September 25, 2013: Galway to Dublin, Ireland
	September 23, 2013: Kylemore Castle near Galway, Ireland
	Return to the Index for Our British Isles Trip

Early this morning, at breakfast, we asked Maire what she might recommend for a day trip today. Karl had laid out a driving route that would take us a good ways south, but we would be driving most of the time and it would take us the entire day. Maire recommended driving a shorter distance down to the coast to catch an excursion boat to see the Cliffs of Moher, which are quite famous. She helped me call the boat operator to make the booking, which would include a trip to one of the string of three islands- the Aran Islands- just off the western Irish coast.

Driving to Doolin, Ireland

The town from which the boat tours leave is called Doolin, and it is about 50 road miles from Dublin. Our boat reservation was for one o'clock, so we left Galway about nine-thirty.

As you can see from the map at left, we first had to head east from Galway to go around the large inlet of the North Atlantic that becomes Galway Bay close to the city. We drove through Galway center and continued east on an expressway to find the N6 east and then the N16 south. By this time, we were very much out in the countryside, again with me navigating.

A ways down the N16, we saw the first of the signs we would follow all the way to Doolin- the park sign for the Cliffs of Moher. As in the United States, Irish highway signs use the convention of a different color for parks and other items of interest; cities and towns are in green, attractions are in brown. This particular sign directed us to tuurn off on the N67, a narrow country road.

Along the N67, which we took all the way to the Doolin vicinity, we stopped three times.

The first time we stopped we did so because we saw a bunch of other cars stopped and some people looking at an old building off to our right. So, we stopped too, just to see what it was. The turnout was just a short ways past the building; walking back along the rock wall, Fred was intrigued by the wild blackberries he found growing on the wall.

As it turned out, what everyone was looking at was a stone house that seems to have been abandoned and which now has many years of tree and vine growth almost covering it. The house sat and the end of a curving drive on top of a hill perhaps three hundred feet from the road. It was a pretty interesting sight, like something out of "World Without Us," the TV series about what would happen to the things that people left behind should everyone simply disappear. Fred got a very good closeup view of the house, and you can see that picture here.

We stood around snapping pictures of the house and of each other for a little while, and I think just about everybody got photographed. There are clickable thumbnails below for some of the pictures we took:

The first picture in the second row is interesting; it shows one of the rock walls in closeup with many more in the background. We were to see such low rock walls all day long, uncountable miles of them. They seemed to delineate both pastures and property lines, and sometimes a single wall would run for a mile or more up to the top of a hill. We had a number of discussions amongst ourselves as to where the rocks all came from. Perhaps they were unearthed in the process of clearing and tilling the land, but it seems unimaginable that there could have been so many. So it is something of a mystery.

There was a group of four young people also looking at the old house; two of them had climbed the fence and were just getting back from walking up to the house when we arrived. There was a sign forbidding entry, but I commented that if I had the time, I would also have gone up to the house (as I am wont to disobey signs when hiking and such). In a short conversation, I discovered that the taller, bearded guy was Julien Grignon, a 27-year-old French singer-songwriter. I discovered that with his friend, violinist Antoine Solmiac, he forms a group known as "Outside Duo." In the picture at left, Antoine is at left, Julien is next, and then two of their friends are at right. Intrigued, I looked them up on the Internet later, discovering that Julien, in his solo performances, sings about everyday life in a trendy, rock style. But he and Antoine together do something entirely different- Celtic music. And, it turned out, that was why they were in Ireland at the moment.

Back near where we'd parked the van, Fred noticed something in the trees just off the road; it looked like a grave marker. I have no idea whether it was actually a marker and, if so, whether it was for someone who lived on the property or perhaps, as is the custom here, a marker for someone who died at that particular spot along the road.

The seven of us piled back into our van and headed off to our next stop, in the picturesque seaside village of Kinvarra. About two miles before we entered Kinvarra, we passed a seaside castle- Dunguaire Castle.

Dunguaire Castle

Dunguaire Castle is a 16th-century tower house on the southeastern shore of Galway Bay; the name derives from the Dun of King Guaire, the legendary king of Connacht. The castle's 75-foot tower and its defensive wall have been restored, and the grounds are open to tourists during the summer. It is thought to be the most photographed castle in Ireland.

The castle was built by the Hynes clan around 1520, a family who had been in the area since the mid-600s. Currently, archeologists believe the original dun (castle) was most likely a ring fort; there are remains of such a structure just northeast of the current castle. Dunguaire Castle was transferred in the 17th century to Oliver Martin, although the main seat of the Martin family was in Tullira Castle some distance away. Because of this, Dunguaire fell into disrepair.

The Martyn family died out in 1922, and the surgeon and poet Oliver St. John Gogarty purchased Dunguaire. Gogarty began restoring the castle and established it as the meeting place for the leading figures of the Celtic Revival, such as W.B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Augusta, Lady Gregory, and John Millington Synge.

The castle was acquired in 1954 by Christobel Lady Ampthill, who completed the restoration work started by Gogarty. It was later purchased by Shannon Development, an Irish corporation that manages numerous historic tourist attractions in Ireland. During the summer months when Dunguaire Castle is open to the public, a Medieval Banquet is held every night with costumed performers who recite Irish literature and play traditional Irish music.

We continued on past the castle, and another few minutes brought us to the seaside village of Kinvarra, where we stopped to have a look around.

Kinvara (In Irish "Cinn Mhara" means "head of the sea") is a seaport village located in the south of County Galway, Ireland. (The name of the town is often spelled with an additional "r", although "Kinvara" is the official name.) The town currently has a population of 1160. The Great Famine in the 1840s and a series of emigrations that continued up until the 1960s reduced the population of the village – once a thriving port and a significant exporter of corn and seaweed – to no more than a few hundred people. From the 1980s the population of the parish of Kinvara started to increase and the village started to grow in size.

