Doolin and the Cliffs of Moher

After leaving Galway we headed for Limerick via Doolin Cave and the Cliffs of Moher.

Doolin Cave was discovered in 1952 by two English caving enthusiasts but didn't open to the public until 2006. At just over 7 metres, it is the longest free hanging stalactite in the Northern Hemisphere and is quite impressive when illuminated. There are 120 steps to get down into the cave and surprisingly the same number to get back out!  Phew!

It was overcast and a bit drizzly on the way but we had reasonably good views of the Cliffs of Moher when we got there. However, within 20 minutes this was all we could see and then it started to rain........so we headed for the coffee shop.

The following day we did a tour of King John's Castle, which is on the River Shannon in Limerick. The castle is 13th century and only opened in June this year after extensive redevelopment.  While the castle was built on the order of King John (as in the brother of Richard the Lionheart), he never visited the castle and certainly never lived here.

And this is Daniel wenching it up in the kids area.........

.........and a couple of Rumbles defending the castle!

Dingle Peninsula

We thought Connemara had breathtaking scenery......and then we travelled the Dingle Peninsula! These are a couple of photos we took on the way from Limerick to Dingle.

We stayed in a little stone cottage at a place called Ballybeag which is just outside the town of Dingle. It also had a couple of cats in residence!

The next few photos show more of the beautiful scenery around Dingle. These ones were taken on the coastal Slea Head Drive we did of the western part of the Peninsula.

Along the way we also visited Dunbeg Fort which is a stone promontory fort built about 500BC.

And Kilmalkedar Church which was built in the 12th century. There are some very interesting carvings in this church, some of them pagan rather than Christian.

We also did another drive, this one of Conor Pass which took us to the northern part of the Peninsula.

We have no idea what the stone enclosure in this paddock is but it was visible from the viewing area at the top of Conor Pass.

One of the most fun things we did was a two hour fishing trip.  Between us we caught more than 40 fish - mostly mackerel and some pollock! Don't underestimate the strength required to reel in a 2 kilo fish!

Afterwards we took our catch to a local pub where they cooked it up for dinner. Needless to say none of us has eaten any fish since that feast! Our fishing trip ended on a high note with an acrobatic display by Fungi, Dingle's resident dolphin!

Our real taste of Irish culture came on our last night in Dingle when we went to a concert of traditional folk music at St James' Church.  This tiny church has become a Mecca for emerging musicians and every year the church is the venue for a concert series called Other Voices which is broadcast on the BBC.  In 2006, Amy Winehouse performed on the stage you can see in this photo.  The night we went, the three local performers were Riona O'Madigain, John Brown and Eoin Duignan. It was great!

Beautiful Connemara

While based in Galway we did a couple of drives north to Connemara. The scenery was quite breathtaking!

This is Aimee and Daniel on a strip of beach at Ballynahown which is just north of Galway city.

These few photos show Connemara in all her splendour!

And another!

This is a castle we stumbled upon. It is just outside the town of Clifden and was built in the 19th century by a local landlord who ran out of money so it was never finished!

The above and the next photo are taken from the Skyroad which is a drive to do through Clifden.

 

This is my favourite.

This is a photo of Clifden - it's a bit like Mittagong or maybe Bowral!

We also visited Kylemore Abbey on one of our Connemara drives. Kylemore Abbey was originally built by a wealthy local family which lost their fortune in the early 1900's and had to sell.  Some entrepreneurial Benedictine nuns from Ypres in Belgium bought the property just after the First World War and turned it into a school for girls. The school recently closed but the grounds (which include a walled garden, church and lake) and parts of the abbey are all open to the public. I'm pretty sure the crafty nuns are sitting on an absolute tourism gold mine........

Galway and the Aran Islands

Galway is one of our favourite cities in Ireland. This is the view of Galway Bay we had from our apartment.

We packed a lot into the time we had in Galway, including a visit to Ashford Castle, the home of the Ashford School of Falconry. We did a drive around Connemara on the same day but I'll tell you about that separately.

At the falconry school we got to spend the morning with Beckett the Harris Hawk and his falconer, Tommy! One of us got very personally acquainted with Beckett.

