Author: marionvermazen

We are staying at a B&B that I picked because my Great Great Great Grandfather Humphrey Robinson lived nearby. On our way to dinner tonight Duke and I went exploring and we found some ruins that are exactly where his farm was!! In the 1857 Griffiths Valuation (essentially a census) it shows exactly where he lived and the ruins we found today are in the same spot. In 1864 he emigrated with two sons to Brisbane, Australia. His daughter and her son Alexander, my Mom’s Grandmother, emigrated to Canada.

This morning we drove from the west coast inland to near Swanlinbar, County Cavan where we are tonight. Along the way we stopped and took a short walk to Glencar Waterfall.

Later we stopped and took a tour of Marble Arch Cave.

For dinner we had amazing steaks.

Today we moved further up the west coast of Ireland. About halfway between Oranmore and Rosses Point we stopped at the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life. It is set beside a lake and an old country house.

After going through the museum we walked around the lake.

Tonight we are staying at a B&B called Down Yonder in Rosses Point near Sligo. Our room sits on a hill overlooking the water. We had a lovely pub dinner at Austies near by.

Yesterday when we visited the Cliffs of Moher it was hard to see much because of the fog and rain. This morning we visited again. The weather was much better and we could see a lot more. We walked around a bit and took some pictures. By the time we were leaving it was starting to rain again and visibility was getting worse.

The drive to Oranmore where we are tonight was short. We stopped to have a look at Dunguaire Castle.

We have a lovely view of this old cemetery from our hotel window.

This morning we headed up the west coast of Ireland to a B&B near the Cliffs of Moher. It rained all day. When we got to the cliffs it was raining and blowing so hard that it was a challenge to stand up. The visibility was poor so we didn’t see much of the cliffs. Our ticket to the visitor center and cliff view is good for twenty four hours so we will check it out again in the morning.

We spent today exploring a wide variety of places not far from where we are staying in the south west corner of Ireland. We started out exploring by visiting two Stone forts Cahergal and Kilovarnoge. They were built more than a thousand years ago. Nearby we stopped at the ruins of Ballycarbery Castle.

Next we went to Valentia Island. That’s the island we could see from the bar we ate at last night. Before we left this morning I downloaded a guide to the island so we followed that.

First we stopped at the visitor center for the Skellig Islands. The Islands are a UNESCO world heritage site. One of the rocky island, Skellig Michael was the site of a monastery. During the Dark Ages the monks on Skellig Michael helped preserve literacy and sacred texts. Hikers can take a boat to the island and hike 600 vertical feet up to the monastic ruins. Based on the video we saw in the visitor center it looks like a very challenging boat ride and hike. Scenes from Star Wars VII were filmed on the Skellig Islands.

After the visitor center we stopped at an old Protestant cemetery.

Then a bit farther down the road we checked out the lighthouse.

To add something totally different to our day our next stop was to see rock footprints that are the oldest record of a vertebrate walking on land. According to the sign at the sight that was 385 million years ago!

Just down the road we stopped to see the slate quarry where the slate for the English Houses of Parliament and the Paris Opera house came from. It’s a religious shrine now.

Finally the highlight of the day was hiking the Bray Head Loop trail. From the top of the cliff we could see the Skellig Islands in the distance.

We are dinner at a bar in town. We had lamb shank and beef stew. They were both slow cooked in Guinness beer.