The Firkin Crane!!

Just back from an excellent weekend in Cork City. On saturday we shopped til we dropped, lunched in the English market, dined in French Church Street then headed to the Pavilion to hear Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick. They are such virtusos of their craft - Carthy still has an amazing voice and presence and his guitar playing is solidly wonderful; Swarbrick was looking frail and strange bu his fiddle playing had lost none of its eccentric and flawless spark. We emerged at midnight, an enthusiatic lot of folkies, to be confronted by a long queue of excited teenagers ready to rave - the venue was being changed into a 'nite' club - talk abo0ut a culture shock. Very short short and suspendery type tights worn with ridiculously high heels seem to be the order of the day

Today we had wander around around some of the hilly back streets of Cork and came upon the Firkin Crane. The area around here is astonishing - old, a bit delapidated but fascinating. The Firkin crane is the old butter market when Cork was the leading exporter in butter. People from all over Ireland brought their butter here to be priced and inspected, presumably in firkins. The tall tower in the background is an iconic bit of architecture and belongs to St Anne's, Shandon. The salmon on the top is called the goldie fish!! You can climb all the way to the top, which I did, and even get to ring the bells - which I did. Very exciting as there are 8 huge 18C things - I rang out Turn Turn Turn - I'm sure Cork city was impressed. I narrowly avoided a large group of very excited Spanish students. No ceildih though - himself has pulled something in his ankle, it was drizzling and there was too mch hanging around.

Lots of street entertainers - I especially liked this rather cool trio - they sounded good too