Summary
1. Waking up
2. Breakfast
3. Reading
4. Habits
5. Snack
6. TV Show Break
7. Happy Hour
8. Movie Night
9. The end
Because I am sure there are millions of ways to travel, we can escape even in 100 feet square, we can recreate American in the middle of nowhere; in those weird quarantined times, I got the idea to create a file “Special Quarantine”: A reachable world. Following my wandering steps for eight months, I am offering you to stop by Ireland, Iceland, Alaska, some Western provinces of Canada, some united American States; sprinkling clothes opinions, cooking ideas, books / music / movies advice, and other surprises…
In this new spring as March showers are making April fools, it sounded appropriate to match the weather and start our apartment journey with a four-seasons-in-one-day destination. Committed to my soul mate hidden in Donegal’s wet bogs, I invite you to IRELAND for our first Neverland!
The sun is out
Raining in my heart, Buddy Holly
The sky is blue
There’s not a cloud
To spoil the view
But it’s raining
Raining In My Heart
The Weather Man
Says “Clear today”
He doesn’t know
You’ve gone away
And it’s raining
Raining In My Heart
Oh misery – misery
What’s gonna become of me
I tell my blues
They mustn’t show
But soon these tears
Are bound to flow
Cause it’s raining
Raining In My Heart
Raining In My Heart
Raining In My Heart
Fáilte go hÉirinn!*
1. Go Green!
You are waking up in this little spring quarantined morning, you open one eye and one curtain: It is raining… Not cats and dogs, a small drizzle entering you to your soul, and it gives you the blues! It is raining in your heart!
Therefore, in order to bring light to your heavy soul, you decide to travel in your head… You turn U2 or The Coors on your MP3, CD reader, gramophone or any music device, nothing better than a bit of rock to start your day! And now, what do I wear?
Since there is no true “traditional” Irish costume – and I was about to invite you to a historical reconstitution with whatever you had in your wardrobe, I am confused! -, I thus offer you instead to dress in green from your toes to your head. You then don’t need to go to Ireland, you ARE Ireland!
2. Full Irish Breakfast
Photo source: internet
It is now time to fill your belly, to feel full until tomorrow. You’ll go out for your daily authorized tour later! You are ready to cook, but make sure you have everything you need for a full Irish Breakfast:
* Two fried eggs
* Sausage (Irish have a special breakfast sausage but we are all QUARANTINED
so we all do with what we have. Be creative!)
* Beans
* One fried tomato (I know it is not really the good time of the year, so, if like me you follow the sun’s course, you can skip that one!)
* Pudding
* Bacon
* Bread and Butter
* option: mushrooms
And of course, the traditional cup of black tea (with a bit of milk for those who like it)
To the table ! (Healthy food will be for another day!)
And if you are perfectionist, you can push to read the Irish Times thanks to our hyper connected world. You might find the same thing than in any journal: the world is quarantined!
3. A journey with Irish poets
With all those proteins, you haven’t started your day yet, but you are already exhausted! And it is raining anyway (and you are QUARANTINED!), you might therefore go from your bed to your couch and choose your daydream; with who will you travel today? What words will satisfy you?
* A journey of discovery in Ireland, Pete McCarthy: If you read in order to balance you immobility, this dark humored tale is for you. Raised in England, the author travels across Ireland and share his adventure with a lot of irony and fascination for his homeland.
* Dubliners, James Joyce: If you are more of a city person, you will enjoy those short stories depicting Dublin society at the end of 19th century. But if you really want to get lost in Dublin meanders, you should follow Ulysses…. I won’t lie to you, it is an Odyssey: I have never tried myself…
* Aran Islands, John Millington Synge: If you’d rather stay in one place and discover another aspect of 19th century Ireland – Wild West, ocean and Gaelic world -, then this book is the one you should east. Synge might even open his theater to your heart and you may follow his Riders to the Sea or wander with The Playboy of the Western World.
As a matter of fact, if you shall stay on Aran Islands, you might as well listen to Lasairfhiona Ni Chonaola, born and raised on the middle island, the wilder and more remote one.
* Country Girl, memoir, Edna O’Brien: If you like travel in human beings’ meanders, this destiny will particularly move you. Famous Irish author, Edna O’Brien tells here her own story and thus shares her experience of a post Independence War traditional Ireland leading to a lot of artists’ exil. Her novels are also a nice journey….