Kinvara developed around a towerhouse (now completely demolished) close to the main pier and the medieval church of St. Colmán or St.Caimín (now in ruins) which is situated between the main road through the village and the oldest part of the quay. The church of St. Caimín dates to the early 13th century and was built on the site of Saint Caimín's original early medieval church.

In the aerial view at right you can see the bay and the quay that runs along it. It was low tide when we arrived, and so some of the boats were sitting on the bottom (and some were being worked on). We parked in a triangular area between the main road, the quay and a row of shops, where Nancy and Prudence went souvenir hunting. Fred and I walked around the area taking pictures of the charming little town.

Fred and I in Kinvarra

Nancy and Prudence spent some time looking in the shops along with Guy and Karl, while Ron went to chat up one of the bartenders in the pub right in front of us. Fred and I took pictures around the area, focusing on the odd detail or two. For example, I have never, and undoubtedly will never again, see a cafe named "The Strawberry Hedgehog." I have put clickable thumbnails below for some of the many pictures we took:

Scenes in the Town of Kinvarra, Ireland

After about 45 minutes in Kinvarra, the girls were done and we continued on our way down to Doolin. I was watching the clock as we had a 1PM sailing, and I was measuring our progress. We were on schedule, but with little wiggle room. Along the way to our next stop, which was a vista point up in the hills, Fred snapped picture after picture as we drove along. It is remarkable that with so little time to compose his shots or steady his camera, that any of them turned out well. But some did, and I have put clickable thumbnails for those pictures of the Irish countryside below:

After a time, the road began to ascend into the hills via a series of switchbacks- sharp curves that Ron Ruckman handled like a pro. Eventually, near the crest of the hills, we came to the overlook.

At the Corkscrew Hill Overlook

"Gragan" (in Irish, "the withered stump of a tree") shares its placename with castles, townlands and a barony now known as the Barony of the Burren, where we are now. We have just come up the steep, winding gradients of Corkscrew Hill, and we can now see down into a natural Amphitheatre, with an eastern boundary formed by the Moneen Mountains and Aillwee, a southern boundary by Slieve Elva (where we are standing now) and a western boundary by both Slieve Elva and Cappanawalla Mountain. In the gap to the north you can see all the way to Galway Bay.

Of course, we took pictures here at the overlook. Most of them were of our party, and I have put clickable thumbnails below for some of these:

Scenes from the Corkscrew Hill Overlook

As for the scenery, Fred did get one nice view of a towerhouse way down below us in the valley, and you can see that view here. And I put together a picture of the descriptive sign that showed the features in the distance, and you can see it below:

Both Fred and I took panoramic shots as well. Fred did his within his camera, and you can see it below:

Fred's Panoramic View from Corkscrew Hill

I put mine together out of three separate pictures, and you can see it below:

Ron's Composite Panoramic View from Corkscrew Hill

We continued on the last few miles on the N67 before we turned off on a local road. Another few miles, and we could see Doolin ahead of us.

Taking the Ferry to Inisheer Island

We arrived at the dock about ten minutes after the scheduled sailing time of our ferry. As soon as I ran onto the concrete pier, Danny, the fellow I'd talked to early this morning, seemed to know exactly who I was and said he'd held the boat for us. Lucky he did. We could see our ferry down at the end of the concrete pier, and so we made our way down there as quickly as we could.

The Happy Hooker Waiting for Us at Doolin Me Aboard the Happy Hooker Looking Back at the Pier

As we were getting situated on board, we took a few candid pictures- pictures of us on board, of the rocky shore south of us, of the island in the middle of Doolin harbor and, as we moved out into the harbor, of the pier behind us. There are clickable thumbnails below for a few of these pictures:

Our destination first will be the island of Inisheer, one of the three Aran Islands off the coast. Inisheer is the closest- about ten miles from Doolin.

The Aran Islands are a group of three islands located at the mouth of Galway Bay, on the west coast of Ireland. They constitute the barony of Aran in County Galway, Ireland. From easternmost is Inisheer, and it is also the smallest. The second largest is Inishmaan, west of Inisheer, and the largest, Inishmore, is the westernmost. The 1,200 inhabitants of the three islands speak Gaelic primarily, and that is the language used in naming the islands and their villages and townlands. But most islanders are also fluent in English.

As we left Doolin, we could begin to see the view down the coast; there was a rock promontory just south of the Doolin harbor, and we could see people walking out on it. At one point, Fred saw a surfer and his board heading out across the rocks, and he could also see the Cliffs of Moher shrouded in a light fog behind the surfer. It made for a nice picture, and you can see it here.

The topograph of the mainland at this point along the coast is that of a high ridge of rounded hills that taper down to the sea near Doolin. As you move south this changes as the shoreline rises abruptly, culminating in the Cliffs of Moher a few miles south of Doolin. We'll be taking the ferry to see them late this afternoon.

Just a few hundred yards from shore in the Doolin Harbor, there was a small island with what looked like the remains of a fortification on it. Fred got a good picture as we passed, and you can see it here.

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) Getting Settled Aboard the Happy Hooker

I think that when I told the group about booking a ferry to Inisheer that they might have been thinking of the kind of ferry we took from Holyhead to Dublin, because at least a few folks looked quite surprised at the kind of boat we were on; I think they may have been expecting something bigger.

That is what amused me as I made a movie of our group and of the boat just after we got underway; you can watch that movie with the player at right.

I thought the forty-minute crossing was very enjoyable, but then I like small boats. It was quite cool; I was glad I'd brought my pullover (although towards the end of the stay on Inisheer, the weather warmed considerably).

Fred's Picture of Us Aboard the Happy Hooker

During the crossing, we took pictures of each other, the boat and the North Atlantic; I have put these pictures in the slideshow below.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

To view the slideshow, just click on the image at left and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.

