The next stop on our tour of Ireland was back in the Republic of Ireland in the little town of Bunratty. It was a long, three and a half hour drive down to Bunratty, but we made good time and the sun was shining!
It was a gorgeous day for driving!
Our hotel was just down the street, within walking distance of Bunratty Castle. Say what you want about the cheesiness of the medieval dinner, but Todd and I had a BLAST at that dinner back in 2003 when we sat at a table full of representatives from the United Nations. We drank a LOT of mead. So this time, we wanted to make sure we could walk back from the dinner instead of drive!
Bunratty Castle sits in a floodplain. Solidly.
Before we went to the dinner, we toured around the really neat Folk Park that they have set up to give you examples of how people lived during different periods and in different parts of Ireland. The place smells of peat moss, which is burned in each of the little homes or businesses.
This looks exactly like one of the bedrooms at my grandparents house in Indiana!
Grant in the upstairs master bedroom overlooking the main room of one of the houses. There was a (real) woman in there baking bread for us to taste!
The mean "streets" of Bunratty Folk Park. I love the Jameson barrels everywhere!
This child and his obsession with chickens. I forgot to mention that on the Northern Ireland post, but he's also obsessed with chickens. He and his friends have invented "the chicken club" at school. I don't even know what this about. He is a strange child! He looks like he is using the Jedi mind trick on this chicken!
They have a little downtown area that has "shops" - some of which are real and actually sell things, and some are just examples of types of businesses that might have been around during certain periods in Ireland. It's really cute!
Here they are in the schoolhouse and daddy is teaching them all about music.
And mommy is waving a finger at them in the girl's side of the school house. This example of a school had two school rooms, segregated by gender.
Have a seat, Grant. Please. Make yourself right at home.
In the "downtown" area of the Folk Park, they actually have a little bar! Time for a little break at MacNamara and Sons for a pint, a bit of Jameson, or maybe just a 7-Up!
Now that's a nice view of Bunratty Castle!
But everything is better with these kids in my picture! Let's go visit Bunratty Castle, shall we?
We literally made it with seconds to spare at the castle because they close it to visitors at a certain point in order to prepare for the two medieval dinners they put on every evening. So we had to go through the castle kind of quickly. But it was just how I remembered!
Grant is very clearly possessed in this picture. You start in the upper main hall and can visit the surrounding towers. At this point, they had already closed the Great Hall for the dinner, but we didn't mind because we had reservations for the big show.
Seriously. If you knew how much they fight and get on each others nerves, you would think they staged this photo. But no, they genuinely like each other sometimes! I know I say this all the time, but it's so crazy to me when we actually capture it.
Dead mermaid with a shield and a problematic left hand hanging from a ceiling in a castle in Ireland.
Peaking through a little opening (window?) in one of the rooms in the North Solar apartments above the upstairs main hall.
While we were in the North Solar apartments, we noticed this in the floor. That's sunlight. Coming from the floor. How long will it be before we hear news that some tourist has fallen through the floor of the North Solar apartments and down to the main entrance of the castle!?!
A wooden tower once stood here as early as 1251 and was erected on a moat. That makes sense looking at this picture from the top of the tower of a small tributary to the River Shannon. The present castle was built in 1425 but has since undergone many renovations and restorations. The building across the street on the river appears to be fore sale and not in use.
This tributary is all tidal backwater from the River Shannon and I was totally geeking out over the floodplain of the Ratty River. It made me wonder why they built a castle here. Back during the time it was constructed, castles were generally built on hilltops for better vantage points and safety when they were under attack.
Something interesting that I didn't know about Bunratty Castle that I read at the entrance: "Admiral Penn was besieged here in 1646 and it is generally believed that his son, William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, then an infant was at the castle."
Like so many other castles we have been in, I assume the people who originally built the castle were smaller than Natalie with smaller feet and therefore built incredibly narrow spiral staircases. Notice she's walking down these stairs sideways. Imagine how Todd felt with his size 13s!
Back in the castle, we moved over to the South Solar tower. Most of the furnishings and tapestry's in Bunratty Castle date to the 1600s.
This was my favorite room in the entire house. I like to think of it as the Office of the Lord of the Manor.
The ceiling in this room was super fancy. The solar rooms were generally known as the best rooms in the house because they were the warmest!
Someone took a cute pic of my family but they cut off the top of Bunratty Castle!
Back out in the Folk Park (because we had a few minutes before we had to pick up the tickets for our dinner,) Natalie took a good panorama of us pretending to live in the Mountain Farmhouse. This home was typical in West Limerick and North Kerry.
Todd can't ever leave the Mountain Farmhouse. Seriously. Are there any people in (most of) Europe who are above 6 feet tall? (No, no... I get it... this was a home from over 100 years ago... the answer to that is no!) Interesting side note: The Irish are the tallest people I've seen yet in our time here. We haven't been to northern Europe yet, and I know the Danes are super tall, but there were a LOT of guys who were nearly or equally as tall as Todd here. I was a bit surprised.
