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Saturday, 17 May
We were sorry to leave our lovely cottage near the Galtee Mountains, home of my Gorman ancestors, but County Clare was calling so we headed west again - a scenic route via Lough Derg on the Shannon to avoid Limerick early morning traffic - to the wild Atlantic Coast, this time to the Cliffs of Moher. One of the iconic things they say you must see in Ireland, they certainly did not disappoint! Breathtakingly spectacular and also scary if you insist, as Ray did, on walking outside the barrier with the wind blowing a gale! We were disappointed not to see some puffins but it was after midday and they had all gone fishing.
From there we came north along the beautiful coastline with its surfing towns and little villages and farms running down to the water. And then came the rugged, carved out coastline and mountains known as the "Burren" - a vast area of ancient seabed, seemingly barren, strewn with boulders and cut through with crevices and caves, but with many wildflowers blooming in any nook or cranny. We hope to go walking tomorrow if the weather is clement....
Sunday 18 May
Our hostess at the B&B equipped us with a map to guide us through the Burren, the magical landscape which inspired Tolkein's descriptions in Lord of the Rings. The Burren, which means fertile rock, is actually an enormous area (240sq km) of karst limestone that was a seabed 340 million years ago and is now thrust high above the valleys in stark contrast to the green below. Nevertheless, it sustains an amazing variety of plants and animals and is divided into pastures by stone fences! Where it is not grazed, it is covered by temperate rain forest full of moss and ferns. Since the farmers only used it for winter pasturage, in summer it is covered in wild flowers. Here and there are turloughs or lakes which well up through the limestone cracks when the water table rises.
And everywhere there is evidence of long habitation by human kind: dolmens 5000 years old, ring forts from 5 to 7th centuries, remains of roman churches etc. It all goes to make you feel that our time on earth is but a blink.
Monday 19 May
Yesterday afternoon we came all the way east to Kildare, home of international horse studs and our B&B was right among them. We hoped to see some of the $3 million horses our host described but we only saw one this morning as we headed southeast towards the Wicklow Mountains and the monastic site of Glendalough. The setting of the latter is a beautiful Glen where there are 2 lakes, lower and upper so we had a delightful walk - no wonder the monks retreated from the world to such a lovely environment. After lunch, we drove up Glenmacross valley to the falls and across the top of the mountains through miles of beautiful but desolate bog country and back down Sally Pass with stunning views of another glen and more loughs. It is how we imagine Scotland to be.
We wanted to see the east coast so continued to Wicklow and southwards on the "coast" road - in name only as you cannot see the beach and in fact it seemed inaccessible except through gates! Ray wanted to go to Avoca aka Ballykissangel from the ABC series - he was sweet on the actress in the principal role! Unfortunately we were too late to go to the famous home weavers centre.
Tuesday 19 May
We hit Dublin's fair city where every other shop is owned by Molly Malone (joking) and went straight to Kilmainham Gaol and caught a tour almost immediately, since they seem to run them every quarter hour to meet the demand. The guide was excellent and the tour very interesting from a historical/political viewpoint as is the exhibition. Our next stop was the James Joyce Centre which was less satisfactory - they could do with a video presentation I think. We would like to find time to do the James Joyce walk about Dublin - we'll see. We topped off our day with a theatre outing to Oscar Wilde's play An Ideal Husband.
Our B&B for our last 3 nights in Ireland is perfectly chosen by Ray - bus outside to the city, 10 mins to the airport, walking distance of shops/pubs and our host was most informative probably because they have been running it 23 years now - the first one to open, he reckons.
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