We began day 4 with a several hour drive from County Roscommon to County Claire. We had a few stops planned along the way, but totally lucked into this beauty. We were driving through the town of Kinvara and noticed some tour buses stopped and people standing on the hillside of the castle shown below. We decided to stop and see what it was. Turns out it was Dunguaire Castle which is pictured on the front cover of our tour book. Dunguaire Castle is on a rock north of Kinvara Bay and is said to stand on the site of a 7th century castle built by the King of Connaught. It was built in 1520.
I consider these photos to be some of the best of our trip. It was beautiful. We walked up to the castle, but it was not open to tourists. It is currently used for Middle Ages style banquet dinners.
As we continued our road trip, we had a few minute stop to let some cattle go by. It looks like their owner was moving them between pastures and the road was the best way to accomplish it. You hear stories about sheep being moved using the road in Ireland. We did not experience that with sheep, but we did get the chance with cattle. The cattle looked like it happened frequently, they knew just what to do.
We passed through The Burren Country. It is a 116 square mile area which has a rocky landscape with gray as the prevailing color rather than green as in most of Ireland. The Burren is named for an Irish word bhoireann (a rocky place). Stretching off in all directions, as far as the eye can see, are vast, irregular slabs of fissured limestone, known as karst, with deep cracks between them. From a distance, it looks like a lunar landscape, so dry that nothing could possibly grown on it, but from what I understand, in the spring it becomes a wild rock garden, with an astonishing variety of wildflowers. There is also substantial wildlife including frogs, newts, lizards, badgers, stoats, sparrow hawks, kestrels, and dozens of other birds and animals.
We stopped at spot designed to pull off the road and observe the beautiful landscape. At the stop I noticed a sign about a water supply extension. I would guess it is pretty challenging to construct a waterline through this rocky landscape.
We stopped for lunch at a local pub. We sat at the bar with other folks who all appeared to be local regulars. They were watching a professional soccer game on TV and were fanatical! We had fish and chips. Food was okay, but definitely not what you travel to Ireland for.
Next stop, Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs of Moher have a long and nearly hallowed history. They were sacred in the Celtic era and were a favorite hunting retreat for Irish royalty. Numerous seabirds make their homes in the shelves of rock on the cliffs. Built in 1835 by Cornelius O’Brien (of Bunratty Castle fame and descendant of the Kings of Thomond) O’Brien’s Tower is a defiant, broody sentinel on the Cliffs’ highest point, built to tourism. There is also a grass-roof, subterranean visitor center which is built into the cliff face and was a good refuge from the rain. The Cliffs go on for miles.
Cliffs of Moher were beautiful and worth seeing. They have been featured in many movies and now we have been there. Our visit was somewhat cold, windy and wet. It was like we were back in Lubbock fighting against 50mph winds, but it was worth the fight.
Just a few miles from the Cliffs this was the landscape. Funny how quickly it changed.
During our drive from the Cliffs to our hotel, we saw several rainbows. I enjoyed trying to take pictures of them to send to the kids back home. Our story was we were looking for the leprechaun and pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but we had some competition (the cars in front of us). Not sure if anyone else enjoyed this, but I got a pretty good kick of it.
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