Tuesday August 6 – Cliffs of Moher through to Bunratty

After waking up fairly early after a long sleep, we were keen to see some sights outside of Limerick. We booked a Cliffs of Moher experience and a boat cruise from Doolin around the bottom of the cliffs too.

The drive from Limerick to the cliffs was very scenic, and quite wet. It rained quite a lot along the way but also cleared to have beautiful patches of sunshine. Along with lots of other tourists we arrived at the cliffs and parked. Ros wanted to get a scarf as it was windy and cold outside, we also decided to buy a poncho at a shop just in case it rained. That would be a wise decision. Well, mostly.

After walking around the visitor centre we trekked up to the right hand side of the cliffs. It was very windy – blowing a gale you could say. As we walked up the cliffs we thought it was windy but then we turned a corner up near a tower out on the point and the wind was blowing so strongly we thought it was going to blow Ros over. There was white points on the waves far far below. That would make for an interesting boat trip!

We took a few photos on the walk up the hill, with the intention to take some more on the way back. We did need to leave by 11am to make it down to Doolin in time for the boat cruise.

After about 15 minutes, it bucketed down. And I mean rain! It was coming in sideways and tourists were running everywhere to get shelter. We were quite lucky as we had some shelter near a shed. That’s when I tried to put on my poncho. Oh, it didn’t work out too well. It must have had a small rip in the side of it. Which was made a lot bigger when the wind got a hold of it. Ros managed to get hers on safely though and protect my camera.

We made a dash back down to the visitor centre, amongst the torrential rain. Inside there were lots of people who obviously didn’t want to face the rain. Given the time we decided just to head to Doolin and find a car park.

The waves breaking on the rocks at Doolin were a lot larger than I expected. As I went to pay for parking, one of the locals said ‘Are you going out in this? I hope you have a good stomach’. Uh-oh. After getting all our stuff ready we went to the counter. They informed us that the Captain had cancelled the cruise just before that due to the bad weather. We did have the option to go to a sheltered island, but we wouldn’t be back in time for other stuff we had booked. We decided to forgo the trip, which was lucky because we saw how much the ferry was getting thrown around just going to the sheltered island. 

Our next destination was Cragganunowen – a site of a castle and examples of buildings and other things that would have been around at that time. Along the way we went the backroads (yet again, because I love driving on them! Ros not so much). We came across a sporting field area and decided to put the drone up. There aren’t too many places you can safely stop to get out of the car along the way unfortunately.

After many many ‘lanes’, we got to the site of the castle and ‘living past experience’. We were a little bit hungry so thought we would have some scones before doing the outside stuff. We sat near a fire that had homemade brickettes keeping us dry and warm. The guy lent us an umbrella in case it rained – it did come in handy.

We visited the castle as well as the other buildings on display. It was quite fascinating with how they had built certain things over the years. There was lots of moss on rocks and trees – Ros thought she would play spot the leprechaun and I assisted by hiding behind moss covered trees.

Following the end of the visit we were headed to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park. Again, the trip there took us down many many narrow roads. Again, I loved it though. Ros not so much.

We had a couple of hours to visit Bunratty Castle and the grounds before our medieval banquet we had booked at the castle later in the evening. The castle was huge and it was great to see some of the history there. The small steps that just keep seeming to go up and up and up can be painful after a while. Finishing with the castle we went for a walk around the folk park seeing examples of buildings that would have been around at the time. This included seeing ‘Main Street’ of the village. There was a shop that was selling copies of Irish poems and in the window Ros spotted W.B.Yeats, we walked in and the lady advised that the printing press they use was once owned by the poet himself, Ros bought a framed poem “Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven”, one that her mother loved.

We had a short rest before our visit back to the Castle for dinner started. We were invited into the castle and directed up to the main room for medieval music and drinks. There we had some mead and a small bit of bread dipped in salt … very very salty depending upon how much you keep on the bread. The entertainment picked a King and Queen out of the crowd and crowned them. We then went back downstairs for dinner.

Dinner was fantastic. Set in a big hall we sat on a 500 year old oak table and room was set out with no knives and forks so it was eating with our fingers. We started off with a spiced parsnip soup. There were no spoons or anything – so lift the bowl and slurp it along with dipping bread in. Very tasty.

Up next was ribs. Again very tasty. Ripping the ribs apart and licking your fingers.

The next main dish was chicken and vegetables (potatoes, chunky carrots and Swede (or parsnip). Extremely tasty and vegetables cooked beautifully, yep rip apart the chicken and eat the veggies with your fingers.

The final dish was an apple cheesecake dessert. It was a little bit different but was still great, this one they gave a spoon.

The entertainment on the night consisted of the waiters and waitresses performing songs before, during and after the meals. I’m not sure if they were waiters firstly or performers firstly. They did an incredible job though. We sung along to the Irish ballads, was fantastic.

Finally, we finished the night with a walk down the cellar to have an ‘Irish Coffee’ – well, tea for me, to the tune of a bagpiper. We finished that then headed back to the hotel to cap off an extremely busy day.