Day 14, June 14, Ireland

Today was our last full day in Ireland.  Today was a day totally on our own.  Yesterday in the drive around I spotted a city market, St. Georges, which has food, fruits and vegetables, clothing and antiques.  A couple of us wanted to do the Titanic Belfast and also the antique market.  St. Georges was about 10 blocks from our hotel and the Titanic Belfast was even further.  So we decided to walk to the market and then take a cab from there.

The walk was a pleasant one.  I was intent on finding something from the antique dealers to mark the end of the trip.  I ended up buying 6 silver tea spoons and a silver sugar spoon for 7 pounds and a cast iron boot that was a pincushion.

primula vialii (herbaceous perennial)

pouring in tomato sauce to paella
 

Then we took a taxi out to the Titanic Belfast.  This is not so much a museum, as it doesn't actually have any artifacts from the Titanic.  It explores the shipyard and the building of the ship, boomtown Belfast at that time,  All around it was a very interesting exhibit, in a really cool building.

 

After we were done at the Titanic Belfast we caught a cab that took us to Deann's for lunch. Evidently this is the restaurant of a famous chef that has great lunches for 6 pounds 50 pence.  So we took the cab and he delivered us to the door.  I had a very good mushroom risotto the other ladies has fish and chips.

When lunch was done they wanted to go back to the hotel to rest as tomorrow will be a very early day to get to the airport.  So we walked back and parted ways.  I wanted to still look around more.  I walked to city hall and then found my way to Castlecourt Shopping Center.

I passed a nice covered shopping street on my way to the shopping center.  This reminded me of some I have visited in London.

I walked around for a couple of hours and then headed back to the hotel.  A bunch (6 or 7) had decided to go across the street from the hotel for supper.  Good meal and inspiring tile work.

 

After supper all, well most of Bonnie Hunter's group met up in the piano bar at the Europa and has one last cider.

I and Bonnie Hunter

I and roommate Mickey Donahue



Then it was off to bed.  No matter what time our flight was tomorrow, 8 am, 11:30 or 3:30 we had to be on the bus at 5 am to head to Dublin airport.  That meant getting up at 3 am to get dressed and double check that everything was packed.  Mickey was staying another week so she got to sleep while I tried to quietly get around.  Then it was a 7 hour wait at the airport for the flight home.

All in all it was a great way to see a good portion of Ireland for the first time.  People couldn't have been more helpful or friendly.

 

Day 13, June 13, Lisburn and Belfast

This morning we headed from Dublin to Belfast, in Northern Ireland.  It was about an hour trip, but we stopped in Lisburn at the Linen Center and Museum.  We were there a good bit before our tour was scheduled to we grabbed lunch on the recommendation of a local and then I went to hit 3 charities shops I had spotted.  At one charity shop I found a shirt to buy to bring home.  I will take it apart as Bonnie Hunter does and use the fabric in a quilt to remember this trip. 

I also went down the street  to a clothing store and picked up a couple of new tops.

 

 

The tour of the Linen Center was very interesting.  There was even a docent spinning flax into thread.  Bonnie and I think Celine got a chance to try it.

 

Then we headed out for Belfast.  Noel decided rather than doing the panoramic tour himself, he picked up a tour guide he knew to give his local perspective on Belfast and "the troubles".

 

We saw many of the famous murals that exist in Belfast.

 

 

 

This was a whole street of homes that were slated for destructions.



 

Last building we went by was the new Titanic experience.  Quite a cool new building.

Day 11, June 11, Killarney

Today is our day to visit Blarney Castle.  Although I carried an umbrella, the weather was much better today.

 

The tower is 90 feet high and you reach the top via a narrow, stone circular stairway.  I had made up my mind that I was not going to let my claustrophobia or my climbing ability stop me from this climb.  Anne and Kelly has worked too hard training me for this challenge.  So it was head up, slow and steady, and keep moving.  And within in a few minutes, maybe 15, and it was very crowded I was rewarded with this view of the grounds and the manor house.

 

 

When you got to the top there was just the parapet walk around the outside and all the wooden structure down the middle was gone.

 

 

This was from the ground looking up the tower.  Do you see that open area just by the parapet area at the very top?  That is where you get to do this!

KISS THE BLARNEY STONE!

Blarney Castle (Tower) is a huge tourist area.  Where was a huge store to shop in where you could get Blarney Woolens, jewelry, t-shirts, dishes, etc. etc.  I grabbed a wrap in their cafeteria.  It was interesting there were a bunch of Harley motorcycle guys and their wives behind us in line waiting to go into the grounds.  They were touring on their bikes and ended up being from Pennsylvania, but the guy immediately behind me said he had a cabin up at Harrison.  Small world.

When we left Blarney we were going to the Rock of Cashel.  This is another large castle.  Unfortunately, right now it is almost entirely surrounded by scaffolding for work.  We stopped just long enough for a potty break and a couple of photos.  The best view was as we were driving away.

