Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/617358
168 how the countless vertical slits between the stones protected arch- ers. I briefly try to imagine a world in which monks are forced to take breaks from their prayers in order to shoot their enemies full of ar- rows; but in truth, I'm more enamo- red by the present—by the sight of my barely toddling one-year-old daughter attempting to negotiate the hilly terrain while holding my wife's hand, and the sounds of my four-year-old son turning the ruins into his own personal playhouse. We pile into the rental car and drive east until we reach Thomas- town, a little village that merits a brief mention in our guidebook, but where we appear to be the only visitors. Our lone bit of criteria in choosing a restaurant is that it serves "goujons" (the Irish term for chicken nuggets, we've quickly learned), but this quest is unsuc- cessful, so instead we duck into Café Sol, where my son is content to order four slices of bacon, à la carte. The weather is holding up, allow- ing the restaurant to live up to its name, and we dine on a sun-filled patio decorated with hanging flow- erpots and a mural of a freshly tilled field lined with sunflowers. My wife orders a salad, I order a steak sand- wich, and soon we're chatting with a trio of Irish women who are taking what appears to be an extremely languid lunch break from their jobs. One of the great pleasures of visiting Ireland is talking to the people, who tell you at every chance how "lovely" and "brilliant" you are, until you start to believe it yourself. These women are no exception. On our itinerary: "Bril- liant!" On our children: "So lovely." On my decision to order a steak sandwich: "Well, now, that's just lovely and brilliant, isn't it?" Following the women's rec- TRAVEL Graiguenamanagh means "village of the monks" in Gaelic. One of the great pleasures of visiting Ireland is talking to the people, who tell you at every chance how "lovely" and "brilliant" you are, until you start to believe it yourself. photograph by Richard Semik