The Shannon Farmhouse had a really cool space saver... a bed inside of the sideboard in the dining room!
We had about 15-20 minutes until we had to be back at the entrance to go to the medieval dinner. So what did we do and where did we go? Why, back to Mac's pub, of course!
Grant keeping himself warm by the fire at Mac's pub.
We cashed in our vouchers and got our tickets to the dinner. The Lord and Lady of the manor greet you at the front door to welcome you to the castle. Adults get a cup of mead while kids get a cup of juice that you get to drink in the main hall of the castle.
Two lovely ladies play the harp while you wait for the other guests to arrive.
Then the Lord and Lady of the manor greet you with some history and song. See the guy on the far right holding the little girl in the pink jacket? He was the Lord for the meal and his wife was the lady. Todd and I didn't get picked again!
That's ok. I'll take this Lord over that one any day!
This Lord and Lady are also preferable.
Bunratty Castle's dinner is unique in that you do not have any silverware, except for a knife. No spoon for the soup, no fork for the rest of the meal. They both really enjoyed the spiced parsnip soup!
This family selfie was taken post soup, but pre spare ribs in a honey whiskey sauce. Dinner also featured chicken and potatoes and veggies. Disappointing though was the lack of mead at the dinner table. They did have red and white wine, but no mead! The bartender at our hotel told us later that apparently people were drinking entirely too much mead and getting entirely too rowdy. It was such a bummer.
This poor fella was the guy who got thrown in the dungeon for cavorting with the ladies. Coincidentally, he was actually in Ireland on his honeymoon! He was a good sport!
We met a nice couple from New York who sat next to us with their two little girls, Mable and Eloise. They were both hilarious. Natalie is so good with little kids, so she took them over to the dungeon to see where the bad guys were kept.
I DO NOT LIKE anything on my hands. SO I pretty much ate all the ribs like this.
I don't know what his excuse is! Spare rib insanity!
Ok, promise not to laugh? Almost 15 years ago, we took this picture in the dining hall at Bunratty.
We tried really hard to recreate this picture! Clearly the art above the fireplace has been removed and the lighting is much warmer. But we look exactly the same, don't we? DON'T WE??????
After more song and dessert, you're escorted out into another small room for a final cup of coffee. When you leave, a guy serenades you with bagpipes. (Feel free to give him a spare Euro in front of his feet!)
The kids don't understand what a telephone booth is or why you would ever need one. "Wouldn't you just use your iPhone?"
After the kids showered and went to bed, we went downstairs for a nightcap. We were really just sad that we didn't have more mead so we were trying to make up for it. (I kid, I kid...) This is like, only the fifth time in two and a half years we've been on a date and they're almost always like this. Kids are upstairs in the hotel and we are spending big cash at the hotel bar.
Early in the morning, we left Bunratty and headed for the Cliffs of Moher on our way to Galway. The weather, while (naturally) cold and windy was infinitely better than the last time Todd and I were here! Hooray for beautiful views!
Breathtaking.
The Griswold's at the Cliffs of Moher. It. Was. Freezing. I have Raynaud's syndrome, which causes the tiny arteries in my fingers and toes to constrict when it's cold, reducing blood flow to them and causing them to turn white or even black and causes me to lose feeling in them. I could not feel about 8 out of 10 of my toes. (Note to self: Next time, wear something with a bit more insulation than Converse!)
There used to be a fort here in the early 1800s, but it was destroyed in the Napoleonic Wars. The word Mothar means "ruins of a fort." Hence the name, Cliffs of Moher. At the highest point, they are 702 feet above the water. O'Brien's Tower sits on the highest cliff.
O'Brien's Tower was built by and named for Cornelius O'Brien who was a prominent landowner in the area. He built the tower for tourists in the 1800s who wanted to come visit the tower. Of course, back then only the wealthy were able to travel.
The winds are pretty strong up on the cliffs. If you get a good gust of wind, you can lean into it pretty well without falling over.
Achtung!
How did the cliffs form? This was mind-blowing to me... directly from the Cliffs of Moher website it says, "About 320 million years ago, during the Upper Carboniferous period, the area of the Cliffs of Moher was much warmer and situated at the mouth of a larger river. Heavy rainfall created great floods that washed sand and mud into rivers flowing to the sea. The sand, silt and mud were dumped at the mouth of the great delta and over time, the sediments became compacted into solid rock which we now know as the Cliffs."
You know it's windy if it's holding up a 200+ pound man! He's not even on his tippy toes!
The panorama feature on your phone is a must use when you're at the Cliffs of Moher!
Branaunmore is a 67 meter sea stack that was once connected to the rest of the cliffs but has since been separated by erosion.
