Bloggo Buon Viaggio: Ireland in the Spring VI: The Burren and the Cliffs of Moher

After one rough, rugged day on the Isle of Inishmore, I was off again to rugged and rough - this time on the stones of the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher, courtesy of Galway Tours. A comfortable coach driven by the guide, Damien, took me and about 25 others to these two primary and several other secondary spots - a good day, a full day, so let's begin:

Friday 23 May 2014: This tour, like yesterday's to Inishmore, began at the new coach station in Galway. It took a little time to be sure the right people were on the coach, as the company runs tours to Connemara as well, in fact I  took that one the next day - at a discounted rate because I booked two consecutive day tours. 

Damien, our guide, seemed to me at first almost too clever - his narration shifted between stand-up, artful insights, and politics - jokes about his wife were too frequent and the least clever, though some on board favored them. But he grew on me, and I ended really appreciating his wit and wisdom. As he took us out of Galway he spoke a bit about the town, the 14 "tribes" and Galwegians in general, elections in particular - these were occurring today throughout the country, local elections but also for the EU, where representatives go, said Damien, "to do nothing on our behalf for four years." 

Castle Dunguaire

Gradually his topics shifted to our itinerary. We were headed to the Burren as our first primary site, but stopped less than an hour out of Galway at a nice looking ruin of a castle, called Dunguaire. The name is derived from a legendary king of Connaught (pronounced CON-knock - as in Harry!). It was built in 1520 but became more important under a restoration by the writer (contemporary of James Joyce) Oliver St John Gogarty, during the Irish Literary Revival. In fact meetings of major writers of that brilliant time for Irish literature and drama including William Butler Yeats and George Bernard Shaw were frequently held here. We only had time for a short photo stop, but that was enough to satisfy my curiosity. 

The area around Dunguaire Castle

Across from the castle, next to our coach park, were three traditional homes - white plaster with thatched roofs. 

a traditional home - note the added layer of thatch to the
upper roof

Damien reminded us that Irish had made roofs of thatch for "9,000" years - I wondered at times if he wasn't exaggerating just a wee bit - and pointed to the top of the thatch, where an extra layer that he called the boook, yes, that's three "ooo"s in the middle (though my subsequent research did, was added for extra protection, as it took the brunt of the punishment regularly meted out by wind and storm. The rest of the thatch did not have to be changed all that often but the top required frequent changing for the protection of the interiors. 

We then moved on, as Damien pointed out two martellos, rounded towers built by the English during the Napoleonic wars as the French tried to use Ireland as a back door to England - this wasn't the first time I'd heard that story (and I've written about it in an earlier post) but Damien offered the most colorful version of it. He pointed out a fishing sail boat, its hull painted a bright red - there were many of these he said, and were called "hookers," boats, he reminded us, "not gals in mesh tights!"

We passed this house on the outskirts of Ballyvaughan - sorry about the glare, but not too bad a shot from the window of a moving coach - bucolic bliss!

We stopped for tea and pee (sorry, Dottore Gianni forced me to write that rhyming phrase!) in a charming village with a charming name, Ballyvaughan. The plan was to buy the tea at 

Pretty tea rooms in Ballyvaughan - could have had
a tea here, but wasn't in the mood

a pub, but that was so packed that I used it only to...well, for the second part of the phrase above - I felt bad as the line to the ladies' loo was ridiculously long. As usual there was no wait to get into the gents, so I was able to get a nice walk in as well - we were next to the water, and a ferry called the Queen of Aran was pulled up at shore. It would have been a longer ferry ride from Ballyvaughan to the Arans, but boats do leave from there, as well as Doolin (about which more later) in addition to Rossaveal, the port that I'd embarked from the day before.

The Queen of Aran docked at Ballyvaughan

Limestone on the Burren

On then to the Burren, an almost surreal landscape made of porous limestone. Long stretches of this inhospitable substance give ways to patches of green, so the Burren is not all barren - one letter difference in the words, but a perfect definition - one for the other! And yet, the Burren is a 

Burren landscape, but with small plants, patches of green
in the foreground, and fertile fields in the rear

treasure trove for archeologists as well as biologists. Archeology should instantly make sense, but in this unique region arctic, Mediterranean and alpine plants all are to be found growing between the limestone blocks - a botanist's paradise and fauna is well as flora flourish (that's a pretty silly bit of alliteration, notes Dottore Gianni) - for example 28 species of butterfly have been discovered in the Burren - and there are only 30 species in all of Ireland! Damien calls it "a book written in stone." Several books I'd say, as it figures in all of the above, and also in Irish history. Edmund Ludlow, second in command of the English forces in Cromwell's campaign to subdue Ireland in the mid-seventeenth century, captured the sharp contrasts to be found in the Burren succinctly, if brutally: "The Burren is a country where there is not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him...and yet their cattle are very fat; for the grass growing in turfs of earth...that lie between the rocks, which are of limestone, is very sweet and nourishing."

