... and arriving at the Round Tower of Turlough

9/12/2023

That station opened only three years before Holding and company cycled past it, and closed in 1963. It's now a house, which I found a photo of but from a different angle. Luckily I'd also managed to come across an old black and white photo of it as a station.

It's this kind of silly research into things that arguably don't even matter that's making this project take so long! Trouble is, I enjoy it too much.

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What's this all about??

I'm making a true-story graphic novel called
Two Shilings a Day.
Read synopsis here.

Touring and camping with a bicycle is a common activity today but imagine the first time this was attempted, in the late 19th century, when cycles were heavy steel with just one gear, roads were unpaved, batteries and nylon and zippers didn't exist, and even outdoor activities were undertaken in woollen three-piece suits!

Thomas Hiram Holding, an experienced cyclist and camping enthusiast, combined these two pastimes in 1897 when he designed a lightweight portable tent and embarked on a pioneering cycle-camping tour with three friends in Ireland.

This graphic novel is a faithful adaptation of Holding's own book Cycle and Camp, from a time of horse-drawn mailcars, kitchens with peat fires, and farmhouses shared with cattle. Part travelogue round rural west Ireland and
part how-to manual - including sewing ones own tent - I'm showing his adventure using entirely his own idiosyncratic words.

Holding’s fervent wish that anyone could now enjoy a holiday in the country without exorbitant cost proved so popular that he started a cycle-camping organisation, an organisation that became today’s Camping and Caravanning Club.

... and arriving at the Round Tower of Turlough

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What's this all about??

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Michi Mathias illustration & comics