Looking back at Ireland
We didn't write much about our 10 days in Ireland, but it was not due to a lack of things to share. The blame lands mostly on me as I booked the first 7 days of our stay at a place with no internet access and barely any cell phone signal. Each day I would walk up to a room at the top of the hill to use the internet, but this didn't encourage much writing by the family so I thought I'd take a look back at my experiences there.
As expected, most of my days in Ireland (as elsewhere) were spent working, while Shelah and the kids adventured to many amazing places. I did get a few days to experience parts of Ireland however so I'll focus only on the things I experienced first hand.
My first day out, we got up early and explored Ballycarbery Castle. What is left of the castle is just ruins, but we got an opportunity to really explore it. It was just us, some cattle and the ruins. No guard rails, no blocked off areas, and no crowds of tourists. We looked through every nook and cranny we could find, climbed through ancient stairways and into dark rooms and tried to imagine what it once would have been like.
From there, we drove a beautiful coastal route to Dingle. Dingle is a touristy little town full of shops and people. We enjoyed some ice cream at Murphy's, which was rated as some of the world's best ice cream on some list Shelah read about and walked through the town for a bit. We then continued on a loop of awesome views, narrow roads, and an unintentional dip in a mountain top lake before heading back to our cottage.
My second day out was to the Rock of Cashel and Waterford. The Rock of Cashel was pretty interesting with some stories about St. Patrick, but overall, the experience was not what I had been hoping for. Too many people and too blocked off and commercialized to feel the history of the place. While leaving, we spied the ruins of an abbey down the hill and across a road so we walked over to check it out. Hore Abbey was very cool and explorable just like Ballycarbery Castle.
After the morning in Cashel, we drove to Waterford. As I grew up in a town called Waterford, that added a touch of interest, but the main attractions were the history and the crystal factory. We walked to the Waterford Crystal Factory and took the tour. We got to watch the workers making and cutting the crystal pieces. The kids loved this and left dreaming of working there when they get older.
My favorite part of the day was Reginald's Tower though. We headed there right after the crystal factory tour. It is an actual tower just off the coast at the edge of the city. They have made it into a nice, little, 3 floor museum complete with short video of the history of the tower and of Waterford. It was really interesting and I wished we had a little bit longer to read every last piece of information.
My last big adventure in Ireland was the day we traveled from Ireland to Northern Ireland (part of the United Kingdom). We packed up from our little cottage and headed north into Dublin. We got there in time to do a walking tour of the city. I really enjoyed it. Our guide shared history and fun stories of the city and its occupants while walking us through the city and seeing some of the major sights. Among the interesting tidbits was the theory that Ireland was/is the actual lost island of Atlantis.
After a few hours in Dublin, it was on to Newgrange which is a pre-historic burial chamber that is estimated to be older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian Pyramids. The people who built this somehow moved these huge stones, built an incredible enclosed structure that is still intact and dry inside today, and figured out the movement of the sun well enough to engineer a building that would have the morning light only on the shortest day of the year to light up the inner chamber. Incredible.
We did spend a few days in Northern Ireland but I worked every day back at the house. The highlight for me was talking with our host who shared about life in Northern Ireland and the very real conflict that continues to exist today. He spoke of segregation between the catholics and protestants and how he feels unsafe in areas (and won't go to certain places) because of his affiliation.
As we headed to catch our ferry to Scotland, I felt that we had barely scratched the surface of Ireland. The few people we interacted with were very kind, the land was varied and beautiful, and the history was rich. I would love to spend a lot more time here again some day.