“Angela’s Ashes”, Cliffs of Moher, Portal Tomb (Ireland, April 11-12: Limerick to Dublin)

We had driven to Limerick the night before, so after a good night’s sleep, we walked into town. Some of the things we did:

• Visited the Frank McCourt Museum. Maybe you’ve heard of the novel “Angela’s Ashes” that was made into a film about 10 years ago. This is Frank McCourt’s childhood memoir of growing up in Limerick in the ‘30s, and it details the difficult times that his family (and Ireland in general) was going through. Before leaving for Ireland, E, P, Tiny, and I watched Angela’s Ashes together, so it was so cool to be able to see some of the actual locations depicted in the film. The museum was only opened in the last couple of years, and is located in the old school Frank attended. We had a terrific guide who basically gave us a personalized tour because we arrived in a quiet moment.

Click to enlarge! (Photo: E)

The real coats that were used in the film.

The classroom.

School register.

Original floorboards.

E at the teacher's desk!

• Stopped by an old-fashioned candy shop…with some very SOUR candies! Tiny’s brother M, a lover of all things sour, thought they weren’t too bad, but I think the rest of us lost all feeling in our taste buds after that!

•  Walked by the river and took lots of group shots. Wonderful sunny day!

 

 

See the rainbow?!

 

Take away the bridge, and you can imagine she's carrying them both! ;-)

• Visited a church with lovely flowering trees. The graveyard had some beautifully carved headstones, many with Celtic interlacing knotwork.

 

 

On returning to our hotel, I was going to ask where we could pick up adapters (we needed an extra one to charge all our electronics ;-). However, as we passed the vending machine, our problem was miraculously solved! Tucked into the left-hand corner were two rows of them, at a very reasonable price!!! Amazing!

Incredible! (Also note the presence
of both Pepsi AND Coke in the same machine...!)

Our elaborate international setup...;-)

April 12^th

The next day, we did more driving:

• The Cliffs of Moher – Ever wonder where the end scene of “Leap Year” was filmed? Or Harry Potter #6, where Dumbledore and Harry take a boat to the caves and meet the zombie creatures? Well, this is it! Needless to say, we couldn’t keep our hands off our cameras…:-D

E & A.

 

Harry Potter cave? ;-)

• Kilfenora Cathedral – Though the smallest diocese in medieval Ireland (a diocese is a district with its own bishop) Kilfenora is the site of a number of 12^th century “High Crosses.” They still show great detail and can be found inside the cathedral.

Victorian crosses outside.

One of the High Crosses (12th cent).

 

With A in the cathedral.

 

• Poulnabrone Portal Tomb – This tomb is over 5,000 years old and is found in the Burren, an unusual region between Galway and Limerick. The landscape is a limestone plateau, where water has eroded away the rock to create interesting hollows and ridges. The remains of over 30 people have been found at the site.

 

 We thought we’d stop in Galway for dinner, but as we came in, we noticed a LOT of cars all backed up. Not wanting to get caught in the traffic jam, we decided we’d start driving to Dublin then and have dinner in a smaller town. It turns out that we stopped at a Chinese restaurant – the town we picked had a very small main street and not a whole lot of places were open! But our drive to Dublin was pretty smooth, and we managed to find our hostel with little hassle! Bravo to P, for driving in the city on the “wrong” side of the road! ;-)