in the idyllic surroundings of Lough Eske and with the Bluestack Mountains as a backdrop, is just where you want to be at this time of year.
Or any time, to be fair.
Now if you book your gift voucher online before midnight on Monday you will get a 10% discount.
That’s towards the stay offers or can be used to enjoy an Afternoon Tea or a meal in the Lakeside Restaurant or Harvey’s Bar and Terrace.
So, even though it’s Saturday, I make no apologies for giving you Craic Friday.
Julius Caesar (stay with me here) has been kicking his stubby feet in Co. Down, Northern Ireland, for the best part of a year and a half.
The loggerhead sea turtle washed ashore in 2019.
Hail Caesar
Crate expectations: JC gets the deluxe treatment
Julius Caesar, thus named by the Donegal family who found him because of his fighting spirit, has been recuperating in Down.
At the Exploris Aquarium in Portaferry where they have put the poor fella back together again.
JC was just three months old when he was swept along the current (and who hasn’t been there).
And he was carried along the Gulf Stream to Co. Donegal.
Donegal diver
Just the ticket: And it’s Turtle luxury on Aer Lingus
The poor wee thing was underweight, just under a few hundred grammes, and suffering from hypothermia.
So it was just as well that it was Donegal where he was found.
Because Ireland’s most northern county boasts the warmest people in the world.
OK I’m biased as my Dear Old Mum and her people are daughter and sons of the sod.
The Ulster folk are famous for their hospitality as anyone who has enjoyed their ‘wee’ Ulster Fry will testify.
Turtle’s Ulster Fry
Turtle loving care: And the crew is besotted
So it’s no surprise Donegal’s fellow Ulsterians filled JC up.
Those pounds piled up on a diet of fish mixture, squid and gel.
Just a thought here but I might just have been a turtle in a previous life.
As I’ve got on famously with them in Barbados and in the Maldives.
Well, after 20 months being pampered in Ireland the day finally came today for JC to head home to the Canaries.
And when you travel from Ireland you need to promote the national airline carrier.
And of course Aer Lingus was only too happy to fly JC on the EI 782 to veterinarian Pascual Calabuig at the Tarifa Wildlife Recovery Centre on Gran Canaria.
Turtle on board
It’ll take longer: The swim back to the Canaries
JC’s minder Portia Simpson is going along for the company.
Our turtle, now weighing 25kg, is protected in a specially designed waterproof crate.
I can only say the best things about Aer Lingus’s flight experience… and the same can be said for turtles.
Another rogue loggerhead turtle, Leona, was found in Co. Clare in 2013 and transported to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria by Aer Lingus in December 2014.
This is your pilot speaking
Next time I’m flying: And i’ll choose Aer Lingus
Pilot Captain Peter Lumsden introduced the VIP to the passengers.
‘It is our pleasure to welcome aboard a very special passenger today and to ensure the safe transportation of JC the Turtle to Gran Canaria.
‘Keeping the turtle’s temperature above 19 degrees is critical to his wellbeing and he requires regular monitoring and shell lubrication so placing him in the aircraft hold was not an option.
‘Like all of us on the flight today, I’m sure he is looking forward to the warmer climate upon landing.’
Turtle minder
And so say all of me. The Canaries are a pleasure any time of the year, but especially in the late summer after a year in cold storage.
So the next time Portia needs a hand, then I’d be happy to fly turtles to the Canaries.
Stiff Little Fingers (Alternative Ulster): And first up is the pride of Ulster punk.
Belfast boys SLF used the backdrop of The Troubles for material and recorded the first single Suspect Device disguised as a suspect bomb.
The producer thought it was real and contacted the band for a real one. Instead we give you the brilliant Alternative Ulster.
Get your kicks
Call them up on the telephone: The Undertones
The Undertones (Teenage Kicks): It is the stuff of punk legend that SLF and Derry’s finest The Undertones did not get on.
The Undertones accused SLF of sensationalising The Troubles and the violence.
Teenage Kicks famously initially had the line: ‘I wanna hold it, hold it tight’.
An Ode to Derry
Star composer: Phil Coulter
Phil Coulter (The Town I Loved SoWell): When a composer speaks with honesty and experience about his world (Derry)then the results are memorable.
Phil, of course, had musical pedigree before this, his signature song, having written Eurovision classics Congratulations and Puppet On A String.
Comedy classic
Harmon harmonies: Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy (National Express): And you’ve got to love a band with a lyric: ‘And it’s hard to get by/when your arse is the size of a small country.
Derry’s Neil Harmon also penned an album The Duckworth Lewis Method. Geinius.
