April 14, 2005 - The Cliffs of Moher and The Burren.

I awakened rather early by birds singing, but it was so pleasant to listen to them that I didn't really mind losing the sleep. Besides, getting up early gave me some time to write in the journal a bit more before our breakfast at 8:30 in the large dining room in our B&B. It was a nice, solid breakfast and gave us energy for the whole morning, which turned out to be very useful. Our first stop was the Cliffs of Moher, so we drove a bit north and then west through Ennis to arrive at the west coast of Ireland.

It was raining steadily when we arrived and thus it was pretty dark, but the cliffs were still really quite impressive. Black cliffs dropped sheer for over 700 feet straight down into the Atlantic, and the cliffs extended for about 5 miles to the southwest. Ceaselessly driven by a west wind, waves were crashing against the foot of the cliffs, sending white foam high into the air before falling back.

We walked over to O'Brien's observation tower on the nearby promontory, and it was worth it although we were almost blown over by some gusts of wind. The sun started to peek out while we were on top of the tower, and that made a huge difference in the panoramic vistas surrounding us. In what seemed like an instant, the sun made the grass gleam a brilliant emerald green and the sea shift from dark gray to a cobalt blue. It was a rather dramatic and quite pleasant transformation, and of course it helped that the rain left off for a bit.

The sun also seemed to bring out the tour buses-4 of them were parked in the car park when we walked back-and the sidewalk sellers who were vending blankets and jewelry with Celtic designs and such like. We braved the gift shop and found it so crowded with tourists that I, at least, had trouble even moving around and had to be careful not to bump into anything fragile.

Paying our 4 Euro exit fee, we drove back on a northern loop into the Burren area, a large, curiously barren area that extends from the coast north of the Cliffs of Moher inward to the east about 20 miles. We found a pub for lunch at Lisdoonvarna, a town known for its annual dance where the area's bachelor farmers are introduced to hopeful young ladies. This event was, in fact, commemorated by some bronze statues of musicians and dancing couples just outside our pub.

Unfortunately, everything on the pub menu was deep fat fried, which made sticking to my low fat diet absolutely impossible! Pubs were ubiquitous in Ireland and seemed to me to be taking the place of fast foot joints in the U.S. That is, they offered quick and tasty, but not necessarily healthy, food. We found pubs in pretty much every tiny town, just as fast food joints are almost everywhere in the U.S., but except for Shannon airport and one other city we never saw a sign for a McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, or any recognizable fast food chain while we were in Ireland. It appeared to me that those chains had not really even established a toe hold in the Irish market. The lack of such places in Ireland was in distinct contrast to Germany where fast food chains are competing hard against the more traditional Imbisses and can be found at many small towns, train stations, and so forth (see Wanderungs 2 and 5). In any case, after a filling if fat-laden lunch we continued driving into the heart of the Burren.

Despite its rather barren appearance, the Burren has supported extensive settlements from Paleolithic times to the present. We learned all about the geological and human history of the region in Kilfenora where we found a museum dedicated to the Burren area as well as a historic cathedral. According to the information in the museum, the church next door had originally been a Catholic cathedral, but after the Reformation, Catholic and Anglican congregations had used the same church for services! That implied to me that at least at one time the Catholic and Protestant factions in Ireland could coexist peacefully, surely a hopeful portent for the ultimate future of a united Ireland with both the mainly Catholic south and mainly Protestant northeastern corner. The graveyard directly beside the church was also very interesting. It had many very old graves decorated with the curious Irish-style (Celtic) crosses that have a circle circumscribing the cross at the top.

The museum exhibits on the origin of the Burren were also fascinating. The basic geological feature of the Burren is a thick substrate of old limestone formed by sea life in ancient times. Over many thousands of years, water has eroded both the surface of the Burren and created subsurface channels for rivers, so there is no standing or flowing water anywhere in the area. The surface is in some areas a thin layer of earth that grows enough grass to support cattle grazing, and we saw cattle herds and farmhouses in several areas.

Other areas were almost completely bare rock and basically had the appearance of a really rough, fissured limestone pavement. The limestone was so eroded that it almost looked like a field of cobblestones from a distance with no trees or bushes and just some grass struggling to survive in the cracks. Those sections really did look barren to us, but you could clearly see the rock fences winding up and down those barren hills, so the fields must have belonged to someone and were probably used for occasional grazing.

After touring the Burren we headed back toward our B&B, hoping to find a place to eat. We didn't find many, however, and the ones we did find either didn't have parking or were unsuitable for one reason for another, so we ended up driving back to Bunratty where we knew there was a collection of pubs that we could choose from. We ate in a pub built in the old creamery and had a very nice, relaxing meal. This pub offered entrées like beef stew and baked chicken breast, so I could even eat without feeling so blasted guilty about my diet for once, which was nice.

We got back to the B&B while it was still daylight and settled in for a quiet evening. I processed pictures on Baby while Monika and Lois planned for the next several days for our trip. I then shifted over to journal writing while they worked on some crossword puzzles, but we all gave it up around 9:30 and turned in for the night.