Two Curious Souls

Much of the beauty of Ireland is found in getting from point A to point B, not in being at point A or B. Like most islands, everywhere you go, there is water nearby, be it a fjord, a bay or a lake. This water manifests in the rain showers, in the verdant and lush greenery seen in so many places. As we made our way from Castlebar down to Galway, we made our way west to Westport and Louisburg. The journey from Louisburg to Leenaun is almost indescribable. What we call a pass in the western US is called a gap. It's a perfectly fitting word. Our word of the day is Gap. In the Doolough Valley is some of the most untouched scenery in Ireland. Just standing along side the lake, looking up, knowing that most of the permanent residents of this area are sheep who thrive on its green pastures and slopes. There is a practice of spraying the sheeps’ butts with some type of dye. This is a type of branding and every sheep herder knows his sheep and his neighbor’s sheep. On an earlier drive we...

One of the main reasons for coming to Ireland was to get to Castlebar, County Mayo, and see and hear Christy Moore perform live. He was in the Royal Theater in Castlebar. The venue is a 4,000 seat auditorium and was filled to capacity. Tonight, Christy performed solo. He did all the old songs we love so much. At one point, he stopped and said that he had had a lot of requests for songs and there was no way he could do all of the requests so he was only going to do five. He went on to say that he was really touched by one request on his website from "Malcolm and Susanne in New Mexico!" We realized that he was dedicating the song "Voyage" to us. Susanne missed the introduction with her phone, but caught the dedication and song on her phone. His intro took a little poetic license to our story. As he put it, Malcolm was talking to Susanne and said "Susanne, it is our 45th wedding anniversary, what would you like to do to celebrate it." Susanne replied, "I...

On our way out of Letterkenny, we visited Glenveagh and the castle of John Adair. John was an interesting fellow. Categorized as a gentleman farmer, he was ruthless. He made his money during the great famine by buying up land and estates from people who could no longer hold them. He evicted all of the tenant farmers from his land and built this castle around 1860.The castle is barely 150 years old. It was lived in until 1983 when it was gifted to the Irish state as a national park. Strange enough, being on the inside felt more like visiting my grandparents' house in the 1950s.  A bit of Texas history thrown in here for all of you Texans. John Adair moved to the Palo Duro area of Texas sometime in the 1860-1870 timeframe. He bought up a large ranch. His primary caretaker of the property was Charles Goodnight or Goodnight-Loving cattle trail fame.  On the way to the Sandhouse hotel, we stopped at some of the most beautiful cliffs in Ireland. Slieve League is actually higher than...

We're starting our first day a little groggy but still excited. Our goal today is to do what is called the Inishowen 100. It's a 100 mile trip around the Inishowen peninsula. We're in the northern part of the Republic of Ireland but west of Northern Ireland staying in Letterkenny.  The night before, after our arrival, we got a chance to catch our first pint of Guinness. The Guinness here is not like in the states. None of the dark beer heaviness, but just creamy and smooth.  Our first stop was Grenan of Aileach. A fortress of sorts that is built on a 281 meter hilltop with 380 degree views. It is built with stones only, no mortar. Built in the sixth or seventh century AD.  The walls are about 15 meters thick and  5 meters high and probably 30 meters across. Just a round structure but fascinating to think about humans there before us and how they lived.  All over the Irish coast there are forts and military defense facilities. We stopped at Ft Dunree. Built out o...

  On March 3, Susanne and I were sitting in our living room. It was a quiet Friday night and we started scanning YouTube for something to enjoy. We're both big fans of watching musicians play. One of our favorite musicians is an Irish balladeer named Christy Moore. We've followed him since I first heard about him in New York City in the 1990s. So we clicked on a video of one of his concerts. As we rolled on to his music, Susanne searched on her phone and said "Hey, he's playing a concert in Castlebar Ireland on October 28th. I wonder if there are tickets available." There were indeed tickets and we bought two.  As we continued to listen, we thought of our other favorite Irish musician, Mary Black. It happens that Mary is playing in Dublin the next Saturday, November 4th and there were tickets available for her concert too. By the end of the night, we had tickets to two concerts in Ireland for the end of October and first of November with no clue how we'd get...