Friday night I successfully managed to find a Mazzy, and we in turn successfully managed to find the most lovely bar in Cork for a Guinness! I was recommended a restaurant called Isaacs by one of the local ladies on the course so after meeting at the youth hostel we headed off over to MacCurtain street in the city centre. Wandering down the road we had one of those Parisian ‘through the arch’ moments when suddenly you get a glimpse down an unassuming little alleyway to something intriguing/beautiful/unexpected....Pictures don’t really do it justice…
…but a 40 foot waterfall, starkly lit, tumbling down a rock face in the middle of a city, and in particular Cork city, is a bit different! So we sat at the base of that and had ourselves some of the blackstuff before deciding to bypass dinner and carry on with our exploration of the city, aided by Mazzy’s Erasmus friend, Randall. He took us to two pubs just off St Patricks street, but then bowing to our stomachs’ demands we slightly unceremoniously ditched our guide to go to a diner in town where I took this picture of some words to live by. Appropriate, I think….
The next day we walked up to University College Cork, which is right across from the youth hostel. Like the rest of the 'Rebel City' it bears the scars of a turbulent history; there are bullet holes in some of the walls from executions that took place during the Irish civil war. A picture of its centre, the old quadrangle....
After our little educational detour we breakfasted in the city on O’Connails famous praline hot chocolate then headed back to Ballymaloe via the Midleton farmer’s market for some X-Factor supplies (organic salad, Cashel Blue cheese from Tipperary and a bag of ripe to bursting figs). Did the grand tour of the farm and school, ending in Saturday pizza lunch (this week homemade sausage and kale) and then a Garryvoe beach walk. The rest of the Pink Cottage Contingent being in Dublin we had the house to ourselves so lit the fire, cracked open a packet of Barry’s tea, and sat down to await Cheryl’s Saturday dress choice, and the arrival of the mothers. Unfortunately there are no pictures of our stay with them at the Bay View hotel, the yummy breakfasts, Ballycotton pier stroll, or Kinsale jaunt, but I do have a picture of the trip’s grande finale (Mazzy sadly absent), the wonderful Ballymaloe House Hotel…..
An Irish culinary institution it’s been running for over forty years, ever since the presiding Allen matriarch Myrtle and her late husband Ivan placed an advert in the local paper that simply stated ‘Come dine in a country house’. The house itself seems not to date from any one period, but is a mixture of dilapidated castle, polished Regency home and even extremely grand farmhouse as ploughed fields not parkland surround the buildings. I’ve been twice already to work in the kitchen and visit the small café alongside it, but visiting the hotel you really get a feel for the Ballymaloe ethos, and the sense that despite it now being part of a huge commercial operation, it is still a home. The bedroom doors remain unlocked, you can have second helpings in the dining room if you like and the people are just incredibly welcoming and friendly. Their traditional Sunday evening buffet was nothing short of a feast, tables laden with all that the local area has to offer and a dessert trolley which is squeakily wheeled up to right under your nose, from where it is physically impossible to decline! To be experienced once in a lifetime....at the very, very least!
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