September 2011

The closed Murphy's Ice Cream shop in Killarney. Photo by David Lansing.

Two brothers, Sean and Kieran Murphy, started up a little ice cream shop in Dingle in 2000. Thought what they’d do is make the best ice cream in the world. Crazy idea. Have you been to Dingle, now? Lovely area. A bit off the beaten track. In fact, it’s a long ways from anywhere. And since it’s on the bottom of a long finger reaching west out into the Atlantic Ocean, it gets a bit chilly there. (The Irish Times reports that the high in Dingle today will be 48°F with a “real feel of 42°”; but it should cool down this weekend.)

So with a population of just over 2,000 bundled up residents (to be fair the town also has some 50 pubs) on a peninsula that some would say is The End of the World As We Know It, two brothers, Sean and Kieran, come up with the bright idea of not only opening an ice cream shop (because who doesn’t want an ice cream when it’s a balmy 48°F out in summer), but that they’re going to make the best damn ice cream anyone has ever tasted. And you know what? I think they’ve bloody well done it.

Da ting is that Murphy’s Ice Cream shop was such a success in Dingle that they’ve now got shops in Killarney and two in Dublin. Last night as I was walking back to my hotel in Killarney, I passed by the Murphy’s shop on Main Street. I thought to myself, I should get a sea salt flavored caramel and chocolate ice cream but I was just coming from dinner and knew I wouldn’t enjoy it. I’ll get one in the morning before we leave Killarney, I said to myself.

So this morning after breakfast I went for a stroll around the park, chattin’ with the bundled-up jarveys waiting for the sun to come out to warm their horses (and the tourists they were hoping would want to go for a ride in their jaunting cars), and then about 11 I made my way down Main Street to the Murphy’s shop, my mouth already salivating for that sea salt flavored ice cream. But the store was closed. Despite having a sign on the door that said they should be open. Gawd, I can’t tell you how disappointed I was. I hung around for another ten or fifteen minutes, but the shop remained dark. Don’t understand why. Unless Sean and Kieran were just messin’ with me. But that’s something I’ve noticed about a lot of shops in Ireland. Most of them don’t post their hours at all and the ones that do only use them as a rough guideline. Like maybe we’ll be open Wednesday at 11am. And then again, maybe we won’t.

Still, I know I’m going to be thinking of that sea salt ice cream on the drive up to the Cliffs of Moher this afternoon.

An early morning rainbow in the sky over Killarney. Photo by David Lansing.

From a deep, deep sleep I slowly rise up from a dream  feeling all roasty toasty in my big down bed. Blackout drapes make it impossible to tell what time it is. Never mind. I’ll just go back to sleep.

But what’s this? Meowww. Meowwwwww. High pitched. A bit desperate. Is there a cat in my room? Sit up in bed, rubbing the fog away. There’s that meowing again. Wherever is it coming from? Get up, look around the darkened room but don’t see a thing.

Meoowwwww….

Getting more desperate. But where is this blasted cat? Pull back the heavy drapes and…oh, my. A wee kitten. Standing on my window sill. Dreadfully wet. Raining out. How’d you get up here? Meoowwww! Alright, then, hold your horses. Let me work the latch to open the window. And the cat bounds in, as if he lived here, and starts rubbing up against my hairy bare leg.

Meowwwwww….

So this is the way it is, is it? First you want in out of the rain and now you want something to eat. Well what do you think I might have in a hotel room? Not much, I can tell you that. Let me just have a look around. Crackers. Some chocolates. Half a package of biscuits. Nothing much for a cat. But wait now…there are the little cups of creamer for the coffee. Might do. Open all of them and pour them in a white dish. Not much there. Just a few ounces. Still. Mr. Cat seems quite happy with it. But now what will I do for my coffee?

Laps it up, every last drop. Sorry, Mr. Cat, that’s all I’ve got. Cat licks his paw and then lopes over to the open window and disappears back along the wet ledge. So that’s how it is. Come in for a little warmth and a bit of milk and then you’re off again. That’s gratitude for you.

But look here. The rain has stopped. Just as suddenly as it started. And across the way, rising up over the Killarney Plaza Hotel is a rainbow. I’ll be damned. A rainbow in Ireland. As quickly as the rain came and went, the rainbow is gone as well. Almost as if it were just an illusion. Like that cat.

Killarney's Bricin restaurant. Photo by David Lansing.

When I climb the stairs leading to Bricin, the High Street restaurant where we’re meeting Mr. O’Connor for dinner, there’s Johnny McGuire, looking a bit flushed. Mr. O’Connor isn’t here yet, says Johnny, which is just as well since your table isn’t ready. But maybe you’d like a glass of wine while you wait. I do and Johnny runs off to fetch it. He gives a good pour, the purple wine practically rimming the top of the glass.

Johnny and his brother, Paddy, opened Bricin (which is the Gaelic word for “little trout”) 20 years ago this November. Johnny, who looks a bit like the older Johnny Carson—devilish grin, twinkly eyes, sparse hair—is the front man. Me brother is deathly afeared of ever meeting any of our diners, he says. Johnny on the other hand was made for this role. If he doesn’t know you when you first walk in, you’ll be best buds for sure by the end of your meal.

It’s interesting about Bricin. Every hotel in Killarney will tell you that you have to dine here. But the food really isn’t anything special. The salmon is fine as is the rack of Kerry lamb but it’s basically just traditional Irish fare. Which is maybe why people like it. It reminds them of their mudder’s cooking, only better.

Once Mr. O’Connor arrives and settles in, we all order the same thing: boxty. The minute the waitress takes my menu away, I regret my choice. Ordering boxty—a potato pancake cooked on the griddle and filled with lamb and vegetables or chicken and veggies—is like ordering a bowl of chili at a roadside diner in New Mexico or pizza in Chicago.

In fact, the boxty is a bit gummy, as you’d expect, and the lamb chunks tough and the veggies overcooked. Just the way your oul grannie would make it. As I’m pushing it around my plate, Johnny comes over and starts telling a story about the Moynihan family who once lived where the restaurant is now. This was in the latter part of the 19^th century, during The Famine, when the family sent many of their children off to America in hopes of a better life. Johnny says they found some of the letters from one of the sons, Jeremiah Moynihan, when they started construction of the restaurant. It was a sad, sad story, says Johnny. No money in Ireland and everyone starving and the children who’d been sent to America not doing much better. He complains bitterly in his letters about being sent to New York and wanting to come home, says Johnny, but every letter he gets from his mudder is about The Famine and deaths in the family. The family just wasted away, says Johnny.

And then he’s off to visit another table as I have another stab at my boxty which, now that I think about it, tastes pretty damn fine.