Wordless Wednesday :

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Cliffs of Moher, Co. Clare ...

Time for a little more of Ireland to share - haven't done a post for ages on the many places hubby and I visited when we travelled around beautiful Ireland in October last year ..


.. with Liscannor in the far distance on the left ... and after parking our car in the car park .. there are paved walkways, pathways and steps ....




.... leading visitors to this most spectacular sight .... the Cliffs of Moher ...


... which stretch for 8 kilometres and 214 metres above the Atlantic Ocean .. and home to one of Ireland's largest nesting seabird colony with over 30 000 nesting seabirds ...

Unfortunately, it was a bit hazy on the day we were there ..

From the view point (above) the steps and walkway leads to the right to O'Brien's Tower which was built in 1835 by local landlord, Cornelius O'Brien as a viewing point for visitors ...

.. where the Aran Islands can be seen just to the left (dark strip in sea) and the mainland - Co. Galway - in the distance ..

Gentle sounds of a harp and the voice of an angel drifted around the cliffs ...

.. and rolling green hills, thick with emerald green grass ..

.... scattered with fat, furry cows ..

... we walked to the left of the main viewing area and came across this notice which seemed to be ignored by some .. including us! But we thought .. why not .. if they can do .. so can we ! but it is dangerous and there is also a notice warning of the deadly drop to the ocean below and how many people slipped and tumbled to their death ...

Sooo ... cautiously we walked along the cliffs edge .. it was rather scary !

... but we managed to get some awesome photographs ....

This view is from that cliff path looking across to O'Brien's Tower ...

On the way out, we stopped at the Visitor's Centre which is tucked away in the hillside. It's huge inside with coffee and tourist shop (where I bought one of Tina's CD's) and a virtual reality "Cliff Edge Experience" ..

Spectacular, isn't it?

Wordless Wednesday :

Kylemore Abbey

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Wordless Wednesday :

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Skywatch Friday :

We've had drizzly rain for days but has cleared now - thank goodness - and the sun is shining once again. I think we are in for more rain this weekend - all this rain is going to make our winter rather cold .. !! Highveld winters are bitter! :(

Anyway, the drizzly days were similar to a couple of days we had in Ireland last October .. and this is one of those days .. when we visited Croagh Patrick in County Mayo.



Croagh Patrick is a holy mountain named after St Patrick who is said to have spent 40 days fasting and praying for the Irish at it's peak in AD441. If it hadn't been so wet and slippery we would have climbed a little of the way up - 2 510 ft (772 metres) - the photo above shows the mountain shrouded in cloud and the photo below shows the view from St Patrick's statue overlooking Clew Bay. There is a chapel at the top of Croagh Patrick, built in 1905 at a cost of $100, and took 12 men six months to build with materials drawn up the mountain by donkey or horseback.



For more spectacular skies around the world visit Skywatch

Wordless Wednesday : Breakfast in Ireland

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Bunratty Folk Park ....

.. at Bunratty Castle, Co. Clare, is where 19th century Irish life is recreated ... and hubby and I visited the Castle and Folk Park on a day like today ... cold, cloudy and rainy !! Today - this weather - reminded me of our visit ...

I have, some time ago, shared with you, Bunratty Castle and I do remember promising to share the Folk Park. I also remember promising to show you all the inside of the Castle but that will have to be another time ..

After visiting the Castle, hubby and I walked through the rain until we came across this cottage, the home of a farmer from the rich lands of the Golden Vale of Limerick and Tipperary Counties ..

... went inside .. and found the 'farmer's wife' preparing a huge apple pie by the warming fireside ...

The home-made apple pie was being prepared for the tea room situated behind the pink cottage ... we would have loved to have tried it with our very warming hot cup of coffee ...

After our coffee, we walked up to the village ... the rain had stopped by then, thankfully ...

Of course there has to be a pub in every village - open to the public and 'loved by visitors and locals alike' ...
Onward .... passed a very wet donkey being petted by school girls ..

.. another group of school girls were ahead of us going into the lovely little church - moved here, stone by stone from Ardcroney. I was interested that the girls wore long skirts and wondered if they were their 'outing' dress code. No .. was the reply .. "we wear them all year round!"

They seemed to enjoy their outing and all made a B-line for the Church bell's rope which was pulled by what seemed to be all of them !!!! The bell tolled continuously !!

Leaving the girls, and the church behind, we passed a small field with deer - and real antlers/horns - have never seen them before!! Real Bambi's and Daddy Bambi's !!!

Turned down a lane to the vertical mill ..

.. then onto the horizontal mill ..

.. to the last building, Bunratty House, a late Georgian dwelling built in 1805 the 'type occupied by minor gentry in the 19th Century'. The house below is the home belonging to the Hughes Brothers who started the dairy industry in the 1800's .. I love that one .. it's how you would draw a house ... rectangle, triangle roof, chimneys with smoke curling out, rectangle door and square windows !!

Behind Bunratty House is courtyard filled with 19th Century farm implements - Talbot Collection ...

Making our way back to the entrance/exit we passed these 'Traveller Wagons' - main type of transport used in the past by ethnic Irish folk ..

.. and then haystacks, which I have also never seen before except pictured in story books ...

I can just imagine Little Boy Blue sleeping against this one !!

A fascinating place and well worth the visit !!

Wordless Wednesday :

Guinness Storehouse, Dublin, Ireland

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Skywatch Friday :

I love this photo which my hubby took at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland on our holiday last year. The sun was shining ... a wishy-washy sunshine ... and the sky and sea rippled in the same way ..

For more spectacular skies around the world go to Skywatch

A rainy day in Ireland ...

.. of which we only had two ... but that didn't dampen our exploration of this beautiful country of green fields, castles and much more ... no time to waste ... we spent a couple of hours at Bunratty Castle, one of Ireland's major tourist attractions ...

... but before we walked through the castle gate set in the thick outer walls ...

... and were confronted with large cannons ..

.. and walked along the drawbridge to an unusual first floor entrance (designed to deter invaders) ...

.. we wandered about in the castle grounds ... in the rain ... getting soaked ... where there are farmers and fisherman's cottages from 'way back when' reconstructed ... (this one's thatch is roped down to protect it against the Atlantic gales) ..

... furnished as they were in those early days ... cute and cosy bed .. no wonder there's a baby's crib nearby .. which I'm sure was never empty !!!!!

Humans have got a bigger as generations passed. This is a salmon fisherman's home with a rammed clay floor ...

Every village had to have a blacksmith's forge ...

A poorer farmer's house typically found in Limerick and Kerry ....

.. which has a wooden outbuilding next door to house the loom of the weaver ....

.. it now houses a dinky woollen shop ... heaped with yarns of wool and woollen jerseys, scarfs etc ... all so beautifully made .. soft and warm ... but rather costly for our Rand exchange rate ... and the proprietor of the shop had a fascinating theory that if it stopped raining by midday then the next day would be perfect ... she was right !

Here is it .. Bunratty Castle .. in the rain ... !!

Will do two further posts - so watch this space .. the Castle interior - which was difficult to photograph as no flashes were allowed except in the Main Guard, which is now used for medieval-style banquets ... and the Bunratty Folk Park .. a fascinating walk ... in the rain .... but clearing ... through a time and age when life was simple.

And the lady in the weaver's shop was right ... we had perfect weather after this day !!