Irish Back Roads

WEXFORD, Ireland —  It was an afternoon too balmy to be expected for late October in Ireland. We had just finished lunch with an Irish friend in a restaurant in Kilmore Quay, a fishing village on the sleepy southeast coast. Now, as we topped a hill on the way out of town, we found ourselves being stared to a stop by two policemen standing in the middle of the road.

Were we going too fast, we wondered, as the younger one strode authoritatively toward us. Our friend, the driver, hadn’t had anything to drink so we had that in our favor, but what was that grim look all about as the policeman bent to her window?

“I have only one question to ask you,” he said, before breaking into a grin. “How did you enjoy your lunch at the Silver Fox?”

We had hardly noticed him there, though one of two men at a table near us, we recalled later, was a policeman. But he clearly had noticed our friend, a vivacious woman in her 30s. “Just grand, wasn’t it,” he said, answering his own question. “And now I’m out here working it off. Where do you live, by the way?”

The question wasn’t directed at my wife or me, middle-age visitors from America. We let the conversation take its course as the senior officer ambled up to genially bring things to a close. Then we were on our way again, speculating on whether the handsome policeman would find an excuse for further inquiries some day.

Maybe the famed hospitality of the Irish doesn’t wear thin even in summer, when it’s taxed by an overflow of tourists. But, just to play it safe, we’ve gone in the spring and in the fall (last year it was late October and early November) and generally been rewarded by relaxed welcomes at inns and restaurants, lots of elbow room for sightseeing and cordial byplay with policemen and other strangers.

It helps, too, to choose an area off customary visitor routes, such as the often-overlooked southeast, about a three-hour drive from Dublin. Putting ourselves in the hands of willing friends we’d made on previous trips, we were assured of two weeks in which virtually every voice we heard but each other’s had an Irish accent.

The excuse--and timing--for our trip was provided by the Wexford Festival Opera, held annually starting in late October (this year Oct. 17 through Nov. 3). The festival features lesser-known operas performed in an odd little theater that holds 550 people and sits anonymously on a narrow business street in the onetime Viking stronghold known in Norse as Waesfjord. Over the years, we’d been captivated by tales told by Andreja Malir, our friend who caught the policeman’s eye, of the festival and town and especially the Theatre Royal.

Andreja is a harpist with Ireland’s National Symphony Orchestra, which plays for the festival, and we never knew whether to believe her stories about the tiny orchestra pit: that once the orchestra is in it there is no room for the conductor to pass through, so he arrives at his podium by way of the center aisle, fighting his way through latecomers if necessary. Or that for one opera with only a small but essential harp moment, Andreja and her instrument were banished outside the pit’s door, which was opened just long enough to let her play the music that signaled the plunge of the villain into hell.

The stories were no exaggeration, we found, and in the cramped lobby at intermission, we men, all in tuxedos (except for two in kilts), stood like 200 penguins packed onto a 100-penguin ice floe.

But a small theater also means proximity to the stage, and we felt almost a part of the two operas we attended: Rimsky-Korsakov’s “May Night,” based on a lively folk tale popularized by Nikolai Gogol and sung by a largely Russian cast, and “Iris,” a poetic Japanese melodrama by Pietro Mascagni that takes place halfway around the world from his better-known “Cavalleria Rusticana” but ends no less tragically.

Besides the main operas, the festival offers a wealth of sideshows: condensed performances of major operas and programs of operatic excerpts in a cavernous underground room called The Barn in the 200-year-old White’s Hotel. Also noon recitals in one downtown church and orchestral concerts in another.

By spacing these to prevent musical overdosing, we had time to enjoy the things Wexford offers year-round. The town of 12,000 abounds in structures and ruins from the 12th and 13th centuries, including a squat stone tower at its west gate that is now a heritage center, and Selskar Abbey, where England’s Henry II is reputed to have spent a Lent doing penance for beheading St. Thomas a Becket.

