The Last Hurrah in Ireland: Glendalough, Killarney, and Ennis

From Belfast, we traveled directly to Glendalough in the Wicklow National Park via Dublin. 

One night at the Glendalough hostel, Sara from Solvenia said that she had not knitted in a long time, but would like to contribute to me. Sitting by the cozy fireplace, she enjoyed being reminded how much fun it is to knit. Later, she asked Cathy if she had any spare yarn for her to knit with for a bit. When she finished knitting for the night, she unraveled it all and returned the yarn to Cathy. For many knitters, it is not about the end product, it is about the knitting.

Process not product!

Moving on to the sweet town of Killarney on the edge of the Killarney National Park. We were guests at the Black Sheep Hostel—just blocks from the Killarney National Park. 

Cathy asked Blaine, the host at hostel, if he knew any knitters. “My mom is a knitter. I’ll phone her up!” And before you knew it, Cathy was invited to Phil’s house to meet her and some other Killarney knitters. True Irish hospitality!!

Blaine's mother, Phil provided some real
Irish hospitality--knitting and tea with
friends in her lovely home.

Phil, and her friends Margaret and Trinette knitted with Cathy for several hours! They drank lots of tea and ate Phil's delicious homemade scones. When Cathy left, Phil insisted that she take a bag of scones. How could Cathy refuse?

Then, one night at the hostel, Nádia who worked on the hostel staff, said that she liked to crochet. I was handed over for her to add some of Cathy’s blue handspun art yarn in a double crochet pattern.

The next day, Phil called again and invited Cathy to accompany her to the Kenmare Lace Center in Kenmare. Although the Center is closed in the winter, Phil had called and made a special appointment for a tour and demonstration at the center expecially for us! We felt so priviledged! 

We boarded the bus for the hour-long ride and Cathy and Phil chatted all the way there and back. I remained quietly in my bag. 

Nora Finnegan runs the Lace Center where she teaches and demonstrates traditional ways to make different types of lace: needlepoint, crochet, tatting, bobbin lace. The Carmelite nuns used to teach young women how the make lace so that they had a way to bring income to their households. Sometimes it was the case that a girl would never marry and she had a way to support herself. Some young women emigrated to the United States and the funds they earned, and the skills they had learned, helped them be more independent when they reached their new country. 

Of course, we had to have Nora add a few rows!

Nora with her projects demonstrating how needlepoint lace and bobbin lace are made.

Samples of Irish Lace at the Kenmare Lace Center.

 at Even though Cathy enjoys making knitted lace, there are obviously many, many other ways to make these “beautiful holes,” as she likes to call it.  

Thank you, Phil, for arranging this very special day for us! 

Back at the Black Sheep Hostel, Blaine, Phil’s son who introduced Cathy to his mom in the first place, recollected that he had knitted once as a kid and wanted give it a go. After a fabulous Irish Stew dinner he prepared on Sunday night, he got a little coaching from Cathy. Then he knitted two rows using some white Aran yarn that Phil had donated to my stash.

I have had so many people creating me that Cathy ran out of pages in the little journal that records all the contributors—one page per person. In Belfast, she had more pages and a new cover printed up to create a volume two journal, but the printer could not bind it. So, she was carrying around loose pages until she finally found a place in Killarney that could do the binding. 

She walked the two miles out to the industrial park on the edge of town and back in order to have a new small journal bound just for me.  

Thank you, Cathy.

Killarney was a wonderful venue for knitting and crocheting; Cathy got in some great walking in the Irish hills; and we truly enjoyed our stay at the Black Sheep Hostel.

The hills in the Killarney National Park provided some walking respite for Cathy.

After leaving Killarney, we went back to Ennis for a few days and Cathy spent much of that time on a knitting a bookmark commission of 36 lacey bookmarks. Here are a few of them:

They are all made from yarn that she collected during the trip and was a fun way for her to sample stitches with the different materials before committing to a larger project.

After two months in Ireland, we boarded a plane in Dublin…bound back to Scotland—land of knitting heaven!

The last Irish knitting contributors before we went to Scotland: