We had a good night's rest and then were ready for a fun day exploring. We would go on a bus tour, headed up south out of Galway to explore some of the countryside along the western coast of Ireland. We knew we wanted to see this famous area and so we were hopeful that we would have a good tour. We had to smile a little bit when as we were getting on the bus, the bus driver told us we could sit in the front row, our preferred seats, that had reserved signs on them, we think probably for old people or disabled folks to sit there. We were willing to take the seats.
The tours in Galway were on more of a classic 40 passenger bus rather than the smaller sprinter. It was quite full and we had it off for a full day worth of multiple stops and lots and lots of photos.
We saw traditional thatched roof cottages, a castle-Dunguaire castle built in 1520, a number of different small villages with very storied history. We also traveled through an area called the Burren, which was VERY rocky areas caused by glaciers and have a crazy mixture of types of plants that grow there, from tropical plants to arctic ones. Then we lastly went to the Cliffs of Mohur, five miles of beautiful cliffs at the far edge of the west coast of Ireland.
Our bus driver had some many interesting things to share with us during the 9 hour tour. Here are a few of the tidbits from the tour that we picked up:
The word “eavesdropping” came from people standing under the eaves of thatched roof cottages in an area where you could hear what people inside were talking about. Throughout Ireland, there was along history of bards- storytellers , who traveled from town to talk and shared the gossip, the news and the stories with the villagers.
We heard more peat stories. We saw areas that they had dried the peat, and in the old days, students had to bring some peat to school each day to burn in the stove and heat the school building. Ireland is said to have 41 million chickens, 5 1/2 million sheep, and 8 million people. They no longer build thatched blue houses in Ireland; the insurance companies won’t ensure them as being too big of a fire danger.
In the 1940s a farmer who was walking his dog, found a huge complex of underground caves. There are caves under a huge area in western Ireland.
The great Irish Potato Famine was from 1845-1851. Ireland was entirely under British control at this time. The only thing the British didn’t want was potatoes. They exported everything else. Potato crop failure every year for 3 years. Before the famine the population was8.5 million, after the famine 6 million. The choice of the people was either death or immigration. Many chose immigration. The population got as low as 4.2 million. This still is a huge wound for the people of Ireland.
The Burrens means rocky place. Long ago it was the bottom of a tropical sea. Ireland was very close to Brazil, then the continents split up, the sea bed was forced up. The soil is good but very thin. Ice age- washed away rich soil, left nice valleys, and rocky hills sides. Not only rich soil is as dropped but also seeds from other places. There are plants here that only grow in this area of Ireland. This is a very protected area. There are amazing fields of wildflowers all summer
We heard the story of Maire Run, Red Mary, married 30 times castle. She had quite a history, and was known for having killed off husbands and boyfriends. Eventually, it is said that she was left her to starve inside a tree.We saw the remains of her home, the Leena castle
The town of Lisdoonvarna has a long history of being the matchmaking town, and still holds an annual matching festival every September.
There are several surfing beaches on the coast, one where they have competitions and it purportedly a very good surfing beach. (Coming form San Diego, we were skeptical).
Planted along roads and paths are wild looking hawthorn trees. These are known as being special to the fairies. We were told that the reason they don’t trim the hedges is that “we are afraid of the fairies”.
Having gotten back from our tour was time to quickly get ready and had a little bit out to a special event that was called Trad on the Prom (or traditional music on the promenade).
It would’ve been too far of a walk after our big day, so we worked out taking a taxi (the first on this trip) which was just fine. Actually, both directions we had very interesting discussions with immigrants to Ireland: one from Nigeria and one from Afghanistan.
We arrived and were able to get things settled up with our tickets and then settled in for a couple of hours of really beautiful, traditional, Irish music and dancing. We had seen Riverdance in the past, this show was started by some of the people who had toured with Riverdance (and some who still tour with them) and who felt like they wanted to bring some of that spirit to Galway. The quality of the singing, dancing and instrumentalists was outstanding. Nearly everyone was championship winners or internationally-known touring artists. And, because we got tickets so early, we were in the front row with great views. We’re so glad that we were able to enjoy this wonderful show. Back to our room and off to bed. It had been a busy day.
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