From Doolin, we could see Inisheer way ahead of us; when we approched the island, we could look back towards Doolin. As we came around to the Inisheer harbor from the east, we could see what appeared to be a rusted ship sitting high and dry on the rocky shore. I didn't know it at the time, but I'd get a chance to see the wreck up close and personal.

Looking at Inisheer from the Happy Hooker

As we approached Inisheer, we could begin to see that there were ruins at the highest points on the nearby shore, and we assumed we would get to see them during the afternoon.

There were other interesting-looking views of the island as we came around its north side to dock at the town of Inisheer, and as we docked there were views of this small-village harbor as well. We would see all of these features later on, much closer up, so there's no need to include a lot of these pictures now. But there are clickable thumbnails below for a representative selection of the photos we took from the boat as it came in to dock (including one of an interesting hilltop cemetery that we would indeed visit later):

The boat docked at the concrete pier and the fifteen or twenty of us on board got off to see what we could see.

Walking Around Inisheer Island

We arrived on Inisheer, disembarked, and walked to the beginning of the concrete pier. There, we stopped to talk about what we wanted to do. Fred and I wanted to walk to the ruins that we could see on top of the hills perhaps a mile away, and then walk elsewhere from there. Understandably, Karl, Ron, Nancy and Prudence didn't feel like doing that much walking. So, the four of them, along with Guy, engaged one of the horse‑drawn carts that were waiting at the pier to take them on a tour around the island.

While this meant that we wouldn't all be together, it was the most reasonable solution (especially considering that six persons was the limit for one of these carriages. So we bid the other five temporary farewell, agreed to meet back at the pier at the appointed time for our return trip, and headed off in our different directions.

Below are clickable thumbnails for some of the pictures that Fred and I took on our arrival on the island and just after we started off on our own:

Throughout this trip, I've been integrating some of the pictures taken by Nancy, Prudence and Guy into those taken by Fred and myself since, for the most part, we were together, seeing the same things at the same time. Here on Inisheer, though, this was not the case. So what I have done is simply organize the pictures we all took into the sections that correspond to the sequence in which Fred and I walked to the various spots of interest on the island. And, since we took so many pictures of so many different things here, I am also going to organize this portion of the page into a section for each of the points of interest. And at the end, there will be a section for miscellaneous views around the island that aren't directly related to one of the points of interest.

As I have done before in this photo album, I have captured an aerial view of about half of Inisheer Island (the half we traversed in our walks), have marked the points of interest we visited on it, and have also marked our approximate route from one to another. I think that following along with us on this aerial view (returning to it as desired as you proceed down this album page) may add an element of interest to what would otherwise just be groups of pictures of disjointed sites. In addition, you'll be able to match what you see in many of our pictures with what you see on the aerial view.

Just an an example, one of the previous group of thumbnails above is for a picture that Fred took of the beach as we were walking to the beginning of the pier. In the aerial view, you can see this beach clearly. I think that later on, when I visit the shipwreck that we saw from the ferry, you'll appreciate having the aerial view to supplement the pictures.

I might comment, however, that in working on this photo album, I have discovered that not all Google Maps aerial views are of the same resolution; those made of very populated areas are quite good, enabling you to easily see objects as small as a person. But in other areas, like Inisheer and even the mainland nearby, the resolution is not so good. The aerial view is zoomed in about as much as is reasonable; any closer, and it just gets fuzzy. (You might compare the aerial view at left to a section of the aerial view of Manhattan Island shown here, and you will see what I mean.)

So, with all that introduction, let's walk to the first point of interest- the Cnoc Raithni monument.

The Cnoc Raithni Monument

Inisheer (in Gaelic, "Inis Oírr", a name derived from "Inis Oirthir" meaning "island of the east") is the smallest and most easterly of the Aran Islands. The island has a rich natural and cultural heritage including natural landscape archaeology, Christian heritage, history, folklore, flora and island life.

The Cnoc Raithni Monument

Inis Oírr has been inhabited for more than 5,000 years; arrowheads and flint from the Stone Age have been recovered at various locations on the island. Later evidence, from the Bronze Age, comes from urns and bones excavated here at Cnoc Raithní. This is one of the most significant sites in the Aran Islands as it confirms occupation, at least on Inisheer, from 1500 BC. Irish legend holds that the Firbolg were the earliest inhabitants of this island having fled to the island to escape invaders. I want to include a few more pictures of us at the monument, and there are clickable thumbnails for them below:

Following gales in 1885, inhabitants discovered a dry-stone wall encircling a low mound. In the lowest level, towards the southeast, two pottery urns were found inverted over cremated human bones, together with a small bronze pin or awl. Thirty yards away some fragments of smaller highly-decorated urns were found, also ontaining burnt bones. The urns were deposited in the National Museum in Dublin.

At a higher level in the north-west quadrant, enclosed by a dry-built wall, upwards of twenty-four stone-lined graves were discovered, each lying east-west and covered by a stone slab. These, perhaps, denote a re-use of a pagan burial place in the Early Christian Period.

The O'Brien Castle

Leaving the Cnoc Raithni, we began our walk up a local street in the direction of the first of the ruins that we had seen from the ship and the pier- the O'Brien Castle. The castle is a three storey tower house built by the O'Brien family who owned the island up to 1585. It is built within Dún Formna which dates back to the stone age, and it is one of the ruins that we first saw coming in on the ship. It (and the signal tower that we will also visit) dominate Inisheer Island, situated, as they are, on the top of the island's highest hills.

