First Days in Ireland

I spent the first day in Dublin. This was a pretty building I passed on the way to Dublin castle.

 

 Dublin castle was built in the 13th century with many later modifications, but still shows the Norman style it was based on.

 

 

 

I just walked around the grounds and the gardens.

 

The gardens in back are pretty, but full of all the traditional annual plants that you see everwhere.

 

This is a glass snail in the garden.

 

I spent the day walking round.

 

In the evening the light was pretty.

I especially like what it did to this James Joyce statue.

 

 

IT looks more like this during the day.

 

The next day on August 22, I went on a tour to the cliffs of Moher.  The bus drove by this hospital.

 

Our first stop was at Kilmacduagh Monastery. This was a really cool set of monastic buildings established by St. Colman in the 7th century.  It is near a town called Gort.



It had lovely ruins, and Celtic grave stones, and a 12th-century round tower.  
 


The monastery was destroyed by William de Burgh in the 13th century.
 
  

 

 

After the monastery we then headed over toward the cliffs of Moher.  Onthe way we passed the blooming heath.  I am fascinated by heather and it makes the countryside beautifully colorful.



Our guide was a good story teller, so he entertained us on the way to the cliffs by telling us about Irish history and culture. He also showed us piles of peat and thatched roof houses.  Of course I couldn't get a very good shot, because of the rain, but here is a fuzzy shot.

 

 Below is a house I saw later.

Unfortunately we had total fog, so when we got to the cliffs it was pretty difficult to see much more than the outline.  There was a museum that told about the history and there wre lots of pictures like the one below.

 

Here is what I actually saw.

 

We hung out a bit, but vivibility didn't get any better, so pretty soon we boarded the bus again. Passing fields we could see livestock and sheep.

 

Our next stop was the Burren, where there is a series of unusually shaped karst rocks and across the water was views of the Aran Islands and Twelve Bens mountain range. 

 

Photos really don't do these rocks justice.

 

 

 

We boarded the bus and watched the landscape pass by on the way to Galway.

 

 

 We also passed by Dunguaire Castle, as well as the villages of Kinvara, Ballyvaughan, and Kilfenora.  

 

And of course also passed by more sheep.

 

 

Our guide told this that this was the smallest castle int he world and that a Leprachaun lived there. (It is about 7 feet tall.

 Here was a building we passed on the way to Galway.

Galway is famous for these black fishing boats called hookers.There is also an ale named after these boats and of course when we were let out to explore the city, we were told to go enjoy a Galway hooker.

 

I di find some things to buy in Galway, because I wanted to buy aran goods since I was in the land of the Aran.  Here are some painted buildings in Galway.

 

On the floor above there is this woman painted in the window, that I just really took a shine to.

I also saw a leprachaun  in Galway!