* The Secret scripture, Sebastian Barry : If you are a bit girly (but not too much) and you like easy to read stories, this one will hook you in a minute. It is kind of the Irish version of Nicolas Sparks’ Notebook (only better, and like its American cousin, the book was turned into a movie. See below.) Impossible love stories on Irish reconstruction set, this novel follows Rosemary’s tragic destiny, she is locked down in a psychiatric hospital and tells about her youth during and after Irish Independence War. We are confronted to the limits of a State freeing itself from its oppressor to find another sneakier one and dramatically upsets an ordinary young woman’s fate in the process.
* Sister Fidelma, Peter Tremayne : If you are Medieval thriller of a kind, you will love to follow Fidelma’s adventures, Irish none with a bit of a temper. You then get the occasion to discover another Ireland: Middle Age, before English colonization, society grows and Old pagan religion flirt with Catholicism, creating the Celtic exception. Besides, it is a series that might keep you busy until the end of this international crisis…
* W.B Yeats and Seamus Heaney‘s must see poems if your heart reads step by step.
Lost in your rhyming or not dreams, I invite you to inhabit your sound atmosphere with a bit of an Irish music thanks to The Gloaming. This American group offers a very modern and subtle version of traditional Irish music.
4. Work your body and your mind
After this lazy moment, it is time to exercise a bit! In your living room, your garden (if you have one) or during your daily promenade if you are not shy, you are about to move! With a bit of luck, the weather has truly adopted the changing Irish mood and the morning drizzle has turned into a rainbow, or even a windy sun!
Photo source: internet
* If you are lucky enough to be quarantined in a place with a yard, it is time to learn how to play hurling! Traditional sport, it was forbidden under British rules for a very long time. Quit violent, it is practiced with teams of 15 players, a wooden bat – hurley in English and caman in Irish – and a leather ball – the sliotar… Goals come both from rugby, two poles, and football, one cage. You have to score with the sliotar in between the two poles: 3 points in the cage (there is a goalie), 1 points above. (Source Le guide du Routard). I attended a game during summer 2016, it is amazing, it goes so quickly! You don’t have time to count who is winning nor to see the ball travelling from one player to another…
Since there is little chance 15 of you are quarantined together and even less that you have access to a caman or a sliotar, you will do with what you have! A tennis or base ball will do and anything for a stick. Now, you can practice how to send the ball in between the two poles (better to be two so there is a goalie…)
* If you are living in an apartment, your neighbors might curse you, but you won’t escape the Irish dance class! Who has never dreamt of flying with an Irish jig like a miraculous tap dancer? It is therefore time to make your life dream come true (and practice a bit if you ever want to shine on an Irish dance floor!) Since it is quite uneasy to explain with words, I send you to a The Lord of the Dance’s video for high-flyers and an easy tutorial for realistic ones!
* What would you think about a tiny Irish language and geography course to end this «general Irish knowledge» activity?
I first send you to an article I wrote last summer for some language tips: How are you doing?
I then invite you to get the most precise map of Ireland (Google Map sounds like the best option right now because you can zoom and find the craziest Irish town names!) and our little game will consist in being able to pronounce (and place on a map) Gaelic names from this list! To your accents! (quizz answers further below)
1. Ardagh
2. Mullaghbrack
3. Glendalough
4. Claddaghduff
5. Mona vullagh
6. Gortnahoe
7. Knocknarea
8. Knockcloghrim
9. Droicheadnva
10. Shanagolden
BONUS : Dun Laoghaire
A few tips though:
Source Le Guide du Routard
– Some words have so many silent letters, or you would never think of saying them like that. Thus, Baile Atha Cliath (Dublin’s Irish name) sounds a bit like this “Bla Clia” …
– You might find upper cases in the middle of words. You can change the word’s function with a prefix (for instance, “n” for genitive). If it’s a proper name, the “n” stands before the upper case, like in hEirinn further up or in Dun na nGall meaning “fort of the foreigners” (changed to Donegal).
– The letter « h » after a letter replace a dot on the letter, meant to change the pronunciation in traditional scriptures.
– In numerous place or people names, the groupe “gh” is pronounced like a stronger « h » (example : Gallagher)
5. Care for a snack?
After all this brain and body activity, I am sure you are starting to feel famished; it is time for a little snack that, if not 100% Irish, fits in the British heritage of that ancient colonized island. You have two options, that you can prepare and enjoy listening to Damian Rice :
* a late lunch: let’s be creative following the SANDWICH fashion, you’ll only have two mandatory ingredients: CHEDDAR and/or SALMON (Irish of course). If you choose to eat salmon, CREAM CHEESE is more than appropriate.