Walking Up the Road Towards the O'Brien Castle

It wasn't hard to find a little street up to the castle; there aren't that many of them. We walked across level ground from Cnoc Raithni to the slope of the hill, and then up a little street that curved and turned around houses and farms. Along the way the views got better and better, looking out to the ocean and up to the castle. We saw lots of the low stone walls that we'll talk about shortly. Below are clickable thumbnails for some of the pictures we took on the way up to the O'Brien Castle:

Views from the Walk Up to the O'Brien Castle

It was about a half mile from the base of the hill up to the top and the O'Brien Castle as the narrow road wound through the ubquitous stone walls.

The O'Brien Castle

O'Brien's Castle on Inis Oírr in the Aran Islands was built in the 14th century. It was built earlier than the tower houses of the Burren and later than the stone forts of the Aran Islands. The castle was taken from the O'Briens by the O'Flaherty clan of Connemara in 1582. The castle was occupied by them and others until 1652, when the Aran Islands were surrendered to Cromwellian forces. The castle appears to have been partially dismantled at that time in favour of the Arkin Fort on Inis Mór.

Views of the ruined castle from outside it were impressive. We took a lot of pictures from the outside, many of them quite good. But I couldn't include them all (well, I could, but I won't). Here are clickable thumbnails for some of the best:

Views of O'Brien's Castle

In many of the pictures, you can see the stone walls that ring the castle; the rocks used in these walls (and some of the walls themselves) are the remains of an even older stone fort known as Dún Formna. The Iron Age fort differs significantly to most of the other ancient forts on the Aran Islands in that it has a rectilinear grid of walls rather than the empty strict circular/rounded shape of the other Aran forts.

I liked the fact that the ruins were quite open, and that visitors are free to clamber around on them. I suppose this is only possible because the castle is in such an out-of-the-way location; I can't imagine being allowed into the ruin if it were located just outside Dublin, for instance.

Inside the O'Brien Castle

Much of the castle was, understandably, ruined, although there were some inside rooms that were pretty much intact. It would be fascinating to turn back the clock and see what the structure looked like inside when it was in use. Below are clickable thumbnails for some pictures that Fred and I took inside the castle, as well as some that Guy and Nancy took when they were here after us:

Views from Inside O'Brien's Castle

Because the Aran Islands were the key to controlling Galway Bay, they were contested, fortified and garrisoned by various competing powers. During the Medieval period until 1582, the Aran Islands were controlled by a branch of the O'Brien Clan from County Clare. From as early as the 13th century, there are records of payments of large amounts of wine by Galway City to the O'Brien Clan to keep the shipping routes in the area free from piracy.

Before we left O'Brien's Castle, we walked out onto the hilltop to admire the expansive views in all directions. Although the hill is only a couple hundred feet high, almost everything else nearby was lower, so the views were unobstructed. Individual pictures are fine, and some of them are in a later section devoted to miscellaneous views around the island. But panoramas are better, and we each constructed one. Fred allowed his camera to create one, and his view looks to the south and west, capturing the signal tower and water tanks. His view is below:

Fred's Vista Shot from the O'Brien Castle

I wanted to do something a bit different- attempt to get in the entire sweep of the view from the Castle, past the Signal Tower and then all of the view from southwest to northeast until the castle came back into view. This required eight separate pictures and a good bit of manipulation. The impressive result is in the scrollable window below:

The Signal Tower, Water Tank and School

If you are following along with us on the island aerial view above, you can see that the complex of ruins that include the Signal Tower, the Water Tanks and the Island School were located just a few hundred feet up the same narrow road we took up from the village. We just made a right turn out of the castle and in a few minutes we were there.

The Signal Tower

Another prominent landmark of Inis Oirr is the Signal Tower which stands just south of O’ Brien’s Castle. This tower is not actually part of the castle complex but was built later, in 1804-05. It dominates the island, and was part of a series of Signal Towers which popped up all along the western coast of Ireland at this time. Another such tower can be seen on Inis Mor.

When we first got to the tower, the gate we passed had a "Keep Out" sign on it, so we thought that further on we might find an open entrance. Along the way alongside the tower, we passed it and the school building, and got some good photos looking into the ruins complex. There are clickable thumbnails below for a few of these:

Oddly, since the O'Brien Castle had been totally open, we did not find another entrance. I didn't want to not get some good photos inside the complex, so while Fred waited by the road, I ducked in through the gate to have a look around. There were actually three elements to this area of ruins. Of course, the most prominent was the Signal Tower, and you can see an excellent view of it, taken looking north, here. Walking around the tower was immensely interesting, as was going inside it. It was tough taking pictures inside; it was quite dark, yet using the flash didn't give great results either. Here is the best of my inside shots. Just after taking that last picture, I turned to take a picture looking out the two windows on the northwest side of the tower, and you can see that view here.

Outside, I walked around to the north side of the tower to photograph the gaping hole in the tower's side. For some reason, I thought the hole was interesting; it almost looked as if a cannonball had torn through it. Walking around the south side, where I could see the ruins of the school on the other side of a rock wall. I could also see that there was a gap between the tower and the water tanks that are situated next to it on the east side, so I climbed partway up the stairstepped side of the tanks and walked north so I could see Fred waiting for me down by the road. The picture I took looking down at him was unremarkable, so I haven't included it here.

At the same time, though, Fred was taking pictures of the tower, including this interesting one of the tower with a bird in flight. He had just done that when I appeared and called to him, at which point he took a picture of me between the tower and water tank. The water tank turned out to be just a larged, walled enclosure that was now pretty much filled with dirt and grass inside.

The Ruins of the National School

But the ruins of the school turned out to be more interesting. The ruins here now are those of the early 19th-century "hedge" school. (Hedge Schools were common in Ireland between the 18th and 19th centuries when Irish Catholics were prohibited from attending conventional schools. The schools were run in secret by Irish poets, priests and other learned Irish Catholics.) I wandered through the roofless ruin taking pictures. At one end of the large room, I saw the ruins of a fireplace on the west wall. At the other end of the building, on the east wall, there was a plain window.

