Ireland day 12

     It was another blue sky, sunny day in Ireland.  We enjoyed the sunshine as we drove away from Galway and toward the Burren (Boireann in Irish, meaning "great rock"), an area of exposed limestone that has weathered in an unusual way.  They have named the series of rocks with criss-crossing cracks "grikes", and the isolated rocks created by the cracks "clints".  While nothing much can grow on the clints, there is plenty of vegetation in the grikes, and it is said that 75% of the wildflowers native to Ireland grow in the Burren.  From a distance, the limestone appears barren, as you may discern from a photo of a mountainside with one of the famine walls.

Famine wall in the Burren

     The blue skies here in Ireland just take your breath away.  This is one of the sunniest countries you can imagine.  We haven't had a drop of rain in days, it seems.  It's hard to understand why there are so many shirts for sale in the souvenir shops showing all four seasons as rainy, rainy, rainy, and rainy.

Dunguaire Castle

     On our drive today, we saw so many ruins of old castles, abbeys, and forts that it would take several days to describe them all.  Dunguaire Castle, for example, was built in 1520 by the O'Hynes clan atop a rock outcropping on the shores of Galway Bay.  Ballyportry Castle (below) is a complete Medieval Gaelic tower house built in the 15th century, which has been completely restored.  It has six bedrooms and three bathrooms, and the current owners will be glad to have you and your friends spend a couple of nights here for 1400 euros during the summer.  If you have an extra $1,8000.00 or so lying around, we would love to have you impress us with such a stay.

Ballyportry Castle

     Our travels along the back roads led us to the most magnificent stretch of coastline in the country, the Cliffs of Moher.  Rising vertically more than 600 feet above the sea, these sheer cliffs take your breath away--particularly if you are brave enough to climb over the fence, crawl up to the edge, and look straight down at nothing but blue water.  Erosion of the rock far below results in a sort of ledge effect, and you can't see the side of the cliff without jumping off.  We do not recommend this practice.  Atop one area of the cliffs is O'Brien's tower, built in 1835 by a local landlord as a viewing area for the visitors who were, even then, flocking to the area to see these cliffs.

O'Brien's Castle atop the Cliffs of Moher

     To give you some perspective of the scene, O'Brien's castle is pictured below, atop one of the cliffs in the background.  A foot or so behind us the grim reaper awaits.

At the Cliffs of Moher

     Heading back east, we visited the Poulnabrone Portal tomb, constructed of limestone slabs more than 5,000 years ago.  On the Burren's karst landscape, archaeologists have discovered the remains of more than 30 people on this site, and tools and other implements date it to between 4,200 and 2,900 B.C.  Stonehenge, you remember is dated as far back as 2,300 B.C.  Perhaps if the Irish would surround the Poulnabrone Portal with as much mystery as Stonehenge, more tourists would flock to the site.  But then again, why would they choose Poulnabrone over the many other Irish sites that date back to the neolithic age?

Poulnabrone Portal

     We can't resist the temptation to leave you with just one more of the many castles we saw along the roads in Ireland.

Lemaneh Castle

     The multi-gabled manor house, Lemaneh Castle, was built in 1648 by an infamous woman known as Red Mary, for her flaming red tresses, and her second husband, Conor O'Brien.  The unexplained death of her first husband at a young age left her with a substantial estate and a pile of cash, which she and Conor used to build the most magnificent structure in the area at the time.  Conor made the mistake of joining the fight against Cromwell's army, and was killed in battle.  Red Mary, reading the tea leaves, could see her fine estate being seized by the English in retribution for her husband's foolishness, so she took a Cromwellian soldier to be her husband, and lived happily ever after.  The castle, unfortunately, has not fared so well over the last 350 years, as you can see from the photo.


     After a drive all the way across the country, we arrived in Dublin, where we have checked in at the Westin.  We covered 1828 kilometers in our Skoda using less than two small tanks of fuel, and are ready to see the sights here.  We met a Canadian couple at dinner tonight; the husband told us how much he loved to visit the U.S. and put a lot of one dollar bills in his billfold.  That way he could pretend to have a lot of money and be almost absolutely broke.  Little did he know what a lecture that comment would provoke.  If you would like to know how crazy it is to continue printing dollar bills, give me a call in a few days, and I will be happy to tell you.


     The dinner was nice, but we were disappointed (at least, one of us was disappointed) to learn the restaurant was out of the Bailey's & brown bread ice cream.  It almost made you want to order a double of the Tia Maria flavor to make up for the loss.  But one of the other people at our table for two gave a look that spoke volumes and I only had one scoop of it.  If you are ever eating at the Millstone Restaurant in Dublin, you really should try the Tia Maria ice cream; and if there is dry ice available, I'll pay to have you ship back some Bailey's & brown bread.

Charlie and Tricia

© 2012