Uh Huh: The Loch Ness Monster

It turns out, one can order a half breakfast and a half breakfast—while still too much—makes much more sense for at least one of us. Although tomorrow I’m going to have to inquire about an alternative because I think I’ve eaten at least one egg every day since I got off the plane. There were different people at breakfast today. Yesterday, there were girls from the Netherlands and today there was a British woman and an American man from Virginia Beach. There are all new cars in the parking lot this evening, so we’ll see what tomorrow holds. 

We decided on another coastal drive today through the Glenveagh National Park and headed out of Letterkenny midmorning. Our first stop was for another brown sign for the Colmcille Heritage Center, where there is a lot of confusing information about St. Colmcille, born in County Donegal in 521, who went on to work as a missionary on the island of Iona in Scotland. It was mostly impossible to understand because there is so much history we don’t know and we may have been reading the placards in the wrong order but what was absolutely clear was the most important part of the story anyway: Colmcille was the first person ever to file reports about having seen the Loch Ness monster. He was obviously credible because he was a very serious priest and he claimed that an enormous monster emerged from the depths of the lake and ate one of his priest friends. He then banished the monster, which may be why there are so few sightings today.

Coming out of the Heritage Center we traumatized a wee Irish lass. She was walking down the road with her father, two sisters and a dog, but her legs were the shortest of all and she fell behind. Far enough behind that she became frightened when she realized we were slowly coming down the road behind her. So she sped up, but kept turning back to see if we were going to kill her (we weren’t), and then she stumbled right out of her shoe. Remaining in her shoes had kept her emotionally well, and once that shoe came off so did any constitutional grip she might have had on those tears. Instead of putting her shoe back on, she hopped and sobbed, hopped and sobbed to the side of the road. Her father was too far away to save her from us or help her with her shoe, so I got out to help her. When I got back to the car, Chris asked what she had said. She wasn’t able to say anything because she was crying so inconsolably, but she did let me hand her the shoe and then quietly retreat. It took some time for her to catch up to her father and we waited where we were until she did, since we had already become the subject of nightmares we’re sure she’ll have til she’s 20 and didn’t want to make things any worse by barreling down the road after her. 

We stopped off for a walk around in Dungloe, a town harder than some to identify. Our map is printed mostly in English, with some Irish names in italics. The road signs are printed mostly in English and sometimes in Irish, so it takes some figuring to know quite where you are. Sometimes there is a bit of a relationship between the Irish and English, but the Irish words for Dungloe are An Clochan Liath so it took more imagination. 

From there we went to Cruit Island, a tidal island almost straight west of Letterkenny. It’s small, only three miles by one and is inhabited by less than 100 people. We were there at a time when it doesn’t resemble an island because the bridge we crossed to get there was over sand but twice a day the tide comes in and there are signs warning of dangerous currents below the bridge. I imagine it is worth seeing with the water rushing through, but I contend it is worth seeing without it. It’s this curious and beautiful area. We walked the length of several city blocks over sand which a little later in the day would be under the waters of the Atlantic. We were able to walk up to banks of rock where seaweed and other aquatic microlife had taken root. At Doe Castle yesterday when we were completely alone, Chris likened it to the Mayapan ruins in Yucatan where we were completely alone. There was a camper at Cruit where an older gentleman was setting out chairs for he and his wife to sit with their dog in between and there was a young family playing in the surf and there we were. It is a remote area, but it’s hard to think it wouldn’t be over-run in a different part of the world. 

We had lunch farther down the road at Molloy’s Cafeteria in An Bun Beag (much easier to find on the map as it’s Bunbeg in English) and decided to head towards home, but there’s so much to see it’s difficult not to stop. So stop we did at Bloody Foreland. One might think it was called Bloody Foreland because of the 12,000 ships that have crashed and sunk in its vicinity, but in fact it is called Bloody Foreland because of the reddish tint of the cliff-face that deepens to a blood red as the sun sets.

We came back to Letterkenny from there and had a rest before going into town for dinner and to investigate traditional Irish music sessions. We went to a place called Pat’s on the Square for dinner and agreed that if we lived here we would be regulars there and then went up the street to McGinley’s Bar, which we were told might have a session. Once there, we were told  it was the best bar in Ireland. It’s all dark wood and nooks with low stools and fireplaces, and people saying “mind if I approach?” and then sitting down to welcome you to town.  A surprising number of people we meet have been to Chicago and at McGinley’s both the man behind the bar and the man who joined us had been. The bartender said he remembered it being a friendly town and we commented on how pleasant everyone here is. He replied that they should be because “carrying manners isn’t difficult.” They have a regularly scheduled session on Wednesday night so we’ll go back, although it may involve taking on one of those roundabouts after dark so I’ll go ahead and start to get nervous about that now.