We stayed on an extra day in Limerick so Tom could try to find his camera, and to go see a rugby match with Tony.
Having a latish morning, we headed out up the city along O’Connell Street, down to the riverfront and on up to the Castle and Treaty Stone. Limerick really is a nice little city, with quite impressive vistas over the Shannon. Up by the castle, we stepped into an old tavern for an early dinner, served up by several gorgeous young barmaids (starting to sound like the Calypso episode of Ulysses). Once we mentioned “rugby” – the Limerick password – they warmed up to us immensely, and were all ears. But unfortunately for us, we had no clue either where exactly the match was taking place, or even who was playing. The walls of the bar were adorned with all manner of literary quotes and a few limericks, a fitting addition for the city that was in it. One went like this: “There was an old man from Peru, who dreamt he was eating his shoe. He woke with a start and took it to heart that the dream, it was perfectly true!” When we soon met up with Tony, to drive out to the match, it turned out that the match was canceled.
So, instead, we stopped by Tony & Siobhán’s house for a hot toddie, then stopped in at Kinsella’s, their local across the street. Although it’s called “Shannon View,” the river is nowhere in sight, but it is a welcoming little pub, and apparently (for Tony at least) does take-away pints. Here Tony regaled us with some battle stories from the WaWa archives. We also met a Wexford man who was introduced as “the ugliest fecker you’ll ever meet.”
After a couple of Sunday afternoon rounds of porter at Kinsella’s, we headed on foot up to the Walters’ family house, about a 10 minute walk away, close to the rugby stadium. We met Mrs. Walters, Gwen and Edna, and had a huge feed of sandwiches and Carlsberg around the blazing fire. Then, we headed back into town with another of Fred’s nieces, whom we later met at a trendy sports bar down on the riverfront – the only place on my entire trip where we were carded – twice!
We didn’t stay there too long, as we had to get to An Shíbín before 22:00. so we could check out the folk music there. A fun scene, followed by a terrific feed of doner kebabs at Abrekebabra, which was swamped at that late hour by young hooligans such as ourselves spilling, famished, out of the pubs.
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