Lucinda's Last Rose of Summer Tour of Kerry & West Cork
Tuesday 30 August 2011
Each year, for many years past, I have taken myself on what I call my own ‘Last Rose of Summer’ trip driving from Killarney, through Moll’s Gap to Kenmare, and on over through the tunnels and unparelled mountainous vistas over hill and bay that lead you down through Glengarriff and on to Bantry. There is something about the whole experience for me that I find calming and reassuring, and then I am ready to settle in to what the winter has to to throw at us! This year, as though reading my mind, The Brehon Hotel in Killarney introduced a dual package break which suited our purpose perfectly – two nights in Killarney and two nights at their sister hotel the Maritime in Bantry at €249pps for the four nights bed and breakfast. This gave us lots of lovely time to visit the local areas including the Ring of Kerry. I like The Brehon. It has a great Angsana Thai Spa, and excellent food in their Danu restaurant from new head chef, Mike Hayes. We tried their luxurious 5-course Menu at €49 which had a shelfish starter of scallops, prawns, and mussels served on a slate or Prawn cocktail, followed by a choice of Lobster bisque or Champagne sorbet, with mains of surf ‘n turf - steak with half a lobster and asparagus – truly yum – and a glass of Champagne – finishing with scrumptious puds.
Down town next morning we couldn’t but be drawn by ‘Retro Rose Bazaar’, in an Art Deco style typeface, emblazoned over a flower bedecked black shopfront in New Street in Killarney. There was a subtle touch of Hercule Poirot in an Agatha Christie novel that needed investigating……happily it was more Love on the Nile than Christie’s Death on the Nile! Killarney is an eclectic town that never fails to surprise and this was no different! Killarney is a ‘can do’ town, they are great business people. We didn’t see any real signs of shops being closed just what was new. The traders and hoteliers really pull together in marketing their cracking destination and, as we walked around the streets at night, there was a great atmosphere with musicians hammering it out here and there which really felt good.
Noelle Crosbie first opened her new Retro Rose Bazaar in May 2010 at a nearby location. “It was a very small shop, but it went very well. I was dying to get into bigger pieces of furniture so I moved up to this New Street location last November where there had previously been an antique shop.” Noelle is an enterprising woman for she also has Dinis Cottage, a Victorian tearooms, once visited by Queen Victoria herself in the Killarney National Park. It is close to the Old Weir Bridge and the Meeting of the Waters, accessible by walking or by boat, “but it is very seasonal and weather dependant.” Dinis Cottage is a really gorgeous romantic place where some of the windows are etched with graffiti dating back to the 1820’s. There was apparently a tradition for newly engaged couples to carve their names on the glass windows for luck with their new diamonds! Perhaps it is appropriate too that Dinis is run by Noelle’s husband of five years whom she met on a Cruise on the Nile in 2006. How romantic does that get! However, RRB came about as Noelle wanted to do something else along with Dinis. “I hadn’t been well, I had breast cancer in 2009, and this was my goal because I love vintagy things and I promised myself if I got through it…..” Noelle was born in London but went to school in Rathfarnham, Dublin. “My parents came on a holiday to Sneem and never left Kerry. They bought the Guest House they had been staying in! We moved to Killarney when I was 16 and we had an hotel.” Noelle clearly inherited her adventurous ‘have a go’ spirit from her parents. “I have always been dabbling in businesses. I had a boutique on High Street at one time and I then did the catering in Ballybunion Golf Club for ten years. However, I got divorced and moved back to Killarney where I had a restaurant before I took over the tearoom.” “Life is great, Noelle laughs, I got married five years ago to Taher, who is from near Alexandria in Egypt, and he is now running the tearoom.” With her daughter, Noelle went out to Egypt in 2006 on a holiday where she met Taher (Aly) and got married the same year. “Taher’s friend was a Guide on one of the cruises we went on, and we met on the second last day of the holiday. When I came home we kept in touch by email. I went back out in the April of that year and we got engaged, and then got married in the November. Being Lady Captain of Killarney Golf Club the same year it was somewhat of a surprise for everyone when I arrived home from Egypt with a new much younger husband.” she laughs fondly. “Life is great”, she says again “I love sourcing for the shop, I get great fun out of sourcing, there is nothing like this type of vintage shop in Kerry.” Retro Rose Bazaar is an absolute treasure trove of vintage clothing, amazing Audry Hepburn style hats, Grace Kelly style handbags, fur coats from New York, vintage teasets and platters, jewellery, books, vynil records, furniture. “China goes really well again – people buy teasets for weddings, wrapping them up and presenting them in hat boxes. I buy individually at auctions, on eBay where I now have contacts, people will bring me in things. I sell them quickly, I don’t put a big mark up on so that the stock moves all the time.” Noelle also does clothes on a swap shop basis – sale or return. “ My mother, Betty Crosbie, who is synonymous in Killarney with Chernobyl, was wonderful all of the family love Taher, he is a dote, I am so lucky and so happy.” Noelle may be 52 and Taher 29 but there is no doubt about it – age is truly a state of mind – and Killarney and the Nile were always a romantic spots. Retro Rose Bazaar. Tel: 087 687-3364.
