Day 1, A Travelogue of Christmas in Ireland, December 2005

Christmas in Ireland Tour, 2005

Day 1 - Chasing Rainbows

Thursday, December 1, 2005

Itinerary: Arrived at Shannon Airport. Traveled to Cliffs of Moher, the Burren, Kilfenora Abbey, Burren Smokehouse in Lisdoonvarna, Poulnabrone Dolmen. Stayed at WELLFIELD FARMHOUSE, Oughterard, Co. Galway. (01-03 Dec) with Mary and Pat Rattigan. Dinner: Corrib House, Oughterard.

After arriving in Shannon at 7:30 a.m., the group was met, freshened up and had tea. Sam briefed the group on instructions for the trip. At that early hour, there were few people in the airport. Shannon has a very small airport, about the same size as the airport in Rapid City.

After the gray, boxlike van was loaded, we headed out for the first day of our December Irish adventure. The day was a bit cloudy but the sun peeked through once in a while. In Ireland the roads are very narrow and there are no ditches. Telephone poles, stone fences, and hedgerows line the edges of the road. To Americans, the Irish drive on the "wrong side" of the road or on the left just like the British. The driver's seat is on the right hand side of the vehicle.

Fields of less than an acre are divided with rock fences. The rocks are piled on the top of each other. Some are very neat; others appeared to be just piled up. Many stone fences are held together without mortar. Gravity and the shape of the rocks keep the fences upright. Many fences have been standing for a very long time.

At our first stop, we filled the van with diesel fuel. The coast was 1.04 Euros per gallon. At the December exchange rate, that came to over $4.00 per gallon. About half an hour later we stopped at the Cliffs of Moher located on the Atlantic Ocean in County Clare. These are the cliffs most people see in the Martin Sheen television ads about Ireland. It began to drizzle while we were visiting O'Brien's Tower, a round watchtower located above the cliffs. As we began our journey northward, the sun began to peek through the clouds. Over the course of the next few hours, we were to see three rainbows as the weather alternated between rain and sunshine. Unfortunately, we were unable to get close enough to any rainbow's end to see if there was a proverbial pot of gold. Because we ultimately saw between eight and ten rainbows in our first five days in Ireland, Sam wanted to call this the "Rainbow Tour."

A stop at the Salmon Smoke House in Lisdoonvarna and lunch at a local pub nearly put the group to sleep. Everyone, except our guide, was suffering from jet lag. It may have been 7:30 a.m. in Shannon when the group arrived, but it was 1:00 a.m. in Denver. To keep ourselves awake, we traveled to the abbey ruins at Kilfenora where we saw our first example of Irish High Crosses.

Driving northeast across Clare, we traversed the Burren. This landscape of limestone karst is the remnant of an ancient sea floor. From a distance the countryside appears to be covered with concrete pavement. As one moves closer, a barren landscape of flat rocks separated by large cracks comes into view. Some of the cracks or grykes may be up to six feet deep. Each of them contains unique ecosystems of ferns, flowers, and other plants. The Burren is world famous for micro fauna of all types.

In addition to fossils from the ancient seabed dotting the landscape, many archaeological wonders from Irelands Stone Age and Bronze Age past dot the landscape. Perhaps the most impressive of these are the wedge tombs, burial sites for the Stone Age people. We stopped at one of the most famous of these tombs — Poulnabrone. It is amazing that these monuments still stand after 3000 years.

Further north we drove along the southern shores of Galway Bay. Our adventures would take us to the other side of the bay and into Galway's Connemara. Our first farmhouse bed and breakfast (B&B) was the Wellfield Farmhouse run by Mary and Pat Rattigan in Oughterard, Co Galway. Mary told us the farm house was originally built about 1850 as a home for a local cleric. The cow barn is about 7 years old. It has a pit or slurry tank for the manure. This tank is emptied periodically and the slurry is spread on the land as fertilizer. During the winter months the fields are wet and muddy.

We billeted in the upstairs of the old house. Each room has a private bath. There is a small parlor with a fireplace where we had tea and Irish Biscuits and bread fresh out of the oven. Ken gave Pat and Mary a copy of "Hereford World," which he had brought along to share with our farmhouse hosts.

For supper we went to an Irish Pub in Oughterard. Since most of the group were still tired from the long airline trip and the long driving day, the women decided to eat light meals. They opted for vegetable soup. In Ireland, all soups are blended cream soups and the vegetables are pureed. The Irish put unique spices into the soups, so they are very good. The cream base probably helps the flavor, too. The men had the roast beef special. The servings were huge enough for two meals at home. The meal also included potatoes (a staple in every Irish meal) and lots of vegetables.

After dinner it was back to the farmhouse for a much needed night of rest.

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