Ireland - Dublin, Limerick, Dublin

                                  

We were instantly greeted by the friendly Irish at the airport, the city and everywhere – certainly made us feel very welcome.  We found our way to Dame Street and started on our hereditary search.  My fathers, father was born in Dublin 1886 and Dad’s grandfather married in Dublin in 1883. I had the address of the church they married in and the address for both family homes of his grandparents.  St Werbughs church stood firmly enough on St Werbugh’s Street.  Big black wrought iron gates closed the front off.  It looked old but OK.  Across the road was “Dublins oldest chippee” Dad would have loved that!  After standing around, taking photos and greeting all the pass a buyers and getting information from a lovely old Irish gentleman who politely told us that we had better high-tail it out of there, if we wanted to get to the train station to meet the train to Limerick.  Which we did and we were picked up by Peter the eldest son.  After a delicious later supper of roast chicken we got horizontal and fell asleep instantly – another big day!

St Werbughs Church

Dublins oldest chippee

The next day we did some odd jobs around the house, talked more with the family and made some plans for the rest of the week.  Shemus and Barbara had decided to shift their office home to the back garden cottage, so one of our jobs was preparing that for the big move.  Many hands make light work was proven in those few days, there were us and family members, electricians, builders, plumbers and IT experts.  We cleaned and painted shifted and sorted – awesome work in very pleasant surrounds.

Shemus and Barbara were extremely kind and encouraged us to borrow their car and head off to explore Ireland.  Our first outing was north around the County Clare and Burren districts. Leaving Limerick heading north through Ennis, continuing north with a stop at the Burren Perfumery which makes goodies from organic ingredients – lovely!  

The Burren is a desert-like place almost lunar, a vast rocky limestone plateau extending over 1300 km, which has cracks to prove its age.  An Englishman by then name of Oliver Cromwell once said - “This is an area where, there is not enough water to drown a man, not enough to hang and not enough land to bury him in” After missing the next turn, we ended up right on the coast at Bally Vaughan, then had to head south about 8 kms to visit the Poulnabrone Dolmen.  It is amazing, perched on the side of Mt Ailwee.  According to archaeologists the tomb is around 5,800 years old and built as a funerary altar, they have found many human remains there.

Then it was back to Bally Vaughan to find the coastal road to Black head and around to Doolan.  We found a nice pub to try some local Irish food.  I tried Bacon and cabbage cooked with leek and “white curing” juice that comes out of the bacon and a big dollop of mashed potatoes.  Yummy!  Murray had local fish pie – equally as nice.  Then it was off to Doolan Pier, which was a rugged bit of coast, where the ferry goes to Aran Islands from.  It was great to be near to the sea again – there is something about the sea that makes us feel re-charged.  

We warmed up and dried off again in the car as we traveled to the Cliffs of Moher , standing tall at 214m high, 8km long and formed 320 million years ago.  We didn't see any Puffin birds as it was the afternoon so they were all out to sea.  We did see some Choughs, which are the biggish black crows. The cliffs were amazing even though it was closing in and quite misty. And it even started to rain again.  We got a really good view of the cliffs from O’Briens tower (1835), originally built so that the ladies could climb up and see five county's on a clear day.  After spending considerable time at the cliffs, we headed towards Limerick via Liscannor and Ennis, stopping at interesting crafty places along the way. 

Just out of Limerick

How do you do ?  even the Irish cows are friendly.

Close to the Burren Perfumery

Farm fencing the County Clare way.

Big hunk of Limestone

Poulnabrone Dolmen

Lunar land

Black Head Beach

Doolan Pier

A close up of some limestone, massive cracks everywhere.

Ferry going back out to Aran Islands,
this is only around 75m from the shore
and it is already big waves.

Looking towards the north

O'Briens Tower

The Cliffs of Moher, from a different perspective.

O'Briens tower and the Puffin Island
 in the foreground (finger shaped)

Kenmare

Lovely little villages all the way back.

Oh dear, the guinea pig is not well.

On Saturday morning we went to the local market with Shemus, Barbara and Maud.  It was a neat market, all set up under a huge tent like roof, it had everything you need for a weekly shop - awesome!  Our second outing was an over-nighter to south West Cork county.  Yet another, stunning part of Ireland.  Our first stop was going to be to “Kiss the Blarney” at blarney castle, but it wasn't to beat 15 euros each entry to place our delicate lips on top of thousands and thousands of other! Haha.  After a walk about in city we continued south through Clonkilty to Skibbereen.  We spent the night here as it was getting late and we had a few spots to check out in the morning.