There were side windows on both sides of the room, such as this one that looks south, and one on the north side that offered a framed view of the Signal tower.

Life on the islands has always been hard but the Islanders worked hard to provide services and facilities taken for granted on the mainland. The education of the island’s children has always been important, from the early hedge schools to a National School that was built close to the Signal Tower in 1889. This school house served the educational needs of the Island’s young population until 1941, when it was demolished; some of its materials were used when a newer school was built close the beach. (That school, incidentally, offers its instruction in Irish, not English, although English is taught as a subject.)

We left the ruins of the Signal Tower to walk back down the road towards the shore to visit the island graveyard that we had seen earlier. A ways down the road, I got a nice view looking back at Fred and the Signal Tower.

Inisheer's Rock Walls

Beginning yesterday, when we were driving to Kylemore, we began to see a great many low stone walls- perhaps three or four feet high. These walls seemed to define property boundaries at first, but then later on we seemed to think that they enclosed little pastures.

A Few of Inisheer's Stone Walls

We found the stone walls on a list of ‘things to do’ on Inis Óirr, and they might seem to be a strange item for such a list, but the dry-stone walls of Inis Óirr really are one of the most impressive and thought-provoking sights on the island. The miles and miles of stone walls which mark out the tiny plots of land on the island take many visitors by pleasant surprise. The grid of stone walls collectively add up to thousands of miles of wall. From up high, the views of these walls are impressive.

The walls themselves seemed to be simply piled up rocks. I didn't notice any mortar, although I'll admit I didn't examine the walls really closely. Perhaps the most mindboggling aspect of the walls is the tiny ‘fields’ that they mark out. Some of the fields are barely big enough for one cow! (Oddly, while some of the enclosures had gates, it seemed as if a lot of them had no way in or out- for either animals or people.

The best place to gain a real perspective on the extent of the stone walls is by walking/cycling to the southern end of the island where you see nothing BUT stone walls. We didn't do that, but still got great overhead views from the areas around the O'Brien Castle and the Signal Tower.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

We both found these low rock walls to be extremely interesting. Not only were there a lot of them, but they mostly seemed in good repair- well kept up. And they did their job, apparently, keeping livestock penned in (although they were low enough sometimes that I thought stock could easily jump over them. I have taken the pictures we took of the rock walls and put them in a slideshow.

To view the slideshow, just click on the image at left and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.

And before you ask, I have no idea, nor did I find any definitive answer on the Internet to the question "Where did all the rocks come from?" A rough calculation, based on just the mileage of the walls on Inisheer, is that there are at least 50,000 cubic yards of stone in the walls on this island alone. It is hard to believe that the rocks might all have been dug up as the land was tilled and planted, nor does it seem likely that the rocky coasts could have provided so much material (although based on the composition of the shore near the Plassy Shipwreck, it is possible that they were continually washed up by the ocean). I am just speculating, of course; I would give quite a lot to know just where the rocks and boulders came from.

The Graveyard

As we were heading up the hill to the castle and signal tower, we could see, off to our left (east) a graveyard, and we thought that if we came back down this way we would stop in to look at it. We did, in fact, come back this way, and the graveyard entrance was right at the foot of the little street we came down. The other folks stopped here as well, either before or after us, and Nancy got what I thought was a nice picture of Guy at the entrance.

The Inisheer Island Graveyard

The graveyard that we explored is still the graveyard of the local islanders, and so a fair number of the headstones have fairly recent dates on them, but mixed in among them were older headstones dating back generations.

The headstones seemed quite plain, but that fitted the site, I think. There seems to be no ornateness anywhere on Inisheer, and the graveyard reflected that. The Celtic Cross was much in evidence, although a few of the headstones had the familiar Christian cross on top of them. Below are clickable thumbnails for some pictures of the island graveyard:

In the Inisheer Island Graveyard

The graveyard had an odd quality about it. Most such places I have been are either huge affairs near populated areas, or smaller plots tucked away near churches. We are all familiar with iconic graveyards such as The Punchbowl, Arlington, Boston Churchyard and Forest Lawn, but this one was different. Sited as it was on a windswept headland overlooking the ocean, it brought to mind and emphasized the many centuries during which the islanders and the sea have been intimately connected. Most graveyards are tied to history; this one was tied to the sea.

The Tomb of St. Chaomháin

The island’s patron, St. Chaomháin, is himself buried in a tomb known as ‘Leaba Chaoimháin’ (Bed of Keevaun) just to the north of the church. All of us who visited the graveyard also went inside the tomb, to judge from the pictures collected from everyone. Entering through a small door, there was a flight of five or six steps that led down to the tomb floor. In the center, there was a rectangular depression made of stone, perhaps two feet deeper.

On the floor of that depression were carved Celtic symbols, now almost worn away. I noticed some votive candles at the head of the grave, right underneath the west-facing window opening. Below are clickable thumbnails for the best of the pictures we all took adjacent to and inside the tomb of St. Chaomháin:

I know that Fred and I spent a good deal of time wandering around the graveyard, and especially visiting the Teampall Chaomhan, a small church that is inside the graveyard and which we'll talk about in the next section, and I can only assume that the others did too.

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) The Inisheer Island Graveyard

Of course I made a movie in the graveyard, panning across all of it and also showing the port, the harbor, the ocean and the castle and signal tower. You can watch that movie with the player at left.

And I want to include some more pictures that Fred and I took here in the graveyard; we each found graves and scenes that we thought worth recording, and you can use the clickable thumbnails below to have a look:

In the Graveyard on Inisheer Island

Now for the graveyard church.

