11th post for 2013: Ireland

One of my cousins came over from New Zealand for just under 3 weeks and, with another cousin, the 3 of us went to Ireland.

We arrived in Dublin and stopped off in Kildar on the way to Portumna where we picked up our boat for the week and we “cruised” Lough Derg.

St Brigid’s Cathedral, Kildare

The Cathedral has a number of Sheelagh-na-gigs (erotic carvings)

The Gordon Bennett Cup (first international motor race) ran through Kildare in 1903

Celia and Pam

Sign in Mount Shannon

Poster in Mount Shannon

Big blob in dead tree = eagle

We cruised down to Killaloe where the last High King of Ireland, Brian, was born.

We had a day off the boat, picked up the car and drove to Galway

Where a Lynch hanged his son out of the window overnight (see boots in upper window) – it’s a complicated story….

and came back via the Aillwee Bear Cave (only a few bones and stalactites) and The Burren Birds of Prey Centre

Captive white tailed eagle

Not a white tailed eagle

Stopping on the way to see the Poulnabrone Tomb

Portumna had a workhouse which was being restored.  We were given a tour and heard the painful history.

And there were claims that there were corncrakes in the area so we went in search of them, completely in vain, not even a squeak, let alone a crake.  However we did find Meelick Abbey

And finally we went to Glendalough, a monastery founded by St Kevin who died in 618.

 

One of the best preserved of Irish Round Towers – believed to be for defence, built between C9th & C12th

and,lastly, a sunset