A travel log of the adventures of Laura McCran-McDermott and Kevin McDermott. Two Canadians living and working in London England, who are exploring Europe one weekend at a time.

107

Thu, 2 Feb 2006 10:16:34 +0000

Ireland

So after much planning and organizing, my parents managed to get
themselves over to Ireland.  They managed to get a time-share outside
of Ennis in County Clair and they zipped around the area in their
little rental car.  Luckily enough for us, they had an extra bed!  So
Laura and I booked an Air Lingus flight from Heathrow to Shannon
airport and headed over for a brief weekend visit.

We landed and came out of the arrivals area to find my parents waiting
for us.  It's always a happy thing to be welcomed by someone at an
airport.  As it was rather late on Friday night, we drove straight
back to their house.  It was a 45 minute drive through dark, misty
twisty turny roads.  It made me wonder about the rationality of the
Irish road-works people.  I thought that British roads were narrow and
twisty, but they are nothing when compared with Irish roads.

Their place was great.  Fairly new and it had a nice back deck with a
view of the lake.  There was loft bedroom and a great little kitchen.






Saturday morning we drove into Ennis for a big Irish breakfast.  Turns
out that an Irish breakfast is the same as an English breakfast,
except that you have soda bread instead of toast and there is blood
sausage.  Ennis is a great little city, a bustling high street and
lots of history.





After our *huge* breakfast, we made the drive out to the west coast of
Ireland to look at the Cliffs of Mohare.  These are some big cliffs. 
They are between 700 and 800 feet high and are continually falling
into the sea.  Thats apparently also the case for tourists.  The winds
regularly blow over the edge, overly excited tourists who get a little
too close to the cliff face.  8 a year, usually.  Thankfully we were
ok, but we certainly can see why people get close to the edges.  The
views are pretty awe-inspiring.

Somebody went and perched a little castle at the top of one of the cliffs

Afterwards we drove back through more misty inland roads and stopped frequently to snap some shots of the countryside.

We happened upon all sorts of ruined forts, castles and churches.

The church with the grave yard inside of it was an interesting sight. People were so anxious to be buried on Holly ground that they dug up the old floor of the church and started burying people inside! Apparently at that church there were stone carvings of old Irish female gods. It's neat how that stuff persisted throughout the rise of Christianity.

After a day of trekking about the Irish countryside we felt it only appropriate to venture into a little pub and have a Guiness. There is no smoking in Irish pubs! It was a welcome surprise, and a stark contrast from the pubs in England.

There were two types of people in the pub: us and everyone else. There was nothing bad or exclusionary happening, it's just that everyone else was at the back of the pub watching the local rugby teams playing on the big TV. We were sitting at the front, near the fire chatting about everything except Rugby and Hurley (another popular Irish sport). After the pub, we drove home and stayed up late playing several hours of Euchre eating Crisps, Soda Bread and Innocent Fruit Smoothies™. We flew back to London the next day at around noon, so the trip was short but memorable. At the airport we encountered about 200 US Marines. Apparently Shannon airport is a major hub for the US military en route to and from locations on this side of the Atlantic. We were a little fearful that they were on their way to Iraq, so Laura went up to one of them asked whether they were going or coming home. Thankfully, it turns out they were on their way back home.

The flight back was quick and easy. Air Lingus is a pretty good airline, and our flights cost Ł3 return before taxes. Can't argue with that!

So our visit was short but memorable. Laura and I decided when we got back, that we needed to make another Ireland trip. So we booked a proper three-day excursion to Dublin for March 17,18 and 19th. Yep, St. Paddies day in Dublin! We're going to meet Mary there and do it up. Here are all of my pictures and here are all of my dad's pictures.