Thursday, May 30 – Ireland (w/ pictures)

We were up and on the bus by 8:15 this morning and headed over to the west coast to the Cliffs of Moher.

(This is an example of a tower house castle from the Tudor period.  It was used as a fortress, vantage point, and residence for the nobleman who owned the land.)





It is an area of very steep cliffs, dropping down to meet the Atlantic Ocean.  They are actually known as a popular surfing area with waves up to 60 feet high at various times of the year.  They were very nice, but still not the impressive scenery I’ve heard about for Ireland.

O'Brian Tower build 1835

Next we spent the lunch time in Galway– a university/fishing city along the coast.  I had a great seafood chowder (shrimp, mussels, and something with tentacles) and my first chocolate éclair for the trip (hopefully many more to come).  There were lots of little shops along the road and it made it easy to spend the hour or so of free time we had.  The streets here were very similar to those in both Switzerland and France in that the shops were all right next to each other along narrow streets with little to no designated sidewalk areas.

Candy Store

The last tour stop for the day was at Rathbaun Farm where we made scones and then had a talk and demonstration on sheep sheering while our scones cooked. 

Bags of wool

Finnegan and his dog Ted

Over the last 50 years the wool industry has pretty much disappeared from Ireland and there are very few woolen items made here any longer.  In fact we learned that it often costs as much or more to pay someone to sheer a sheep than what they will get for selling the wool.  Most of the wool is sold to China where with their cheap labor they are able to produce sweaters, blankets, etc. for very little cost.  The farmers have no choice but to still sheer the sheep since the sheep would suffer from the summer weather if they were not shorn.  But most of the sheep are sold before they are a year old (when they are still classified as lamb) for meat and so may not need to be sheered before then.

He had a variety of sheep in the pens for us to see and as cute as they were, I still like lamb.

He had a boarder collie which was about a year old, but fully trained in how to herd the sheep.  He let the dog out in the field, gave him a single command, and he (the dog) ran off as fast as he could.  About 10 seconds later he came out from behind a row of shrubs with 10 sheep stampeding ahead of him.  Within another 30 seconds he had them herded into the pen the farmer had open, including one who tried to break away from the group.  I did not even have time to get a picture it happened so fast!

The one against the wall was just shorn

It took the farmer all of about 4 minutes to sheer the sheep (the first time for this particular sheep).  Afterwards it was funny to see the sheep rubbing against the wall in the pen.  I don’t know if it felt itchy after the shaving – or just liked the feel of rubbing against the wall now that all that fur was gone.

We enjoyed our scones and then looked around the original farm house with its thatched roof.  They generally just keep adding to the roof over the years and even though the house is over 250 years old, the bottom layer of thatch is from the time the house was built.

closer view of roof

Inside the house

There was a Medieval dinner tonight which was optional and Jenny and I opted out (we have been to those before) and instead had a simple meal and then stopped in a pub for some local refreshment.