Shannon Area

I know it's been a couple of days since I last wrote, but, you know sometimes you get busy. Friday was laundry day - so I could not come up to the lobby to get on-line. We are pretty spoiled in America, I don't have internet access in Castle Gardens - they are working on it - but can't quite seem to get the wireless to work. Our friend Dan moved into one the homes today and said he has wireless access in his home - so he does not have to walk up here to the lobby of the hotel. Sometimes it just sucks to be me, doesn't it. Anyway by the time I was done with the all day laundry it was time to meet Adrian and the gang for a final going away for Clint and his family. We met at the Creamery, its a pub here in Bunratty, the food is very good there - Clint is who Adrian is replacing, he is off to an analysts position in Washington, D.C. .

Then Saturday we went and looked at homes for lease and cars to buy. We believe we have found Casa Scaletti, but I won't put any pictures up of it until our form has been approved. If it gets approved we should move in as soon as I come back from Chicago in May. We were less successful in locating a cheap car for us to start out with. We have found a candidate, but Adrian has a couple of more places to check.

Today, we took the rent-a-car and drove around the Shannon Peninsula. The Shannon river reminds me a bit of the Mississippi in that it is extremely wide. In some spots its quite muddy and even looks a bit brown like the ol' miss.

The thing about Ireland is that when it is overcast, drizzly and/or rainy you still love it because the people are so amazing and the country is so nice. On a beautiful day (today) it grabs you and you think you really have gone to heaven. It is just so beautiful and calming here. I think it could renew any body's spirit.

One of the amazing things that struck me as we were winding our way along the very narrow country roads was that even though it is very "rural" here it's a different kind of rural from home. At home you may drive a couple of hours to get out into "the Country" but, once there, you will see relatively no signs of life. Here even rural means some sort of community and there seems to be a community every 10 miles or so. When we have gone exploring at home and gotten lost I have often been nervous. I was not one bit nervous today when we got lost.

We saw lots of ruins as expected and got lost trying to get to some of them, signage is truly not a strong point of the Irish. And although they care about the tourist dollar they don't care about it the same way you do. So when you are lost start looking for some one and they'll likely be able to give you directions to where you are going. Or as in the case today when we were trying to locate Dromore Castle, they'll just jump in your car (reeking of stale alcohol) and show you how to get there. Very funny old man literally got in the back seat when we asked for directions and said I'll show ye. Then when he got us where we needed to be and we offered to drive him back (probably about 4 miles), he said: "no, I need the walk". He did not really speak to us when he was in the car other than to tell us just continue on down the road here, make a left here and go down a bit more, there you see it. It was an amazing experience.

Our first stop today was at Muntreg, it had the ruins of a Friary consisting of about 5 medieval churches. They were very neat to see.

Our next stop was Dromore Castle, it is called the "Fairytale Castle" and was built in the late 1800's. It burned down in the 1940's. The reason it is a fairytale is because it looks like no other castle in Ireland. The architect for it pulled the wrong set of plans and built something he was meant to build along the Rhine river in Germany. It was also the setting used for the movie "High Spirits", starring Darryl Hannah and Peter O'Toole. Very good movie, if you have never seen it, I would encourage you to do so. It turned out after all that getting lost to find it, it is on private property and you can't go in or even get very close to it. We met a lovely couple out walking when we were trying to figure out how to get on the property and they said, "can you imagine, that is what we see from our bedroom window." It would certainly be an amazing view.

Following that, we were on to the Celtic Folk Park and Garden in Kilcornan. It was a lovely 3 mile hike around the park that took us through an interpretation of Celtic History. It started at the Templar Church. The original church was built by the Knight's Templar around 1100AD. Then on to a Dolmen that they had constructed, a "Dolmen" is a megalithic tomb structure. Then a community tomb, a lake home, a stone circle as in "Stonehenge", only much smaller. A "mass rock" rumor has it during the Catholic repression these rocks were used with the Priest saying mass with his back to the people, and the people standing on the hillside watching for soldiers so they could warn the priest and disperse should the English show up. And finally, the Throne that the kings of Clare were crowned on. It was said that they could hear lions roar when they were on the chair, proclaiming them true kings of Ireland.

After that we went in search of Beagh Castle, it was an impressive set of ruins sitting right on top of the Shannon River.

Our final place to see was Askeaton we went in search of what was an amazing ruin of a Franciscan Friary and to our great delight found in the middle of the village the ruins of the Castle. The castle was built around 1199 and by the 14th century was the principle residence of the Fitzgeralds who were the Earls of Desmond.

Then we drove on to Tarbert and took a 20 minute ferry ride across the Shannon, landing in Co. Kerry to complete the circle and arrive back at Bunratty. I've included a link with the pictures from my camera and will add Adrian's pictures later.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12938045@N02/