I am quite behind on our blogs! ☺ We've been busy traveling and soaking up Ireland during our last few months here. Then my blog wasn't working for some reason. So this post is from when my aunt and mom came to visit us in March!
We put Jimmy's parents on a plane back to the U.S. on Monday morning......
And Tuesday morning we were back at the airport to pick up Aunt Cindy (she's my mom's sister - in the orange) and Grandma!
And being the good troopers that they are, we immediately took them up to Co. Antrim for the day (it was the one day of good weather up there!.....you learn these things ☺)
First stop...the Dark Hedges
near Ballintoy
We stopped for a little bit at the Ballintoy Parish Church
We then drove towards Bushmills for lunch. This is Dunsevervick Castle. St. Patrick is recorded as having visited Dunseverick castle in the 5th century AD.
Giant's Causeway!
Jack & Grandma climbing up on the rocks
And of course we had to get a boot picture!
Dunluce Castle was closed by the time we got there. The castle is surrounded by extremely steep drops on either side, which may have been an important factor to the early Christians and Vikings who were drawn to this place where an early Irish fort once stood.
Thursday morning (I took it easy on them Wednesday and we hung out at the house to let them recover from their jet lag ☺), we headed down towards Kilkenny. First we stopped at the Nicholas Mosse pottery studio.
She was adding the handles onto these mugs.
We then drove over to Kilkenny and toured the castle.
Then Luke and I took them to our favorite place for lunch!
We love eating downstairs.
That evening I took Mom and Cindy into Dublin to the Irish House Party for dinner and some Irish music and dancing.
Friday was wear green for St. Patrick's weekend.
We spent the morning in Dublin. This is the famous Molly Malone statue. "Molly Malone" (also known as "Cockles and Mussels" or "In Dublin's Fair City") is a popular song, set in Dublin, Ireland. The song tells the fictional tale of a fishmonger who plied her trade on the streets of Dublin, but who died young, of a fever.
St. Patrick's Cathedral
Cindy & Mom loved the patterns of the tiled floor.
That afternoon we celebrated Jack's 9th birthday with a party at Base (an indoor play place) with the boys from his class.
Saturday morning we headed out west towards Connemara. Cindy wanted to see some Connemara marble and we found a small visitor center where the guy showed us all the different patterns and color of the marble.
We then drove up to Leenane to the Sheep & Wool Center where we were given a demonstration on how sheep's wool is spun.
After the Wool Center we drove to nearby Kylemore Abbey. Kylemore Castle was built in 1867 as a private home for the family of Mitchell Henry, a wealthy doctor from London whose family was involved in textile manufacturing in Manchester. In 1920 the Irish Benedictine Nuns purchased the Abbey castle and lands after they were forced to flee Ypres, Belgium during World War I. The nuns continued to offer education to Catholic girls, opening an international boarding school and establishing a day school for local girls. They were forced to close the school in June 2010.
Mitchell Henry constructed this Gothic cathedral in memory of his wife after she died unexpectedly.
Connemara Marble
Saturday evening we celebrated the birthday boy (9 years old!).
Sunday morning we headed south of Galway and drove through the Burren.
The rolling hills of Burren are composed of limestone pavements with criss-crossing cracks known as "grikes", leaving isolated rocks called "clints".
The Cliffs of Moher
We learned at the Connemara Marble Center that these are fossils found in the rock. We could see them all over the steps at the Cliffs of Moher.
After the Cliffs of Moher, we drove towards Limerick. Although the kids had the day off of school the next day due to it being St. Patrick's Day, Jimmy did not. So we put him on a train for home.
After we left Jimmy we went to nearby Bunratty Castle (from the 15th century) and Folk Park, a living reconstruction of the homes and environment of Ireland of over a century ago.
This is the schoolhouse at the Folk Park. I remembered seeing it when Jimmy and I visited Ireland back in 2002.
We drove to Tralee for the night. I think she managed to swallow her last bite of food before falling asleep at the restaurant!
Monday morning, one of our favorite places - Castlegregory Beach.
He was so excited he could write his name in the sand!
The amount of seashells was ridiculous!
We found lots of fun treasures!
Conor Pass
Grandma and the kids climbing up the pass to a corrie lake (formed in a cirque excavated by a glacier).
They made it!
It's quite a big lake, I couldn't fit it all into the picture.
We went into the town of Dingle for lunch where we enjoyed a yummy lunch of fresh seafood!
Dingle Harbor
There were baby lambs all over Slea Head drive!
We spent the afternoon driving around Slea Head.
the sheep ferry
We stayed the night in Killarney. The next morning we drove through Killarney National Park.
It's a Howard tradition to take your picture with the national park sign. This is the best we could do!
Do you see the deer?
After driving through the national park, we made our way towards Blarney. We skipped the castle and kissing stone and did a little shopping and had some lunch instead ☺
Aunt Cindy cleaning her treasures later that night at our house. (Mom's are the ones on the other side of the sink!)
Wednesday Luke and I took Cindy & Mom up to the Boyne Valley. Our first stop was at Newgrange.
Newgrange is a megalithic tomb built around 3200 BC. It's 500 years older than the great pyramids of Egypt and 1000 years older than Stonehenge.
A full belly and a warm car ride towards Monasterboice was too much for this little guy!
Monasterboice is an early Christian settlement that was founded in the late 5th century. It is most famous for its 10th century high crosses.
We stopped at the Hill of Slane after leaving Monasterboice. Luke wasn't quite awake from his nap yet.
St. Patrick lit a Paschal fire on this hill top in A.D. 433 in defiance of the High King Laoire who forbid any other fires while a festival fire was burning on the Hill of Tara. What stands on the Hill of Slane are the ruins of friary church and college dating back to 1512.
One of the reason I like taking our visitors to places is because I always see something I didn't the time before.
Luke and Grandma off exploring!
There they are!
Thursday we took Aunt Cindy for an after school treat - Cadbury Cream Egg McFlurries!
That evening Kate and Aunt Cindy made snickerdoodles.
Friday morning!
the showroom
blowing glass
He's marking the designs that will be etched on in the next room.
He's attaching the base onto the vase.
We found a viking!
Friday night Kate's little bestie from her class at school was back in town. Ella's family moved last summer for her dad's job assignmnet in Gibraltar. They were quite happy to see each other for a few hours!
Saturday morning Kate took Grandma and Aunt Cindy out for tea.
Aunt Cindy's favorite sign!
Jack had some special cheerleaders at his first Gaelic football game of the season!
Sunday morning we headed over to Howth to mark something off of our want to do list - The Howth Sea Cliffs walk.
Off we go!
Afterwards we enjoyed another yummy seafood lunch!
Monday morning we took them to the airport. We had a lot of fun with Grandma and Aunt Cindy. Cindy had a list of places she wanted to see and Grandma was willing to go along. I think we managed to mark most of the places off her list and then some ☺! It was another visit that went by all too quickly!
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