The lines you see on that bleak hillside, particularly the middle right of the photo are the famine fences described below - sad, sad story

Damien pointed out limestone hills, completely barren. In the nineteenth century brutal British masters, having already created the infamous "famine" forced Irish laborers to create stone fences such as I discussed in my post on Inishmore throughout those hills - to quote the quotable Damien again: "the purpose? to separate nothing on either side." The more I understand of it the more nightmarish the history of the Irish people becomes. They were nominally British subjects, but the English treated them like slaves for centuries. There is no excuse for any groups as violent as the IRA (or some of those on the Protestant side) but one begins to understand how some might be led to atrocious acts after centuries of atrocious acts by England.

Beneath this foliage is a ring fort...or fairy fort - see below

Less depressing, exciting in fact, are the number of discoveries from Neolithic times are to be found on the Burren. We paused at two and stopped for a good bit of time at a third. None of us could figure why Damien stopped the bus (we were not able to leave) to show us a circular mound covered by trees and surrounded by pasture land. He explained that under this mound and many other mounds ancients lived. There are similar mounds made of stone - both types are called "ring forts" and date back thousands of years. To this day farmers fear them. The Irish, according to Damien, are a superstitious lot. Many believe that to chop the trees that cover the mound or to take anything from under it is VERY bad luck. They are also known as fairy rings, and not all fairies are nice - nor are leprechauns - and the farmers still warn their children, "If you go near these forts...the fairies (and/or leprechauns) will get ya!"

We only slowed for the Gleninsheen tomb (see below), but it happened to be in good view for me, out the window on my side of the bus, so I got a pretty good photo of it.

More than 90 megalithic tombs have been found in the area, and we were shown two. The story of the first, the Gleninsheen wedge tomb is interesting because it's about a young fella named Paddy Polen who in the 1930s was running around the Burren and came across something unusual, a rock formation with one large stone balanced atop two others. So he crawled in and found...more than he bargained for. The lad brought one of his finds, a beautiful necklace back to his father, who insisted he put it back. "We do not steal from the dead." (Dottore Gianni suggests that he might have been afeard o' fairies!) Being an obedient boy Paddy did as told, but when word got out, as it always seems to do, archeologists investigated. The necklace now sits in a place of honor in the National Museum, Dublin. The wedge tomb that Paddy stumbled upon dates from 3200 BC. 

Sidebar on historical accuracy: The above is the version that our inventive guide Damien shared with us. In subsequent research I've not found many of the "details" that Damien offered. Who knows if most of it is true? The tomb dates from c 2500 BC, later than Damien claimed. What DO we know? A person (most sources say a farmer, no more than that, and no mention of a Paddy Polen) DID find the tomb and the necklace (the Gleninsheen Necklace, to be exact, dated to c 700 BC) and it IS one of the highlights of the National Museum - the two facts from my longish relating of Damien's story. But I must admit it's a good'un! - Damien may be full of...blarney, but he surely has the gift of gab!

The Poulnabrone dolmen, or portal tomb

The second we did stop for, a larger dolmen, or as certain of these are also called, portal tombs. This is probably the best-known of the many in the Burren, Poulnabrone, by name. It's larger than the wedge tomb, and different as well in that several stones support the one atop the others, whereas, as noted above, in wedge tombs there are only two supporting stones, one on either side of the top stone. The Poulnabrone dolmen is older than the Gleninsheen, some of the bodies in it - up to 22(!) dating from as early as 3800 BC. 

Poulnabrone from a different angle

I was really impressed by this site. I had seen a similar tomb in Cornwall, far southwest England, but that was not as large as Poulnabrone. The Poulnabrone site is very well documented, several explanatory markers discussing the stone itself, the geology and biology of the Burren, and with a coach park for easy access - though it's not easy to step from stone to limey, sometimes slimy, stone. In Cornwall my guide and I had to trudge for about 15 minutes through the heath to get to it, and there were no markers or signs - just a lonely ancient tomb in a lonely, inhospitable area.