We woke to a rainy morning; we headed off straight away as the two shops we wanted to visit were closed on a Sunday.  So it was a drive to Mizen Head for us via Ballydehop – that still makes me laugh, Schull and then followed the coast to Mizen the most south western part of Ireland.  It was very picturesque area, very green, narrow windy roads.  The view at the heads was good even though it was pouring down and windy as.  It did clear enough for us to walk down the 99 steps, over the short suspension bridge and out to the lighthouse, keepers house and engine room.  It was really interesting and maybe even better because the weather was so rugged.

After heading back inland a bit and northbound we hit Bantry historical house www.bantryhouse.com for lunch and a quick look at gardens and the view of Bantry Bay.  We continued north to Ballyfickey, Glencarriff, Bunane and Kenmare.  We saw amazing landscape along the way and also stopped at “Ladies View” where Queen Victoria and ladies in waiting visited during 1861 to enjoy the view.  It was I must say – fantastic.  Unfortunately we did not have enough time left to drive around the Circle of Kerry (next time), so we headed on to Castieisland, Abbeyfeale and back to Limerick – An amazing trip!  Again we thank our wonderful hosts and family that we stayed with.  We truly hope they visit NZ one day so we can spoil them too.

Olives from everywhere

the amazing market roof

Cork City

Ok - gotta put it somewhere I guess

Beach around Schull

99,98,97,96......

The cool suspension bridge

Glimpses of the ocean

Great scenery even on a wet windy day

Delwyn right at the tip - the most south western point of Ireland

Looking along the south coast

Bantry House

A beauty little craft shop in the middle of nowhere

Ladies View

                                   

the new office

The family home

Barbara, Shemus and us with four of their eight children.

We arrived back in Dublin around midday and headed straight to the Guinness Storehouse and learnt all about its 250 year history.  A great display or museum if you like – one of the best we've been too.  We then went and found the hotel, got settled and then set off on our mission – it was back to St Werbughs church, then on to find High Street and St Johns Lane or was it Johns Lane or St Johns Street or St Johns Lane West, you getting the picture? A bit confusing and no one really knew except on the corner of the street we thought it was, stood a beautiful church called St Johns Lane – so we thought it had to be here.  High Street was easy enough to find, but it was number 51 and it was such a short street, that I doubt it would of had 51 houses on it.  A really helpful Irish man, did some searching on the internet at his office, while we were there and that was not that helpful either.  We really needed to go to the city map archives – but no time for that.  We were getting a bit tired by then so it was off to the chippee opposite St Werbughs for fish and chips – YUMMY.  The clever Irish take all the bones out of a sole (flounder), fold the flesh in half and batter it – I kid you not it was the most delicious fish ever.

Looking up Johns Lane (?)

Inside John's Lane Church

High Street

Kahlua and milk - Irish Style

Choosing our bikes

Dublin harbor

38 Buckingham Street

Eating our fish and chips

Dublin Palace

Dublin

The Hairy Lemon

The next day we jumped on the bikes and we got lucky; we found Buckingham Street, in fact we found 39, the actual house was still standing – amazing!  It was such a cool feeling, we chatted to the guy next door who was renovating his, and he said they were nearly 200 years old.  We stood there for ages just looking and trying to imagine what it would have been like in its day.

The next day we jumped on the bikes and we got lucky; we found Buckingham Street, in fact we found 39, the actual house was still standing – amazing!  It was such a cool feeling, we chatted to the guy next door who was renovating his, and he said they were nearly 200 years old.  We stood there for ages just looking and trying to imagine what it would have been like in its day.

The next day we jumped on the bikes and we got lucky; we found Buckingham Street, in fact we found 39, the actual house was still standing – amazing!  It was such a cool feeling, we chatted to the guy next door who was renovating his, and he said they were nearly 200 years old.  We stood there for ages just looking and trying to imagine what it would have been like in its day. 

Next was into the city for a spot of shopping, and a look around, checked out Trinity College, Dublin Palace, and other bits along the way.  Murray had a close shave with a double decker bus, a car and a scooter all at the same time – and they say a cat has nine lives!  I thought he was going to be hit for sure, he was so lucky!  It was then back to the chippee for another chat to our new Irish friend and then home again.  We had the next morning to fill so went for another ride and did some jobs and caught the ferry to Holyhead, Wales, UK.

We will miss Ireland and your quirky sayings –

 “do ya know what I meeeeeann”

 “you’re about as handy as a chocolate teapot”  

Love it!  

An amazingly friendly country and beautiful to boot.
Thank you.