Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Ireland Between the Raindrops....

The photos below were taken during a visit to Ireland in August.  The weather as they say was ´mixed´.  But there was enough sun shine to take some nice photos in between the raindrops.  

- To the blog readers who have been waiting with baited breath to know the answers to the questions posted on my last blog about various locations visited in Paris... Well, yes, I know I said in this posting I would give the answers.  But I will have plenty of time in the long winter nights to come to give you all the gory details, and even some more photos.    So I hope you can contain your excitement until then.   In the meantime I hope you enjoy the photos of Ireland below.

This first photo below was taken on our first day in the world-famous-in-Kilkenny Bollards Pub.  The picture  shows self and Romeo H. and  two cousins, one of whom  was just home from Australia.  The latter is sitting on the left in the photo.  The little lady beside him is his 88 year old mother!





















Ireland when the sun shines - can´t be beat.
Kilkenny -  photo taken just up the road from where I grew up.









Cliff Walk, Ardmore, Co. Waterford.
 



















The White Horse Restaurant, Ardmore village.












And I can tell you the food could compare well with good restaurants any where in the world.










 Omey Island near Clifden Co. Galway.

...Is a tidal island.  When the tide is in this strand is covered with sea water.  -  Every year they have a horse race on this beach.... when the tide is out of course!











































Yep, we could only go paddling on Omey with our coats on!





















 

Now this is a good photo on the left.  Or rather the story is a good story.  There I was walking over stones on a lonely beach.  There was no one in sight for miles.  In the course of about three hours here on the beach the only person we met was this gentleman below; he came by to chat because he never meets any one on the beach ever. 

 - And plenty of stories he had too, one of my favorite being that he once sold a house to the writer Frederick Forsyth.

But the best story about this spot is:  it is just down the road from where John Alcock and Arthur Brown landed their plane in Ireland in 1919.  A go to location mentioned in all the tourist brochures. 

 Yet there we were on a beach just down the road from where Alcock and Brown landed their plane after the first Transatlantic flight in history.  And no one.  For miles!  That is one of the best things about Ireland.  There is always a spot where there is no one for miles, and yet you are rearly more than five miles from a village everywhere. 

On the same beach we saw this beautiful dry stone gable end.
























Sadly the house was empty.  One wonders who lived there?  And when did they leave?  The why is most always poverty.




Still on the same beach...












And coming off the beach, Romeo H´s favorite road sign spotted in Ireland....





On up the coast to Renvyle Peninsula.

Here the same bay area photographed over 24 hours.









































































Breakfast time at Sea Breeze accommodations.







Talk about a room with a view....






































The  Renvyle Mermaid Princess was not to be found.


 But we did see a sand sculpture of her on the beach!

























Driving back in along the coast road in Co. Mayo miles and miles of bog and mountain and small lakes...














We arrived in Sligo and stayed in this little cottage.

Now tell me that this cottage should  not be a setting in a Rosamunde Pilcher story!





























Then up to Donegal - Daniel Country!

(As in Daniel O´Donnell of course!)

With so many great views in Donegal, I still had to start with this less than wonderful view.  Bet you have no idea what the view is of... unless of course you live in Donegal...


The view is off the local airport.. and here is the sign to prove it.

Right up the way from the airport was this little house, a storage area rather than a home.  But Romeo H took a liking to it... wanted to move in I think!






Anyway the airport is just down the road from the beach.

Cool - off the plane in your, bikini - or your winter coat, depending on the weather and straight on to the beach! 


And not just any old beach down the road from Donegal airport, a beautiful beach, several of them in fact...







































































































Not only in wee Daniel´s part of Donegal do they have beaches to don a bikini on a cold summer day for; below are more photos of Narin Strand we took on the way back to Dublin.






Lads I know this is too many photos already - but which ones would you have left out!  So over the winter I will do another blog posting with photos of the trip - and a few good stories to boot.

But I will leave you with a  trio of photos the like of which I have never seen before in Ireland, even on the smallest of back roads......





















Cows...

just sitting there - on the side of the road.  Sitting.  Sheep even goats sitting on the road side I have seen, but cows just sitting there waiting for your car to pass by.  That was a new one for me...

Photos were taken on the back road (and I mean VERY back road)  - between Belleek and Enniskillen of all places.














I hope you have enjoyed the photos.  Happy rest of day/evening!

3 comments:

  1. Dear Roe, these photos were stunning... when the sun comes out those beaches could be in the Caribbean... loved the same photos on different days.
    Getting quiet jealous of how good you have gotten with the camera.
    Sue xo

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  2. Great photos Rosaleen. What a beautiful country. I love the abandoned the stone house and yeah, what is the history of it? Why did they build it and why did they leave?
    Chris Talbert

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  3. Great photos, Rosaleen! Such a beautiful country! I can't wait to see Ireland in person in just a couple of months. Per my Ancestry DNA results, I'm mostly Irish, so I feel a kinship already! :)

    I wonder if tourists or passerbys sometimes feed them. When I was on a trip to Morocco this past March, we were traveling through some very remote mountainous areas. In one area, every so often we would see a dog just sitting there beside the highway. We must have seen 25 of them spread out over several miles, just sitting there.

    Our guide, a native Moroccan, said they had learned that behavior because those passing buy would often throw out food for them. The dogs looked healthy and well-fed, not like homeless dogs. So I think they lived in the nearby villages, but had just learned the habit of sitting by the road for treats. lol

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