Day Five
"All the Pubs in All the Counties in All of Ireland...I Had to Walk Into Mine"
After another breakfast in Bambury's dining room, it was time to pack up and say goodbye to Dingle. We planned out our next move. There were a couple of different sites we had thought about on our way north, but we decided on the Cliffs of Moher, which were alleged to be pretty spectacular. We also decided we'd make the city of Galway our stop for the night, and, the next morning, would head back across the country to Dublin for our last day. I checked the route for anything else to see, and it looked like we'd be heading through Limerick on the way to the Cliffs, and there was a castle there to see...King John's Castle. Hey, you can never see too many castles, right? So north we went.
The talk on the radio during this long drive was about a movie called "Evelyn" that had just come out, starring Pierce Brosnan. I remembered seeing billboards for it when we first drove through Dublin. I guess it's based on a true story that was big news in the 50s there in Ireland, about a father whose wife left him with his kids, and the kids were taken away by the government, and the father had to take the government to court to get his kids back. It's called "Evelyn" because she's one of the daughters and she wrote the book it's based on. It made for a very interesting bit off talk radio, though, because I guess there was a lot of controversy about the film. According to some of his kids, the father was a drunk who regularly beat their mother, and that's why she finally left. People were all up in arms because they were making this wife-beating lush out to be a hero (played by Pierce Brosnan, no less). The show we listened to had several of his kids calling in. Quite interesting. Russ and I decided we'll have to go see this movie if it opens in the states, so we can stand up in the theater and yell "Lies, it's all lies!"
Along the road to Limerick
We found our way to Limerick, a nice looking town with the River Shannon running through it. The signs led us to the castle, and we threw our hard-earned euros down at the visitors center. We were just about the only ones there that day (I love off-season!), so we sat down for a slide show on the history of the castle. We almost started the film on the history of Limerick as well, but changed our minds and just headed out to the courtyard of the castle. Me, I could only go down to the end of the ramp from the center...I didn't want to deal with all the gravel to get around when I wouldn't be able to get up the spiral staircases into the castle part anyway. So I hung out and filmed stuff while Russ checked out the inside. He wasn't too impressed. It was interesting, but not as inspiring as Cashel had been. We took a little walk around the streets around the castle, checking out Limerick and looking down on the River Shannon, before we loaded up and pressed on.
Russ screwing around atop King John's castle in Limerick
We made it to the Cliffs of Moher. The only problem was, before we ever saw the cliffs, we saw a big line of tour busses and a parking lot full of cars. That was kind of a downer. After a couple of days of peace and quiet among nature, here were all the tourists. Oh, well. The place has a main visitors center, then you walk up the hill to the railing the overlooks the cliffs. Wow. Big cliffs. There's about 5 miles of the cliffs, and they rise to a height of 650 feet above the Atlantic. Great place to go if you need to feel insignificant. The railing keeps people away from the edge and warns that people should stay behind the railing, but since it doesn't necessarily forbid you from climbing over the rail, many people do. As did Russ. He took my video camera with him and took the walk out to the edge, getting down on his stomach at one point to hang the camera over the edge to get some good shots. Glad we saw that site...again, accept for all the tourists. There was a group of French guys walking along, who were all singing something in unison, and seemed to be singing it at people and having a good laugh about it, so considering the current political climate, we just assumed it was something directed at Americans. Bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys...
The Cliffs of Moher
After another pleasantly scenic drive, we arrived in Galway. Galway was immediately great. Not much of a tourist trap (at least a lot less than other places we'd been), Galway is a univeristy town, and very alive. This was another of the great sunny days, and as Russ parked the car in the middle of the town centre and went to look for a hotel, I hung out and watched this park in the middle of the city, where several different groups of people were kicking the soccer ball around and enjoying the rare sunshine. He returned and had scored a nice cheap place that was very close by...and, best of all, was located right across the way from O'Connell's Pub. I'd been waiting the entire trip to find an O'Connell's Pub, and finally, there one was. That was immediately pencilled in as our drinking place for that evening.
Looking for dinner, we came upon a restaurant called Maxwell McNamara's. Very friendly place, and, as it turns out, had amazing food. As I recall, Russ said it was some of the best trout he ever had. After some good eating and a couple of pints there, we ended up at O'Connell's for the evening. Now that made my trip. Too bad Ireland really isn't into custom matchbooks for bars. I would have liked a souvenir from there. Best I could do was have Russ take a picture of me outside when we left. He took about four, but I think only one wasn't blurry, as he was a little drunk at the time (there were a few pints involved...). All in all, a young and friendly town, that Galway. I was glad we made it one of our stops, and wouldn't mind spending a little more time there next time around.
Me in front of O'Connell's Pub in Galway
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