Cliffs of Moher, Stone Forts and the Burren!

This was a day long planned and anticipated - our Barratt Bus tour of County Clare, just to the north of us here in Limerick. It was a long day on the bus - the little Indian girl behind us threw up - ew - but for once we didn't! It helped that we got our pick of seats on the bus! What great little adventurers!

The first stop was Caherconnell Stone Ring Fort. It's over 1,000 years old. Families would build stone walls in circles to protect their homes and livestock. The stones are laid without mortar between them so the wind can rush through them, allowing them to stand longer without being blown down.




This is the remains of Leamenagh Castle, one of the many owned by the powerful Butler family. Descendants of the family still live in the little house to the left of the castle, below.
Most of this tour took place on the Burren, which is a whole region where the topsoil had been scraped off the rock features by glaciers in the last ice age, revealing the "bones" of the earth underneath. One says of the Burren that it's a place "with not enough water to drown a man, not enough trees to hang him, and not enough earth to bury him." We found it so fascinating! The kids loved jumping from rock to rock, and learning about the erosion of the limestone to make underwater rivers, caves and canyons. It's a very surprising place, the Burren.
There's miles and miles of this kind of landscape - grey rock "pavements" pockmarked with mosses and wildflowers.
Here is Sophie modelling the famous Poulnabrone Tomb, thought to date back to 3800 BC!

Here we are on the west coast of Ireland, just above Doolin. They were shooting a movie here with Gerard Depardieu that day so the bus had to go around its usual spot to drop us here. The kids were in heaven with all these rocks to jump on and around!
We had lunch in the charming village of Doolin, famous as a pilgrimage town for traditional Irish music as well as its single meet market festivals in September. We were there during one of these festivals, evidently, and found the pub crowded with various versions of Singles on the Hunt. Great people watching, for those interested in the sport! I had a divine caesar salad and vegetable soup, the kids had soup and chips, and we got back onto the bus for our next stop: the celebrated Cliffs of Moher.I heard that they filmed the Cliffs of Insanity sequence here, and I believe it! They're trying to get the Cliffs into the next Wonders of the World list. They are beautiful, and quite dramatic... but for someone who's traveled the Norwegian Fjords, trained through the Alps, driven Highway 1 up Big Sur, hiked the Seven Sacred Pools to their source above Hana on Maui, and gawked at the endless majesties of Lake Powell, Yellowstone and Yosemite... the Cliffs are... nice. A little stark for my taste, I guess.
This is the view of the cliffs from the tower, below. We were so lucky that at almost every stop we made that day, the rain held off while we toured the sight, then it would pour while we drove to our next destination, then it would be clear for 10 minutes for us to run around at the next stop... yup, we were lucky. At the Cliffs we did run into some fierce wind that almost blew Spencer down the long set of stairs leading up the cliffs to the tower - I could have flown him like a kite if I'd had a bit of string to tie to his belt loops! It just added to the adventure though. And to top it off, Mom totally caved in and gave each kid two euro to spend at their own discretion. Mag picked chocolate, Soph got white chocolate (that's my girl!) and Spencer got a lollipop as big as his head! Two hours of sucking later and he hasn't made a dent. Kept him quiet and happy on the whole drive home, and now it's going to rest at the back of my cupboard until needed. All in all, a very good day.
And once again, Gary stayed home to work and to save money! :-( He probably enjoyed the peace and quiet though, especially since one of our new ward friends lent the kids some toys, including a Dora the Explorer laptop that won't stop singing, and a set of bowling pins which we set up in the long front hallway. The kids' mini soccer balls make great bowling balls and we have a lot of fun! It's definitely not quiet fun though!