The portal tomb from a distance - note its size relative to the people on the righ, and the flora around it

Next stop, the Cliffs of Moher! But on the way we passed  Leamaneh Castle. The story of this place is really the story of a fiery redhead, appropriately named Red Mary. Once she 

Leamaneh Castle - I'm very happy with this photo
as I took it from the other side of the coach -
the nose of the man sitting in that window
is JUST cut off at lower right

got hold of this place, she did just about anything to keep it. She married a young fellow whose property this was and then he died (or was he done in? and was it she "what done him in?" (to be cockney about it - thank you Eliza Doolittle - but there is an Irish connection as the play was written by GB Shaw). She quickly married another, a powerful man for whom she'd already developed an interest, and they shared the castle. He AND she battled against Cromwell's English forces in the mid-seventeenth century. He was killed and she was captured. To her British captors she made this bold offer - "I'll marry whichever one of you will have me!" And sure enough, one wanted her. They married and she was able to retain her castle, which would surely have been taken from her had she not been so quick-minded in adversity. And then, for good measure, she killed her third husband as well, was tried for it, freed and allowed to keep Leamaneh Castle!

Also on the way a few quips worthy only of Damien. There are many Irish names of places and people that begin with "kil" - in Gaelic "cill" - it means church, innocent enough. When we crossed into County Clare Damien began to tell us a bit about two nearby towns in said county, one called Kilnaboy, another called Kilmore. He told the sad story of a man who was wrongfully arrested all because he once told some people, "I just come from Kilnaboy and I'm going to Kilmore." I hope you get it...it took me a minute! This could be an old Irish joke, or Damien could have made it up himself, and I'm thinking the latter!

Not all his quips were jokes. For instance he told us the story of why the Celtic Cross (see below) is shaped as it is. St 

three examples of a Celtic cross, combining
Christian and pagan symbols

Patrick saw it as his job to convert the pagans, and came up with a clever way to make himself more welcome when he first approached a group of them. He carried the Christian cross, yes, but on it he placed a very important pagan symbol, a circle symbolizing the sun, which they worshipped.

I said all his quips weren't jokes...but how many of them are true? Who knows?

Finally Damien drove us through the village of Lisdoonvarna, a sleepy enough place eleven months of the year. In September however the place comes alive, as that is the month of the matchmaker. Matchmakers played a very important part in Irish life. One good example of such a person was the character played by Barry Fitzgerald in The Quiet Man. It was his "job" to get Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne together, despite the jealousy (for the hero's land as well as for the gal) of Victor McLaghlen. In Lisdoonvarna every year matchmakers match up couples from all over, as lonely hearts gather in September in hopes of being lonely no more by October!

The Matchmaker Bar in Lisdoonvarna

And then the village goes back to sleep.

We finally got to the Cliffs of Moher, the last major stop on our journey. Except for lunch. Galway Tours had three coaches doing our tour on the same day. In the morning all three stopped at more or less the same time at the same place. Damien negotiated lunch with the other two drivers and volunteered to take us to the Cliffs BEFORE lunch, while the other two took them to the Cliffs AFTER lunch. This cut down on the crowd that would hit the same pub at the same time. By arranging for our coach to get to the pub later in the day it was a bit less crowded for the first two coaches, but much less crowded for us, not only because we'd be the only bus to arrive at that time, but the time we'd arrive was after the usual lunch hour. At this point, in spite of the silly jokes about his wife and hookers as boats vs hookers in tights, I gained respect for him.

The Cliffs of Moher

The Cliffs of Moher. If not THE top tourist attraction in all Ireland (and it may well be) it is certainly one of the top two or three. When we arrived there I could instantly see why. There is a large coach parking area in a low, flat area between to areas that rise very sharply in height. In the low flat area, actually burrowed into the hillside, is a visitor center, cafe and shop, and most made for that first. I on the other hand, charged up the cliffs to the right, then to the left, and only after I'd satisfied my curiosity and nearly exhausted myself did I pay a visit to the tourist center.

O'Brien's Tower

Damien had explained to us that the cliffs are 18 kilometers in length, and that at their highest they reach 214 meters. However long, however tall, they are impressive! In heading to the right one cannot miss the large 19th century building called O'Brien's Tower. He it was that decided he could make money charging people to climb the tower and get an even better view. And in fact there is still a charge today So I decided against and continued on. In each direction there are rather easy walkways along the cliffs that also offer some protection against falling (or leaping) over them. Another Damien tale, this one in the form of a question to us while on the coach:

"How many times do people jump off the Cliffs of Moher?" 

