After a good night's sleep, we awoke to a crisp, sunshiny morning! On the agenda for today, the Cliffs of Moher and Quin Abbey and Friary (and who knows what else!). :)
Breakfast
Here's Aunt Carol making our famous pancakes and french toast for breakfast. And no that wasn't meant to be conceited. =) Take note, Aunt Carol's wearing a jacket! It was chilly in the castle, always!!
A Breakfast for Champions
The Lord and Lady Chairs
Passage
Spiral
Great Room
This was the door going into the living room area. We kept the door closed and put several heaters in the room. That made it the only room you could actually take your jacket and shoes off!
Bathroom #2
See the arrow slots by the bathtub? The window doesn't have a pane on one part for ventilation. We all decided to wait till our next B&B for showers. :)
"... Knock, and it shall be opened unto you."
Azure
Castle Gates
God's Promise
While on the road to the Cliffs of Moher, we saw this beautiful rainbow.
Pot of Gold?
Ya, right! I wish...
Yeeeaaahhh!!!
Typical sight on these narrow roads, but still really, really nerve racking. Those tour buses go just about anywhere, even when the roads have "Severe Bends" like this road sign warns!
Ocean!
Another Glimpse
I don't know why, but it seems like the Irish like to make it hard for the tourists sometimes. We found the Cliffs of Moher Visitor's Center, but vehicles were not allowed to drive up to it, only those ridiculous tour buses! We quickly decided to drop Gram, Abi and I off to walk the long drive up to the building while the rest found a parking spot elsewhere. As we were walking up there, the wind was blowing so hard that Gram was getting blown over. Abi and I weren't too sure footed ourselves, either. We had to hang onto each other to keep from getting blown over. This was only a foretaste of what was to come.
WOW!!!
The Cliffs of Moher are 390-702 ft. high.
Turbulent
Even though the cliffs are so high, the ocean was turbulent enough to blow foam and water up onto us.
Dangerous Cliff Edge
Just recently, they put walls up to keep tourists from getting too close to the edge. So many people had fallen off, due to the high winds, before the walls were put up, that they've erected a memorial for them. With how high the winds are up there, it would be very easy to fall overboard.
South Cliffs
The south cliffs aren't over 390 ft high.
O'Brien's Tower
O'Brien's Tower was built in 1835 by Sir Cornelius O'Brien to impress visitors. If you climb to the top of the tower, you can see the Aran Islands, County Galway, and several other places. It cost 2 euros to go in there, so we decided that we could see just fine from the ground.
Long Walk
Here is an excerpt from my journal,
"As we walked to the top, the wind got worse and worse. It would rock me pretty hard if an especially strong gust caught me. Oh, but the view was so worth it!
"The wind was so wild and strong! My veil started to get ripped off and I could hardly stand! Mom had to hang onto me a couple times. Oh, but it was so exhilarating! I've never experienced anything like that before. Words can't even begin to describe the thrill of that wild Atlantic wind."
Panoramic of the Southern Cliffs and O'Brien's Tower
Northern Cliffs
These cliffs are the highest of them all, rising to a stunning 702 ft.
Pussy Willow
Whirl Pool
Hysterical
Abi, Mom and I decided to head back as we could see a curtain of rain slowly advancing on us over the ocean. We saw this little path and thought, "Ah, short cut to the short cut", if you know what that means, it spells m.i.s.t.a.k.e. Abi went down ahead of us. What she didn't tell us was that the path was like a wind tunnel for all the extremely high winds to congregate in. Mom and I started down innocently. With the high wind pushing us so hard from behind we had to take little tiny baby steps to keep from falling on our noses.
Then, Aunt Carol Came...
We saw her coming and thought, why should we tell her? :D By the end of it all we were side splitting with laughter and lack of air from not breathing. :)
Gram's View
Gram decided to wait in the restaurant at the visitor's center since it was so windy. When we all came back though, we decided it would be alright for her to just walk to the wall. I'm so glad she got to see the Cliffs of Moher in their beautiful and untamed environment.
Cemetery
We stopped at this ancient seaside cemetery on the way back.
Inlet
Before exploring the cemetery, we waded through waist high weeds down to the beach. It was a very photogenic area!
Wild Daisies
Moss
Rocky Beach
Thankfully, it was low tide so that we could poke around on the slippery moss covered rocks.
Oversized Leprechaun Shoe
This rock really intrigued me...