Laura Sourke, aged 25, from Kildare, came to Killarney when she was 19 to help her sister who had a restaurant. Now Laura has just opened her new Bakery on Beech Road, simply called Bake, with her partner Daniel Cronin. “I came down for a year and never went home - I met Daniel, who is from Killarney – now my mother has two Kerry men in the family as my sister married one also! She laughs. “We went to Scotland for a year and I was working for DR Newitt a Recruitment Agency specialising in the Food and Drinks industry. Daniel was running a Food Court in the John Lewis Shopping Centre in Edinburgh and one day he asked me would I make some cakes, like I did at home, for the shop. Then I was asked would I do the Farmers Market around Edinburgh Castle on a Saturday. When we moved back home I decided to do Food Markets here. It is a great way to meet people, I love them. We were doing that for two and a half years, but I really wanted my own shop, so we worked and scrimped and saved every penny and eventually now we have got our own shop up and running.” She says happily. “Cupcakes are our main speciality, we do a very gourmet range. We have them filled with Bailey’s chocolate and a latte butter cream, chocolate truffle sauce, chocolate swirl, Red velvet cake, vanilla with lemon curd and meringue on top. We have a range of fourteen and we mix them around producing about eight different ones each day.” Oh boy, were they sinful looking confections – and a good size. Apart from cupcakes, Bake do breads, brown buttermilk, soda breads, and all sorts of lovely cakes. “We started doing markets in a recession and we give value as anybody who does baking will be aware. We are up against the big supermarkets but people know that everything that is on sale here has been made within two hours of its being on the shelf – smell sells.” And the smells indeed were super. You can contact Bake on 085 779-7723. . <ep>
On our way out of Killarney via Moll’s Gap to Kenmare and Bantry we spotted John and Anne Kissane’s Sheep Farm where you can not only watch sheep shearing demonstrations, sheepdog demonstrations, cuddle and bottle feed orphan pet lambs or do one of three marked mountain walks, but you can adopt a sheep for €45 a year and also enjoy many privileges on the farm. You can give your adoptive sheep a name and you will receive a certificate with your name and the tag number of ‘your’ sheep on it and they will keep you up to date on your new ‘baby’s’ progress. Their goal is to preserve the Irish heritage of mountain sheep. So go on, go and give a sheep a cuddle! www.kissanesheepfarm.com
We eventually arrived to the contemporary Maritime Hotel in Bantry which has lovely views out over Bantry Bay. We had dinner in their Ocean Restaurant enjoying delicious fresh crab and avocado salad with a wasabi dressing, followed by scallops and pork belly for me and pork fillet rolled in a ginger and herb crumb for himself. It was good too to see O’Connor’s Seafood Restaurant open again under the new ownership of former Head Chef Pat Kiely. Thanks also to to Bantry Tyre Centre who very quickly sorted us out with a new tyre after I clipped a hole in the old one near Moll’s Gap – so look out for the stoney edges – and those Kerry boyos whizzing down the twisty roads……..!!
THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT ON 28TH AUGUST, 2011.