The town fronts Wexford Harbour, which opens to the sea under the gaze of a statue of Commodore John Barry, a local lad who emigrated to become one of the fathers of the American Navy. There are friendly pubs such as Simon’s--where a stranger spends one evening as a welcome visitor and the next as an old friend--and shops that cry out to be browsed in.

South of town is Johnstown Castle, its 50 acres of ornamental gardens considerably mussed by a gale that had blown in from the sea a few days earlier. To the north are the ponds and wetlands of the Wexford Wildfowl Reserve. We went late one afternoon to look at flocks of ducks and geese--among them some exotics from Asia, looking distinctly un-Irish among the local waterfowl and fooling one visitor who mistook an Australian black swan for her camera bag.

Kilmore Quay is only a 20-minute drive south from Wexford, if you know how to get there. One Sunday morning we set out for it and its Silver Fox Restaurant, recommended by an English acquaintance who knew its hostess, Reena. Half an hour later, driving in our own rental car without Andreja, we found ourselves near the end of a rapidly diminishing peninsula with nothing but a herd of cattle and the sea in front of us.

“Where are you trying to go?” the man herding the cattle inquired helpfully, too polite to point out the obvious: There was nothing more ahead. Kilmore Quay, I said. “Well, you missed by a bit,” he observed, looking out to sea in a different direction toward another peninsula off in the haze. “It’s over there. You took a wrong turn.”

He told us how to get there, then left in the direction from which he had come.

It didn’t matter, we found out when we finally reached the Silver Fox and an apologetic Reena. Sunday dinner out is big in Ireland and the restaurant was booked solid all day. She hoped we’d try again. Consolation prize was the dining room of Saltee’s Hotel, up the street past whitewashed houses and shops, their thatch roofs rumpled by the recent storm. Our Silver Fox meal had to wait, but when we returned with Andreja--and a reservation--two days later, it was worth it: fresh cod and lemon sole, crab salad, sumptuous desserts, all for about $30.

At White’s Barn, on our last day in Wexford, we watched scenes from “Don Giovanni,” “Peter Grimes,” “Carmen” and other operas, then struck up a conversation with the couple sitting next to us. They were from Caversham, England, they told us, and had been coming to the festival for six years. They’d fallen in love with Wexford and its music. We could understand. But they weren’t sure they understood why we wanted to leave it and go next to County Tipperary.

*

“Come here, Jimmy, come here boy!” Our friend Eddie, a lifelong cattleman now in his 70s, had stopped his car on a country road near his farm outside Fethard in County Tipperary, and was calling out to where three hefty bulls grazed indifferently in a stubby pasture on a far hillside. There was no response. “Which one’s Jimmy?” asked my wife, Mary Lou.

“Ah, they’re all Jimmy,” Eddie said, trying fruitlessly again to get their attention so we could get a close look.

He gave up and we headed for Fethard, a town of 1,300 or so people that appears on few tourist maps but lies in pleasant surroundings within easy driving distance of some of Ireland’s most stunning castles. The Rock of Cashel, a 200-foot-high outcropping crowned by ruins, and Cahir Castle, on an island in the River Suir, are close by. As is the haunting Glen of Aherlow and the Galty Mountains, where even a skeptical American wouldn’t be surprised to see one of the Little People dart from behind a gnarled tree.

My mother’s forebears, also from Fethard and sharing Eddie’s surname, Delahunty, emigrated in the 1860s. While no relationship can be proven, our family and his have long treated each other as cousins, visiting in our country and theirs, and we’ve always met with warm hospitality. As a bonus, Eddie enjoys few things more than showing a visitor from across the sea his homeland of Tipperary and nearby Kilkenny.

Until recently, Fethard was content to be a quiet farming town. Then in a fit of local pride it decided to spruce up its impressive sites, starting with the ancient town wall, dating back to the Normans and first mentioned in writings of the early 1200s. It is one of the best preserved in Ireland and inside, still in use, are the 13th century Holy Trinity Church, now belonging to the Protestant Church of Ireland, and the Roman Catholic Abbey Church, begun in 1140.

