Week 5 – The Weekend

I had a great 3 day road trip with my daughter Katie, her husband William, and my son B J and his girlfriend Whitney. We started with a train trip to Killarney and a visit to a few pubs before we hit on a good one with a combination Irish and popular music. Really good ‘people watching’ that night with a French couple dancing to the complete embarrassment of their adolescent kids and a number of very overserved people trying their Irish step dancing skills. Bright and early the next morning (too early for some of my children who did not make the meeting time due to over doing the snooze button on their iPhone alarms) we finally got going on our Ring of Kerry Tour with our driver Kevin. I quickly learned that Kevin was a good driver but a terrible tour guide. Whatever facts I got from him about what we were seeing I had to pull from him, and I concluded I know more about the history of the country and many of the places we were seeing than he does. Nonetheless, the scenery was beautiful and the weather cooperated. At one point we stopped at the Caitlin Lodge and saw a cool demonstration of a shepherd directing his sheep dogs to herd his sheep around a plot of hilly ground. I learned the shepherd has different voice commands for each of the dogs and different whistle sounds so each dog knows who he is directing. For instance, if he wants them to stop an activity and lay down, one dog may be told to ‘lay’ and the other to ‘sit’. Never thought I would find that shepherd’s performance interesting but it was just that. After lunch we took a 45 minute boat ride over rough seas out to the Skillig Islands. The islands just pop out of the Atlantic about 10 miles off the coast of Ireland. Both Islands are UNESCO World Heritage sites. Small Skellig is bird sanctuary with tens of thousands of sea birds calling it home, so many that from a distance the birds look like snow on the peak. Skillig Michael is the other and is the site of a monastery from the early Christian times as well as the site of the for the filming of the last scenes from the latest Star Wars movie with all the steps up the mountain to the top where Luke Skywalker was found. It was really spectacular and the weather turned sunny and bright as we reached the islands, a somewhat rare occurrence I am told. I really can’t express how beautiful and awesome a sight the Ring of Kerry Tour and the Skellig Islands are, but if you ever get the chance to visit do not deny yourself the experience. Believe it or not we spent that night in the pubs AGAIN and found one with a spectacular band that we watched until too far past midnight!

Sunday morning Kevin picked us up again and we headed up to the Cliffs of Moher. This site is Ireland’s most famous natural attraction, standing over 702 feet at their highest point the Cliffs stretch for 5 miles along the Atlantic coast of County Clare. Really something to see and not some place you want to get too close to the edge as we had wind gusts of 40 mph in the direction of sure death! After that is was lunch at O’Conner’s Pub in the seaside town of Doolin and then on to Galway. Galway is one of my favorite towns in Ireland with pedestrian walkways containing many street performers, shops, restaurants, and Pubs. Katie found a great little Italian restaurant for us and then we hit the pubs (act surprised). Then it was an early flight on an 8 seat plane over to the Inish Mor in the Aran Islands. The plane ride is half the fun because there is always some doubt about whether this will be your last, as the pilot says ‘good luck’ as he hits the throttle to take off. Inish Mor is the largest of the Aran Islands and has an area of 12 sq. mi. and a population of about 850.  We got rain most of the day unfortunately, but it held off long enough for me to get everyone out to Dun Aengus fort. This fort sits at the edge of a 300 foot high cliff. It is a prehistoric fort that dates back to the Iron Age, probably in the 2^nd century BC. It is really something to see. The rain then started to pick up strength as we left the fort so we wisely stayed in the cab as we looked at the balance of the sights on the island. Then lunch and pubs until our plane ride back to Galway. I then left the group at their hotel and headed for my train back to Dublin. Everyone was tired (especially the old guy) but we packed a lot into a few short days. I wanted my special visitors to see many of the best things in Ireland and that was the only way to do it. Mission accomplished!

This week after Tuesday class we head out on a field trip to North Ireland. It promises to be a real eye opener I suspect, and I will write about it on Saturday night or Sunday when I return.

Pictures: My crazy son with his head over a 300 foot cliff with a sheer face looking onto the beach; Our group on Dun Aengus; The shepherd with his dogs and sheep; small Skillig bird sanctuary; Skillig Michael; Galway pub with the group; Ring of Kerry stop; our ‘chariot’ to Inish Mor in the Aran Islands