A Journey Through Millions of Years of History in County Clare, Ireland

. “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” - Paul Theroux

Here I sit in the beautiful country cottage in Hampshire where we shall be living in for the next six weeks or so and trying to find motivation to blog. It is difficult I must admit while the sun is shining, the birds are singing and scores of butterflies and bees are darting in an out for the stunning flowers in the delightful cottage garden. The kids tell me they feel like they are living in an Enid Blyton story. Come to think of it our lane does end in a wood. When we leave I promise to share with you the details of this place, as it is the perfect holiday rental close to Salisbury, Ringwood and the New Forest. But in any case I am way off target, and need to jog my brain into action to tell you more about our time in Ireland, which was very special even if it was a little cold in retrospect.



Dunguaire Castle

Today was one of those very special days we keep on having in Ireland. Lots of driving, yes, but a reward at the end of each leg. Rather than just heading straight for Shannon and flying out to our next destination, we took a slower route that took us through the highlights of County Clare. Along the way to the Burren we were able to catch a quick glimpse of Dunguaire Castle and some loving waterside villages.

The TomTom has been less reliable in Ireland for two reasons. Firstly the lack of postcodes, where England has a postcode for a small number of houses, with different postcodes in the same street, in Ireland you’re lucky to have a street number.  The second is that Ireland’s treasures sometimes don’t rate a mention on the TomTom. Poulnabrone, which gets a thousand visitors a day in the off season and up to ten thousand in summer, is one of these.

 

For our first stop, Poulnabrone Dolmen, located in the Burren, we set the TomTom for a town nearby and hoped for a handy sign along the way.  We should have just used the map as the TomTom used a shortcut to the little town and we missed Poulnabrone all together. This was not a problem as we enjoyed wandering aimlessly through the rocky semi-lunar landscape of the Burren.

The Burren reminded Rob of Croatia, the hilly rocky landscape of the areas around his parents’ home towns inland from the Dalmatian coast. Except of course being Ireland it is much, much greener. The fields, bordered by rocky fences, held lovely shaggy looking cows.

At one point we stopped at a tourist map on a sign and noticed a few of the cows wandering along the road. The next minute the postman pulled his car over and starting yelling at the cows and it was terribly funny. We can't tell you if he was speaking English, Gaelic, gobbledegook or even cow but those cow were at least taking notice of him. Finally for good measure he blew them a very loud raspberry and off they went back into their paddock. Not far down the road we finally arrived at Poulnabrone Dolmen.

  Poulnabrone is a six thousand year old portal tomb, where the bones of Neolithic farmers and their families were buried. From here they believed they would be transported directly to the afterlife. The tomb was used by these earliest farmers on down through the millennia as far as the bronze age when a child was the last identifiable burial in around 1400 BC.

 Rob and I really enjoyed talking to the volunteer who was there to keep watch and share information with the bus loads of tourists. We learnt a lot about life in Ireland, not only in the stone age but life in Ireland today. We were shocked to learn that there are concerns about the future of Poulnabrone, which has stood safely for six thousand years, but is now at the mercy of fools who visit at night, lighting fires inside and climbing on top. Here's hoping its still standing should you get the opportunity to visit. We were very lucky to have the place to ourselves, but our friendly guide warned us to be quick as a tour bus was on it's way.

 Our next stop, after quite a drive and doubts as to whether we had made the right decision, especially as we made the walk for the carpark, was the Cliffs of Moher. Despite the freezing cold winds we were all very happy that we had made the journey as soon as we saw that stunning view.

 

 

Of course with kids you have to make sure that they stay close at all times as you wouldn't want them wandering off and doing crazy things. After spending about an hour we were worried about being late for our Banquet and so we drove our final leg to Bunratty, with time to drop our bags and rush off again.

We actually arrived early and I asked if we could walk through the Bunratty Folk Park before we made our way to the Castle. Luckily they were more than happy to oblige and, while it was closed, we enjoyed seeing more little huts and a number of old stone cottages and thatchies as our kids have nicknamed thatched cottages.

The Banquet at Bunratty Castle was a once in a lifetime opportunity for us all. It gave us the opportunity to step back in time, to the fourteen hundreds when the castle was built.

We were welcomed by the butler and ushered into the Great Hall, decorated with five hundred year old tapestries and Irish elk horns that are many thousands of years old. There is even a pagan 'sheela' fertility symbol embedded in the wall believed to have possible come from Brittany. Here we sampled some mead (we adults did in any case), were offered the Bite of Friendship (small pieces of bread to dip in salt) and listened to some lovely medieval music.

After this we were led to the very small winding staircase, I was glad I had stopped at one goblet of mead, and we were led down to the lower hall for dinner. We all sat at long tables on benches with people from all over the world and we were lucky to be placed on the end near the musicians.

The kids loved the rule of no knives and forks and ate enthusiastically through four courses. Okay I can not tell a lie, we enjoyed the soup, spare ribs and dessert but dry roast chicken breast and vegies, which wouldn't have been too impressive with cutlery, were quickly abandoned without.

Between the courses we were giving servings of music (the fiddler was amazing), as well as light hearted comedy and merriment. One man was even sent to the dungeons for the offence of ogling the women. Eventually the miscreant was brought back up and punished by having to sing for us. Luckily the poor man chosen out of the audience had a brilliant sense of humour and sang and even danced to "All the single ladies" and had the room in stitches.

When it was time to take our leave we were farewelled by the Butler, who had spent the night calling Emma the Lady Rapunzel, and we were piped out of the castle by a piper. It was a brilliant way to spend our last night in Ireland before heading off early the next morning to Edinburgh.

 

And there you have it, I have managed to finish with Ireland and I'm still weeks behind. But for now I am going to enjoy my breakfast. Emma has decided that our cottage is her bed and breakfast and she is acting as our waitress and providing us with a lovely brunch. Life is certainly sweet.