The Burren

After we left Kinvara, on the way to Cork, we drove upwards through a rocky highland called the Burren, apparently the same basic rock formation as the Aran Islands, probably once linked by a causeway. Here is a photo of some flowers by a ruined church wall at the bottom of the hills.

We stopped at one scenic point where Chris and I scrambled to the top of a hill in search of a rock cairn that was on the map. We found it! And here you see Chris lurking inside, if you look really carefully. Chris seems to like crawling inside of small spaces and caves -- he spent most of his time at Blarney Castle crawling around these caves underneath it that were used for dungeons.

On top of the Burren, there were several neolithic portal tombs. People are still arguing about whether they were primarily tombs, or maybe more general places of worship, where people happened to get buried, not unlike a church and churchyard today. Which brings up another interesting thing. Most of the ruined churches we saw had not been used for centuries as churches, but the church yards are mostly still being used for burials by the people who live around them. Interesting union of past and present.

Here is one that we stopped to look at.

Kissing the blarney stone

Although it is probably one of the corniest bits of all lore about Ireland, we did indeed go to Blarney Castle, which is actually rather impressive. You can see it in back of Chris in this photo.

Only half our group decided to climb all the way to the top of the castle where the Barney Stone is located. My brother Jack, Sandy, Chris and I all trucked up a very narrow, windy circular stair to the top. Sort of standard fair in tall castles, but this one seemed even narrower than most. Ironic since it gets among the heaviest traffic.

Once we got to the top, there was quite a line of people waiting to kiss the famous stone. Fortunately the view is nice.

At that point, both Sandy and Jack opted out of the actual stone kissing. It involves lying on your back, leaning out over the edge of the castle downwards and backwards, holding on to a couple of nice metal handrails, and trying to kiss the silly stone. However, it was fun. One of those 99 things to do before you die.

Palatial living near Cork

We stayed two nights between Blarney and Cork in the most amazing place, Maranatha House, a few miles from Blarney Castle. It is easily the grandest house I have ever stayed in, now working as a B&B. Our hostess was named Olwen, like a heroine of medieval Welsh romance. (How few Olwens one meets these days.)

Here is a photo of Sandy by the bed of our suite, with a jacuzzi in the background -- a bit anachronistic for an 188os manor house that is otherwise all decorated in grand Victorian style, but nice.

Here is my sister Nola in the room she shared with my other sister Carol.














Here is a view of the outside of the house from its lawn and garden. It is not quite as spectacular on the outside as the inside, but together with the grounds, it was quite impressive. Made me think I was temporarily living in some English country comedy of manners set or something. But lots of fun for a change.

Kinvara and Aran Islands

We stayed in an unbelievably quaint village south of Galway called Kinvara. This photo shows the front of our hotel, the Merriman, and the main street of the town.

During the day we went up to Galway, to catch a bus, to catch a ferry, to go to the Aran Islands, which Sandy had always wanted to do. After we got there, we signed on for a mini-bus tour around the island, which at about eight miles long, is a bit too long to walk, and some of our party are getting on a bit for doing it by bicycle. Since we were the first people on the bus, we could specify a bit what we wanted to see. So we asked for the Beehive huts, some very primitive rock huts from before 1000 A.D. that Irish religious hermits lived it. We had to walk through a series of cow pastures, dodging cow patties, to get there. But they were pretty cool as you can see here.












They really weren't too bad. Here are Sandy and Chris standing in one. At least you could stand up in it. But your heating, cooling, and lighting options were pretty limited.














The other most famous thing on the island is a large, very old ring fort at the top of a mountain. It was used by several different groups since 1000 BC to after 1000 AD. Here is Sandy standing quite a bit down hill from it as we climbed up.














The fort used to stand on the edge of a cliff. Here you can see the cliff, which drops over 300 feet -- enough to make me nervous and I am not particularly afraid of heights.


















But the cliff has sheared off several times over the years, taking parts of the fort with it. Here is a picture of Chris standing where the wall of the fort meets the edge of the cliff now. Pretty breath- taking drop.

Trim Castle

Heading west across Ireland, we drove through the Boyne Valley. Here is a view of the Boyne in Trim. There, we also came to Trim Castle. Apparently one of the biggest Anglo Norman castles, it was used as background for some of the scenes in Braveheart, which was supposed to be in Scotland, but that's Hollywood.

Here are my sister Nola and Sandy striking a pose in front of it.

Newgrange in Ireland

One of the most amazing things in Ireland is nothing Celtic or modern but the neolithic tomb site at Newgrange, built around 3200 B.C. It is a huge tomb built by neolithic people that we know little else about.

Here you can see Shirley my sister-in-law, Sandy and Chris standing about 50 yards in fron the huge structure.


One of the most interesting things about Newgrange is that it is designed so that only at the winter solstice, sun comes in through the upper transom you see here and illuminates the inner chamber for a few minutes. That seems like remarkable scientific knowledge for stone age people in 3200 B.C.


Here in front of the tomb entrance is a lintel stone carved in mysterious spirals that no one knows what they mean, but that many people have guessed about. Inside the tomb there are many other carvings, including a triple spiral that shows up on a lot of the jewelry that they are trying to get people to buy all over Ireland. I guess it is supposed to give the jewelry buyers an idea that they are getting in touch with their ancient, pre-Stonehenge, pre-Pyramids ancestral shamanic selves.

Snarkiness about commercial exploitation aside, it is a pretty cool place.

Giants' Causeway

Here is Chris striking a pose at the site of an old Led Zeppelin album cover. (Houses of the Holy for those of you who care about such things.) Otherwise known as Giants' Causeway, the main tourist attraction of northern Ireland.


It sits on a magnificent headland on the north coast of northern Ireland, which you can see here.