Almost over...

So today is my second to last full day in Ireland, and leaving will be bittersweet.  Part of me will be glad to be back; part of me wants to stay here and find a way to live year-round in Ballyvaughan.  This will be my last post until I get back to the States - tomorrow is set for apartment cleaning and shopping for a dinner party that Dee Dee is throwing.

Here are some more random shots of the flora (ha ha! Betsy!) and fauna around Ballyvaughan.

our upstairs neighbor Christy and Bella, his rescue greyhound

Leapy, Christy's other dog chilling in front of our fireplace

flowers and rock wall in front of our apartment

my alarm clock every morning, the cows in the field next door

rebels that we are, Dee Dee and I drove up a walking path to the top of one of the limestone mountains.  I was terrified, thinking that we weren't going to be able to get down.  I think Dee Dee enjoyed my fear...but we made it back.  And had wine with lunch.

bonus to treacherous mountain pass = views like this, the Caher River coming out of the mountains and down to the sea

boulder left perched precariously by wind and the last ice age

More pictures to follow from my last full day (Wednesday) as well as the trip back to Shannon for the flight home.  I am making Dee Dee stop at Clare Abbey for some pictures on the way to the airport.  Next post will be from Charlotte...sigh.  Why do vacations have to end?

The value of vacation

One of the greatest things that I have learned on this holiday is to take the time to appreciate the little things.  It doesn't matter to me about how many places I have managed to see while I've been in Ireland, but it does matter that I have gotten to know a small portion of Ireland fairly well. 

So here are random shots of some of the beautiful things I have gotten to see on a regular basis for the last few weeks.

Black Head lighthouse

cloud shadows on Aillwee

Finavarra House ruins

stained glass window at Galway Cathedral

Drumcreehy, a medieval parish church not far from Ballyvaughan

a rare sunny day view from the coast road - just look at the color of the water...amazing

up the mountain

view of Cnoc an Bhoirnin across Loch Muiri

a scotch thistle in Ireland?

a martello tower, 1812-16, built during Napoleonic wars to protect Ireland from invasion

Castles and castles and more castles

Those of you me know me know that I am obsessed with castles (and with the Middle Ages in general.)  So I have been looking for the medieval history in Ireland and kind of ignoring the modern.  Maybe next trip...


Anyway, the big fairy tale-looking castles that one might associate with the Middle Ages aren't where we are in Ireland.  When the Anglo-Normans started to invade Ireland in the early 12th century, they brought their large scale stone castle building with them - before them, the Irish had fortified ringforts.  And since the Anglo-Normans came from England and France, the bulk of the large castles are in the east of Ireland. 


In County Clare - on the west coast - we have lots of tower houses, which are L-shaped compact fortified stone houses with usually more than one level.  Here are a few that we've seen so far.

Gleninagh Castle

Gleninagh Castle, 16th century, overlooking Galway Bay

Well of the Holy Cross, right next to the castle

interior of tower at Gleninagh



Leamaneh Castle

Leamaneh has two parts to it - the tower on the right is from the 15th century while the house was added alongside in 1648. 

Dunguaire Castle

Dunguaire Castle in Kinvarra, built in 1520

view of Kinvarra from atop Dunguaire Castle (sorry for the crappy weather but hey, it's Ireland)

the woman who purchased Dunguaire in the 60's made herself a nice little nest on the top floor of the castle.  This would be my idea of heaven.

Newtown Castle

our very own castle at the Burren College of Art, Newtown Castle is a lovingly restored 16th century tower

Newtown is open to the public M-F and the school often has exhibits inside

Dingle in a day

Dee Dee and I earned our legitimate "crazy American" status on August 5.  We drove from Ballyvaughan to Kilrush, where we were going to spend the night, but arrived too early to check into our lodgings.  So we decided to push on to see the Dingle peninsula.  Rick Steves, who has written a fantastic travel guide to Ireland, said that if you only had time to do either the Ring of Kerry or the Dingle peninsula, do Dingle.  Of course, he advised that the trip should take a full day.  We did Dingle in 3 hours.

Here's the mileage:

Ballyvaughan to Kilrush - 70 km
Kilrush to Dingle (including a ferry ride over the Shannon) - 108 km
Dingle peninsula loop - 47 km
Dingle back to Kilrush (with the ferry again) - 108 km
total: 333 km, or roughly 207 miles

This may not seem so bad but we did it going about an average of 40-45 miles per hour.   So this blog is entitled Dingle in a Day but it could also be called Trial by Fire on How to Drive in Ireland on Every Imaginable Type of Road. Did I mention that I drove the whole way?

