When the non-tourists tourist

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Hello Woods Hole. Isn’t the bridge to Martha’s Vineyard just to the right?
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As a December-loving Cape Codder, it’s time to visit the “year round residents” of one of Ireland’s most touristy spots…
Kinsale is a holiday resort for Irish and foreign tourists alike- if you’ve got the cash, you can do all kinds of travel brochure stuff like yachting, sea angling, attending gourmet festivals, and golfing. No wonder this place is twinned with Newport, Rhode Island (but it is also twinned with a town called Mumbles, Wales- so figure that one out).
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Kinsale won Ireland’s Tidy Town contest back in the 1980s, which pretty much accounts for the fantastic day-glo colors of Kinsale’s many establishments.

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I think it’s written somewhere in Bunreacht na hÉireann that a Guinness plug must be present in each of my Ireland blog entries.

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Located just otuside of downtown Kinsale, my intrepid sister and I checked out Charles Fort. Its historical significance dates from 1601 and the Siege of Kinsale, a battle where the bad guys Queen Elizabeth and Great Britain ultimately conquered Gaelic Ireland.

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The fort in its current state was built in the 1670s in a star fortification- a layout specifically designed to resist attack by cannon. It was besieged during a dispute between Catholic King James II and Protestant King William of Orange – a cat fight that would determine who would be King of England, Scotland and Ireland. Kinsale has loads of historical ties that I never knew about.

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After the afore-mentioned dust ups, the fort became a British Army barracks for the next couple of hundred years. Today, tourists like me can frolic around the green-covered fortifications to try and imagine what life must have been like for those who were keeping an eye on the mouth of Kinsale harbor.
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I told you we were visiting Kinsale in the off-season, which means that bad weather is more or less an eventuality. We finished up our tour of the fort as dark and mean-looking clouds came rolling in. Rain drops started to hit as soon as we wedged ourselves back into our compact rental car.
The next twenty-fours had us set up for really nasty weather in the west, so I could think of no better activity than to head indoors and warm up. Rory and I made our way around Kinsale’s tiny streets and installed ourselves in a decidely local pub known as The Spaniard. Its description promised a fireplace (burning peat, of course) and a local vibe. I was sold.
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Here we are after having made our way past the gauntlet of publicans who are all
1) indeed local
2) middle aged dudes and
3) kinda suprised to see two thirty-something American girls walking into their haunt.
I snap this photo of Rory because her quasi-homologue, Ruairi Quinn  is on TV just above her head.
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You know why I love this pub? Cuz it’s got a black lab curled up on a bench near the fireplace. The locals warmed up to us in short order, and the guy behind me was actually an old timer who used to work for the UN doing a mission in Zambia, so we had the Africa connection going on a bit.  After a bit of banter, we all went back to our respective drinks and conversations. That’s what I love about this country- you get low-intensity friendly interaction with no one standing in front of you dangling an African mask that is probably made in China…
Oops. I was getting off-subject again. I’ll have to leave it here for now- but only because of my current internet constraints.  The next chapter should have me further west, checking out Dingle Peninsula in gale-force winds. Good times, indeed.