* a little bit of sweetness: a cup of black tea is necessary – if not vital! – and it is strongly advised to add some delicious SCONES – with butter, jam, chocolate chips or plain – to it.
SCONES RECIPE
Source : All recipes
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white sugar
5 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
DIRECTIONS
1 Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a baking sheet.
2 In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in butter. Mix the egg and milk in a small bowl, and stir into flour mixture until moistened.
3 Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead briefly. Roll dough out into a 1/2 inch thick round. Cut into 8 wedges, and place on the prepared baking sheet.
4 Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.
MY LITTLE SECRET
You can add to the preparation, before cooking, your own special ingredient: raisins, chocolate chips, cranberries, fruits, nuts, etc…
My favorite combo: white chocolate – rasperries
6. TV Show Break
If you have decided some rules so this quarantine doesn’t turn into an excuse to decadence and you must not (deal between you and yourself) drink alcohol before 5 pm, you might find here some to keep you busy until Happy Hour.
Otherwise, if like me you don’t give a shit about rules, even before being quarantined you didn’t mind (at all!) having a drink before 5 pm, you may skip this part or do it some other time during your day.
Anyway, here are two TV shows, available on Netflix, that I urge you to watch.
* Rebellion: created in 2016 for the beginning of Irish struggles for Independence 100th anniversary, this historical TV show starts a bit before 1916 Bloody Easter and go through the eight years of war that followed in Ireland (Easter Rising, War of Independence, Civil War [up to come]). If the story is not always good (you sometimes get lost in cheesy love stories) and actors’ performances are unbalanced, history is made authentic and reachable, presenting Irish society’s contradictions, inequalities between classes, different levels of nationalism, etc…
* Derry Girls: for everybody! It is still a bit of a history lesson but a wacky and poignant one. You follow here a teenagers group’s fantastic lives caught in the middle of Northern Ireland Troubles in the nineties. The period is tragic but the show never is and you laugh of those teenagers’ funny innocence that reminds you a bit of yours, even if your history is so far from theirs.
* BONUS: I bend a bit my own rule here because this TV show is not really Irish. Most characters and actors are though. Any Irish will tell you, the Shelbys are part of their family…
Peaky Blinders: the TV show (also available on Netflix) talks about a gangsters family, Travelers’ descendants (Irish gypsies) ruling over Manchester in a WWI traumatized England (those gangsters in first line). They are lawless and yet, you want them to win over any breathless episode, punctuated by an amazing soundtrack and speechless actors’ performance.
7. Happy Hour
I can tell you are starting to get impatient: when will she finally talk about pints?! Being in Ireland without drinking beers is like felony, worst: treason!
Happy Hour would usually rhyme with rugby… I would offer to watch the Six Nations championship but I am not that much of a fairy godmother and I don’t want to rub salt in the wound! I will therefore invite you to organize a Video Happy Hour with your friends, so Spring 2020! Slainte!**
As for your poison, Ireland doesn’t lack in beers offer (craft or not) – my favourite one being Smithwicks – but I don’t really know what you have access to in your liquor stores depending on where you are quarantined. I will then keep it low, you might have to settle for a Guinness, or if you are lucky a O’Hara or a Kilkenny!
And since I haven’t really revolutionized the Happy Hour, a little anecdote before jumping to conclusions. There are always two pourings of Guinness for one pint, with a mandatory break in between. Do you know why? The urban myths tells Mister Guinness was pouring his pint when he realized it was church service time, he therefore dropped his half poured pint, prayed and then finished filling up his glass.
8. Movies Theater in your own little restaurant
If your fourth pint of Guinness hasn’t filled you up yet, here are some Irish ideas for your dinner. Still healthy of course!
* Irish Stew: usually with some lamb, but you can basically throw whatever you wish in a stew in the end! Just don’t forget the essential Irish ingredient: potatoes. You can also add some carrots because it makes you nicer and your thighs pinker!
(If you need a sharper recipe, here you go.)
* Bangers & Mash: possible to add some peas or gravy. Banger is another British word for sausage. In war times, when there were meat shortages, sausages were made with such a high water content that they were more liable to pop (in a loud “bang”?) under high heat when cooked.