 

Then it was on to our next hotel, Druids Glen Resort in Wicklow.  We were going to go to Avoca woolen mills today, but time grew short so instead we too a panoramic tour of Dublin instead.  Avoca is on the schedule for tomorrow.  While in Dublin the driver mentioned a couple of good pubs for supper.  The Brazen Head is supposedly the oldest pub in Ireland.  So of course every headed there.  A few of us knew it wasn't possible for all of us to descend upon this pub, so we went around the corner to O'Sheas on Merchant, and have a very nice meal there.

 

 

 



Day 10, Ireland, June 20, 2013

Our center of travel today was from Killarney.  We were at The Malton Hotel, which reminded me a lot of the Grand Hotel on Mackinaw Island.  The true Irish weather finally showed up today.  58 degrees and rainy.   We tour the Dingle Peninsula where some of "Ryan's Daughter" was filmed.  Your go thru Dingle on your way out the peninsula.

 

 

This was inch beach.  Not too many hardy souls today.

On our way out we all noticed a small quilt show by the side of the road.  You never heard 36 women all start to whine at the same time to stop.  Bonnie finally convinced Noel it was better to stop on the way back that put up with this many disgruntled women.

This was a small shop above a small convenience store.  She has 2 rooms and a class room.  I went up but there were already 2 other busses there when we stopped, and I don't like confined spaces that are really crowded. So I got one snap and went back to the bus.

On our way through Dingle we stopped at a jeweler, Brian De Staic.  We were allowed to use his facilities, but it didn't hurt that we have time to look at some beautiful jewelry.  About 12 of us ordered Ogham pendants.  It is a sterling silver bar pendant engraved with our name spelled out in the ancient Ogham alphabet that Noel had told us about earlier.

So while we stopped for lunch, Noel hot footed it down to the jeweler to pick up our orders. When we got off the bus for lunch most of the women headed right across to a fish and chip restaurant.  I knew that service with take forever with all of us going in, so I had lunch a couple of blocks away at John Benny's.

 

This evening dinner was on our own so Claire, Celine, Micky and I walked a few block to the city center and found a nice pub to have dinner at.

 

Day 12, June 12, Dublin

This morning we were headed off to Dublin for a day on our own.  But first we went to Avoca woolen mill.  We had a very nice tour and then were able to shop a bit.

I remember my grandmother having a loom in her basement about this size.  She used to weave rag rugs on it.  I can remember if you were well behaved you could go down and weave on it.

As we crowded into the tour area, the lady giving the tour has just held up a beautiful throw that was square's of blue and green which reminded me of the sea and land here in Ireland.  As soon as I saw it I knew I was going to leave here with one.

When we were done at Avoca some of the ladies didn't want to go to Dublin.  They wanted to go back to the hotel and rest.  So to keep them happy the driver took them back to the hotel.  Which was great for them but the rest of us lost an hour of our free time in Dublin.

By the time we got to Dublin, we had about 4 free hours.  We did drive around just a bit to get our bearings.

This was in Phoenix Park where one of the Pope's recently said mass.

Thought the cow skulls on the building friese were interesting.  And we drove through the Edwardian part of Dublin and got a look at all the interesting doors of Dublin.  This is the most ornate one.

  Many of the ladies headed to Trinity University to see the book of Kells, some went to Christ Church Cathedral others to St. Patrick's Cathedral  I walked around for about 3 hours before my knee started to really hurt.  I was afraid I might not make it back to the bus, so I slowly headed that way.  It had rained a couple of time quite hard, but wasn't at the time I was walking back.  Luckily our bus was there and waiting so I just got on.  In my walk I had seen 3 charity shops while we drive around so I had found all of them and looked but didn't find any men's shirts to buy, or anything else.

We were supposed to head to the hotel for a dinner at 6 as out farewell dinner with the International Quilt Festival of Ireland sponsors.  But we had one gal get disoriented and lost and we were a half hour late looking for her.  Happy we found her and it wasn't that she got sick or mugged, just lost.

So we headed back to the resort for a lovely dinner.  Tomorrow we head for Belfast and our last 2 days of the tour.

Day 9, Ireland, continued

I think when we were heading to Killarney we were going to be a little too early for our hotel. So we stopped at this church.  Noel had talked about this ancient church, Kilmalkedar, several times over the last few days. The church is very old and the churchyard has stones from ancient to current.  It was interesting to think of those buried not a few hundred but many hundreds of years ago.

 

 

 

This was an Ogham stone.  Agreements were made here by parties inserting their fingers in the hole at the top.  Some has a whole large enough to reach your hand through.

 

This was an ancient sun dial.  This was the front.



A stick would be stuck in the hole on the back and the markings would indicate the time.