8th May: Kilevny, Laurencetown to Roscrea

8^th May Second stage: Kilevny, Laurencetown to Roscrea 50 kms.

The sky was threateningly black as we began today by following the first six kilometres of Friday’s training route to the road off to Clonfert Cathedral, after which it was a pleasant 6 kms of gentle descent to the crossing of the River Shannon at Bannagher. Heavy rain forced us into Heidi’s café for an earlier than intended coffee. Heidi, apparently, is Swiss, although she certainly didn’t sound it. I should have engaged her in conversation, I suppose, but I thought that she might have been offended had I made enquiries about her place of birth. I regretted it though; she probably would have been pleased.

But there were other sights to see in Banagher before we could get on our way. Trollope’s house, for one, where he lived whilst he worked for the Irish Post Office and presumably fine-tuned  his plans for postboxes and street addresses that he put  into practice on returning to Britain. Another figure connected to 19^th century literature is the Rev Arthur Bell-Nichols, Charlotte Bronte’s husband who is buried alongside his second wife in the churchyard in Banagher.

No more lingering, especially as more rain was threatening, and it was an extremely pleasant route we followed, circumventing the small town of Birr by way of Fivealley and Rath to arrive at Clareen for lunch.  Apart from the expansive views, especially over the Slieve Bloom mountains which were ominously clear today, the only thing of note was an enormous funeral procession of probably a hundred cars, headed by a police escort, leaving the small church in the very nondescript village of Rath. Such huge funeral processions are, though, apparently not unusual.

We were descending into Roscrea before 3 pm and checking into the old-fashioned Grant’s Hotel, immediately opposite the tower and drawbridged entrance of the castle. Apart from that, though, there doesn’t seem to be much else in Roscrea except a huge Tescos, looking completely out of place. On asking for a map, which item is, incidentally, completely unavailable in Roscrea, a local wag in the newsagents replied, “there’s only one road in Roscrea and it’s easy to find your way out”. I think he was a bit hard on his town,

So, an easy second stage, in coolish, generally overcast weather with a light following wind. 50 kms  Total 117 kms.