It was great fun and we learned heaps, including that 'under the thumb', 'wrapped around your little finger' and 'fed up' are all phrases that come from falconry!

This is us in front of Ashford Castle! Before getting this shot we had to wait for a Coco Cola van to cross the little bridge which you can see in front of the castle. The castle is actually a very luxurious hotel and while we couldn't afford to stay there we could afford a trip to the Aran Islands.

Thanks to Daniel's super sleuthing we booked a tour with a local operator named Michael Faherty. He was born and bred on Inishmore (the larger of the three Aran Islands) so he knew heaps about the area and the people. The locals speak Gaelic but thankfully Michael did the tour in english! The photo above shows the walk up to Dun Aenghus fort, a prehistoric ring fort on Inishmore, which sits at the edge of a 100 metre high cliff. Inishmore is about a 45 minute ferry ride from the mainland.

This is Aimee, taking a photo of Daniel, who is standing at the top of the fort. Being this close to the edge is not for the faint hearted! The following shows the view from the top of the cliff toward the sea.

There are three main industries on the Aran islands - fishing, farming and tourism.  It is hard to fathom how anyone can farm here when most of the landscape looks like this!

But you do see the occasional sheep or cow as well as miles and miles of stone fences. Michael also told us that the vegetables grown on the island have a very distinctive flavour. This is because the islanders have to build up the soil with lots and lots of seaweed.

We also visited a site known as the Seven Churches (even though technically speaking there were only ever two churches there). The site, which includes a cemetery, dates to the 8th century. The cemetery is still in use and it is tradition in this part of Ireland for the family of the deceased to dig the grave. Elsewhere in Ireland we found signs indicating that only registered grave diggers could dig a grave!

Another thing we learned on the island is that there is a Dwyer Aran knit pattern! The Dwyer sweater has a moss filled diamond central panel flanked by cable and honeycomb stitches. The diamonds represent a wish for wealth! The Moss stitch is symbolic of nature and the honeycomb symbolises work. Each design is unique to a family and the different patterns were developed to help identify any family, mainly fishermen, who were lost at sea.

And this is what you do at the end of a hard day - have a Smithwicks and wait for the ferry home!

Northern Ireland

After picking up a car we headed to the next stop on our Irish getaway - Belfast.  After having some initial reservations about being in Northern Ireland, we felt surprisingly safe. The first afternoon we walked to the Botanic gardens and saw a very cute but very shy red squirrel. 

The next day we did an organised tour to the Giants Causeway, driving along the beautiful Antrim Coast.

The Irish believe that the Causeway was built by a giant named Finn MacCool who needed a way to get to Scotland to fight another giant, named Benandonner. Trust the Irish to come up with a plausible explanation!

Aimee stopped off to give Mel a call for her birthday while we were there!

Daredevils Daniel and Stephen walked across Carrick-a-Rede bridge which spans about 20 metres and is 30 metres above the ground. The bridge links the mainland with the tiny island of Carrickarede and was mainly used by salmon fisherman. Now it's used by tourists - and lots of them!

A very sobering thing we did in Belfast was a bus tour of the peace walls and political murals. It is hard to believe that in 2013 people still live behind a 30 metre high wall as a way of 'keeping the peace'. Some roads are physically blocked off each evening. Just after we left Belfast there were road closures (including the motorway) because of bomb threats!

Northern Ireland is hard to comprehend. Some people are staunch supporters of the Queen and English rule and others want a free Ireland. Irrespective of their differences we found the people of Belfast welcoming and friendly. Hopefully, time will heal their troubles.

Bobby Sands was a member of the IRA who considered himself a politcal prisoner when imprisoned for allegedly being involved in a gun battle with the royalist army. He died in 1981 while on a hunger strike. He was 27 years old. These murals are on Falls Road in Belfast.

On the flip side, we drank in some very cool pubs. The best one was The Crown, which has snugs and the most beautiful stained glass windows.  It is actually owned by the National Trust. We missed the opportunity of taking a photo from the outside as scaffolding went up the day after! Note the pints of Smithwicks (pronounced Smithicks).

We also saw the largest Celtic cross in Ireland which happens to be is at St Anne's Cathedral.  The stained glass windows are not bad either.