As we have no clue how to answer this, Damien provides the answer/punch line for us: 

"Only once - nobody's tried it twice..."

But then gets serious, for, sad to say, suicide has claimed many lives at the cliffs. There is in fact a memorial put up to 

Memorial to those who died at the cliffs

honor those who died here. One has to wonder how many of the deaths are accidental, how many purposeful? 

Dirt paths farther along on each side of the cliffs make the risk of accidental death or the ease of suicide much easier. The official tourist area stops at farmland. There is a fence on the field side of the land, and a sort of small wall that is very easily got over, in spite of the warning to the effect that this IS farmland and the farmer has given permission to walk upon it, but that if something happens to you it's no one's fault but your own. Of course many, many people make this forgiven trespass. In fact in spite of Dottore Gianni holding me back, I was one of them. It's simply exhilarating, at least at first, to be walking out near the edge of the cliffs. On those to the right of the tourist center, as one faces the sea, there is a rather well formed path in a slight declivity, then closer to the cliffs two much smaller paths made of dirt where people have trod over and over in an effort to get as close to the edge as possible. 

A good look at the three choices of path

I started out on the best-made path, farthest from the cliffs, but gradually tried the middle path, and for a wee bit the path nearest the cliffs. I did not stay on that one long, as I felt myself getting slightly busy, so stuck to the middle and ultimately back on the safest path. The land turns fairly mildly upward once on these paths, and so it's also exhilarating to climb higher and higher along them. I climbed to what I sensed was the highest point of the cliffs, and looked ahead - many were going on, down a bit. In fact you can walk these cliffs, which at some point descend towards a less dangerous shore for a long, long time. 

What I think may be the highest point on the cliffs - and about where I turned back, though as you see many went farther

I used my zoom on this photo to show the cattle and sheep in the farm fields - I did NOT see at the time what was going on at center...what IS going on at center???

Tourists heading down to the visitor center from the cliffs - while the view in this direction is not as breathtaking as that of the cliffs themselves, it's rather nice, yes?

I was on a schedule, and also, as confessed above, I was tiring myself out. And I'd not even got to the cliffs to the left of the area around the tourist center and coach park. So I turned 

The climb to the highest point
on the cliffs to the left of the center -
I got up there, then turned back

back, stopped at the center to relieve myself - no place for that on the cliffs, at least not at this time of day when the crowds are out - and headed up the left side. While it is not quite as dramatic as the walk on the right (or IS it, and my nonchalance indicating that I was getting used to them by this time, and was not quite as shocked by the literally breathtaking beauty of them? Hmmmm...). As on the cliffs to the right, after a walking certain distance in the official area of the center I trespassed (forgiven in advance by the farmer) on private land. The cliffs on this side also offer a well trod path closest to the farm fields and two small dirt paths nearer the cliff.

Hag's Head in the distance - one of the towers was built during the Napoleonic era in the early nineteenth century as a look-out for French ships

I did rather well getting up to the heights here. In the distance to the right the cliffs jut out in a place called the Hag's Head and much as I wanted to get that far I realized I'd 
never make it in time to get back to the coach on time. So, using my head (for once) I took distant photos of the Head, and headed back! It was somewhere along the return journey that I found myself on the path nearest the cliffside - let me say that I wasn't standing literally on the edge, but the grass beyond that path heads vertiginously down a slope that ultimately could have led me (and over?) the edge if I tripped. I suddenly became dizzy and felt the need to reach down and make my way not quite in a crawl but with both hands and both feet on the ground until my first opportunity to take the safer path. It was a genuinely frightening feeling. No one commented, no one laughed (well, maybe to themselves) but I was damned happy to get back to the safety of the path closest the farmer's fields.

The paths on the way back to the center from the cliffs on the left - in the distance atop the cliffs is O'Brien's Tower, and to the left in the water is a "sea stack" known as Bhreannah Mor

And then I headed back to the visitor center, had a look at some pretty interesting exhibits, though there was some renovation going on and not all that much was to be seen, had a look around the shop, and headed back to the coach. I was one of the first to arrive, stood around for a bit, then boarded.