Inside the latter, we saw a harsh feature represented in many medieval Irish churches: the “squintin’ window,” a narrow slit high in the wall through which lepers, banned from physical contact with the congregation, were allowed to watch Mass. To the left of the altar was a statue of the Rev. William Tirry, a Fethard monk who was hanged in nearby Clonmel’s Market Square in 1654 for ministering to the Catholics of Tipperary against the wishes of the Protestant forces of England’s Oliver Cromwell.

Another day brought a driving tour of western Tipperary, over prosperous, rolling horse country, past signs warning “Slow--Pheasants Crossing” and others pointing the way to Famine Graveyards, then through Tipperary Town, with its heroic statue to “Charles Kickham: Poet, Novelist and Above All, Patriot!”

South of Tipperary Town, we had an errand. It was time for Eddie to lay in a supply of fish for the winter, and the Glenbrook Fish Trout Farm was conveniently situated in the lush, secluded Glen of Aherlow. In its ponds, terraced down the side of a hill and drawing water from a stream above, were 400,000 trout, minus a few plucked by attentive herons.

Eddie took a dozen of each, selected at dike’s edge, netted and tossed into a tub--all in little more time than it took to negotiate the price. “He wants to buy a bull from me in the spring,” he said by way of explanation for the favorable price he’d extracted.

Mary Lou and I had planned to spend a day or two in Kilkenny after leaving Fethard. We’d never seen it and it sounded interesting, with its 13th century Kilkenny Castle, St. Canice’s Cathedral and the Black Abbey from medieval times, and an abundance of bed and breakfasts sure to be available at this time of year.

Eddie would have none of it. Kilkenny was an easy drive from Fethard. He knew it well. We’d stay with him and he’d show us Kilkenny. His Kilkenny. The castles and the other tourist sites could wait for another trip.

Eddie and his gracious wife, Nellie, son Simon, who lived with them, and son Tom, who lived next door with his wife, Antoinette, and their two little girls, had all made us feel part of their family in the few days we’d already been there. How could a B&B; in Kilkenny match that?

So the next morning we were at the Kilkenny Livestock Market watching 1,500-pound bullocks being auctioned off in no-nonsense fashion in gritty arenas peopled by men in worn tweed coats and pulled-down caps who looked like a roadshow company for a Sean O’Casey play.

Our next goal was Langton’s Restaurant for platters of lamb, then we were on our way out into the country to the Kilkenny Races. Under a bright sun that turned the turf course and its wooded backdrop to a glowing green, we spent the afternoon watching flat races and steeple chases in a casual setting where spectators and horses mixed so familiarly that a nudge I thought was from my wife turned out to be from a horse making its way to the track.

We had a generous shot of Powers Irish whiskey in the track canteen, and that was our day in County Kilkenny--and the stuff of memories that outlast those of churches and castles. Now we would get an early start the next morning for Dublin.

But Eddie had one more surprise for us. The next day was the day of the wild fox hunt. We’d watch its start before setting off.

The weather had turned brisk when we arrived at Lismolin, little more than a intersection with a store and pub.

*

Outside the pub, people in red coats and other smart hunting attire were gathering; eventually about 70 of them, with a like number of horses and hounds. In a truck were terriers itching to get out from the sound of it, but their time hadn’t come yet. “They’re used to teach the fox a lesson,” Eddie explained. “If it goes into its den when the hunt comes, they send a couple of terriers in after it.”

What do they do? I asked. “They give it a fright,” he said, “so that next time it doesn’t go into the den and you have a better hunt.” I went off to take some photos and came back to find Eddie chuckling and Mary Lou clearly embarrassed. “OK,” she said to my quizzical look. “I just asked a stupid question.”

Yes?

“ ‘When do they let the fox loose?’ Well, how was I to know?!”

We watched the horses and the riders and the hounds all leave, and drove to a hilltop where we could watch the progress of the hunt. From afar we saw an occasional spurt of activity, nothing more; while trying to get a better vantage point, I startled myself and a small falcon--flushed from its perch on a little tree. Down below, it was clear the foxes weren’t cooperating and it was time for us to move on.

