Bunratty Castle

After we left Ennis we made our way to Bunratty Castle, a huge tourist attraction in the town of Bunratty. They have a folk park set up with 19th century cottages. It was quite large and we actually didn't get through all of it as we were trying to make our way to Limerick afterwards.

Ireland 2007--Bunratty Castle

The castle itself was impressive for the work that's been done in restoring it. It was the most interesting for various rooms. After we left the castle, I looked at a map again and realized I'd missed a few rooms, although I was sure I'd gone through all for towers and the staircases, but it was a maze, probably done on purpose in case it was besieged.

Bunratty had their own mead but we didn't have time to stop at the meadery. Next time I'd alot more time to see this and the rest of the village. Some of the cottages has various wares to sell in them, whether food or woolens or other souvenir items.

Ennis

Ireland 2007--Ennis

Ennis is in the southwest of Ireland and we stayed the night after our long drive through the Burren. We found a little B&B a little farther out of the town center. All the Irish towns have the oldest buildings at the center and the newer more moderns ones the farther out you go. Rose cottage wasn't a cottage but had a small dining area as well as a pub downstairs and quite lovely and clean rooms upstairs. The food seemed kind of Americanized so we went into town and found one of few restaurants open. The food was extremely good, one of those higher end restaurants. Olddly I don't seem to remember the name of any of the places we ate.

After dinner my sister and I wandered up the street to a cute little pub. There were people playing inside but as opposed to an organized band they were more just jamming. A fiddler or two, I think one on bodhran but it was very low key and background. I don't even remember much about that pub.

The next day we wandered about the town which still has many medieval buildings. I think it was my favourite town for the looks and being just a pretty place. There were many interesting shops and I wouldn't have minded more time there. We found our way to the Ennis Friary by asking the Garda since we somehow couldn't find a street that went through and it turns out there is the old one, the ruins, and the new one which is still in use.

I believe this was the beginning of our second week. No on Thursday Oct. 4. The pictures all have captions that pretty much says the rest so I'll stop here except for saying when I go back I'm going to spend more time in this town.

Dysert O'Dea

We accidentally found Dysert O'Dea (pronounced O'Day), which was good as it was in the guidebook as having this wonderful doorway. But it was at the end of the day and Oct. so as we drove up to this rather small castle, we knew it was closed. There was a guy sitting in a Hummer like truck parked at the front of the castle. He was nice enough to move out of the way so we could take pictures.

Then he tolds us where the high cross and church were that we might very well have missed if we'd driven out. We did drive to a cattle gate and pulled to the side of the road. This was a real farm road so in some ways it was much bigger.

Ireland 2007--Dysert O'Dea

The castle was newer than the church which was newer than St. Tola's high cross and the ruins of the tower, which were from the 12th century. The cross holds an carving of Christ and of a bishop (St. Tola) who founded the monastery centuries before, I believe.The doorway was in good shape and very cool with all the faces. Each one was different and some human, others animals.

I'm not sure if we were in the Burren anymore or just out of it but there was such a distortion of time for us looking at the maps. A map of all of BC and a map of Ireland are the same size on paper. But a one-inch distance on a BC map could be 2 hours of driving, whereas on the Irish map it's probably 15 minutes.

Which means we managed to go from Carrowmore in the rainy morning, to Dunguaire, Kinvara, Ailwee Caves, Poulnabrone Burren, Carran Church, Dysert O'Dea castle and church all in one day. We were getting into the very tail of the day. We rarely stopped for lunch. After Dysert O'Dea we drove to the town of Ennis and found a place for the evening.

Burren, Poulnabrone Dolmen and Carran Church

After we left the caves we wended our way through the Burren. There are rock walls absolutely everywhere, and then the Burren stone with plants in each hardened rivulet. We actually passed a sign for an old stone ring fort but because there were so many walls we couldn't find it, as it was inseperable from the rest of the walls. We also went down a wrong road when we had to backtrack and only knew it when we came across some white bagged hay (or something) since the hills looked so much alike.

Ireland 2007--Burren, Poulnabrone Dolmen & Carran Church

We had to work around a few sheep. They proved why they have remained on the evolutionary ladder at a low rung. Some didn't bother to move. Others would run frantically along the road (all with their butts dabbed in green or red paint) and then stop and chew. It's like their wee brains went, Ack! A metal monster! Oooh look nice greens to chew. Two second memories, I tell you.

