We were sure glad to wake up well rested and with a three-night base for exploration at Anam Cara (meaning ‘Soul Friend’), a beautiful B&B just outside Enniscorthy. We learned that this town in southeast Ireland was the setting for the movie “Brooklyn.”
We took a few hours for some needed R&R to enjoy our lush room and good internet connection, and work on photos and writing for this travel blog. Perhaps you noticed the flurry of new posts that morning! :)
Around noonish, we started our drive to Waterford on the south coast, 45 minutes from Enniscorthy. We packed a picnic lunch of meats, cheese and bread from Caviston’s Food Emporium and set off through the patchwork quilt of sheep paddocks and tiny towns to our day’s adventure.
We learned this clock tower, the first public clock in Waterford, was aligned with the docks instead of the streets so that the dock workers would be able to see the time. During our walking tour we learned this is known as the “four face liar,” since the clocks are independently driven and each face tells a bit different time.
Here we are trying to enjoy our picnic and avoid some of the Waterford winds.
We read about Jack’s walking tours of Waterford through Rick Steves’ travel book on Ireland. We met up with Tom, our guide for the hour, at the local tourist office and were the only guests signed up! This was a great perk from traveling in the off-season and independently. We still saw some large tour busses at some of the sites we visited, but we enjoyed having Tom to ourselves to get some extra details from the tour.
Believe it or not, this foundation from a Viking settlement was found during construction of a shopping mall. We noticed in the UK and Ireland there was a much greater effort to share the findings of archaeological digs at sites.
An excavation in the floor of Christchurch Cathedral exposed one of the pillars separating the windows of the second church built on this spot in the early 1200's by the Normans. Prior to this, the first church was built in 1096 by the Vikings, and was where Strongbow was married to the Irish princess Aoife in 1170. Read more about the cathedral here!
Christchurch Cathedral in Waterford features beautifully preserved Rococo plaster ceilings and Waterford crystal chandeliers.
These panels are enlarged copies of centuries old postcard-paintings, which were made by a man who drew and painted common folk in the city - a very early form of street photography from a time when only the wealthy and powerful would normally have their portraits painted.
The theme of “our own private Waterford” continued at the Waterford Crystal Factory, where we lucked out and were the only two on a scheduled tour... Perhaps our kissing, cuddles, and laughter made it known we were honeymooners? (It could also be that our tour guide was excited to have a couple of tourists under 80 that hadn't been getting cranky on a bus all day).
Our personalized tour of the production process was very interesting. Coco recalled her days in the gaffers guild at Iowa State and was in awe of the precision of the craftspeople. There is currently just one woman employed as an artisan. Our guide shared that some of the artists have worked there for 50 years and often the staff is inter-generational.
Most of the cutting and engraving work at the Waterford plant is still done freehand by master craftspeople. Although this location makes most (or all? we didn't get a definitely answer on this) of the famous trophies and chandeliers that the company is known for, they also make some of the production / retail pieces too, such as certain lines of stemware. Their other plants are in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, and Germany. The company has a complicated history, including a 100-year gap when there was no glassmaking in Waterford; this wikipedia page agrees with the information we heard on the tour if you're interested. After getting the tour and hearing the storied history of the company, maybe the biggest surprise was that this factory, visitor center and showroom weren't even here 10 years ago! Instead of downtown, it was on the edge of the city from its re-founding in 1947 until 2009, when Waterford Wedgwood Group entered bankruptcy.
This photo shows about half of the copper wheels available, with several copies of each of the different shapes used for engraving by hand. The wheels themselves have no abrasive on them but are edged with a thick copper band; diamond powder mixed in water then flows over the wheel and provides a continuously new abrasive.
For detailed work, a handheld tool similar to a Dremel or Fordham grinder holds tiny copper wheels that work just like the big ones.
An artisan working on a detailed scene with a handheld etching tool. The frosted areas of this piece were sandblasted in a previous step.
On the other hand, here's the control panel for two of the four CNC cutting stations in this factory. It's not as interesting to watch as even one of the craftspeople are. And no, it's not that MOOG (but Brian thought it might be same one, too).
The CNC robot uses almost the same engraving wheels that the traditional handwork does. Brian asked our guide how the decide when to use the robots instead of people, and we didn't really get a clear answer - based on the cuts this machine was making, it appears that they're doing the same kind of work that the humans are. We did notice quite a few younger employees working as craftsmen, and the guide said that they don't struggle as much to find employees as some trades do, so it doesn't seem to be because of that. One possibility that occurred to Brian is that recruiting new people to a factory that has no automation at all might be getting harder, since almost all manufacturers include some level of automation at this point; maybe the machines simply allow Waterford's craftspeople to stay current on that part of the industry. Maybe they allow the humans to go on holiday.
Amongst the many trophies and monuments on display in the showroom was this copy of the chalice that was gifted to the U.S. in 2012 to celebrate the President's visit to Ireland in 2011. For signature pieces like this one, the mold for the blown glass is carved by hand from wood and will only be used to make the actual piece and one backup for the company's showroom. For production pieces, the molds are made of cast iron and can be used for decades of production.
This very detailed piece memorializing Father Mychal Judge, who was the first casualty in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and whose parents emigrated from Ireland, was one of the largest pieces Waterford has produced. Our guide wasn't sure whether the original is currently in the 9/11 memorial in NYC or at another location, as their staff had heard American tourists claim both versions in the last few weeks.
To give an idea of the work that goes into finishing after the glass is blown into shape, here are the three pieces of a 2-foot-tall bear wearing a crystal necklace (which we are pretty sure is their mascot, but that detail got lost between the start of the tour and the pub afterwards... and actually we're pretty sure that their mascot is a seahorse. But let's call it their mascot, regardless, because we can't figure out who else would order a 2-foot tall cut-crystal bear.)
...and here is the finished bear. It's very sparkly in person and is a little scary, but only because we really didn't want to accidentally knock it over on the way out of the tourist-packed showroom.
The gift shop at the end of the tour featured many, many breakable things on the edges of tables, and so seemed like a really bad place to bring small children... but we didn't see anyone who looked younger than us.
This display was cracking Brian up after we looked at the photos, because there are €200,000 in chandeliers suspended over €50,000 in china and stemware, and the guests are sitting in €50 plastic lawn chairs. This seemed like carrying the "it's crystal clear" metaphor a little too far.
Stopping in for a pint at The Munster Bar (or maybe Fitzgeralds?) on the way to dinner, we saw this bit of history we'd heard on the tour that morning, mounted on the wall above our heads: Thomas Francis Meagher was born in Waterford, created the independent Irish flag of green, white and orange, and went on to organize Irish expats for the Union in the US Civil War, leading to the term "Fighting Irish" in the states. He ended up serving as governor of the Montana Territory.
We found dinner at a Bodega!, which was a big surprise compared to the way it looked on the outside. We ordered the special, described simply as "Roast shoulder of lamb for two, with mustard & herb"; what they brought to our table was likely the best lamb we have ever had anywhere. The roast must have been 3 pounds, with a crispy bark like good barbecue and just melting off the bones. The green dusting of herbs on top smelled like wasabi, and was spicy and minty; the au gratin and veg were both amazing too. We took more than half of it with us and snacked on it for the next 3 days - our waiter said he hadn't seen anyone finish it yet :) Also their bread was dangerously good.
A bit of the bread we couldn't stop inhaling, and one of the best beers we had on the trip- a local stout from Waterford's Dungarvan Brewery, roasty and smokey and dry, and a great match for our lamb.
Thursday was a long and rewarding day for us!