A few miles of unmarked turns onto obscure but gradually widening roads brought us to the village of Mullinahone, with its Stack of Barley Pub (as you come in) and its Ave Maria Grotto (as you leave).

Then, past one last Famine Graveyard, Eddie pointed to a sign for Callan, where we could get a real highway that would take us on to Bennettsbridge. There Mary Lou could shop for pottery at the Nicholas Mosse factory before we moved on to Inistioge for some quick sightseeing and then to Thomastown to dine at Patrick Kavanaugh’s on the main square.

We would then, by the quickest route, move on to Dublin for a few days in a different kind of Ireland--a hospitable and interesting one, but seemingly centuries removed from the green rural hills that produced my ancestors and still, today, give sustenance to the diminishing numbers of the Eddies and Nellies of Ireland.

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GUIDEBOOK

Irish Ayes

Getting there: Delta and KLM offer connecting service, with one change of planes, from LAX to Dublin. Aer Lingus offers nonstop service between O’Hare Airport in Chicago and Kennedy in New York. Advance-purchase, round-trip fares start at $812.

To reach Wexford from the Dublin airport, on the north side of the city, pick up a rental car at the airport (much cheaper if reserved and paid for in advance in the United States) or take a taxi to the train station and go by rail, which we did, not wanting to plunge into four hours of wrong-side-of-the-road driving immediately after an overnight flight.

The train hugs the coast and takes about three hours to reach Wexford, then Rosslare Harbor, 12 miles south, where ferries from Britain land. Rental cars can be picked up at the ferry terminal and some rental firms will deliver cars to hotels in the Wexford area. For Iarnrod Eireann (Irish Rail) train times and fares, from the United States, telephone 011-353-1-836-6222.

Most major U.S. car rental companies operate in Ireland and reservations can be made through their 800 numbers. We have had good experiences with Dan Dooley, a leading Irish car rental company (U.S. representative, tel. [800] 331-9301).

Where to stay: In Wexford, two hotels used by many visitors to the opera festival are White’s, a short walk from the Theatre Royal and itself the venue for many festival activities, and the Talbot, at the south entrance to town, which runs shuttle buses to the opera house.

White’s Hotel, George Street, Wexford; rates about $100-$145 per person, including breakfast; tel. 011-353-53-22311 or (800) 528-1234.

Talbot Hotel, Trinity Street, Wexford; rates about $95 per person, including breakfast; tel. 011-353-53-22566.

Gateway B&B;, Rocklow Road, Fethard, County Tipperary; rates about $25 per person, including breakfast; tel. 011-353-52-31701. A self-catering cottage on the grounds costs about $200 to $300 per week.

Kilcoran Lodge, Cork Road, Cahir, County Tipperary; a hotel and restaurant in an old hunting lodge, scenically located in landscaped gardens overlooking the River Suir valley; rates about $60 per person, including breakfast; tel. 011-353-52-41288.

Wexford Festival Opera: The 1996 opera festival will include six performances each of “Parisina” by Gaetano Donizetti, “L’Etoile du Nord” by Giacomo Meyerbeer, and “Sarka,” by Zdenek Fibich, a 19th century Czech. Festival information and ticket order forms are available from Wexford Festival Opera, Theatre Royal, High Street, Wexford, Ireland (tel. 011-353-53-22400, fax 011-353-53-24289; box office fax 011-353-53-22144).

Tickets are about $75 Friday through Sunday and $55 weeknights; tickets for other activities range about $8 to $15. (Most performances are sold out by fall.)

Great Performance Tours, 1 Lincoln Plaza, Suite 32-V, New York, N.Y. 10023 tel. (212) 580-1400 offers a package tour to Ireland for the festival, although this year’s tour is already full.

For more information: Irish Tourist Board, 345 Park Ave., 17th floor, New York 10154, (800) 223-6470 or (212) 418-0800; fax (212) 371-9052.