We had a great visit with Anna and discussed at length the political situation with the Catholics and the Protestants. She lives right near the Peace Wall. Now I have to say that the Peace wall kind of threw me for a loop as I thought it was a memorial to peace but no it is a wall that separates the Catholics and the Protestants to keep the peace. Apparently, in Belfast there are still those that have strong feelings. Anna, being a Canadian living there, was able to have an objective view of the situation and I think that she nailed the situation on the head. She said that there are some Irish that insist on being British and that those Irish should embrace their Irishness and seek a oneness with their fellow Irishmen.
We're all humans and so much the same but politics can sure try and separate us.
In the afternoon we went to a Transportation and Folk Museum
Pretty flowers
Handsome husband.
Just before I left for the UK I took a photography course for a day and one of the tasks was learning how to shoot a portrait photo so here I am trying to get a good portrait (unfortunately, with poor lighting conditions)The Folk Museum was interesting with displays of quilts and the history of the Irish farmer and the tools that he would have used.
Anna and her cat.
This is the building just outside Anna's house.
We also went to a lovely botanical gardens in Belfast.
When we left Belfast we drove to Armagh which is south of Belfast. There we went to a museum of St. Patrick and to a museum on Gulliver's Travels. Here we are all dressed up to participate in the tour. We went through the tour with another family. We had fun.
After leaving the museums we had a very nice picnic in the park. It was a lovely day in Armagh and had I known what awaited us in Dublin I would have chosen to just stay put.
Dublin was our only unpleasant time for the trip. The city was atrocious for getting around. We had a map and knew exactly where we wanted to go but when we'd get to the street it'd be a one way - ARGHHH!!!! It took us way too long to find the hostel - which turned out to be a dive. The kitchen was dirty and at night it was noisy. In the middle of the night I heard the clip clop of the policeman's horse as he tried to control the crowds after the bars had closed. But for all the stays we had and having booked everything before we left we did really well to only have one bad experience.While we were in Dublin we were trying to find our way to this theatre for a play that the internet had said was playing. Well...when we arrived at the street location we realized that the theatre had been torn down and the lot was leveled. I guess the internet info was old. So...anyways on our hurry to get to another theatre mom tripped on the pavement and fell and hurt her finger (It was probably the only time myself or David didn't have her arm to help her). So...in this picture mom is dipping her finger in the water to cool it off and David is holding her so she doesn't fall in. We had a good laugh.
We were anxious to leave Dublin behind and headed to the west coast of Ireland to our next stop which was Sixmile Bridge where we'd spend 2 days. Before we got to our hostel for the night we headed to the coast to the Cliffs of Moher. This was on my list of "have to sees". It sure didn't disappoint me. Aren't they just amazingly magestic? They just inspire so much awe in me.
As we stood there and admired the cliffs the fog began to roll in so much so that we could not even see the cliffs from where we were standing. I was glad that I had had a chance to see the cliffs before the fog rolled in but then I just savoured the moment of the fog as this is very Irish also. The fog was so thick you could feel it.
This pic helps to show you how the fog was so thick - just like you see in the Irish movies.
This is our hostel at Sixmile Bridge - which was close to Limmerick. But we never went into Limmerick.
This morning I brought David breakfast in bed - he needed a day off to rest and this was the perfect place to do that. It was the best hostel that we stayed in. It even had an ensuite.
One afternoon David and I went for a walk and on our walk covering just a few blocks we counted over 5 pubs with empty kegs sitting outside. You have to realize that Sixmile Bridge was a very, very small town with one block for its downtown. We wondered where all the people came from.
Ok, you may wonder at my photography subjects but I had to take this pic to show you the parking style in the UK - they park on the sidewalks and anywhich way they like.
One of the very touristy events that we did was to book a medival banquet at the Bunratty Castle. This took place in the evening so the afternoon before the banquet we went through the Bunratty Folk park and it was fantastic. Here the worker is transporting peat to all the various fire places in the cottages. We had been wondering what the smell was that we could detect. It was peat. Peat has a very unique smell.
Just a cool pic
In one of the cottages a lady was making homemade Irish bread over the open peat fire. Wow was it good bread. David ate more than 1 piece. It was very yummy!
Here we are just relaxing by the fire enjoying the soda bread.
All the doors to the cottages were low - I would do fine there - I didn't even have to duck.
This folk park was like a town. It had a farm with a water wheel, a church, a school, shops (of course with real goods to sell the tourists) and even barnyard animals. So, it really felt like you were in an old Irish village.
Then in the evening we went to the castle for the banquet.
There we were entertained by the "lords and ladies" with Irish singing. It was beautiful.
The meal was good with plenty of food but had to be eaten with the fingers.
We then headed north to Sligo. On the way we stopped at a small seaside town and enjoyed the seaside.
All over Ireland you'll see rock fences - and good fences and good hedges. When we got to Ballymena John, our host, explained that the farmers get paid to keep these fences in good shape.
Again, because we had our own transportation, we went off the beaten path and stopped at an ancient burial site.
It was pretty amazing because if you can see that bump at the top of the hill in the pic below you will see that that is also another burial mound. It would have taken such effort and time to build such a memorial. But there were mounds like this all around the main burial grounds that we were visiting.
This rock in the picture is huge. It's not small and what it would have taken to get this rock to balance just so on the other rocks is pretty cool.
The ocean on the coast of Ireland
We stopped in Sligo for the night at another hostel.
