the davenports: day 13 – galway city, burren

Our homebase for the 3 days we were in Co. Galway was the Ardmor Country House which was so nice and had great views when the weather permitted. We took a few pictures before we finally packed up to leave.

Will really liked these trees – Monkey Puzzle Trees.

Will also really liked this particular Guinness ad on the side of a building (probably a bar but I don’t recall offhand) in Spiddal so we finally got a good picture of it as we were leaving town to head for Galway City.

We had a few goals in mind for Galway – find the Claddagh “statue” that we’d seen a picture of at the Irish festival in Dublin, Ohio; find the Blarney Woolen Mills there to find Will a hat; and find a Claddagh for Will to replace the cheap-o one I got him off eBay that he promptly lost because it was too big.

Finding the Blarney Woolen Mills turned out to be most difficult mostly because Galway was nearly impossible to navigate with the maps that we had on hand. Will was frustrated to say the very least. But find it and a parking spot we eventually did. Unfortunately, we didn’t find what we were looking for and then just wandered into the pedestrian part of town.

We had, or really Will had, been scouring the internet before we went to Galway to try and figure out where the carved Claddagh that we’d seen the picture of was. He had a pretty good idea by the time we were headed to Galway and in the end we were able to find it:
It turned out that the carving was on a monument to sailors lost at sea in a church graveyard.

In the town, we were able to find both Will’s hat and his claddagh so it was worth the annoyance of having to drive around Galway. Afterward we headed out into The Burren for some good times in the karst-y landscape.

The main draw of The Burren is this portal tomb, commonly called the Dolman but properly named Poulnabrone Dolmen

This is where we got our only picture of all four of us together.

The times had sure changed since the first time we were there as you can tell from the picture below:

Yep, that’s me at 13 sitting on the dolmen. You can see in the picture above that there are now ropes around it so you can’t get too close. They have also added quite a bit in the way of pathways and educational information though surprisingly, it is still free to visit.

some karst-y flora for your viewing pleasure.

Next stop the Burren center in Kilfenora to learn some stuff (well, after a detour back to the Dolmen to find Will’s sunglasses which we almost didn’t even though someone had already found them and put them through one of the signposts where they should have been easy to find). Kilfenora also happens to be home to several preserved high crosses that we wanted to check out.

Tiny short doorway in the church.

We finished our day by heading to Doolin, Co. Clare for an evening of pub entertainment. Doolin is known for its live pub music and friendly atmosphere. I think this is Gus O’Connor’s pub but I can’t be sure.

These old geezers were hysterical – talking to everyone, telling jokes, and for the most part they were all drinking soda and coffee!

Performers.

My folks and I include it because my dad looks like such a drunken Irishman – which he isn’t – that I find it hysterical! It was just really hard to get a good picture in the very dimly lit bar.