The Famine Walls

Visitors to southwest Ireland notice the rock walls everywhere - obviously dividing land into sections and keeping cattle and sheep fenced in.

But these walls are called "famine walls."  The older ones were built for two purposes: first to clear the land of rocks so the land could be used and secondly, during the potato famine of the early 1800's,  churches and landlords paid men to build these - mostly in food - so men could keep their pride about working.

Driving in Ireland

We noticed that a lot of cars have scrapes and dents down the passenger side! (See earlier pictures of narrow roads if any clarification is needed).  I tried to get a picture....although this is one of the less damaged cars we saw.

And then our tour went through a small town where large buses have to make a sharp left turn - and the infamous "red wall" is in the way.  Look closely at all the dents and gouges in the wall.  Our guide says all they do is just repaint it.....

But in happier news, we saw two rare antique roadsters -- an Austin-Healey and a vintage Jaguar. Quite a sight!

Calling all singles!

I have it on the best authority (our guide Rory) that the best matchmaking in the world happens every year at the little Irish town of Lisdoonvarna. Every September!

More Irish food

We got to try real Irish Beef and Barley Stew!  We were in a little town called Doolin on our tour - and the stew was amazing.

And yes, that is a big serving of mashed potatoes in the middle - Gordy was thrilled!

I had to try Fish and Chips several times (look at the size of these chips), always served with the traditional "mushy peas".

I wasn't so much a fan of this version of mushy peas, but the fish and chips were great.

Cliffs of Moher

Our full last day in Ireland was reserved for the Cliffs of Moher. First a view of King John's Castle in the morning light....

Then we were off to the Cliffs. We let the bus driver do the driving today (Paddywagon Tours). The Cliffs are amazing!

We also got to see a place up the coast that our guide called the burren.  According to Google, this is a region of County Clare in southwest Ireland that is a "karst landscape of bedrock."  Basically, it is this huge section of flat rock right on the coast - it was an amazing place to watch the waves beat against the rocky coast. 

Around Limerick

So after two days of driving, we were glad to be able to walk around a bit. We are staying in Limerick (sorry, I couldn't come up with a cute limerick). We took a walk around town and found a little cafe for a late lunch. Being one of the few humans on the planet who actually likes liver, I was thrilled.

We walked down the Shannon River (the longest river in Ireland apparently) and found King John's Castle. This 13th century castle was built by King John, the less popular brother of Richard the Lionheart.

We also walked by a beautiful old church.

Calming traffic

Finally got a picture to prove it!

Cong Abbey

The town of Cong does have some historic ruins. The first Abbey was built in the seventh century. Although fire and war has destroyed those early structures, these ruins appear to date from the early thirteenth century and are supposed to be good examples of early gothic architecture.

And, in other news, Ireland passed the Dr. Pepper test!

Kylemore Abbey And Cong

After a wonderful Irish breakfast (I had porridge), we headed out to find Kylemore Abbey.  Unfortunately, the Irish rain gods were done being nice to us and it was pouring! My new raincoat suddenly was worth the purchase. We got a picture of the Abbey, but I wasn't interested in exploring the gardens in the rain! So this was as close as we got. 

We now were headed to the town of Cong, home of Ashford Castle and filming location for the John Wayne movie "The Quiet Man". (Nope, I haven't seen it either).  We had a bit of GPS issues as our GPS decided to send us the back way, as in the REALLY back way!!

So the little town of Cong is really proud of this 1952 movie, as evidenced by the statue and cafe. 

Good night from somewhere near Connemara

What a meal!

You have to have reservations to eat at the hotel's restaurant- it fills quickly, in fact, I made ours three weeks ago! But what a meal - it is a four course meal -and very attentive service!

Second course -- our appetizers:

And the main course, roast duck for Gordy and pork for me.  It was all amazing!

Ballynahinch Castle Hotel

We did make it to our castle/hotel -Ballynahinch Castle. Their picture is better than I could get,

We arrived early, so we took a walk around the lake - they have several nature walks.

We met two Irish moms taking their six kids out for a walk. We must have impressed them because they said they were going to tell everyone about the "two yanks" they met hiking the trail!

Roads!

Ok, so we rented a very small car.....why, you say.....because we had heard that the roads were narrow here!

We actually had some nice highways for awhile....they even had center lines! But then, we ran out of luck. You know it's bad when they don't paint lines....and staying on the left is irrelevant.

And they went downhill from there, although technically this was uphill!

We head north to Galway

We left our hotel in Limerick this morning to see the countryside. We headed our little car north....remembering to stay on the left!  My driver does a pretty good job! Please note our tiny car - this will become important later!

We headed first to Galway and stopped for coffee at a nice location on the coast.