Final installment — The Rest of the Trip — to the south, the west and back again.
Lots of pictures today, to finish up my photo diary of my trip to Ireland.
We rode the same little plane back to Dublin from the Isle of Man and picked up our rental car at the airport. If I thought the airplane was small, the rental car gave new meaning to the word! It was a Nissan Micra, and it looked like a Volkswagon Beetle that had shrunk in the damp Irish air! We were packed in so tightly there wasn’t a bit of extra room for anything more…and this was not the smallest class of rental car available — I can’t even imagine what the smallest one would have looked like 
!
We took off from the Dublin airport in our tiny car around 2:00PM on Friday afternoon, and we had to drive all the way to the south of Ireland, to a small town outside of Cork called Carrigaline. Driving on the left side of the road, from the right side of the car was a new experience for me! We encountered heavy weekend traffic and our progress was slow. And guess what — they do LOTS of road construction in Ireland this time of year as well! We needed to make it to the boys’ concert by 8:00PM, and even though we thought we had plenty of time, we cut it pretty close. We arrived with about 5 minutes to spare. Once again, we were rewarded for our efforts by a supreme concert! The church was crowded, and the audience extremely appreciative and responsive. Here are the boys singing, and some candid shots I took after the concert.
We stayed at a very nice Bed and Breakfast that night, overlooking the Bandon River, near the town of Kinsale. Unfortunately, it was late and dark when we arrived, and foggy when we got up, so we didn’t get to enjoy the full effect of the view. We had another busy day ahead of us, as we planned to travel up to the west coast of Ireland. Here are some of the sights we took in throughout our travels that day.
Once off the main motorways in Ireland, the roads become very tight. We felt as if we were driving through green tunnels because of the dense vegetation that grew on either side of the narrow, winding roads. I also remarked that it was like playing one of those video games my kids have…the racing ones, where you never know what to expect around the next bend in the road!
One advantage of driving yourself (vs. taking a tour bus) is that when you see something that piques your interest, you can stop and take a closer look. I have no idea what this building is (or used to be) but I had to stop and take a picture of it!
The stone wall you see at the bottom of the picture above is a very common sight along the roads and in the fields of Ireland. Nowhere will you see wooden fence posts or barbed wire. Just imagine the amount of time it took to construct all of these intricate stone walls!
We were also very impressed by the gigantic rhododendron plants that grew wildly throughout the Irish woodlands. Later we were to learn that the common rhododendron is considered a nuisance plant in this part of the country. It grows so well that it covers the forest understory and prevents the larger trees (oaks are the predominant native species) from reproducing. Still — they are lovely, expecially when in full bloom.
Our first “planned” stop of the day was at the Muckross House, in county Kerry. It is an Irish country estate that has been donated to the Irish government along with about 40,000 acres of land. It was spectacular, both the house and the grounds! The house and surrounding lands make up the largest national park area in Ireland.
Muckross house: (picture taking inside was not allowed)
The view from Muckross house:
One spectacular oak tree:
I wanted to take it home with me:
Not too far from Muckross house was another fascinating example of Ireland’s history — Ross Castle:
Our travels this day brought us through many small Irish towns and villages. The thing that continually impressed us was how attractive they all were. Every single one had a town center that looked like this — Every single one!
And street musicians continued to be a common sight as well:
After a long but interesting day, we finally arrived at our next B & B. We spent another night overlooking a river — this time the Shannon River. We were lucky enough to wake up to sunny skies, so I got a nice picture of the river from our bedroom window. The field between the house and river was occupied by a herd of cows. NOISY cows. You can’t see many of them in this picture, but the previous evening there were probably 30 cows in the field, and some of them were mooing loudly and frequently. It was unusually entertaining! (You had to be there.)
We started the day by crossing the Shannon River on a car ferry. It was about a 15 minute crossing. Our car in the one in the center, just behind the red car.
We had two main objectives for our day — get to the Cliffs of Moher, on the west (Atlantic) coast of Ireland, and then make our way back to the east (Irish Sea) coast to the town of Dundalk for the final Land of Lakes Choirboy concert in Ireland. We accomplished both, with a little more time to spare than we had for the previous concert we attended. Here are my pictures of the Cliffs of Moher — they are absolutely BREATHTAKING!
We were happy for the sunshine…but it was very windy!
Do I look like a tourist, or what? Just look at all those cameras dangling from around my neck 
.
This next picture may not look like much, but if you look closely, you will see that this is a GOLF COURSE! It sure doesn’t look like any of the golf courses I am used to around here! What an inhospitable place it appears to be (to me, anyway…but there were plenty of people out playing on the course!)
Here are the boys singing in Dundalk. There is a funny story about finding the church they were singing at. All we knew was the name of the church — St. Nickolas’ Church. So when we got to Dundalk, we stopped to ask someone how to find it. It turns out there are TWO St. Nickolas’ churches in Dundalk! Luckily, they were near each other, so once we located them, we could easily tell which one was hosting the concert (the one with all the people at it, naturally!)
Afterwards I got my last chance to see the boys before they left for France and the rest of their tour, and I headed home. They are having a wonderful experience with this tour, as you can see by their smiles. I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to share part of that experience with them. Saying goodbye to them was not as hard as I thought it would be. They will be back home in two weeks. I look forward to hearing about the rest of their tour adventures in France and Germany!
It actually didn’t take any arm-twisting to get them to give me these good-bye kisses 
.
We spent one more night and day in Ireland after the boys left. We decided on our last night in Ireland we simply *must* try Guiness, since it is the quintessential Irish brew. This picture pretty much sums up our reaction to it:
For those of you who have never experienced Guiness — it tastes like burnt beer. Here is Terry giving it a try — in one hand she is holding a glass of Guiness, in the other a Carlsburg. Guess which one she liked better 
!
Two more pictures, and then my story is complete (except for the missing luggage, but I will spare you that saga). I took this picture because I liked the contrast of old and new it portrays. This “gate” is the remnant of some medieval castle, but it is surrounded now by modern streets and buildings. This is all that is left of what was apparently once a rather impressive and mighty structure. Look for the motorcycle passing through the gate – it seems somewhat ironic to me.
And finally, a last look at the Irish fields of green (this is the same picture I am currently using as my background, so it will blend in):
Farewell to Ireland — I’ll always keep a little piece of you in my heart. 
~~~Leah~~~
)
.
Recent Comments