April 11 – 12

Our drive to Kinsale, like most that we would now encounter, was just 2 and a half hours so we opted to make a stop in Cobh to visit the Titanic Experience there.  Another cold, windy, and drizzling day, we again encountered trucks and cars blockading motorway on and off ramps but were able to easily navigate around them staying on the National road.  Landing in town, we found a parking spot directly across the street from the experience and paid the 1.20 Euros ($1.41) to park for the duration of our visit. 

Housed in the former Kinsale home of the White Star Line (builders of the Titanic), we entered the experience, aid the fee of 23 Euros ($27) for the two of us  and loitered in the small gift shop until the start of our tour.  Cobh was the last stop of the Titanic on its maiden (and only voyage) as some passengers disembarked (the lucky ones) and 123 walked on board to their eventual destiny.  This museum of sorts is smaller and less intense than the one in Belfast (which we will cover later in the blog), but fascinating, nonetheless. 

With a guide dressed in period costume, there is brief introduction about the ship and its history up to the time in docked here, and profiles of some of some of the passengers.  One then enters recreations of a middle class and first-class stateroom and finally end the tour in a large room that displays the names of each passenger and whether they survived the sinking or not. 

Hungry by now and with another driving leg before us, we walked across the street to the Cuppacity Coffee shop for a filling snack.  Along with a latte apiece (we almost always order a latte as it costs just about the same as a regular coffee) we ordered a ham and egg bagel breakfast sandwich and a multi-layer cake for a total tab of 23.60 Euros ($28).  Filling and tasty enough to last us all the way to dinner and we were happy to have stopped in. 

With some time to kill before we could check into our Airbnb in Kinsale, we walked out the square next to the café that featured a memorial to the victims of the Lusitania sinking.  Commenced by Jerome Connor in the 1930s and completed in 1968, it honors the memory of those lost when the RMS Lusitania, a British-registered ocean liner was torpedoed by an Imperial German Navy U-boat during the First World War on 7 May 1915, about 13 miles) off the Old Head of Kinsale.  More than a thousand perished; survivors, and the bodies of victims, were brought ashore here in Cobh.

From there we walked back across the street and out to the end of the John F. Kennedy pier, turning around to get a nice view of the city.  As the port here became ascendent over the one at Kinsale (which was silting up) thousands of Irish citizens immigrated on both White Star and Cunard lines hoping to find a better life in America and other more hospitable climes. 

We moved on to John F. Kennedy Park.  Standing here, one can see, directly in front of the Titanic Experience decayed pilings surviving from Heartbreak Pier—where tenders ferried those final passengers to the Titanic before she set out.  It also represents the passengers’ last chance to turn back and one lucky surviving crewman with a premonition did just that.  

Like many other places in Ireland—including the pier we were just on—this was renamed for the first Irish Catholic US president, who earned great loyalty here when he visited Ireland just months before his assassination. The park is filled with memorials, kid-friendly gurgling fountains, old cannons, and ample benches.  Its centerpiece is a giant bandstand, originally built in 1900.  We left the park and continued walking, about two minutes to the Cobh Heritage Centre, housed in the city’s antique Victorian Age train station.

Just outside the station is the statue of Annie Moore and her two young brothers who emigrated from Cobh and was the first person to be processed through Ellis Island when it opened on January 1, 1892—yet another reminder of how this small port city was Ireland’s gateway to the world.  The heritage center had some displays about the city, but more intriguing was a wool sweater on sale that Joanna picked up, necessary to combat the constant wind and chilly conditions we continued to face.  We’d brought what we thought would be sufficient layers, but that wind cut through any gaps and the sweater would come in handy for the rest of the trip. 

We landed in Kinsale right around check in time at Modern apartment Kinsale center, our Airbnb for two nights, parking in a free lot a couple of blocks from the rental.  Coming in at $435 in was a bit pricey, but its location more than made up for the higher cost.  It was a small unit, but big enough for us having just left a bedroom in a shared house.  The bonus is that it was right in the middle of this small town, within easy walking distance of anywhere we wanted to go. 

As it was later in the day and we’d already had a busy day, it was nice to hang out at the unit (after some provisioning at a local market) and relax a bit before venturing out to dinner.  We opted to eat nearby at Kitty O Se’s, known for having traditional live music.  As with almost every other pub we would visit on the trip, it was crowded when we arrived and we felt lucky to get a table, although it was in the back of the dining room far away from where the entertainment was presented. 

I had a Harp Lager while Joanna sampled a shot of some local liquor that neither one of us can remember what it was.  For food she enjoyed, as she would many times during the trip, the seafood chowder while I had a bowl of the vegetable soup (every pub had vegetable soup and seafood chowder on their menu) and the Sauteed Tiger Prawns.  It was all satisfying and reasonably priced, our tab coming to 44.90 Euros ($53), and the only downside of the evening was when the music started, we were so far back it was difficult to enjoy it, so we returned to the apartment for a quiet evening looking forward to our only full day in town tomorrow.

Links

Titanic Experience: https://titanicexperiencecobh.ie/

Cuppacity Coffee: https://cuppacitycoffee.weebly.com/

Lusitania Memorial: https://www.rmslusitania.info/ireland/kinsale-lusitania-memorial/

Home in Kinsale: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1318334105749481616?source_impression_id=p3_1783564284_P3N9VVnNEZ5L_5TT

Kitty O Se’s: https://www.facebook.com/kittykinsale