Teampall Chaomhan

Almost in the middle of the graveyard there was what looked like a very, very small church with a peaked roof that was missing and the whole thing sunk into the ground to the level at which the walls and roof would have met. If you don't quite understand what I am saying, just look at the picture below, left.

Teampall Chaomháin in the Inisheer Graveyard

Teampall Chaomháin, or the Church of St. Keevaun is located in the Inisheer graveyard. Because it is situated in a sunken hollow in a mound of earth and surrounded by a small grave, the church cannot be seen from the roadside and it is only when you walk up the mound and enter the graveyard can you see the church ruins below your feet.

St. Keevaun is believed to have been a brother of St. Kevin (the founder of the magnificent monastery complex of Glendalough in County Wicklow) and a disciple of St. Enda of Inis Mor. St. Keevaun is the patron saint of Inis Oirr and his feast day ‘Lá an Phátruin’ is celebrated on the 14th of July, a day when the islanders come to the small church for Mass. It is also tradition for the islanders to pray at the grave of the Saint (located close to the church) the night before. We just saw that tomb in the previous section of this page.

There was some additional information about the church on the sign in front of it; rather than copy it, I'll just let you read the sign here.

We went down into the church to look around, first descending some steps on the north side of the church to a pathway that runs all around the ruin. I couldn't quite figure out whether the stone walls through which the steps are cut were actually part of the church structure, but I think they were added later as a kind of retaining wall to keep the pathway (and the ruin) from being entirely covered. Anyway, if you walk around to the south side of the ruin, you'll another set of steps that lead through an arched door in the church wall to bring you into the church. The doorway was quite small, and my first thought was that the church was built for Munchkins; you can see how small it is if you look at my picture of Fred crouching in the doorway.

Inside Teampall Chaomháin

At the east end of the church, which would have been the front of the small nave, there was an altar, seen here in a picture that Guy took from up on the walkway. As you can see in that picture, there was a Celtic crucifix carved into the stone. I thought the image was very interesting, but cannot find a detailed description of it. Above the carving there was a tall, narrow window. I kept imagining a miniature stained glass window in a miniature church.

We took a number of other good pictures while we were down here in the tiny church (and one other good view of the church from above). If you would like to have a look at some of these, just use the clickable thumbnails below:

The graveyard was immensely interesting, but eventually we had seen all of it and went back to exit through the gate. Below the graveyard is Port na Cille (harbor of the church) and of course there were good views back up to the castle. Outside the graveyard, Fred and I debated what to do next. He wanted to walk around the town and the harbor area, but I had my mind set on walking the mile-plus to the Plassy shipwreck. We reached a compromise. Fred went off to the harbor to see what he could see, and I turned right on the north road to head east to the shipwreck. I had over an hour, so I thought that would be plenty of time.

The Shipwreck of the Plassy

If you return to the aerial view of the island above, you can see the circuitous route I took to the shipwreck through the myriad of low rock walls on this side of the island. From the base of the hill where the cemetery was I turned right while Fred turned left back to town. Unbekownst to me, he snapped a picture of me disappearing down the road. My route took me past the Inisheer airport, which made me chuckle. Not the airport, but the sign for it. You know how when you drive into a big-city (or even a small town) airport there are all kinds of signs for the terminals, the parking, the car rental and so on? Well, there was only (and I mean only one sign outside the Inisheer Airport, and you can see it here.

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) On the Road to the Plassy Shipwreck

The road headed east towards the mainland, then turned south and went around the north end of Loch Mor (Big Lake). This, the only natural freshwater lake on the island, has provided evidence from its plant and pollen samples that thousands of years ago the island was once covered with forest. That's hard to imagine considering the harsh, barren and treeless island we see now. The lake and its surrounding area is one of the most peaceful parts of the island, since very few visitors come out this way (the only reason for a visitor to come out here is to see the shipwreck).

As I was walking along the open road, I made a movie of the scenery on either side, and you can watch it with the player at left.

After the road curved around and went through some of the low walls, I stopped, took five pictures, and stitched them together into this panorama:

Loch Mor and the Northeastern Corner of Inisheer

It took me about twenty minutes to get down to where the wreck was. By the time I got to it, I could even see the lighthouse in the distance. There was a bike here, but I don't know who it belonged to as I didn't see anyone else.

The Wreck of the Plassy

One of the most unusual sites on Inis Oirr is also one of its newest. The wreck of the Plassy is located on the most easterly point on the island. This rusting hulk was formerly a cargo ship which ran onto some rocks near Inis Oirr in 1960. No lives were lost in the accident, mainly due to the bravery of the local islanders who risked their own lives in rough seas to come to the aid of the sailors on board the ship. The ship was later moved up onto the rocks by heavy seas and this is where it now rests, much to the bewilderment and surprise of many visitors to the island.

The wreck was immensely interesting because I had never been so close to the hull of such a large ship before. It wasn't the Titanic, but it was impressive nevertheless. There are clickable thumbnails below for some other pictures I took of the rusting hulk:

Although it was interesting to stand so close to the ship, that made it impossible to get the whole thing into a single picture- except from a distance. So I steppedd back far enough from the midpoint of the ship to get it all in three overlapping pictures, which I later put together into a panorama. On looking at the panoramic result, I realized I should have taken my three pictures the same distance from the ship but one-quarter, one-half and three-quarters of the way along the hull:

The Wreck of the Plassy

Pretty impressive. I assume that the proximate cause of the sinking was the hole ripped in the hull a third of the way back from the bow. I wonder what the wreck will look like in another fifty years.

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) At the Wreck of the Plassy

Of course I had to make a movie here at the wreck, and you can watch it with the player at left.

And I want to include a few more pictures of the wreck, even though they may be repetitive. You can use the clickable thumbnails below to have a look at them:

When I saw that I had a little less than an hour before sailing, I headed back to the harbor, passing back by the Inisheer Graveyard with more than a half hour to spare.