* Very British and homemade (for more fun!) Fish & Chips. Recipe over here.
This happy meal might be enjoyed in front of an Irish movie of your choosing. As for me, I have watched and loved a lot of them, I am then restricting myself to only mention four for your own pleasure.
* The Quiet Man (1952), John Ford : If you are the “Hollywood Golden Age” and “Romantic vision of Ireland” type, John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara are your new heroes. Classic among all classics, you have to watch this at least once in your life, especially if you intend to go to Ireland (EVERYBODY will talk about it, mostly the old generation). Long story short, an American comes back to settle on his parents’ lands and falls for a redheaded stubborn Irish woman!
* The Magdalene Sisters (2002), Peter Mullan : (it is not for the sensitive…) If you have a strong stomach and the quarantine hasn’t turned into depression, let you be utterly moved by this poignant tale. I might not be a good seller, but I have to say the truth… When I watched this movie the first time, I though it was a light and cheerful story, it was then even more violent to realize what kind of horrific psychological (and sometimes physical) tortures Magdalene Convents women had to cope with. I strongly advice you to give a chance to that harsh movie though, if not today, one day; it is such a humble story that needs to be heard. Those women have stayed in oblivion for too long!
And if you want to honor them but don’t feel ready for The Magdalene sisters just yet, you might settle for Philomena, same subject but soft and indirect treatment.
* The wind that shakes the barley (2004), Ken Loach : If you are an absolute fan of Ken Loach, (platonically or not) in love with Cillian Murphy and want to fill your eyes and heart, just get lost in County Cork bog’s hills where Ireland’s Independence is growing with passion, happiness sometimes, sorrow often. My favourite movie in the whole world, even before I fell in love with Ireland….
* Sing Street (2016), John Carney : If you need some “feel good” movie and/or have teenagers in your living-room, this musical and happy tale is for you. It is the common story of a boy that, to impress a girl, starts a rock band in 1980 Dublin; except it is Irish, funny, fun, moving, precise and humble. It is perfect! I don’t say more, a true candy!
But also The aforementioned Secret Scripture, Ryan’s daughter, Michael Collins, Hunger, The Guard, Jimmy’s Hall, Calvary, The commitments, Breakfast on Pluto, The Boxer, Once….
9. A blaze of glory
You might have forgotten (at least, I often do because I do not like it!), but Ireland also produces a very good whiskey! Actually, whisky was invented in Ireland since Saint Patrick himself brought a weird tool, the alembic – first used for perfume – that Irish quickly diverted in order to make whiskey. The only reason why Scottish even had access to that secret is because Ireland was forbidden by English laws to distill! They never got Erin’s elegance though: “More delicate, fruitier, more balanced, Irish whiskey surprises and seduces even those who have always claimed to hate whisky.”. According to my travel book experts, the best choices are Jameson 12 years old, Blackbush or Bushmills.
And you can of course, in the end of this full Irish day, blend it in your evening coffee for a last Irish tradition: the Irish coffee.
IRISH COFFEE RECIPE
Source: Wikipedia
Irish whiskey and at least one level teaspoon of sugar are poured over black coffee and stirred in until fully dissolved. Thick cream is carefully poured over the back of a spoon initially held just above the surface of the coffee and gradually raised a little until the entire layer is floated.
Oíche mhaith!***
* «Welcome to Ireland!» in Irish
** « Cheers!» in Irish
*** «Good Night!» in Irish
Answers to the Quizz
Read More
1. Ardagh, ARD prefix means “high” : “Arda(h)“
2. Mullaghbrack, MULLA(CH) prefix means “summit” : “Mula(rh)brak“
3. Glendalough, LOUGH suffix means “lake” : “Glendalok”
4. Claddaghduff, DUFF (DUBH) suffix means “black” : “Clada(rh)deuf”
5. Monavullagh, MONA prefix means “bog” : “Monavula(rh)”
6. Gortnahoe, GORT prefix means “fields” : “Gortnaho“
7. Knocknarea, KNOCK prefix means “hill” : “Noknarey”
8. Knockcloghrim, KNOCK prefix means “hill” : “Noklogrim”
9. Droicheadnva, DROICHEAD prefix means “bridge” : “Droaeydnouey”
10. Shanagolden, SHAN prefix means “old” : “cheynaegolden”
BONUS: Don’t ask me why nor how but Dun Laoghaire is pronunced something like “Doune Liri“
Fleeting Wor(l)ds 