In which Sid and Doris visit Lord Longford at Tullynally Castle, stop at a bishop’s palace, eat cake, race in quarries and kart tracks, scootle round the lanes and boost Doris’ navigator ranking.
The organisers have to get us from East to West of Ireland via a variety of tea and lunch stops, cunningly interspersed with live motorsport action. Doris gets the route information (often in highly coded form) and speeds/times required 45 minutes before the start. Some navs work in small teams or with their drivers to work out where to be and when. Not Doris, unless kindly showing a beginner her workings.
For a full view of the Vintage Shamrock do look at the Rally the Globe website which hosts the Daily Dispatch with Gerard Brown’s teams’ lovely pictures. Or just go straight to the Photos section. Here’s one of our own: “We all like a spritely drive, don’t we sir?’ As the traffic police told a friend recently. 
The navigation based regularities are mixed in with tests for car and driver. For Teal the greatest treat is a kart track where the lack of power matters less than nimbleness. Coming down to one of these we see an MG perched up on a bank looking like an ornament. Not intentional. The driver came off one corner on two wheels and did not have control before a sharp ninety right. The eventual impact at about 15 mph meant bendy steering and front suspension but no need to trouble the doctor who also doubles up as a marshal. Teal had a lovely time, with the marshals extolling his splendid lines and the grins induced.
RtG find interesting places to stop. By Lough Derravagh, Tullynally castle is more or a farm building than castle. Maybe think more ‘chateau’. Their website is quite coy about the nature of Ireland’s period as part of the United Kingdom. The Normans had a go at taking over Ireland in 1169, as they had England the previous century. This did not really stick. The Tudors had another go in the 16th century but it is not until Cromwell sent English and Scots Protestants that a non-Irish ruling class of land owners was established, known as the Protestant Ascendancy. The Home Rule Act of 1914 was to return to independence but was thwarted by the events of August 1914. In 1916 the Easter Rising presaged a civil war with Irish secession coming in 1922 leaving the northern six counties part of the United Kingdom. And here we are.
The Pakenhams bought the estate after Cromwell’s wars and built a plantation house, a phrase that rang through other countries too. Even now the farm estate is a prime source of income though the Longfords and Pakenhams are also published historians. In England the 7th Lord Longford is remembered for prison reform, rehabilitation and campaigning against pornography.
Back to the world of cars, there is a disembowelled 1954 Sunbeam Alpine in a barn. Ran when parked, about 50 years ago. Appears to have been brush-painted in municipal-toilet blue. Not all barn finds should be found.
And so to Westport via a test in the bottom of a quarry with much dust and fun and a regularity to the Knockranny Hotel where RtG are the only residents. This is our home for the next three nights and from where we will venture out to find great roads and scenistic scenery.
At the end of Day 2 Doris is second in the navs’ league table.
Doris in P2! Yay!