Inisheer Island Scenes

As Prudence, Nancy, Guy, Karl and Ron were taking their tour, and as Fred and I were walking around on our own, we took quite a few pictures that weren't of some particular point of interest, necessarily, but just of our surroundings on Inisheer. For example, although we weren't with them, the other folks photographed each other, and I want to include two of the best of Prudence's photos here- one of Nancy and another of Guy and Ron.

Below are clickable thumbnails for some of these miscellaneous pictures, all but the last one of which were taken by Guy and Nancy:

We only saw the main Inisheer village- Baile an Lurgáin- which is the one surrounding the harbor. It has most of the islands facilities- shops, pubs, B&Bs, a hotel and restaurants., But there are, in fact, many different communities, most of them scattered around the northern side of the island. The community near O'Brien's Castle is Baile an Chaisleáin, while these two ladies Live in Baile an Séipél near the beach. We didn't visit Baile Thiar; it is the furthest village away from the pier. Locals living in these villages are very friendly (as were the two ladies of whom I asked directions). The folks we talked to spoke pretty good English, one heck of a lot better than my Irish.

From up near Castle O'Brien, I made a panoramic picture of Baile an Lurgáin, and you can see it below:

The Village of Baile an Lurgáin as Seen from O'Brien's Castle

You can use the clickable thumbnails below to have a look a selection of the island pictures that Fred and I took:

I Meet Up With Fred at the Harbor

When I came back up the north road, I didn't immediately see Fred, but the beach and the harbor were still a good ways off.

For his part, Fred had been wandering around taking pictures of the town, the harbor and the beach, and there are thumbnails for some of his pictures below:

Fred's Pictures at the Harbor

Eventually, Fred spotted me on the beach. I had stopped to take a picture looking towards the harbor (a picture that you can see here) and as you can easily see, I hadn't yet spotted Fred. Fred continued to watch as I walked across the beach towards him. Eventually I did spot him, and headed over to join him on the seawall. About thirty minutes before we were due to embark for our return trip, Fred spotted the ferry coming back.

We were getting a trifle worried in that we had not yet seen everyone else. We doubted that they might have returned early and taken an earlier ferry back to the mainland, so we just kept an eye out and waited. While we were sitting on the seawall, I made a couple of movies, and you can watch them with the players below:

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) Island Transportation

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) Caution: Vehicle in Tow

I took one last picture of the beach, and Fred took a nice picture of the clear waters of the North Atlantic. He also got one last view of O'Brien's Castle and the Signal Tower before we spotted our group, headed over to meet them and walk out onto the pier. The boat wasn't ready to board, so we sat down to wait. After a few minutes, our ferry was called and we boarded for our return trip. Inisheer had been a great way to spend an afternoon, but I was looking forward to seeing the Cliffs of Moher.

Our Return Ferry Ride to Doolin

Returning on the ferry was a little different than coming out in that the weather had clouded up in towards the mainland, so our pictures were not so good.

Most of the pictures we took on the ride back were in close to shore, and all of them were looking south towards the Cliffs of Moher, which you can make out in the hazy distance. Guy got a particular nice picture looking south towards the Cliffs of Moher, and we also got views of that small island just off the Doolin harbor. There are clickable thumbnails below for the best of the pictures we took:

I hadn't expected it, but as the boat pulled in to the pier at Doolin, the fellow I'd talked to on the phone and bought our tickets from, Danny, was there; he is the man in the yellow life jacket here. He had come down to make sure that since we had bought a combination ticket that included a cruise down to the cliffs, that we stayed on the boat, as it would be the same one making that trip.

On the way back, Prudence, Nancy and Karl had decided they'd had enough boat travel for the day, and so would disembark in Doolin and wait for us to return. I'm not exactly sure why that made that decision, but that's what they wanted to do. So after the ferry passengers had disembarked, and some other, new passengers for the cliffs cruise had boarded, we headed back out of the harbor and down the coast to the Cliffs of Moher.

Our Cruise Down to the Cliffs of Moher

No sooner had the new passengers come aboard the boat (making it fairly crowded) than we headed off back out of Doolin harbor to follow a course down the coast about three miles to the Cliffs of Moher.

The trip down the coast to the cliffs took about twenty-five minutes; about a mile south of Doolin, the land, which had been sloping fairly gently down to the ocean, began sloping less and less from its crest perhaps a mile inland. Thus, the land's edge began to rise higher and higher out of the water, and the cliffs began.

The Cliffs of Moher (in Irish "Aillte an Mhothair") are located at the southwestern edge of the Burren region in County Clare. They rise 390 feet above the Atlantic Ocean at Hag's Head, about eight miles south of Doolin, and reach their maximum height of 700 feet just north of O'Brien's Tower, which is about three miles south of the harbor. The Cliffs of Moher are perhaps the biggest attraction (no pun intended) in western Ireland, and by car, on foot and by boat they receive almost a million visitors a year.

O'Brien's tower was built on the cliffs in 1835 by local landlord Sir Cornellius O'Brien as an observation tower for the hundreds of Victorian tourists that frequented the cliffs at the time. (A more popular and more circulated version of this history is that O'Brien built the tower specifically to impress women he was courting.) On a clear day the view can extend as far as Loop Head at the southern tip of Clare and beyond to the mountains of Kerry. Looking north from O'Brien's Tower on clear days, the Twelve Bens in Connemara (also known as the Twelve Pins) beyond Galway Bay can be seen (which means that with a telescope you would be able to pick out the mountain on whose southern slope Kylemore Castle is situated), and typically the Aran Islands to the west.

