Jesus, Mary and Joseph and his little donkey… is that Adrian Dunbar in Greystones, my old stomping ground?
Adrian has long been a national treasure in Ireland, and much loved too now in the UK on the back of his award-winning performance as Hastings in cop series Line of Duty.
The two-part series will follow Adrian, who introduced the wider world to some choice Irish phrases such as the above, as he returns to his hometown of Enniskillen.
We’ll join the ever-likeable Adrian as he visits places that hold fond memories for him.
And he will also check out some places he has always wanted to visit but has never before found the time.
In episode two, which will air on 30 November, he will meet artist Jim FitzPatrick in Howth and another well-known chef, Richard Corrigan – who will give Adrian a tour of his Virginia Park Lodge.
They’ll also see him taking that trip on the DART in Wicklow… and remember Isambard Kingdom Brunel (and Michael Portillo) were all over the Bray-Greystones tunnel along the Irish Sea.
And where you can dine at the very hotel, the Hotel Interlaken, the Bad Boy of the Romantics quaffed wine. And this Swiss swisher too.
Where Twain shall meet
Yale, Connecticut
Mark Twain, a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: And as prolific a traveller as Connecticut’s Samuel Clemens was this was his most epic journey.
Across 14 centuries and an ocean.
Twain is for many the Father of Modern Travel Writing.
And his home was tantalisingly up the road on my latest trip to New England.
What the Dickens?
Way to go, Joe: With hotel boss Joe at the Hotel Envoy, Boston
Charles Dickens’ American Notes, Pictures from Italy: The Great Victorian Age author of course stripped bare the England of his days.
But his curiosity and enthusiasm to explore the foibles of human nature stretched way beyond that… to America and Italy.
Which just so happen to be two of my favourite countries anywhere in the world.
Dickens was particularly impressed with Boston (good judge) of which he said: ‘Boston is what I would like the whole of the United States to be.’
But he seemed to have a conflicted view of Rome, observing on first viewing that it reminded him of London (no harm there).
Bray to go: The Scary One in Greystones with Bray Head in the background
A good brisk walk is, of course, for all ages and physicalities.
And it allows you the time and space to talk and reflect on shared experiences and your younger selves.
And so the seven-and-a-half miles, three-and-a-half hour trek, to the village of East Linton became a trip down Memory Lane.
We could just as well have been in our old stomping ground of Aberdeen where Wee Jon was known to spend a night on the grass island Mounthooly Roundabout.
Or London and Brighton where we variously enjoyed the bright lights of Leicester Square and Chinatown or hosted Spanish students down the pier.
It’s a problem worthy of United Nations arbitration so it probably shouldn’t be surprising that we honour both today with their own day, the United Nations Day and Mothers-in-Law Day.
With those esteemed institutions being deemed worthy of their own official day.
Now I wouldn’t for one minute begrudge Angela her day off today as she IS heading into Halloween, obviously her busiest time of the year.
In truth, I’ve always tried to keep a couple of steps ahead of Mother-in-Law, or Sir as she insists I call her.
The outlaw Angie
Mother and daughter: Angela and My Scary One, Sarah
And so we’d find ourselves living away from Chez Angela.
So she has needed to be a visitor to our billets on our adventures around these islands.
While, of course, Wicklow more than fulfils the staple of every good Camino, stop-off waterholes!
Walk with me around Wickla
Launching the programme, Fred Verdier, of Wicklow Tourism, said: ‘As tourism finally starts to open up again in Ireland, we wanted to be ready for our guests coming to explore Wicklow – The Garden of Ireland.
‘The idea of the Passport was born a couple of years ago. It gives visitors new ideas of things to do and places to see and visit.’
King of Scotland and King of Ireland in Rathdrum
The idea is to collect 15 or more stamps and become a Wicklow ambassadors and you will receive a certificate and gift from Wicklow Tourism.
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.
You know Christmas is coming when… the latest Ross O’Carroll Kelly book hits the shelves and he coins another killer pun like Game of Throw-Ins of Andora’s Box.
And as it happens the new Ross book hits the shelves this Friday… and I’ve already told Santa that, roysh, I want that.
The Ledge is back
As well as a Beamer with one of the Seoige sisters (or both) sprawled over the hood.
Andorra was where Ross decamped when he had to get out of town.
From the looks of it Ross is having to make the most of things these days in Bray, the old-fashioned Co. Wicklow resort I know so well.
Although I prefer the luxury of leafy Powerscourt in nearby Enniskerry.
The Sugarloaf frames Bray
Back to Andorra.
And In truth if you do during the winter you’ll not be able to hook a T bar or ride a gondola without bumping into someone you know from Dublin 4..
If you want a taste of Dublin’s Rugbyland and walk in the Rossmeister’s footsteps then the InterCon is where you’ll stay.
And he’ll no doubt have a thing or two to say about Ireland’s win yesterday against Scotland.
Pyrenees please
Andorra is an ideal country to get the skiing kick.
And Pierre & Vacances are all over the Pyrenees with more than 455 rooms and apartments.
It is adding to that with two new residences in the Pyrenees, Hotel Austria and Residence Andorra Degas.
Deal me in
Hotel Austria… but in Andorra
Hotel Austria boasts 62 rooms and is just 1km from the Peretol ski resort.
The Degas Apartments are right on the doorstep to the skiing, just 750m from the Grandvalira slopes.
A seven-night stay at the Hotel Austria at a flexible rate, arriving on March 13 is from €395/£358 for a double bedroom with breakfast included.
And a week at the Andorra Residence Degas is from €757/£685 for an apartment that sleeps up to three. Flights and transfers not included.
I’ve looked up at those Pyrenees from my post-Lourdes tour so this is unfinished business.
Piping up: In Glasgow