Dingle is the main town on the Dingle peninsula, and it's a lot like Annapolis in high summer, so we didn't bother to take pictures while we sat in traffic trying to get the hell out of town.  The Dingle loop is a small road that skirts the peninsula...mountains (and lots of sheep) on your right and breathtaking views of cliffs and the Atlantic Ocean on your left. 

Garraun Point on the Dingle peninsula 

Great Blasket Island and the ferry from Dingle

Most of the loop had a one lane road like this.  The dotted yellow line to the right is a pull off spot so tourists like us can take pictures.  If another car came by going the other direction, you both slowed to a crawl and narrowly inched by one another without falling off a cliff or jamming your car into a rock wall.  Good times.

rocks off of Slea Head, the western-most point in Ireland

view coming up from Tralee to the Dingle peninsula

quintessential Dingle: mountains, ocean, farms, lovely shades of green, and rock walls

I would have taken more pictures, but Dee Dee refused to let me stop.  This is the one time I got to stop and take a picture or two (and we stopped only because she had to pee.)  So this is a very windblown me about half way through the loop. 

there were people swimming on this beach.  I think they might be crazy. Notice the cool cave to the left of the beach...

Since I was driving, I forced Dee Dee to go look at at least one medieval church.  This is the Gallarus Oratory, built about 1000 AD by monks.  It's one of the last beehive structures to be built in this area; the rest are mostly in ruins.

Finally back in Kilrush at Crotty's Pub, where Dee Dee and I hung out with the Locals (hi Roy!) and developed a fondness for Jameson's

Kilfenora cathedral and Corcomroe abbey

I may be crazy by putting these two places together on this blog because I took well over 100 photos between the two sites.  Those of you that I will subject to a slide show when I get home can see all the photos, but here are some of my best from each site.

Kilfenora

Kilfenora is a larger town than Ballyvaughan and only a few minutes drive away.  But it's somehow smaller and quieter - there is no summer crowd in Kilfenora.  It looks and feels like a depressed town.  But they had a really cool cathedral called St. Fachtnan's that was built around 1190.  Yay, a medieval church!

St. Fachtnan (or St. Fachtna - both spellings are common) started a monastery in Kilfenora in the 6th century.  This is likely a portrait of him.

large Irish cross and the view from Kilfenora

apse window of Kilfenora cathedral.  The original church was wooden and was repeatedly burnt during raids; this stone version was rebuilt and has fared a little better.  No roofs on these stone buildings usually meant wooden roofs that were destroyed long ago. 

Doorty cross, 11th-12th century.  One side has the Christ figure, the other St. Fachtnan. 

Corcomroe Abbey

Corcomroe Abbey is a 12th century Cistercian community set in the middle of an isolated and quiet valley in the Burren that was in use for 400 years (until 1628.)  An older gentleman that I met at Greene's the night before we went to Corcomroe told me to give myself plenty of time to enjoy the place...he was right.  It's magical.

exterior view of the abbey.  Notice we had SUNSHINE!!!

entrance and front windows

apse and rib vaulting - very excited to see actual Romanesque rib vaulting in person and not just from a book

good shot of two capitals, one with fleur de lis (Dee Dee was very excited to see that)

tomb effigy of King Conor na Siudaine Ua Briain, an Irish cheiftain, from 1267.  His grandfather founded the abbey.  And yes, I touched all over this.

Ringforts and a wedge tomb

Ireland has more ringforts than anywhere else in Europe.  Ringforts are stone encampments used primarily in the Iron Age  (800 BC to about 500 AD) but some examples can be found in the early Middle Ages (up to about 1000 AD.) The wedge tomb is much older. I like these thingys...like it better when I can crawl around in them.  Here are a couple that we've seen so far:

Caherconnell ringfort - 8.3.2011

Caherconnell is an exceptionall large ringfort built in around 900-1000 AD.

There's an archaeological class here for a couple of weeks in the summer; this year they are excavating a section of the ringfort where livestock was kept.  (I know what I want to do next summer...I am serious!) 

This was an interior dividing wall at Caherconnell so you didn't have to sleep with your sheep.  Unless you wanted to, of course...

Cahercommaun triple ringfort - 8.9.2011

Cahercommaun was a 1 km hike from the tiny road that ran from Carron to Kilnaboy in the heart of the Burren.  It's a hillfort, which means one side of the fort faces a hill, and it has 3 rings.  And I totally climbed all over it, which was fun!

a view from atop the inner wall over the valley below 

view of the hill that makes up one side of the Cahercommaun ringfort (so it's essentially D-shaped)

Poor Dee Dee.  I keep dragging her to all these remote ringforts...at least she documents when I break the law and sidle over barriers to sniff around the interior of the inner ring.

I got to climb around on this megalithic wedge tomb called Parknabinnia.  Pretty cool to actually touch a piece of ancient history.