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IRELAND, DAY 2: ROCK OF CASHEL AND HORE ABBEY
July 5, 2024We were hitting jet lag on the afternoon of our first full day in Ireland, so I picked up a Coke Zero at the gas station. I was intrigued by the ingenuity of the attached cap. That's a...
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IRELAND, DAY 2: CORK
July 5, 2024Our next destination was Cork, located in (what else) County Cork, the largest and southernmost county of Ireland.With a population of about 225,000, Cork is the second largest city in...
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IRELAND, DAY 3: MINARD CASTLE, THE DINGLE PENINSULA, AND SLEA HEAD DRIVE
July 6, 2024Our plan had been to start the day at Blarney Castle, but when we tried to get tickets online, they were sold out. That's okay--we didn't feel a great need to kiss the Blarney Stone and...
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IRELAND, DAY 4: DANIEL O'CONNELL MEMORIAL CHURCH
July 7, 2024On our way to the scenic Ring of Kerry Drive, we passed through Cahersiveen, population 1,300. When we saw the Daniel O'Connell Memorial Church looming over the village, we decided to take...
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IRELAND, DAY 4: THE KERRY CLIFFS
July 7, 2024After leaving the Daniel O'Connell Memorial Church, our goal for the day was to complete the Ring of Kerry Scenic Drive. We started by driving our car onto the Valentia Island Ferry, which...
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IRELAND, DAY 4: THE SKELLIG RING AND RING OF KERRY SCENIC DRIVES
July 7, 2024It was 1:00 and we were hungry. We had bought some snacks at our last gas station stop and were ready to eat them.Bob found a grassy knoll where we could sit down and enjoy the cool...
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IRELAND, DAY 5: CLIFFS OF MOHER
July 8, 2024A 2.25 hour drive got us from our hotel in Castleisland to the Cliffs of Moher, the #2 attraction in Ireland after the #1 Guiness Brewery Tour (which was not on our itinerary). In 2022,...
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IRELAND, DAY 5: SLIGO
July 8, 2024Sligo, population 20,000, is located on the coast just west of Northern Ireland.As we drove into town, I spotted this mural, which I have since identified as the 1916 Easter Rising Mural....
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IRELAND, DAY 6: SLIGO'S YEATS TRAIL
July 9, 2024After I spent a few minutes with the statue of Yeats in Sligo, we got on the "Yeats Trail," which takes visitors to several sites around Sligo that are somehow connected to the famous...
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NORTHERN IRELAND: DERRY/LONDONDERRY, PART I (CITY WALLS, ST. COLUMB'S...
July 9, 2024We drove from Drumcliffe Church outside of Sligo to Londonderry/Derry, Northern Ireland, actually part of the United Kingdom and therefore a different country than the Republic of Ireland....
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NORTHERN IRELAND: DERRY/LONDONDERRY, PART II (THE BOGSIDE)
July 9, 2024We met our guide, whom Bob had booked through Derry Blue Badge Guide, at Guild Hall, a beautiful building originally used for tax collecting and as a town hall and now the seat of local...
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NORTHERN IRELAND: THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY
July 10, 2024The Giant's Causeway is a geologic rock formation formed by an erupting volcano 50 or 60 million years ago. The molten basalt seeped through chalk beds to form a volcanic plateau, and as...
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NORTHERN IRELAND: BELFAST - C. S. LEWIS SQUARE AND CITY HALL
July 10, 2024I was quite excited to go to Belfast, which to me--prior to this trip--had been the center of all the conflict that occurred in Northern Ireland. I remembered the terrible fighting that...
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NORTHERN IRELAND: BELFAST CITY TOUR - TWO SIDES
July 10, 2024Friends who visited Northern Ireland a year or two ago recommended a tour they took in Belfast that was split into two parts. Half was led by an Irish Nationalist on the Catholic side of...
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NORTHERN IRELAND, BELFAST: THE TITANIC MUSEUM
July 10, 2024After our two-part tour of Belfast, we decided to squeeze in a quick trip to the Titanic Museum. We only had an hour before it closed, but we had already been to the Titanic Museum and...
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NORTHERN IRELAND, BELFAST CITY TOUR PART II
July 11, 2024We had one more day and one more city tour planned for Belfast. Bob had booked a street art tour, not realizing that a lot of the street art would be covered in the political "two sides"...
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NORTHERN IRELAND, ARMAGH: ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL (CHURCH OF IRELAND)
July 11, 2024It was time to get back on the road, so we headed south from Belfast in our rental car, a definite upgrade from the one that had broken down on us a few days prior.I should reiterate here...
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NORTHERN IRELAND: ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL (ROMAN CATHOLIC) OF ARMAGH AND DOWN...
July 11, 2024We made our way from the Protestant Saint Patrick's Cathedral to the Catholic Saint Patrick's Cathedral and were amused to see the figure on The Bishop's Monument looking over the valley...
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IRELAND: TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
July 12, 2024Bob and I like to visit famous universities. We've been to most of the biggies in the United States (Think Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, etc.), and we've been to a few...
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IRELAND, DUBLIN'S GRAFTON STREET: DAVEY BYRNE'S PUB AND BEWLEY'S CAFE AND...
July 12, 2024Many cities have "their street," the one that is associated with only that city and uniquely theirs--Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, 5th Avenue in New York City, Champs-Élysées in Paris,...
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