Saturday 21 September 2019

Travelling in West Ireland

Last week we took the ferry from Pembroke Dock to Rosslare.   We chose this route so that we could see Pembrokeshire in all its glory from the sea.  Sadly it was shrouded in mist so I didn't get the photos I really wanted.


We arrived at our B&B in Wexford to find a castle wall in the back garden.

During the 4 days I am going to share with you in this post I took 296 photos.  You will be pleased to know that I whittled them down to 26 for this post!   We love to travel about along country lanes and look at the passing countryside, occasionally stopping off to have a bit of a walkabout.  I took this photo of Lismore Castle through the car windscreen.

We went into the church at Lismore.

Shame about the lights hanging in the way!


We meandered on until we got to Cashel.  We walked around the cathedral on top of the rock.  There was a plethora of Celtic crosses.


We travelled on that day to Limerick.  And next day we walked around the old town of Limerick.  There were a couple of large churches and a castle.   I loved these chimneys.

And these derelict cottages painted to look as though people lived there.

We continued our meandering around Loop Head, stopping to walk around the headland and obviously to take yet more photos.



We passed many of these square towers which we eventually found out were built by people to keep themselves safe.

We eventually arrived at Spanish Point where we were staying the night.

This dog decided to accompany us on our walk.


Our fourth day had disappointing weather in the morning.  So after stopping in Miltown Malbay to see the waterfall that is right in the middle of town, we went to The Burren Visitor Centre, in Kilfenora.


When we came out of the Visitor Centre it had stopped raining and the sun had come out.  It was still very windy.  We made our way to the Cliffs of Moher - along with about 10,000 other people.  May be an exaggeration but there were a lot of cars, coaches and people!



The Burren is famous for its limestone pavements which I found quite difficult to photograph.

The Burren is an amazing area with miles and miles of the limestone pavements and amazing inland cliffs.   We included a visit to a Megolithic tomb.  I particularly liked this bit of pavement that looked like an animal.



We travelled on to Galway City where we found a B&B in Salthill.

More to come about our travels along the Wild Atlantic Coast in my next post.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice


2 comments:

  1. I loved traveling along with you through the pictures. Do the cliffs ever fall down? They look so weather worn (I assume from great waves) but precarious all the same. Do waves get tall enough to top them? That castle must have been a glorious town at one time. What sort of people lived inside? I know there were levels of people but did the lower level live inside or just outside? How did they deal with the sewage? Where did they get their drinking water? I assume they didn't have a well since it appears so high up from the water table. Or maybe did they mostly live outside and then use the castle to live in if threatened by enemies? I can imagine a great many homes and tiny farms outside it to supply the inside with food but with no trees around, did they all have stone houses? Where did those go? You sure inspired a lot of questions from me this morning. LOL Thanks for the pictures as it will be my only time to visit this magnificent landscape.

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    Replies
    1. The Cliffs of Moher are very tall so no the waves don't come up over the top but they will be being worn away at the bottom. https://www.cliffsofmoher.ie/
      I have no idea of the answers to your other questions. However you could start by looking at this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lismore_Castle

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