After a breakfast of oatmeal and Bailey's (oh, my, how I love that!), we left the little village of Dingle in our cute, cute little car and headed north.
We crossed the River Shannon on a Ferry. My first car ferry. Pretty cool. It's a good system, and it saved us quite a bit of driving time. It was fun, too!
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| Here comes the ferry boat! |
We stopped in Kilrush for lunch and a bit of roots-searching--Trish found an ancestral address still standing!
I liked the pub with its pub decor.
After lunch we headed straight for the Cliffs of Moher! (Many of these photos were taken by Annette)
One of us thought the cows grazing on the cliffs were just as interesting and beautiful as the views and geology. These cows had some of the best views on the planet!
I had told Annette that I had read stories about people who lie on their stomachs and look straight down at the water, thousands of feet below the sheer cliff top. It was a mistake to tell her! She did it! I immediately had a visceral Mama reaction. Adreniline shot through me and made my knees buckle. I could not look, let alone take a picture of her. Your imaginings will probably be just as vivid.
(Skip the next pic, Mom!)
Here is one guy in the spirit:
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| Sign? What sign? |
The cliffs and the views are spectacular, don't you agree? Definitely a must-see when you go to Ireland.
We drove from the cliffs to the nearby village of Ennis, where we spent our last two nights. The Grey Gables B&B was my least-favorite of all the B&Bs we stayed in but it was perfectly charming. There were only little things and attention to detail lacking.
The first evening, we had dinner in a pub. The music was simply a trio: guitar, accordion, and fiddle. And there was a picture of James Joyce, so it was good! An old man sat with us at our table. I watched him sip his drink for a long, long time. Up to his lips again and again, looking like he was sipping it again and again, but the level of the liquid never went down! What kind of Irishman was he, anyway?!
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| Letting the level of the liquid go down. |
After a good night's sleep, Annette and I left Trish in Corofin at the Clare Heritage and Genealogical Research Centre so she could do some more genealogical research. Annette and I continued on, driving through the Burren to the Aillwee Cave.
The Burren is a beautiful area, with rare flora and fauna within its unusual geology:
The Aillwee Cave, that was spectacular! It was not something we had planned on doing. It was a spur-of-the moment find, and what a great one! As you can read on Wikipedia, the cave was discovered in 1944 by a farmer whose dog chased a rabbit into the cave. He told no-one about the cave until he overheard some academics, in the area in 1973 researching caves, talking about their mission in a local pub. He divulged the location, and the cave has since been excavated and thoroughly commercialized. (This is something different in Ireland than in the US: natural, archeological, and cultural treasures, often on private land, are commercialized in a very haphazard way and often not preserved in a systematic way--or in any way, really).
Anyway, Annette and I paid the requisite Euros to take the tour. It was very cool, literally and figuratively. The formations were quite young and small, but still good examples of stalactites and stalagmites. A highlight for me was when the young tour guide turned off all the lights inside. It is the only time I've experience true total darkness. What an amazing experience!
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| Enjoying a 99 Flake after exploring the cave. |
At the end of the day we had a delightful dinner and trad music at Brogan's. The music was played by a big bunch of folks with all sorts of instruments. So much fun! We enjoyed a delicious dinner--salmon again for me; the Irlsh salmon is fab--and our last Guinness.
I have missed Irish Guinness.
