Irish Tour-part two

Back again, now on to the next part of our story.

At Dingle we drove around the peninsular, which took about three or four hours. We looked at the the ancient housing, which you can see us standing in front of. We visited a Bronze Age stone fort called Dunbeg. There were also a bunch of stone age beehive huts (called clocháns). We also got to see some cool sea birdies and Ben tried to take some pics of these along with the stunning cliffs and unusual religious relics.



After this tour we tried to get to our camping site, which proved a little difficult... After driving around for an hour or so we found it. After stating we had a booking they told us they had closed for the season the week before and that there was no hot water but we could stay if we wanted to.

As if! These people looked likely to chop us up at night and cook us up for the locals, very odd people man! Needless to say we were happy to drive back to Dingle though the road at Connor pass i(an adventure in itself - check out the photo).



You would also think it was a one way road, but its not! There is a sheer drop on the other side, so if you do come across someone and there is no passing bay like you can see in the second pic then you have to back up. Very exciting stuff!

After hanging round Dingle, visiting all the ancient sights, which were very groovy we boogied down in the Droichead Beag pub, unreal. They had live music that was the real deal with reel after reel, these guys were incredible.



After this exciting night we headed off to the Clare County. Lovely place. We stayed in Killaloe in an amazing Hall that had all the trimming, including a bar, restaurant and breakfast room. On the way to this groovy accommodation we checked out the Cliffs of Moher, which sadly has been seriously touristified -you have to walk and view and park where you're told. Oh well, very nice anyway.



After this we passed through the beautiful limestone landscapes called the "Burren" which is derived from the Gaelic for "stony place". (Ben will had a nice panorama at some stage for this landscape). On our second last day we headed back towards Dublin, via Rosscrea.

Roscrea has an amazing castle with a groovy history which Darelle should find interesting. It was built by King John in 1213. and consists of a gate tower, curtain walls and two corner towers dating from the 1280s. Built in the early 18th century in the Queen Anne style, Damer House (in the courtyard of the castle) is an example of pre-Palladian architecture. Once the stronghold of the powerful Butler family. The Butler family here were given the walled in castle estate in 1335 by the royalty of the time. It was sold by James Butler the Duke of Ormond in 1705. Following are some pics taken inside the castle.



Here are some pics around Dublin at nigt while we tried to sort out a silly mistake I had made with the hire car (I had booked to return it at 4:30am in the morning).



The last day we dashed up to Newgrange, a very amazing place which is a burial site, and is also thought to have been a place of ritual surrounding the dead. The Megalithic Passage Tomb at Newgrange was built about 3200 BC. I will add a few pics here but Ben again will add a much more groovy panarama when he stitches the images together. After this we dashed to the airport to return the car and check in. Holiday done :)