Posts From Ireland

Our Irish experience started with 3 nights in a hotel called Clifton Court, on the river front at the foot of O'Connell Street. We were delighted by the position as it was really in the "center" of things. But it was also a classic "old pub hotel", small rooms, and narrow corridors, but everything worked. Our first evening introduced us to Dublin noise, it seemed that there was a siren or garbage trucks every 5 minutes, we eventually concluded that Dublin is indeed and "active" city and nose was just part of the "active".

This morning we picked up our rental car and started the "tour proper". Between GPS devices and cell phones we had no trouble negotiating the freeways around Dublin and then on to some of the narrow country lanes we had been told about. I could tell right from the start that it was going to be a bit of a treat driving a snappy little car on these narrow twisting roads.

After a nice hot shower and the included breakfast we walked into the center of Kilkenny to visit their famous castle. Today the castle is almost fully restored to a fine presentation of a Victorian country mansion. The place was owned by the Butler family for about 900 years (though the family had various names through the period) but they abandoned the place in the 1930s and it sat and decayed until locals started an effort in the 1960s to restore it. It is a very interesting peek into how a wealthy Victorian family lived. Today the castle has only 3 of its original 4 walls standing as the 4th south wall was destroyed by Cromwell's army while he was suppressing the Irish uprising in 1650.

Today another castle, this one though in ruin and not being restored but only stabilized. It was a short drive from Kilkenny to Cachel where there is a huge (even in ruin) 11th century castle sitting on a rock outcropping above the town. We had a quite informative tour from a local guide and learned more of the history of who did what in the castle and cathedral than I can possibly remember. Various Kings, lords and bishops built and added bits over the years and then in the 1700s the local bishop decided to abandon the cathedral in favor of a new Cathedral he had commissioned built "down in the town".

I found out this morning that Nina "really likes" stone bridges and still water. A bit of a surprise really as you would think there was nothing new to find out after all the years we have been together. But there you are, that explains the bridge photos.

We spent the day getting infused with the history and "claim to fame" of the town of Waterford. Waterford Crystal was the starting point. The town has long been famous for the cut crystal creations that originated here. But the financial crisis of 2008 put the Waterford Crystal company out of business. Fortunately it has since been resurrected, but on a smaller scale, so that cut crystal creations are still emerging from Waterford. We got an up close look at the process during a tour of the small production facility right in the heart of the town. I would rate the tour highly as it is technically very interesting.

Todays destination was the town of Kinsale, but along the way we stopped at Cobh (also perplexingly known as Queenstown) to visit the Titanic Experience. We found Cobh to be a quaint/cute little harbor town, with an amazingly magnificent cathedral overlooking the harbor.

I spent today lounging on the bed in our room trying to get over the cold I recently contracted while Nina went touring and exploring around the sights of Kinsale. Now this does not mean that I learned nothing of the history or "claim to fame" of Kinsale as after her day of exploring Nina was only too keen to give me a "blow by blow" narrative. The two big things from the day were William Dampier and the Battle of Kinsale, that took place on Christmas even 1601.

Today we were off to Mizen Head (or there about), the most south westerly point in Ireland. We followed The Wild Atlantic Route, a series of narrow picturesque coastal roads (maybe lanes would be a better description). As promised the scenery was really quite good, ocean, beaches, farmland and all with some bright sun(with a little rain tossed in to make us feel at home). At one of the beaches we passed we were more than a little surprised to see a surfing school operating with as may as a dozen students rugged up in full wet suits (including hoods and gloves) trying to stand on their boards in a 2 foot surf.

We spent the day in Goleen a somewhat windswept little place, really a modest seaside fishing village that has not tarted itself up for tourists very much at all. We spent the day watching the large tidal changes along the shore, walking around the village and generally relaxing. To my mind the highlight of the day was discovering that the derelict truck on a corner in the main street was being used to store firewood. I guess it is the nature of people in "remote" places that they "let no resource go unused".

Today we started our trek up the west coast of Ireland. For those that don't know (like me before I got here) the west coast is composed of a series of peninsulas (or maybe old fjords), but any way pieces of land that jut out like fingers into the North Atlantic. These happen to be some of the scenic highlights of Ireland and today we proceeded North from our "most South Westerly" spot to the first of these "fingers" called the Sheep's Head Peninsula

The Ring of Beara was todays mission, a route that traces the coastline of the Beara Peninsula. We set off in overcast weather with periodic showers but by the end of the day the sun was out and shinning brightly. The Irish countryside really looks picturesque in the sun.

The weather was not so kind to us today and as a result we had a somewhat wet and windy drive over a local mountain pass called Priests Leap> Local legend has it the the name derives from an episode in which a priest leaped from the pass to avoid capture. More factually though there are records of this name going back to 1600. The name "Priests's Lepp" is to be found in the Desmond Survey map of Glanerought barony, compiled around 1600.

