Pam McMahon
I've enjoyed Meg and Cary's travel journals over the years and am going to attempt something similar for our upcoming trip to Ireland. As a total novice at maintaining an online journal, I have no idea how this will turn out. We'll see how it goes.
Each star on the attached map represents the sequence of our destinations. We plan to stay two, three or four nights in each location and take day trips to the various outlying sights.
Both Lee and I read The Princes of Ireland (me for the second time) recently. That book chronicles the history of Ireland from the 5th century until the Irish Free State was establised in 1922. It,along with a wonderful family history provided by cousin John and others, is a great launch for the trip.
1. We spend five nights in Dublin: two days are free-to-roam, do pub crawls and visit the sites of Dublin, while two days are devoted to day trips to Newgrange/Hill of Tara to view the ancient burial sites and to the Wicklow Mountains. This leg of our journey will be the extent of our time on the East Coast of Irelend; the remaining time will be spent traveling through the interior, on the West Coast and on the southern tip.
2. During our time in County Offaly (interior), we will be visiting the remains of Ballymacoolaghan, the (then) town from which four Mahon brothers (including my great-grandfather, James Mahon) emigrated to the United States in the 1860s.
3. Then it's off to Galway to enjoy the seaport atmosphere and take in the sites of the Cliffs of Moher, Birr Castle and the Brian Boru Heritage Center. It's reported that the Mahon family in the Ballymacoolaghn area descended from Brian Boru's brother, Mahon, whose family ultimately resided in the same area. Who knows about these things, but there does seem to be some evidence to support, at least.
4. We are very excited about visiting the Dingle Peninsula. Although daughter, Kate, and her husband, Mike, found it a little lacking in "action", Rick Steves gave a wonderful account of it in one of his videos and we think it will be to our liking.
5. In order to make it to Lond for our planned five-day stay, we have only one night in Kenmare and then it's off to Cork, where we return our car and fly to London. Both of us recently read "Apart from the Crowd" by Anna McPartlin, which takes place in Kenmare and peaked our interest in the area.
More about London, later. I want to see how this turns out!