Eventually, we were so cold that we had to leave. We all got cappuccinos and hot chocolate at the visitor's center to warm up internally, and then got back on the road to Galway. By far, this was the most insane drive of our trip. The roads are only about 1.5 car widths wide, and don't even try to think you're going to go side by side with a bus or a larger van. The speed limit is really low and it takes a good while to get to Galway, but the scenery was really pretty. Todd and I remembered passing this funny castle when we were in Ireland in 2003. It's the Muckinish West Tower that was originally built in the 15th century. The oddest thing about it is the new (ish... it was there 15 years ago) housing development that was built right next to it. This is incredibly open land. They couldn't find another spot to build these? Not to mention they're clearly in the flood zone....
I believe this is Bell Harbor.
We also passed by Dunguaire Castle. This 16th century fortress ALSO has fun evening dinners, but alas we had to keep moving on to Galway.
We stayed at a hotel on the east side of Galway because it would make our trip to Dublin shorter, and it was less expensive to stay just outside of the city area. But there was a city bus that right outside of our hotel to take us into town. This was necessary, of course, so we didn't have to drive since Galway is well known for it's awesome pub scene! The main drag, Shop Street, is the most lively part of town.
First stop, Taaffe's Bar. My parents really loved this bar when they went to Ireland, and it's well known for it's Craic.
I particularly like the toilet sign at Taaffe's!
We got them WASTED on Sprite and Fanta! It was a CRAZY day!
Natalie got a pretty necklace when we stopped for souvenirs.
Galway is just SO much fun. It's colorful, the people are so nice, and there's plenty of pubs. Todd and I have always said we want to move there for 6 months after we retire!
Our little Irish family in Galway. Interestingly, hardly any girls in Ireland are named Colleen. That was something that became popular in America. We swung into the 800-year-old Kings Head on the left for some dinner, which was actually really good.
What? You think we should stop for another drink? Why yes. Yes of course we should.
How did we get our children to agree to these shenanigans and behave so well? We bribed them with ice cream, of course. Here we are checking out another cool pub in Galway, The Front Door.
I took this picture for my brother because one of our favorite movies of all time is One Crazy Summer. The name of the bar that Demi Moore's character's band plays in on Nantucket is called the Dew Drop Inn.
We were definitely feeling the Craic by this point. Our next pub was Tig Coili for another Jameson/Guinness and some live Irish music.
Don't worry. We didn't make them stay out til all hours of the night. We met a couple from Pennsylvania here at Tig Coili who were super nice. The wife had studied here in Galway when she was in college. (Man I wish that was something I had done!) One more selfie before we wrap it up for the night...
It's less than 2 hours to get to Dublin from where we were staying, so we had some time to stop in Athlone the next day to see the Oldest Pub in Ireland (and possibly the world!) SUPERLATIVE, CHECK!
Hooray for superlatives! Ireland's oldest pub!
No no, for real. It's Ireland's oldest pub! They are having Guinness look into whether they are the oldest pub in the whole world. So far, there have been no others who can prove they are as old as Sean's.
Todd with the wattle-work framed in the background. This (plus some other documents) is what sealed the deal for Sean's Pub in giving it the Guinness Book's world record of "oldest pub in Ireland" built in 900 AD.
Having a pint (just me... Todd was driving!) at the oldest pub in Ireland. Sean's Bar has the records of all owners since it was founded over 1100 years ago which is how it can claim the title.
I mean... if Guinness certifies it... it must be true, right?
This might be my favorite thing about Sean's Pub. There's still sawdust on the floor. Why? Because when it was built, they angled the floor toward the River Shannon (which wasn't too far from here.) When the water got too high on the river, which it did often, the water would still enter the pub, but it when the river levels lowered, the water would drain back toward the river due to the angled flooring. They still have issues with water in the pub, hence the sawdust which keeps people from slipping. The angled floors were essentially flood vents before there were flood vents.
What? This was insane! Someone from the Natick Police was here at Sean's Bar and left a patch!
The bartender gave us a complete history of the bar and even squashed a few rumors. Rumor had it that for a very brief period of time, Boy George owned Sean's Bar but our friendly bartender said that simply wasn't true.
Athlone was a really neat little city, but again sadly we had to get to Dublin.
Walking to the car, Grant and I spotted this! This is where the Rice family resided before they died on the Titanic. Margaret Rice and her children Albert, George, Eric, Arthur and Eugene Francis lived here. Three others from Athlone (who didn't live at this exact address) also perished on the Titanic. Four people from Athlone survived.
The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul isn't a very old church. It's a Catholic church that was founded in the 1930s. I read somewhere that they are still using the old translation of the mass which is really kind of funny. And also with you! (No, no! It's "And with your spirit" now!) That would really confused me because even now, seven years after the transition, I still sometimes mess up the words at Mass!
Until next time western shore of Ireland (and Athlone!)