Here you can get some idea of how primitive the paths are to the far left and right (which you can't see here) compared to the steps leading down to the visitor center (which you can see) - again, O'Brien's Tower on the upper left of the cliffs

By this time I was more than ready for lunch! Doolin, another charming seaside town and ferry port, was our destination, and it didn't take too long to get there. Gus O'Connor's Pub 

Gus O'Connor's Pub, Doolin

was our destination and I was one of the first off the coach. I got in, decided against a table (for one? why?) and headed straight for the bar, where a very nice young Czech woman took my order almost immediately - many others waited and waited in line, so I was quite pleased with my choice - of drink (Guinness), food (bangers & mash - nicely done) and server (pretty young Czech woman). We had a nice chat - she's not been in Ireland all that long, but at first I couldn't detect an accent. When I was about to leave she asked if I was coming back to hear the traditional music later - for a moment I wished I was!

The bright colors of Doolin - grand old thatched building at center

Eating first allowed me some time to stroll around this once again brightly colored village -really brightly actually! I had time as well to walk just out of the village to the seacoast - the Doolin-ites have a nice view (on a clearer day) of the Cliffs of Moher, though I could see them fairly well - and even if I couldn't the pastures next to the sea made a lovely bucolic scene.

From the waterfront at Doolin, the Cliffs of Moher in the distance - they don't look all that dramatic from here - I wonder if that cow often thinks about the great view?

The little cliffs photo stop in the foreground, with the Cliffs of Moher in the distance

Back again to the coach, we drove only a short distance to some relatively diminutive cliffs that made for photo opps, as the the larger Cliffs of Moher are evident in the background. 

Dottore Gianni at the little cliffs

The younger folks were having a particularly good time getting in poses dangerously close to calamity there. But then I saw people doing so at the much higher cliffs earlier in the day - a photo taken of two girls sitting on the cliff edge, legs dangling over...Dottore Gianni almost became physically ill watching them! Here a group of Spanish girls asked me to take a photo of them (nowhere near the cliff edges, thank the gods, and I did, on condition they return the favor. We solo travelers have to seize our opportunities whenever we can!

Corcomroe Abbey

We now thought we were on our way home, but Damien took us to one more stop and even got off the bus to speak to us within what was left of the site's walls. This was another abbey, Corcomroe by name, a monastery run by the Cistercians beginning in the late twelfth century. While it, like so many other abbeys, were torn apart during the English Reformation on orders of Henry VIII it is more substantial than most I've seen, and relatively large.

Damien our guide in the abbey - note the rather nice Romanesque ribbing on the ceiling

Damien waited patiently for us to gather, and then spoke. Frankly he didn't have much to say about it - it was cruciform, but that what other twelfth century church was not? He DID comment on the sheep and lambs that fed picturesquely near by. "When a gal sees a sheep she thinks "Aaaahhh, such sweet sheep." When a boy sees one he thinks "Kebabs!"

Sheep grazing - sweet? or kebabs?

I don't think Damien told us this other short story, but I read about it in my subsequent research, so I'll include it. It was said to be commissioned for the Cictercians by the king whose grandson, another king, is buried within its walls. The king who commission the abbey found it so lovely that he had all five designers of the complex killed, so they wouldn't go off and build something equally nice or nicer! As the intellectual historian Mel Brooks points out, "It's very good to be the king!"

The king buried in the abbey

After a bit of photography we got back on the bus. I think by this point most of us were tired enough to be more than ready to be back in Galway, but one obstacle kept us from moving far from the abbey. The Abbey is set in a lovely setting in the Burren. you can see the barren mountains but also green fields, and as I noted above, sheep and lambs grazing peacefully nearby. Cattle do too, and there's only one tiny road from the abbey to the primary way back into Galway. It was the time of day for the cattle to return from the fields. Damien made the mistake, while we were waiting in, as he called it "an Irish traffic jam," of letting people out to take photos. Only a few did. Dottore Gianni is very pro-cow, but how do these differ from those in the US? And I got a shot of them through the bus window, anyway. But the effect the people nearby had on them was to make them freeze in their tracks. So the "traffic jam" went on longer than expected. Damien got the people back on the coach, noted that the farmer would be pissed off - and off we went!

An Irish traffic jam

On arrival back in Galway I took another walk along the pedestrian zone. My very late lunch, my increasing exhaustion - too much fresh air? asks Dottore Gianni - and my awareness of a big day tomorrow - Connemara, the last tour I'd take on this trip to Ireland, made my decision to grab a take-away sandwich and a beer and call it an early night. And so I did! 

Next post, my last about Ireland: the beautiful mountains of Connemara, Ireland's only fjord, and a castle in the midst of nowhere!