The sun was out this morning so we decided to do a repeat of the loop around the Beare Peninsula (it is a sign of how small Ireland is that we can decide on the spur of the moment to repeat a whole days drive). So todays photos are also a bit of a repeat, but in better light. However the sun did not last and by the time our loop was over and we were headed into Kenmare, where we would spend the night the rain was back.

It was pi...ng down rain this morning as we set out towards Kilarney, Kilarney National Park and an attraction called Muckross House. The house is famous as a place where Queen Victoria spent two nights as the guests of the Herbert family during her 1849 visit to Ireland. The Herberts apparently spent 6 years preparing for that visit and commissioned all kinds of upgrades and decorations to the house. As a result of the expense (and other poor financial decisions) the family eventually went bankrupt and had to sell the house. One of the decorative features of the house are a large collection of deer heads (some stuffed and some just skeletons) displayed on the walls of many of the rooms. During the tour we learned that deer are now rare in Ireland and there is only one herd of red deer remaining in the country. They number about 800 and reside in the woods around Muckross House. Well we nearly had the misfortune to tell the guide that there were now only 799 as just before we arrived at the house a large red deer buck bounded across the road no more than 6 feet in front of our speeding car. We came within a few seconds of having a large lump of venison in the front seat with us.

So what in the hell is skellig. That is what I was wondering last night after checking in at our B&B in Portmagee. The wifi password was skelligs, every second business in town had the word skellig in it's name and the major local attraction was Skellig Micheal. I did not find the answer to that question until we visited (you guessed it) The Skellig Experience building this morning, where one of the attendants told me (that many tourists ask that question). "skellig" means "rock". Skellig Micheal is one of two nearby rocky precipitous islands that in the years before 1000AD was the home to a community of early christian monks who carved a life on the steep cliffs of the island. We did not get to visit the island (too late in the year and in any case tours of the island are being scaled back to protect the ruins). But we did get a sense of the amazing achievement of those early christians builders. No photos - so follow the link above to get some sense of the place.

Another couple of those stone forts were on the agenda early in todays travels and then we finished off the Ring of Kerry in bright sunshine, backtracked a little to Killarney and Muckross house so as to see the area in good weather and then started towards the town of Dingle on the Dingle Peninsula.

As you can see from the photos we had a great day weather wise and we put it to good use, spending the day exploring the Dingle Peninsula. The place was pretty quiet today now that everyone has gone back to work and school after the weekend. The highlights of the day would have to be the beach, (made famous in the movie Ryan's Daughter) some more "stone forts" and a structure called an oratory(more later).

One of our longer driving days, all the way to Galway but along the way we had a special sight to see, the famous Cliffs of Moher, Irelands most visited tourist attraction. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate for our visit. Earlier in the day we had some glorious sunshine (as you can see from some of the early photos) but by the time we got to the "cliffs", cloud, drizzle and haze. Never the less they were impressive and we could imagine how spectacular they would be in the sunshine.

Not much to say about today. We spent it hold up in our hotel away from the rain, or out walking around the city when it was not raining. The center of the city is colorful and very active with buskers of all kinds out in force. A very busy and up market shopping strip along the (mainly) pedestrian main drag.

Today is a big day for us, it is 50 years today since we first met. Now if I was being really pedantic about it we are actually a day late since when we met we were (obviously) in Australia and it is now the 6th of November in Australia - but that seems a bit too precise. But anyway 50 years seems like a significant milestone and we had planned to spend it on Aran Islands , so early this morning we were in the car headed towards Rossaveel (in heavy rain) where we were scheduled to catch a ferry to the town of Kilronan on Inishmore the largest of the three Aran Islands.

As per the title, we were up early (for us), saying goodbye to Alice and then off to the ferry for the return to the mainland, no dramas there, although we were surprised by how many people appeared apparently from nowhere to catch the ferry. Back at the ferry dock in Rossaveel a man miraculously appeared to collect the 5 euros we owed for our days parking and then we were on the road heading towards Westport.

Westport turned out to be a lot busier than we had expected. It seems we managed to be here at the same time as the annual Adventure Race, a foot and bicycle race over the top of the near mountain called Croagh Patrick. As a result our guest house was full of lycra clad, excited, racers. The other observation I would make about Westport is that the traffic and parking situation in the town borders on chaos. We have commented many times during our Irish journey that we would find it hard to cope with the (in our mind) narrow and inefficient small villages (tight streets, no where to park except in the middle of the road). Well Westport seemed to us the poster child for this "problem".

The morning we departed Belfast was our 30th day in Ireland and so we had to return our rental car and get another one. Why you ask?. Well it seems that 30 days is the maximum period for which a car can be rented in Ireland after that one must lease it. So this morning we drove back to Dublin airport, dropped off our car, walked from Hertz to Budget and got another one. thereafter we drove to the town of Trim a little north west of Dublin where we had organized to spend our final couple of days in Ireland.