Our hotel in Dublin was near the American Embassy. It also had a Bentley out front when we arrived – a classic version that would have belonged to a collector. We went for a short walk in the area before dinner to get acclimated and gave the car the once-over when we returned while trying not to get so close that the owner would get upset.
The next day we visited St Patrick’s Cathedral first thing in the morning. It was founded in 1191. Jonathan Swift, author of “Gulliver’s Travels” was its Dean in the 1700s. The guided morning tour included Phoenix Park, which has the residence of the President of Ireland, the official residence of the US Ambassador to Ireland, a zoo, and a huge cross erected to commemorate when Pope John Paul II visited. There is also a small castle and a fort. After the park, we took a tour of the Guinness Brewery. I downed Mom’s sample as well as my own.
We were dropped off by Trinity College for lunch (those of us who wanted to stay in the main part of Dublin instead of returning to our hotel). Mom and I wanted to see the Book of Kells. The most widely accepted origination story is that it was the monks on Iona in Scotland who began the book and then carted it off to Kells when Iona was being raided by the Vikings. It is a gorgeously illustrated version of the first four gospels of the New Testament of the Bible that is thought to have been created around the late 6th century through the early 9th century AD. We weren’t exactly the only people who wanted to see the Book of Kells. The line snaked its way for quite some time before we were able to get a quick glimpse.
On the way back to the hotel, we went through Merrion Square (which used to be residential) and found a statue of Oscar Wilde in the garden of the square. Apparently he once lived in one of the houses there. The houses were all offices by the time we visited in 2005.
The following day we started off at the Irish National Stud. Despite all of the interesting things that could come to mind, it is where thoroughbred race horses are bred and trained in County Kildare. It had once been the private property of a wealthy Scot who gave it to the Nation of Ireland when he left for the US.
The Rock of Cashel is in County Tipperary and is considered to be the site where St Patrick explained Christianity to King Cormac of Munster in the 5th century and performed a couple of miracles while he was at it. He used the shamrock to explain the Trinity. This was also the location from which it is said that Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland. The Druids, which were the main religious group in Ireland at the time, wore arm bracelets in the form of snakes. So when the Druids were driven from Ireland, it was said that the snakes were driven from Ireland. The buildings on top of the Rock of Cashel were built in the 12th and 13th centuries. The legend is that the rock was a part of a mountain about 20 miles away from which St Patrick cast out Satan. This piece flew off and landed where it stands now.
Blarney Castle is a partial ruin of a medieval castle. Tourists like to hang upside down and backwards over a very steep and lethal drop (trusting whoever has them by their waist or ankles not to accidently let go) and kiss the “Blarney Stone” which is supposed to give them eloquence. Not this sister. The combination of being both quite short (which means that I would be held by my ankles) and afraid of heights meant that there was no way I was going to give it a go. Mom wasn’t interested either. So we bided our time by wandering around the castle grounds, the gift shop and a place where we could sit and have some ice cream until everyone on our tour who wanted to kiss what I’m certain is a very germy stone got the opportunity to do so after paying £7. There was an interesting little garden that contained such plants as ricin, opium, wolfsbane and mandrake – poisons all.
After Blarney we were ready for the Ring of Kerry. First we spent the night in Killarney. It was a beautiful night and our hotel was near a park, so we went for a very nice walk before dinner. It seemed that this particular trip tended to alternate between sunny and rainy nearly every day. So we grabbed those sunny days when we could get them – especially since so much of our activities were outdoors.
We followed the Ring of Kerry counterclockwise (or anticlockwise). It seemed to me that the most spectacular scenery came near the end of the trip around the ring but it is all very scenic. En route to Limerick, we stopped off at Adare, which had some cute, thatched cottages.
We were spending the night in Limerick in a new hotel that rose up 25 stories and straddled a portion of the River Shannon. Our room for the night was a suite on the 14th floor. But we didn’t spend much time in the room as we were going to a medieval banquet at Bunratty Castle that evening.
If you have never done a medieval dinner in the UK or Europe and have the chance to attend one, I highly recommend it. The food is good, but not spectacular. The main reason for going is for the comradery with the others on the tour and the fun involved with the entertainment. I have been to one that was as authentically medieval as possible, involving both the food (and the utensils used and means of serving it) and the entertainment (including jugglers, acrobats, and minstrels). This particular one was more of a medieval themed dinner with medieval themed entertainment, but was in the actual banqueting room of a real medieval castle.
Before leaving town the next morning, we visited St Mary’s Cathedral – founded in 1168, with the tower added in the 14th century. Just a short distance from the cathedral is the 13th century King John’s Castle. It was built by King John of England over the remains of a 10th century Viking’s settlement which was discovered during excavations in 1900. Both are located on an island where the River Shannon and Abbey River meet. This is where the historic core of the city (founded in 812 from a settlement that stretches back as far as 150AD) is located.
The entire time we were in Limerick, it was dark and rainy. We had hoped to get out of the bad weather when we left Limerick, but it actually got worse the closer we got to the Cliffs of Moher. We had some very thick fog at the cliffs which dissipated enough during the hike from the tour coach to the actual cliffs to allow for a somewhat decent photo.
I really liked the town of Galway, in which we arrived by lunchtime. It was still raining, but people weren’t letting that stop them from exploring this very colorful town. It is located in the west of the country, near the coast, in the province of Connacht . We were told that McDonaghs had the best fish and chips in Western Ireland, so that was where we went for lunch. I do have to say that their fish and chips were quite tasty.
We stopped in at a pet shop on the way back along the street and bought a dog toy that said “Crufts Best in Show” on it. Crufts is the British equivalent of the US’ Westminster. It didn’t take long for my dog (who was about a year old at the time) to chew a pretty good chunk out of it, so it went to the top of the fridge where it remains today.
In the afternoon, we went to Knock in County Mayo. Along with Lourdes and Fatima, Knock is one of the major shrines in Europe. In the late 1800s apparitions of the Virgin Mary, Joseph and John the Evangelist appeared in front of several townspeople at the location where the shrine now exists.
Back in Connacht was a town called Sligo, which has a large number of prehistoric sites (including several burial mounds) in the vicinity. The harbor in Sligo was known by the Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans who came to trade there. Much of the current town is medieval. Our hotel was close enough to the coast that we could see it from the hotel. The rain had stopped by the time we got there, so we could take a walk before dinner.
The next day on our way to Northern Ireland, we stopped off at Drumcliff to see the grave of poet W. B. Yeats.
