Blog: Same-same at the Irish kanikapila

The Hawaii Independent’s Downtown editor is currently reconnecting with his Irish heritage on his honeymoon throughout Ireland. He’s sending us back the details. Read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here and part 4 here. Keep checking back for more musings from a Hawaii boy in Ireland.

After a fine two days in Doolin, it was time for Wifey and I to head north to Galway, where we had a plan to meet up with some grad student friends of a buddy of mine in Honolulu (those old Anna Bannana’s ties run far and wide). On the way, we passed through The Burren, a vast expanse of desolate greenery and karst bedrock. Quietly strolling the empty grounds of Caherconnell, a Bronze Age site dating back to at least 1500 B.C. that stayed in use until about 1400 A.D., Wifey and I took in the exquisitely arranged rock walls of the ring fort.

We also visited the nearby Poulnabrone Dolmen, a fascinating, if mildly eerie, ancient burial site. We were lucky to have beaten the tour buses, as a throng of gawkers would have destroyed the reflective silence of the place.

While Wifey was probably pondering socio-economic strata in pre-Christian Ireland, I was preoccupied with much more simple-minded questions like: “What the hell drove them out here in the first place?” and “Why the hell did they stay so long?” It’s that barren. We couldn’t find a pub until we got to Keough’s in Kinvarra.

Kinvarra is a small town, the kind of sleepy hamlet that typically has two or three pubs, one main intersection, and a chip shop. I nipped out for a cigarette after lunch at Keough’s, where I saw a woman of at least 85 unknowingly drop her cell phone while crossing the street. I snatched it up and handed it back to her, smiling. “You’ll be needing this, I reckon,” I said.

“Oh, Jaysis!” she gasped, her hand over her mouth. “I’d be bloody lost without it! Twitter! Grandchildren and all!” She thanked me with a pat on the cheek and jumped into her brand new Mercedez coupe convertible, speeding off toward Galway. I hope that her grandchildren know how awesome that spitfire octogenarian is.

After considerable trouble locating our hotel in Galway, we settled into the Spanish Arch. I went for a walk along the promenade, a pedestrian thouroughfare in the heart of the university district. All manner of storefronts were teeming with smartly dressed academics, and with obvious tourists. Restaurants, clothing stores, salons, bookstores, music stores: Galway is a vibrant town day and night. I found Sonny’s Pub, a place more suited to my neighborhood bar sensibilities.

The bartender was a fine man, about 45, an Irishman who had moved back home from Miami with his American wife and two kids a few years ago. I listened surreptitiously as he and another patron lamented the state of Irish professional athletics. I choked slightly on a Guinness when two attractive young women walked in and asked for two cups of hot water and the bartender said, “Sure, loves, the water’s free. But I’ll have to charge ye for the heat.”

We met up with the folks we had planned to meet in our hotel bar, and later took in a music session at Tig Coili (tee-ko-lee) and another later at Naechton’s (no idea how to pronounce that one). There are not many differences between an Irish music session and a kanikapila at home in Hawaii. The music is Irish at a session, and they take place in a pub, but otherwise, as we say, “same-same, brah.”