I've already gushed about the Burren but there is a sense of such age and endurance in this area, and beauty mixed with the severity of the landscape in spots that I can certainly see how tales of fairy folk would spring up. Poulnabrone was down one road and we almost missed it too, except it stood a little above the hill. This is called a portal tomb because it looks to be a doorway. It dates back 5000 years and has stood against humans and elements all that time. The ground around the dolmen was amazing and I would definitely see this again for its sheer alieness and stunning landscape.

The day was winding down but we still had an hour or two of sunlight. As we were driving out of the Burren we found Carran Church. I couldn't find much infomration on the church but I'm guessing it's at least 400 years old. One of the pictures shows the brown signs that marked scenic or historical sites. Not a big ruin, it was near someone's home so I pulled into the driveway (remember no shoulders on these roads) and took some pictures. The wall had the usual stone stile to climb over. I also met some stinging nettle (through my yoga pants) when I went around the outer wall. Ended up with a burning thigh for a few hours.

And onward we went. We were yet to do Dysert O'Dea before we called it a day.

Dunguaire & Ailwee Caves

Ireland 2007--Dunguaire & Ailwee Caves

After Carrowmore, on Wednesday Oct. 3, we headed toward the Burren. It was raining in Carrowmore but the weather was wonderfully clear and fairly warm once we hit the west coast. Here is where the maps screwed us up quite a bit. Dunguaire was shown as being on the other side of Kinvara, a small little fishing village. But instead it was right at the edge of the village. Nothing was really placed correctly so we had to ask as usual. Outside of Dunquaire castle was a cute little bird just singing his head off. It really set the joyful atmosphere of the place.

Dunguaire castle was closed, as of the day before, alas, but the water was beautiful, a deep azure and choppy. I would definitely go back to actually see Kinvara the next time around as we whizzed through it. It took meandering along very curvy roads and a few wrong turns to find the Ailwee Caves. These were carved by underground rivers millions of years ago. European brown bears were thought to be extinct in Ireland for the last 1200 years but they found bones in a hibernation spot that date back only 1000 years. Still it's sad to thing how many large species once populated Ireland and were wiped out in the past 5000 years.

The caves were quite large and there were deposits forming stalagmites and stalactites. White fossils graced the brown and black stone. But they really rushed you through straight out of and back into the gift store of course. There wasn't really time even to take a proper picture and for the price they charged (not an OPW site) they could have given a few more minutes.

We drove through the Burren (or Burren), which looks like a volcanoe blorped out mud millions of years ago and then it solidified. There's a pictuer in here of this and you can see the top of the hill is grey, just like the mud. Because of the stone the Burren was written about through the ages as being inhospitable with no land to grow on and yet people lived there. Rock and rock walls abounded.

Drving into this area reminded me a bit of the Okanagan. It had a certain craggy austerity in parts but I loved this area. Tomorrow, more of the Burren and surrounding area.

Slieve League and Carrowmore

On Tuesday Oct. 2 we bopped around Donegal for part of the day, using an internet cafe, seeing Donegal castle (which we drove around three times because we couldn't find it behind the trees and the wall, and then couldn't find the parking), and doing a wee bit of shopping.

I tried to call a woman near Carrick on Shannon. I'd been given her name by a friend but the one thing we never mastered were the phones. It was a phone booth on the street. I tried punching the number. I tried putting money in. I tried various buttons on the phone and only got the long distance operator who I couldn't hear anyways for all of the traffic.So we never did see Bee, but then we didn't pass through her area.

Slieve League was past Killybegs, west of Donegal. We drove out and it was a meandering drive along or near part of the coast. This was tweed country, lots of sheeps and a few tweed shops that we stopped in, partially for directions. So we drove and drove and weren't sure if we there so we asked a man, dressed in that classic old Irish attire of cap, tweed jacket, baggy pants and wellies. In Ireland the standard greetings is "How are you doing?" This man was walking along the small village road. I believe there might have been a total of 20 cottages at most and it was at the end of nowhere.

He said we were on the right road for Slieve League and as it turned out it was only about five minutes past that village, and dead ended there. We were high on cliffs and below was a long reddish sand beach. It was a long hike down the stairs and would have been a long sweat up. We didn't go down as it was getting late in the day.

As we drove back we found the sign to the Bunglass cliffs (which I think really were higher than the others). Since the guy at the tweed shop had mentioned them we decided to go check them out. I'm sure if my sister realized what we were getting into she would have said, skip it.

We drove through a village as tiny as the one at Slieve League, passing dogs, goats and chickens all running about the road. We rounded a corner where the family working in their yard kind of stared at us like we were mad. Then began the ascent.