Van the Belfast Man
Hat’s the boy: Van the Man
Van Morrison (Madame George): The poet laureate of Belfast, Van may be a grumpy old sod but he’s never forgotten his roots.
You can still see him at one of his legendary cabarets at the Europa Hotel although, alas, characters like Madame George are long gone,
And a special mention too to the three Ulster counties in the Republic of Ireland…
And in true resolute Irish style he made a fortune as a banker.
He lost it in the Civil War, and went off to reinvent himself in a whole different field… as a gardener and inventor of a hot pepper sauce.
The bould Edmund had his in-laws to thank for both putting him and his family up in their plantation in Avery Island after the Civil War.
The man himself: Edmund McIlhenny
And giving him a garden to tend.
We’ll pass over the story that has it that Edmund was given the Mexican tabasco peppers and tabasco recipe by plantation owner Maunsel White.
And move to the 1870s when Edmund obtained a patent.
And started to trade the sauce around the US, before his sons expanded the business worldwide.
It’s more Guinness, Smithwick’s Ale and whiskey down at my Dear Old Mum’s old family bar, now the Ramblers in Brockagh, Co. Donegal.
And back to Tabasco Louisiana
But I dare say that if they do get some exotic out of the county type like said Mum asking for a Bloody Mary then they may have a bottle of the oul’ McIlhenny’s out back.
Lotta bottle: It’s Tabasco time
Because Donegal never forgets its sons.
So let’s hear it for Tabasco, Irish Louisiana and the source of the sauce.
We’ve done Mississippi but not to its terminus in New Orleans.
So off to the Big Easy for us in the future.
And we’ll make that two hour 45 minutes drive to Avery Island to take the Tabasco tour and finish it all off with the best Bloody Mary in the world.
Now the screw was peeping, as the lag lay sleeping. Dreaming about his girl Sal. And that auld triangle went jingle-jangle. All along the banks of the Royal Canal – The Auld Triangle, The Dubliners
Luke Kelly drolled that ‘in the female prison there are 75 women and among them I wish I did dwell, and that auld triangle could go jingle-jangle all along the banks of the Royal Canal.’
And if you know this song, penned by Brendan Behan (and if you don’t then you’ve been missing out) you’ll walk along the Royal Canal in the north of Dublin singing it aloud.
Or if you’re cycling too as I have done, all the time hoping that the broken bottles wouldn’t puncture my tyres.
The Beardie Boys: The Dubliners
That was then, and this is now, and the announcement of the €12m scenic 130km Royal Canal Greenway is to be welcomed.
If you do the lot you’ll have chalked off 90 bridges, 30 locks, 17 harbours and four aqueducts.
And take in Co. Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Westmeath and Longford.
So as a preamble let’s get on with our Rainy Days and Songdays six of the best songs with Irish landmarks.
What a Corker!
Jim and Alan at the Phil Lynott statue in Dublin
As I was goin’ over the Cork and Kerry Mountains, I met with Captain Farrell and his money he was countin’. I first produced my pistol, and then produced my rapier. I said ‘stand and deliver, or the devil he may take ye – Whiskey in the Jar, Thin Lizzy
Musha rain, dum a doo, dum a da.
The Cork and Kerry Mountains have always held a special affection for me as the first travel assignment when a cub reporter in Reading.
Going over said mountains in our Citroen cars was not helped by a bout of seasickness going over on the Swansea-Cork ferry.
But nothing that the local tipple, Murphy’s Stout and the craic didn’t put right.
Low lie those fields
Those low-lying fields: Athenry
Low lie the Fields of Athenry, where once we watched the small birds fly. Our love was on the wing. We had dreams and songs to sing. It’s so lonely round the Fields of Athenry – Fields of Athenry, The High Kings
Lowing, or maybe braying, around those Fields of Athenry were our four donkeys which came with the rented cottage.
I can’t remember what la famiglia called the three others but mine was Oaty as in Donkey Oaty!
I was maybe just tilting at windmills.
And as for stealing Trevelyan’s corn… we just bought some from the Centra for the donkeys.
The Band is back together
Neat little town they call Belfast
In a neat little town they call Belfast, apprentice to tradeI was bound…, a sad misfortune came over me which caused me to stray from the land, far away from my friends and relations, betrayed by the Black Velvet Band – Black Velvet Band, Peaky Blinders
It was more good fortune that came over me… to take me away from my friends and relations to the States after university.
And work, no not on the Black Velvet Band’s pitch, Broadway, but Boston where I inevitably served tables at an Irish pub.
Where every night among the most requested songs was Black Velvet Band.
And yes, of course, like our gullible hero of the song ‘many an hour’s sweet happiness I spent I spent in this neat little town Belfast.
