As we tour through Ireland, take note how green everything is. Everywhere we look we see green fields in every direction. I have never seen so much green in my life.
Our day trip today includes a visit to Caherconnell Stone Fort, the Poulnabrone Megalithic Tomb, and for the finale The Cliffs of Moher. I should tell you upfront that these places are so beautiful, you will think I photoshopped the pics. But I am not editing anything at all--not even cropping. What you see is how it really is. At the Caherconnell Stone Fort we watched a sheep dog demonstration before touring the fort. While we were waiting, we watched two suckling lambs fight for breakfast, nearly knocking their poor mom over!
Below are the sheep that were part of the demonstration. There were three sheep dogs and each had their own part to play in herding the sheep to various points of the field. Each dog responded only to its own name, so it was a very complicated maneuver. The man controlling the show would give vocal commands or whistles and the dogs would respond only if their name was called. He had all three dogs doing different things at the same time. At one point, he gave commands for the dogs to separate out five of the sheep and they did it. Pretty amazing show!
The next few pics are these amazing dogs.
After the sheep dog demo we visited the Caherconnell Stone Fort. The group below is a team of archaeologists--mostly students from the United States--excavating the site. The fort dates back to the 10th to 12th century.
There are a lot of very modern houses in Ireland but as you can see below, even the most modern still make use of rock for the facades on their houses, and everybody has stone walls around their property.
The next couple pics are of the Poulnabrone Megalithic Tomb. We were told that this tomb dates back to 3200-2900 B.C. To me that seems to pre-date The Flood or least go back to the time of Noah...but I am not going to think too hard on this.
On the way to the Cliffs of Moher, we saw a lot of scenes like the ones below. See what I mean about how beautiful the countryside is? I could not believe how blue the North Atlantic is!
Now I know why they call it the deep blue sea. Right across this deep blue sea is the United States.
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| North Atlantic Ocean |
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| North Atlantic Coastline |
The next few pics are of the Cliffs of Moher. This was the location for shooting scenes for Ryan's Daughter, The Princess Bride, Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince and other movies and TV shows.
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| The Cliffs of Moher |
This next pic shows how close we were standing to the edge of this 700 foot drop-off. I was not as close however as the guy in the pic after that!
The Cliffs of Moher was a place people chose to commit suicide. Maybe they still do. I was dying of fright just watching this guy pictured below--it made my stomach do those twirly flip flops. This guy's friends were warning him away from the cliff but he kept saying "It's not as bad as it looks!"
Here is how it looks!
Our day trip the next day proved to be a little safer. We started out at the Rock of Cashel, a cathedral built sometime between 1235-1270. Local legend has it that St. Patrick banished Satan from a cave and to get revenge, Satan took a bite out of a mountain about 20 miles away and hurled it at St. Patrick. He missed, but the Rock of Cashel is there today.
If you look closely at the mountain on the right in the next picture, you can see where Satan took his bite!
In 1647, the cathedral was sacked by English Parliamentary troops under orders given by Oliver Cromwell, and because people went to the cathedral for protection, there were about 1000 folks there at the time of the attack. All were massacred.
Pictured below is the round tower which is the oldest part of the cathedral built in around 1100 A.D.
The Abbey below can be easily seen from the Rock of Cashel.
Cemeteries surround the Rock of Cashel on all sides and many gravestones have the Celtic Cross at the top.
The round window seen below is called the Rose Window. (Looks like a four-leaf clover to me.)
Our next stop was Kilkenny Castle which was built in 1195 and was important for defense. It has survived wars--including a siege by Oliver Cromwell in 1650 when it was greatly damaged. It has now been restored in Victorian fashion and is one of the most visited tourist sites in all of Ireland.
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| Garden on Castle Grounds |
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| Dining Room |
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| Library |
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| Drawing Room--Pianoforte in right corner |
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| Nursery |
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| View from Bedroom |
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| View of City from Kilkenny Castle |
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| Garden of Kilkenny Castle |
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| Kilkenny Castle |
Our final stop for the day was Jerpoint Abbey. Legend has it that St. Nicholas of Myra was buried here. He was a bishop during the time of the Roman Empire. Below are pics of what remains of the Abbey today.
I don't know why I took the pic below other than the fact that I believe this run down garden may have been a secret garden at one time and is under a curse of some kind and is just waiting for some child to discover it and make it beautiful again. The magic never ends...
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