At first it wasn't too bad but then it wound higher and higher. And then we were on a hairpin where you looked across to the other side of the hairpin with nothing but cliffs done the curve. My sister, who is terrifed of heights, said not a word, breathing heavily and grasp the car door handle so tight I thought she'd take it off.

It was in fact fairly treacherous. I was only going about 5km and if we'd met someone coming the other direction, I'm not sure what we would have done as it wasn't big enough for two. Plus there were the two spots where the car pointed straight at the sky and I had to take it on faith that there was road on the other side. It was easier going down and a pretty good view.

Ireland 2007--Slieve League & Carrowmore

We then started beetling south to outside of Sligo. We wanted to do the Carrowmore passage tombs and thought we go that far for the night and have a head start in the morning. Regrettfully I saw nothing of Galway. We made an error this night by being far too late in travelling. It was dark by the time we ended up in the vicinity and I think we were near Lough Arrow because there was coast on one side. But it was so dark we couldn't see a B&B anywhere and finally found a small pub/tavern with rooms upstairs. It was dirty but it was cold (no heat), the shower didn't work in my sister's room and the rooms were so small we had to lift our suitcases over the bed. We did find a little restaurant farther in (if we'd known we could have checked that area for rooms) that had fairly good food. Many places did a combo course of appetizer and/or dessert plus a main course, so for 25 euros it was okay.

In the morning, Wednesday, we trotted off to Carrowmore and with the customary few wrong turns (though not many) found Carrowmore just as it was opening. And it rained quite heavily while we were walking through the fields. Not as impressive of Newgrange, still I found it interesting and the number of graves brought such a sense of time and history. We finished in under two hours, soaked to our knees, so we changed in the bathroom and then drove on. (I forgot to remove my duplicats so a few pictures will look the same.)

Bushmills, Dunluce and Donegal, Ireland

Our day started with Kinbane, then Carrick-a-Rede, Giants Causeway and somehow we went on to Bushmills (the town & factory) for a tour. Why? I don't care for whiskey (Scotch is different), my sister's a celiac and can't touch any wheat product.

Although they've been making whiskey since 1675 and it was interesting on how they use bourbon, port and errr, one other type of barrel to age the stuff, and although we got a shot at the end of the tour (I also got my sister's)it was still kind of a waste of time. There really was nothing to take a picture of unless I wanted to do an article on whiskey making (and maybe I should have taken more). But I took no pictures and had my sister shoot this only picture of me in Ireland with the mega bottle of booze.

Ireland 2007--Bushmills, Dunluce Castle and Donegal

So we did the tour, and now it's getting late in the day, about 4:00 and we find our way to Dunluce Castle... to see them locking it up. It was perhaps our biggest regret. If we'd missed the Bushmills tour that we weren't that enthused about we would have had time to explore the castle. And this castle had a cave. How cool is that? Alas we could only peer from the locked gates.

Our last stop was driving on to Donegal town. The pictures of Donegal and the castle are actually from the next day as we arrived with enough time to do our usual. We popped into the Reel Inn, had a drink and asked the bartender to suggest some B&Bs. It also turned out they had live music that night. So we crossed the bridge right outside the door and not believing everything was so close, continued driving up the road, to realize we'd gone too far. We turned around and then found several B&Bs just down the road. We stayed at the Bridges.

These B&Bs are nothing fancy on the outside but quite large houses inside with usually 3-5 bedrooms and a large dining room. Bernie, our host, had two cute little kids (never met the husband) and there was only a common bathroom though many B&Bs have ensuites. My sister and I each had our own room which gave me a reprieve from her snoring. (It's funny that whenever I had to wake her in the middle of the night to try and get her to stop snoring, the first thing out of her mouth, even half asleep, was "I am not." Like I had nothing better to do in the dark of night.)Bernie also washed our clothes for a few Euros each. A very nice place to stay.

So that night we went off to find dinner (quiet on a Monday). Many pubs have dining rooms upstairs. We began to notice that service in Ireland is different than here. They'll serve you but never come back and you have to hunt down the waiter to get your bill or they'll literally let you sit forever. I don't remember the name of the place but I had a mediocre chicken curry with not a speck of vegetables. but true to form it was a huge portion on rice. I ate it all and then they brought me a megasize bowl of French fries! I didn't eat any, being quite full. But there was that Irish thing of potatoes.

We then wandered back to the Reel Inn for the music though we never got farther than a few feet inside the door. I won't relate the tale here again as you'll find it if you go back to the Oct. 2 entry. We staggered into bed, a short walk of a couple minutes from pub to B&B, at 3 am.