There is no easy way from Lough Carrig to Skibbereen, but that was our destination so we stumped up a euros for a long taxi ride, hoping we’d at least get a beautiful drive out of it. Unfortunately the taxi driver didn’t take the short, scenic route and instead went the long and uninteresting way around, making everyone grumpy – me for obvious reasons, and herself because it was a longer way than she had expected.
She was a native of the area, and had once been to Australia and stopped on the way back in Bangkok for a night, which was a different world, and very exciting, though not one she seemed to wish to see again. A tout took her to a jewellery maker, which she loved, and sold her husband a suit which he loved, and they generally did all the things that the Lonely Planet warns you against and made me think that touts serve a purpose anyway.
Skibberreen, sadly, on the Sunday of a Bank Holiday weekend, was miserable. Nothing was open and its reputation for being an artsy, food loving town was slightly let down by the fact that all one could see in the windows were religious figurines, and all there seemed to do was to take a Famine Walk. Skibberreen, it turns out, is one of the main sights of the Irish Famine, so we wandered around a bit, saw a few graveyards, some nice quiet houses, and had a poor dinner before returning to the bed and breakfast.
Which is basically a junk shop run by a woman who clearly prides herself on heing extremely unique and quirky, and has done it up with mannequins in wedding gowns, and barely a scrap of bare space to put down a toothbrush. Even carpet in the bathrooms.