Megan and I are installed merrily in the Cashel House Hotel in - you guessed it - Cashel! We are overfed and tired from our stupendous day. We left Doolin and drove past the Cliffs of Moher to St. Brigid's Well, a miracle site attributed to St. Brigid. There we had a time of great emotion and longing, as Megan tied her mother's Irish lace handkerchief to the shrine, and we said prayers for our beloved dead.
We drove toward the sea and walked down the strand beside a lovely graveyard, near Liscannor, where we met a kind nettle-gatherer and dog rescuer called Dierdre. From there we travelled up the center of the Burren to Kilfenora, where we stopped for some potato soup in a lovely pub called Linnane's Irish Traditional Music Pub (too bad they weren't playing any at lunchtime heh heh - too interested in the football!). Then, a bit more north, I navigated us and Megan drove us to Cathair Chonaill Stone Fort, where an archaeological site likely to be a tomb was being excavated by a group of volunteers, including a professor from the University of Galway. They showed us a newly-found coin from Elizabethan days, as well as a pre-historic burial, chert pieces, and lots of pig bones. Megan was very very happy!!!
Reluctantly we pulled ourselves away and continued north to the Poulnabrone Portal Tomb, a megalithic masterpiece - four upright pieces holding a huge capstone that, like Pentre Ifan in Wales, used to be surrounded by a mound. There we were able to get close enough to the ground on non-privately-held land to be able to photograph lots of gorgeous Burren flowers, including campanula, bedstraw, meadowsweet, my friend the hart's tongue fern, and several other sorts of fern poking up out of the grikes.
We spoke a long while to a nice ranger who is sad about the 1 per cent of the 1500 visitors a day who pick flowers and take away rocks and deface the monument :( he says tour buses come in and he sees people taking bouquets of orchids away... *shudder*
The Burren is a truly astonishing place. How I wish I could bring Mom here!
Reluctantly again we moved Northward, but soon we were enchanted by the incredible views of the karst-rock hills with pastures leading right up to the exposed rocky hilltops. Lunar landscapes indeed.
We rounded the last Burren hill and entered Galway County, following its coastline around inlet after castle after inlet until we passed Galway town and came out into Connemara. On the way we passed the huge Connemara Pony Show and a long line of horse trailers. Sigh.
Then we entered the peat-and-heather-and gorse laden Connemara landscape that looked to us very like the Scottish Highlands, rolling hillocks, lochs, rounded female-looking mountains, sheep on the verges of the roads, lowering clouds with brief appearances by the round sky orb we call "The Yellow Thing" so as not to frighten it away. I only got us lost once on the long way up here - I swear there was no sign- really- and we finally arrived at 8. Megan looked at three different rooms before she settled on this third-floor one with ocean view.
Our new mottos, to help us not freak out while driving on the opposite side from usual on narrow roads with fast Irish drivers:
"Cuimhnigh a analaigh". (Pronounced "KWEEvnich uh aNAlig" - this means "Remember to breathe" :). The other is "Agus na scaoll" (AH-gus na scoil) which means "Don't panic!"
Of course there is no internet here :). So it is text-phone-blogging time for me. Will upload pics in Dublin I guess at the end of the trip.
This hotel is quite posh, and we are debating whether or not we should stay, but we are certainly here for one night and maybe two. On the grounds they have many famous gardens, including a rare tree collection, a heath garden, natural woodlands, a tack shop and a Connemara Pony stud farm. Ahem.
See why we want to stay? *enormous grin* But one thing is sure-we won't eat in the hotel's Amazing Restaurant again, even though they have a glorious harpist... And five courses ... And different china for every course...cause, well, we didn't know it was quite that posh :) Pub dinners from now on.
It sure was fun tonight though, we had a perfect meal, and sweet Megan even got me a champagne drink with strawbewrry in it. She is most thoughtful to have arranged this entire trip and to drive me everywhere and put up with my navigating and occasional white knuckles.
Tomorrow we may have to go see some ponies...Cashel House Stud is a famous and many-ribboned farm. *gleeful grin*
Love,
The Irish Adventure
No comments:
Post a Comment