Billow
Even in this small bay the ocean was still unsettled.
Tombstones
Back up at the cemetery!
Solitude
Sinking
You had to watch your step as the ground under some of the horizontal tombstones was eroding, making them rather unstable.
Heart :)
The Sands of Time are Sinking
Stone Arch
I don't know how men built things like this without modern equipment. It always amazes me what they did back then!
Good bye, Beach!
Famine Memorial
Remember when I said that you hadn't heard the last of our famine museum search? We had been told that there was a famine memorial along this one road. It was very hard to find, mostly because we were looking for a museum, not a memorial. It was still interesting...
The doors represent a workhouse gate, the head poking out of the gate, was ( I think) supposed to be the little boy's mother, the clenched fists represent the need of starving Ireland, the little boy is knocking at the gate, hoping to be allowed to enter.
Have Mercy!
Gentlemen, there is a little boy named Michael Rice of Lahinch aged about 4 years he is an orphan, his father having died last year and his mother has expired on last Wednesday night, who is now being buried without a coffin !! unless ye make some provision for such. The child in question is now at the workhouse gate expecting to be admitted if not he will starve. ~Robs S. Constable
Very sobering... I can hardly imagine the suffering the Irish people, my (our) ancestors, endured during the Great Potato Famine.
Unglert's Bakery
We didn't go in here, but it looked like there were some yummy things up in the windows!
Esso Gas Station
Unleaded, 1.66 euro for 1 liter
Diesel 1.56 euro for 1 liter (our mini van was diesel)
Ennis
Quin Abbey
Majestically Somber
Roofless
All of those slabs on the ground are tombstones.
As we walked into this room, I noticed a little ticket booth off to the side. The schedule said something about its being lunch break. Are we supposed to be in here? We couldn't figure out if you were supposed to pay, or what. They took Heritage cards, which we had, but we couldn't find any information on admittance. We didn't see anybody but two maintenance guys, so we just decided to go in. The one guy discretely followed us around all over the place. It seemed like he was keeping us under surveillance to make sure we didn't do anything wrong. :) We're not sure why they didn't kick us out... maybe they thought we were nuns and should be humored? Who knows... :D
Luminous Shadows
Columns
Top Floor
After climbing up winding stone staircases, we came out onto the top floor.
Crypt
Back down on the main level back in a corner, we discovered a real crypt! There were small holes in the door for air circulation, providing us with perfect peep holes. By squinting up your eyes you could actually see the carved out stone niches with the caskets lying in solemn repose.
Hewn
Interestingly, the church was made with stone blocks, but the ceilings were roughly hewn stone arches. It looked as though they'd been carved after they were put up.
Sepulchral
I'd have to say that this is my absolute favorite picture from our whole trip! I just love the eloquence of the picture; the effaced headstones make me think of long-ago sorrow, the deep soulful shadows, and the celtic cross presiding over all.
Halcyon Tranquility
Courtyard
The maintenance men were mowing in here while we were there.
Passage of Saints
Decay
This decaying building, which was adjacent to Quin Abbey, was full of old graves.
Monastic Edifices
Quin Abbey can be seen in the distance with the small decaying chapel in the foreground.
Brilliant
St Finghin's 1278
This small wooden plaque was attached to the stone building in the above picture. I think (or, maybe it's just my over imaginative mind:) that the small crosses disguised in the letters were part of a secret code.
Good bye, Quin Abbey!
Driving
Back at the castle, we had tea and discussed what to do next since it was only around 4:30 pm. The unanimous vote was the ancient cemetery of Clonmacnoise in county Offaly.
Ruins
We pulled up to Clonmacnoise after an hour and 45 min. drive.
Map of Historical Sights in Co. Offaly
Clonmacnoise
The cemetery was founded by St Ciaran in 546 AD. For more information click here.
We were so excited to be able to see the oldest cemetery in Ireland! But, alas, after driving all that way the place was closed for the evening! We had thought that it was just an open cemetery that anyone could walk through. This had been our only chance to see something this old, but we had to turn back. With darkness closing in on us, we really had to scoot to get back to the castle before dark. We were very disappointed!
Dusk
Sheep
This was our last night in the castle, so we had to make it special. Gram was kinda worn out from the long day (we made it back around 7 pm), so we made supper and brought it up to the living room. We had mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits, old cookies that I'd made and brought along, set off with good, strong Irish tea. Yummy!
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