Our original plan had been to drive the Ring of Kerry, which is a beautiful scenic drive. But as we were still without a car, we arranged another tour to take us around, the Wild Kerry Day Tours. It worked quite well as Will got another day off from driving and our guide was really good. We enjoyed the scenic stops and the lunch at the most scenic view in Ireland, fog permitting.
One of the stops was a demonstration by a shepherd and his sheep herding border collies.
Picked up our new rental the next morning and headed out to Galway. We had lunch along the way in the pretty town of Adare and also stopped to view the Cliffs of Moher.
Got checked into our B&B, which was located on a street where virtually every home is a B&B. All the homes are in a great location as the downtown is a short walk away. Our host was great with all her homemade items for breakfast. Just don’t ask Theresa for merely one egg, two is the minimum.
After being well fed, we headed over to the ferry terminal for our day trip to the Aran Islands. Our ride our was pretty uneventful, and we arrived on Inis Mor to some rainy weather. We found Gerald who was to be our driver for the day. Gerald has lived on the island his whole life and again, we got some insight on what it’s like to live on this small island that has 720 people. The bank is only open on Wednesdays when the banker comes in from Galway. There is 1 grocery store, 4 pubs and over 7,000 kilometers of stone walls. They’ve only had electricity since 1973, which was powered by diesel generators until 1998 when a cable was laid along the ocean floor from Galway.
This house has a house for the Leprechaun as well for luck.
It stopped raining long enough to climb up Dun Aonghasa a prehistoric dry stone wall fortification. Gerald got us back just in time for our return ferry ride.
Those crazy kids.
The return ferry takes the scenic route to pass the Cliffs of Moher. It was a wild ride back and some people did not take the rough seas very well. It became a bit of a barf-o-rama. Luckily, all of us were fine and enjoyed seeing the Cliffs from a different vantage point.
We stopped for a great dinner at Murty Rabbits and were treated to some live music as well.
Well, our time in Galway was up and we made our way to Enniskillen in Northern Ireland. We went via Sligo, which made for a beautiful drive. We stopped at the Sligo Abbey and checked it out.
We also learned a little about Bram Stoker who wrote Dracula. It is said that a cholera epidemic in Sligo was a source of inspiration for his book.
Just a night in Enniskillen and we set out again.
Drove up to Londonderry to check out the Museum of Free Derry. This museum gives a little history of the Bogside area of Derry and what led up to the events of Bloody Sunday in January 1972 and what’s been happening to present. Bloody Sunday was when members of the British Army opened fire on civil rights demonstrators. 13 of the demonstrators were shot dead and at least 15 others were injured. It wasn’t until 2010 that a 12 yearlong investigation concluded that the killings were unjustified. The museum was quite interesting and most of the people working there grew up in the Bogside or had family that died on Bloody Sunday.
We were then off to the Giants Causeway to look at some more rocks. The Giant’s Causeway is an area of basalt columns that were formed by a volcanic eruption about 50-60 million years ago. Or you can go with the legend of the Giants. The Irish Giant was challenged to a fight by the Scottish Giant. The Irish Giant built the steppingstone walkway so the 2 giants could meet.
