Caed mile failte - a hundred thousands welcomes (back to our blog)!

We are now on the train leaving Dublin and heading for Belfast. It has been a busy few days and Tuesday, the last day of our tour, included a visit to a replica bog village with peat lined cottages and a couple of Irish Wolfhounds though they did play “dead” for the time we were there. Next stop was Glendalough, an ancient monastery founded by St Kevin in the 12^th century. Hard to get away from my Catholic roots in this country! We arrived back in Dublin late in the afternoon and enjoyed a quieter evening than previously. We enjoyed a later start to the day the next morning and walked along the waterfront before spending sometime in the Trinity College area, very popular with tourists. Then explored the shops before transferring from the tour hotel to another that we were booked into for the next two nights. On Thursday we re-acquainted ourselves with the rental car company, Enterprise, that we had used a number of times previously. We headed west, to Ballinasloe in Co. Galway, ancestral home to my mother’s father and family. Looked through the town and then through the countryside, a very pleasant area and now occupied by some very nice country houses and estates. No doubt rather different than what it was 150 years ago!

The weather has been mild and wet. But the showers, while heavy are also brief and we have become accustomed to sheltering in doorways with the locals waiting for them to clear!

Barbara

Ross Castle, Killarney - view from our Jaunty Car

Waterford Crystal display

Pam badly in need of a hiarcut

Dunmore East, Co. Waterford

Cheers at the pub at Dunmore East

Good to get out and about under our own steam again in Dublin after the tour finished. Trinity College has beautiful grounds right in the middle of Dublin – prime real estate!  Our trip of discovery to view B’s ancestral roots reminded us just how the “real’ Ireland still looks, away from all the tourist traps. We were quite proud of ourselves navigating our way out of Dublin and approx. two hrs to the west.  Google maps a godsend. However – our smugness was lost upon the return trip into Dublin as we struck a major traffic jam, phones ran out of battery, no car charger with us, getting dark, we lost our maps and our way……”nuf said!  All I will say is thank goodness for some very helpful locals and a taxi driver called Marion! (some of you will find that amusing!)

Ireland for me was all about the green, the mist, the full rainbows, wild red fuschias, street and pub music everywhere, the friendly (although often incomprehensible) locals, place names like Mallow, Connemara, Mcgiilicuddy’s Reeks, and the delight in hearing that they really do say things like “turty” instead of “thirty”.  We have now crossed the border into Northern Ireland (on the train) and are officially in the UK. 

Looking forward to the delights the next few days brings us.

Pam