31 August 2016 – Cork, Ireland

Hi All – Busy day…

After a somewhat typical Irish breakfast – passed on the rusks and the sausages (called puddings), but had the eggs scrambled with salmon (lox) and the amazing bread they have here in Ireland (very hard to resist), took off for the English Market.. strolling and dealing with the ever-changing weather (sunny one minute, drizzling the next). Walked through many pedestrian streets and more cobblestone ones and eventually getting to the market.. From what I gather, there has been a market on this site for more than 200 years… but the current building was built in the mid-19th century and is famous for an ornamental entrance. But the market was seriously damaged by a fire in the 1980s and the government funded the rehabilitation which was very respectful of the original Victorian design. After this renovation, the market started to offer more diverse foods – hoping to become more international in style. But it’s clear that its real strengths are the fish and meats and locally baked breads. There’s also a great chocolate selection including ones with Irish whiskey.. And there’s also a restaurant on the second level which overlooks the whole market… Meant to come back for lunch, but got sidetracked.

Left the market and strolled more of the streets which are packed with people, pubs, performers… But we had a purpose… Mike decided he needed a “cap” – He has about a dozen caps at home but didn’t bring one (and hates caps that ‘advertise’). His most recent favorite has been a navy one with a very tasteful embroidered (small) kangaroo that I brought back from Sydney last year. But alas, that seems to be lost, along with a host of other caps over the years. Hard to keep those caps on the head, I suppose. In an effort to accomplish the big retail goal – we stopped in sporting goods stores and some other random shops. And then we stumbled on a men’s hat shop. Walked in and hit the jackpot. They tried to convince Mike to get one of those wool caps.. but he opted for a very nice black heavy cotton one that has a particularly nice shape – not the baseball cap form. Bingo… big purchase!

With hat on head we went on our way… winding up at a little Mediterranean place for lunch – Orso. Quite good… mixture of salads (quinoa, chick peas, bulgar wheat, cous cous) and spicy beef kafta… Fortified, we could continue our journey. First to a church that is now a city exhibition hall where there was supposed to be a model of the full city… but unfortunately it had been moved to the architecture building at the university. Then we walked back across one of the many pedestrian bridges over the quays uphill to the butter museum (which was sort of a joke but we did go in).. Takeaway: butter is an important product in Ireland. Across from the butter museum is the Firkin Crane – a circular building at the top of the hill – built in the mid-1800s to meet the needs of the Butter Exchange.. “Firkin” means quarter barrel, which was equal to 80Ibs of butter. The firkins (sort of casks) were weighed on a scale that was called a “Crane”.

The building is completely circular… and  has a diameter of about 100’. Today the building is used by the Irish National Ballet and for some other performances, I think.

By now we had walked about 6.5 miles and decided it was time to head to the hotel and to do some of the work we each brought along. But stopped for some fortification along the way to the hotel. We were also searching for a restaurant for dinner tonight.. and thought we’d find something interesting.

We decided on Star Anise, a little restaurant not far from the hotel… but when we arrived at 8:30, the place was fully booked for the evening. So we searched a bit on iPhones… and decided on Jacques which is located on Plunkett Street (where we walked a lot earlier in the day). Found out that the street is named after a martyred bishop and that the family has a colorful history including John Plunkett, an Irish poet and writer and leader in the Easter Rising movement to get Ireland its independence from Britain who was executed just hours after he married his long time sweetheart… and another Plunkett who started the cooperative movement. Didn’t have time to research all of this but it sounds like a very interesting family.

Had a wonderful dinner at Jacques – which has a Mediterranean menu… started with mezze plate and some scallops with spiced eggplant, yogurt and mint… followed by wonderfully rare rump of lamb.. Ok.. enough about food.

The only other thing I’m going to report is that there is quite a scandal being reported here regarding Apple which has a facility here in Cork that employs 6,000 people (perhaps explaining the number of young people and the seemingly available free capital to shop and eat at nice restaurants and to be hanging out at pubs and going to music venues.) So as I understand it, the EU has said that Apple received “selective treatment” enabling it to pay a tax rate of 1% on their profits throughout the EU in 2003 and then even a lower rate beginning in 2014. There has been a three year investigation looking into special tax arrangement for Apple that go back 25 years. If I have it right there are two Apple firms registered in Ireland but they were controlled in the US.. and one of the companies supposedly based in Dublin had no employees and no office – so the end result is that EU says Apple owes more than $14 Billion.. plus fines. Not exactly sure why the government of Ireland doesn’t have any responsibility.. but the deep pockets are Apple’s. From the TV news Apple (Tim Cook) is saying that jobs in Cork will be threatened by this decision. But then there are some headlines saying that no jobs are at stake.

OK.. that’s it for today…  We head to Kenmare tomorrow – stopping in Kinsale and Killarney en route. Maybe kiss the Blarney Stone?

Fern