O'Brien's Tower and the Park Surrounding It

If we had had more time, it would have been great to drive up to the Tower and the visitor center for the cliffs park; I can only imagine that the views are spectacular. The picture at right was taken from the Wikipedia entry for the Tower. Folklore holds that Sir Cornellius O'Brien, who died in 1857, was a man ahead of his time, believing that the development of tourism would benefit the local economy and bring people out of poverty. O'Brien also built a wall of Moher flagstones along the Cliffs and it is said in the locality that he built everything in the area except the cliffs.

The cliffs take their name from an old fort called Moher that once stood on Hag's Head, the southernmost point of the cliffs. The writer Thomas Johnson Westropp referred to it in 1905 as "Moher Uí Ruis" or "Moher Uí Ruidhin." The fort still stood in 1780 and is mentioned in an account from John Lloyd's a Short Tour Of Clare (1780). It was demolished in 1808 to provide material for a new telegraph tower. (The present tower near that site was built as a lookout tower during the Napoleonic wars.)

As for the cliffs themselves, they were, in a word, amazing, and I think that looking back on it, while the view from the top might have been wonderful, the only way to really appreciate the grandeur of the cliffs is by looking at them from below- and the only way to do that is by boat. When the boat had reached the halfway point down to the pinnacle island you'll see in a moment, I took advantage of the craft's slowing to take five pictures covering the length of the cliffs, and I put them together into your first panoramic view of the Cliffs of Moher. Too big to show all at once, you can use the scrollable window below to have a look at this natural wonder:

The Cliffs of Moher

As you can see from the picture at left, the cliffs are simply beautiful. The end point of our cruise was the Branaunmore sea stack, which we'll look at presently. On the way down there, the three of us took many excellent pictures, and there are clickable thumbnails for a few of them below:

The Cliffs of Moher

The most prominent sea stack along the Cliffs of Moher is just below O'Brien's tower, and that is where the cruise headed. Once there, the boat slowly turned this way and that to allow everyone, no matter what side of the boat they were on, to get good views of the cliffs and of the sea stack itself. A stack or seastack is a geological landform consisting of a steep and often vertical column or columns of rock in the sea near a coast, formed by erosion. Stacks are formed over time by wind and water, processes of coastal geomorphology. They are formed when part of a headland is eroded by hydraulic action, which is the force of the sea or water crashing against the rock.

The Sea Stack at the Cliffs of Moher

The force of the water weakens cracks in the headland, causing them to later collapse, forming free-standing stacks and even a small island. Stacks can provide important nesting locations for seabirds, and many are popular for rock climbing. Below are clickable thumbnails for three more of our pictures of the seastack:

And you can use the player below to watch one of the movies I made that features the stack:

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) The Cliffs of Moher Sea Stack

There are an estimated 30,000 birds living on the cliffs, representing more than 20 species. These include Atlantic Puffins, which live in large colonies at isolated parts of the cliffs, as well as hawks, gulls, guillemots, shags, ravens and choughs.

Fred took another very interesting picture of the Cliffs of Moher. We learned later that there was a trail one could follow for a couple of miles that wound along the edge of the cliff. (I am sure that had we driven up there, Fred would not have wanted to walk it, judging from some of the pictures we saw on the Internet.) Anyway, just after Fred took the picture at left, he used his zoom to take another picture of the cliff top, covering just the area of the yellow rectangle in the picture at left, and the two form an interesting pair.

Click anywhere in the yellow rectangle to see Fred's closeup view, and you'll see what we mean about the trail. And you can use the clickable thumbnails below for some of our last pictures of the cliffs:

And to complete our visit to the Cliffs of Moher, you might want to watch the two movies I made while the boat was circling around by the sea stack at the highest point of the cliffs. You can watch these movies with the players below:

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) The Sea Stack and Highest Cliff Point

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) We Begin Our Journey Back to Doolin

We left the Cliffs of Moher behind us and headed back to Doolin. On the way, we took a couple more snapshots- one of Fred and Ruckman and another of Guy and myself. The boat came in to the dock at Doolin and thanking Danny (who again met the boat) as we did so, we disembarked. As we walked back to the van to rendezvous with Nancy, Karl and Prudence, Fred looked back to take one last view looking out from Doolin to the Aran Islands in the melancholy afternoon light. The picture turned out quite well, and you can see it here.

Returning to Galway

We left the Doolin pier, passing the fast food place that was, sadly, closed. I really wanted a side of minerals. From Doolin, we returned to Galway going pretty much the same way we had come (except that we inadvertently took one little shortcut that we hadn't known about).

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible)

We also had a bit of a delay when we got caught by some "drivers" just "ablin'" along.

It was evening, and I guess that cows have to be moved from one pasture to another, but I always supposed that was done overland, through farm gates and across the countryside. I had no idea that in Ireland the roads are sometimes used for this purpose. I guess it wasn't any worse than the proliferation of school zones in Dallas in the afternoon, though. You should use the player at left to watch the movie I made while we were following them, and you can also use the clickable thumbnails below to see some of the pictures I took of the operation from my front seat perch:

Once the cows had been driven off the road and into a pasture, we were able to be on our way, and we made pretty good time on the road back.

An Irish Sunset

As usual, Fred took most of the pictures on the way back, as I was busy navigating. We passed a number of structures reminiscent of the castle on Inisheer and O'Brien's Tower at the cliffs, and of course Fred got some nice pictures of the sunset. If you would like to look at some of his better pictures, just use the clickable thumbnails below:

On the Return Trip to Galway

We were lucky in that we did not have to drive in the dark; as it turned out, much of the gloominess during the first half of our return was due to the cloudy skies, and we had good light all the way back to Galway.

We got back to the Nile Lodge safe and sound and a little while later headed out for some supper at a local pub.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	September 25, 2013: Galway to Dublin, Ireland
	September 23, 2013: Kylemore Castle near Galway, Ireland
	Return to the Index for Our British Isles Trip