Now, we were heading out towards Ballymena where we would visit with our Irish relatives that we had never met before.On the way I wanted to pop off the road and see a waterfall because, as of yet, we hadn't seen a waterfall in the UK. And that is always on the "Have to see" list.
Where we stopped to walk to the waterfall was this beautiful, serene lake with sheep grazing peacefully. I immediately thought of Psalm 23 and how truly peaceful it is to know that God is our Shepherd.
Psalm 23
A psalm of David.
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, [a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.
This extra stop off the road was well worth it. It was beautiful.
Another thing on my "have to see" list is always caves. I love caves. Now, I don't believe that husbands and wives have to always see everything together. David doesn't like caves but I do so mom and him had a rest in the sunshine outside while I walked down into the depths of the earth to explore phenomenonal rock formations. There was actually a girls school group from Belfast that I joined up with.
These caves even had a river running through it so we had to go in a boat part of the way.
Aren't these pics just too cool? Be glad I haven't shown you all the pics I took of the caves.
We reached Ballymena and we found the farmhouse of one of the relatives that had offered to host us and mom. I will digress for a moment back to the time when the idea of travelling to Ireland had started to form in our minds. Mom had a 20 year old letter of my grandmother's written by a cousin of hers from Ballymena, Ireland. We didn't know too much beyond that. So, thanks to the modern world, we googled the family name of Moorehead (when the family moved to Ireland they had changed the name from Muirhead to Moorehead) in Ballymena. Then we sent letters to all those people telling them who we were and why we were travelling to Ireland and that we wanted to connect with some of our Irish relatives.And we got responses. Right from the get go the Irish relatives were eager to meet us and extended a very warm welcome towards us. Our plan was to visit a couple of days there and then David and I would spend a week by ourselves while mom stayed and visited with all the relatives and then we'd reconnect in London.
These are 3 sisters, daughters of the lady that was my grandmother's cousin.
You see the family history ( in a nutshell) is that my great grandfather left Ireland and then the rest of his family followed, except his youngest brother, who stayed in Ireland. These are some of his descendants.
Elsie and John hosted us at their farmhouse.
This is Sally, another relative. She gave me this lovely old Irish linen cloth to remember my trip by.
The evening that we arrived into Ballymena 20 or so people (I won't post all the photos as that would be too many) showed up and a feast was laid out on the table. There was so much food and desserts. If one plate emptied another was put in its place. I took pics of all the relatives but I haven't put all of them on the blog because it would just take too long for everyone else to go through the pics. It's not so important who the individuals were but that they were my family, people with a similar heritage. I really felt a kinship with them. I was blown away that they would all gather to welcome us to Ireland. It was a work night and yet they all came and stayed and visited. So hospitable, so gracious. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting them all and discussing life with them.
The next day John and Elsie toured us around the area. This is Slemish Mountain where St. Patrick had his sheep. People walk up this mountain like a pilgrimage.
The Irish countryside is beautiful. It is truly every shade of green. But the whole time we were in Ireland it didn't rain and I was thinking that they were going to be going brown soon if it didn't rain soon.
This is John. What a wonderful man. So genuine and sincere. So gracious. And what a typical Irishman.
We stopped at a waterfall
We drove by the coastline and along this small road through a field we spotted this rock thing.
We wondered what it was and so we stopped to explore it.
After exploring it we still couldn't figure out what it was for - a water or grain holding tank?The coastline was stunning and the mist rolling in just added a real mystic.
We stopped for a picnic - they call it tea. And with every meal there are biscuits. Elsie had packed us loads of food which we ate up. I love picnics.
We stopped at another spot on the coastline where we headed towards a rope bridge that led to a small island.
This is just another cool picture. I like the shadows.
Wow - what beauty
Then we stopped at my big "have to see" thing on my list - The Giant's Causeway. I was looking forward to this and it surely did not disappoint me.
As you walk down to the ocean and along the shore the rocks begin to change slightly.
And then you come upon this - truly amazing. The rocks rise out of the earth is hexagons. I haven't seen anything like this before. In the Charlotte's there was something similar at Tow Hill but nothing like this.
We spent lots of time climbing around on the rocks and ...
...just soaking in the moments.
I just loved the crash of the waves and the rugginess of the rocks. This was my favourite thing in Ireland. It was truly a WOW moment. I could have stayed longer just sitting there but the sun was going down....
John and Elsie took us to one of their favourite chip places where...
we could enjoy the sunset from our table.
The next day John and his wife, Isabel took us all out for a beautiful buffet lunch.
This is Maggie, my Gramma's cousin.
This is Jim's wife, Isabel
Here we are at the buffet.
After lunch we all went for a stroll along the riverbank.
This is the original homestead farm. David and his wife Nanc still live there and David's son, Tom still farms the homestead.
This is Tom's youngest son - he says that he is a farmer.
The middle son Matthew was a working farmer already.
Mom and I in front of the original farmhouse.
This is the original farmhouse. To think that this is where are ancestors lived and we came from. Our trip to Ireland was tremendous - I felt such a kinship to those who had remained in Ireland while the rest of the family came to Canada. I heard stories of the hardship of those that stayed back in Ireland but how family pulled together and kept going. And isn't that the treasure of family - when life is tough family pulls together and succeeds.
Thank you to all my relatives in Ireland that opened their arms and hearts to us with such sincerity and warmth.