As for a black velvet band, or any colour for that matter, try as I may I never persuaded one… i wonder if she’ll be there when I return.
Where the Dark Mourne sweeps…
London’s got nothing on this
Oh Mary this London’s a wonderful sight with people here working by day and by night, they don’t sow potatoes, nor barley, nor wheat. But there’s gangs of them dogging for gold in the street. At least when I asked them that’s what I was told so I just took a hand at this diggin’ for gold. But for all that I found there I might as well be in the place where the Dark Mourne sweeps down to the sea – Mountains o’ Mourne, Don McLean
Mourne Mountains, Co. Down: It’s always a thrill to see the Mountains of Mourne, my Dear Old Mum’s home province, when driving either north or south.
Mountains of Mourne this sweeping range, has a special place in our hearts as the lullaby I would sing to Daddy’s Little Girl.
It was round by Brockagh’s corner
Harkin’s Bar, Donegal
It was down by Brockagh Corner one morning I did stray, I met a fellow rebel and this to me did say, he had orders from our captain to assemble at Dunbar. But how were we to get there without a car – The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem
Beockagh, Co. Donegal: And still on lullabies this gentle little ditty about the Irish War of Independence is an alternative to nursery rhymes.
If your mother is from Nationalistic north-west Donegal that is.
Well it got me through childhood… give three cheers to the Teasy and Johnson’s Motor Car.
Meeting of minds in Wicklow
Moore Wicklow please
Sweet vale of Avoca! How calm could I rest. In thy bosom of shade with the friends I love best. Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease. And thy hearts, like thy waters, be mingled on peace. – The Meetings of the Waters,John McCormack
And my beloved old homestead of Co. Wicklow and its poet laureate, Thomas Moore.
The Meetings is a family favourite, going back to the days when my Donegal Granny and Grandpa honeymooned here.
We would often return there in our Thirteen Years in Ireland on family day trips.
And skim stones which can be more of a danger sport than you might imagine.
Particularly if you’re that young boy on the other side of the bank who ducks just as a stone is jumping up out of the water.
Ireland: And for my Dear Old Mum that’s Donegal where she grew up in a hotel in a rural hamlet, and holds court every time she goes back.
At Powerscourt Waterfalls in Co. Wicklow
Of course the Donegal natives go along with her Diva-like behaviour and indulge her.
Green, green Ireland
It gets us a free pot of tea every time we go back to the now renamed Ramblers Inn.
The Queen of Queens
New York attitude
There’s an advert which the Irish are all too familiar with where two old ones batter the heck out of each other because each wants to pay the bill.
It is quintissentially Irish and it annoys the Scottish half of me to boiling point.
Of course when my Dear Old Mum is with her own siblings and relatives her need to show her largesse goes off the scale.
And so when we went to my cousin’s wedding in Queens in New York she berated me in front of my extended familly and insisted that she pay for the pre-wedding meal.
Before bossing me around Manhattan. Well, I didn’t ask her to wear high heels.
A wee break in Scotland
The Royal Wave
And I can’t even get that.
Anyone who has been to a major golf tournament (2000! Open, St Andrews) will tell you that the queue for the Portaloos is long.
And that when you eventually get in then you will make the most of it.
Of course, too long for my Dear Old Mum, who sent a random spectator to knock on the door and ask how long I was going to be.
She obviously wanted to see Tiger.
But of course I got my own back and outran her, and jumped the Swilcen Burn with the crowd to see him lift the trophy.
Piping up: In Glasgow
One of my favourite trips was when I took her into her adopted city and my homestead of Glasgow to see the World Bagpipes Championships.
Another particular quirk of the Irish is to be dumbfounded that you could ever by hosted by anyone else. She, of course, wanted to pay!
My brother, that is who emigrated to Canada after meeting a Torontonian.
I broke the habit of a lifetime by being responsible and putting my studies before a few days in Canada to see my brother get married.
But my Dear Old Mum didn’t forget me then and brought me back a Davy Crockett type hat which became my signature look from then on in my student town of Aberdeen.
Now it all depends on whether you’re American, English, Irish or Australian who all embrace their football game.
It’s in the human DNA you see since the day Cain decided to kick Abel’s skull into a ditch.
So here are some thoughts on some of the teams I’ve adopted from my travels.
Touchdown
Off Pat
New England Patriots: I don’t know if you’re allowed it but I adopt all the American sports teams wherever I go.
It does make it easier to pick a winner if you’ve got the New York Jets (my Long Island cousins’-team), the Washington Redskins who are now looking for a new team, and the Denver Broncos.
It’s just that you go with the team where you spend the most time… and that was my summer after university in Boston.
Piping up: In Glasgow
