By: Marcia Abramson
A 14th century tower is the oldest part of the current castle. The only surviving medieval great hall is here and is awash with a huge collection of family portraits as well as the National Portrait Collection of the National Gallery of Ireland. There is also a nice coffee shop and a wonderful boutique gift shop, The next day I went on a sightseeing tour of the County Wicklow just south of Dublin. Wicklow has earned the title of "The Garden of Ireland" because of its glorious flora. The Earls of Meath made their home at Kilruddery House dating back to the 18th century. The magnificent garden actually is the only surviving 17th century Garden. Then onto Powerscourt House and Gardens located at the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains. The 20 hectares (less than 10 acres) garden is considered one of the world's best gardens and was first created in the 1740s by the Ist Viscount Powerscourt - truly a Garden of Eden. Unfortunately, Powerscourt House was gutted by fire in 1974, but the restoration is almost complete. The property has a fabulous Irish crafts and food gallery and a Fitzers Restaurant. At Fitzers Restaurant I enjoyed a fabulous lunch of a potato, turkey and leek broth and a luscious marinated salmon with dill and truffle, real mashed potato, roasted potatoes, cumin roast sprouts and carrot confit. A lunch surely fit for a Viscount! My next stop was at Glendalough, Ireland's most important early monastic site, founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century. The monastic ruins are in a glaciated valley between two lakes and has a round tower, stone churches and excellent Celtic Crosses. Our gourmet feasting continued at Tinakilly Restaurant at Rathnew, County Wicklow, a restaurant hailed by Bon Appetit Magazine as "a beacon to restore hope to the traveler's heart." It was no easy task for me to select a duck liver parfait with red onion relish for my appetizer from a goat's cheese spring roll, a chicken and wild mushroom terrine with verte sauce and roast quail with turnip and thyme filling; followed by a banana and passion fruit sorbet. For my main course I chose a roast fillet of halibut, with an herb crust, saffron and dill cream. And this was only my second day of gourmandizing in Ireland! Marriott's Druid Glen Hotel was my "heaven on earth" for the night. The hotel is surrounded by an 18-hole golf course with a fairway that personifies the beautiful world of golf. This completed my tour of Dublin's countryside to return to Dublin's fair city after a visit to Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. Irish Rail from Dublin Connolly Station was my mode of transportation to Belfast City. True, this was first class travel with breakfast and the morning paper included. Another thing very noticeable at the newspaper kiosks was the large number of daily papers for a total population of three million people throughout the Island of Ireland. I counted at least eight newspapers in Dublin as well as in Belfast.At the Belfast train station, we were met by our very knowledgeable guide Ken McElroy, a poet in his own right who recited Yeats throughout our Chambers Coach Hire drive through Northern Island. I learned from Ken that the population of Northern Ireland (320,000 to 350,000) is the youngest in Great Britain. His pride was showing when he read off the famous people from Ulster like Dunlop, who invented special tires; Harley Ferguson for the tractor and the actor Liam Nielsen, as well as the parents of Davey Crocket and Daniel Boone. He also said that Ulysses S. Grant and seven other American Presidents had homesteads in Ulster. Belfast was also the ship building capital of Europe and a target of the Germans during the World Wars and was painted black to ward off the bombers. My next column focuses on the countryside and shopping in Belfast.
©Copyright by Marcia AbramsonE-mail: mascribe@aol.com
