Ireland, Day 1, April 6: Shannon, The Cliffs, The Burren, Doolin

My memorable journey to the Emerald Isle began early on Saturday morning, in Wilmington, N.C., of all places. Having just dropped off Gallo with the parents, we faced a two-hour drive back to Raleigh, followed by a two-hour flight to Newark, N.J., capped off by a six-hour hop across the pond to Shannon, Ireland. I need a nap just typing that.

I had my reservations about flying with Continental, especially after I looked down at my ticket and was shocked at the face that stared back at me, asking me to “Fly Continental.” Here was a pilot with a mullet, wings, a porn ‘stache and a cheeseball smile. This did not reassure me, and that feeling of unease only increased after a couple was allowed to bring some stinking roast beef dinner on board, and then we got seated behind an old flight attendant who remarked that she still doesn’t understand how airlines are able to avoid FDA regulations in serving airline food. Yet, things got better after we departed Newark for Shannon. The international flight crew had about four different services (drink, food, drink, snack) and one of the Irish flight attendants even informed us that UNC had won their Final Four game that evening. He later came back to say that they had actually lost, but that was OK, too.

On our approach to Shannon Airport, we were treated to a view of the Irish countryside, a vast checkerboard of various shades of green. After going through customs and retrieving our luggage -- seeing golf bag after golf bag go by on the carousel brought a small tear to my eye -- we got some euros out of the ATM at an obscene $1.56 exchange rate, then walked out into a dry cold morning to get a bus over to Hertz to get our rent-a-car. Following some minor difficulties with the credit card situation, we were “upgraded” to a Ford Focus, and the Hertz folks basically said, “Here are your keys, good luck.” Of course, I promptly walked to the wrong side of the car and noticed there wasn’t a steering wheel, so I was off to an auspicious start.


Finding out the hard way that Irish roads have no street, road or distance signs, we sped around the western part of the country for a few minutes before stumbling upon the Cliffs of Mohr, which happened to be one of our desired destinations anyway.


It was brutally cold and windy, with a mist of rain, but also incredibly beautiful, even seeing our first Irish rainbow. O’Brien’s Tower, built in 1835 as a watchtower for tourists, was impressive from its perch overlooking the water.


Upon departing the Cliffs, we endured some more crazy, adventurous driving across the rolling hills surrounding the coast. We noticed that Ireland has virtually no SUVs, partially because of a better social awareness of the environment and partially because they don’t fit on Irish roads. Basically, one of our lanes here in America is equivalent to an entire road in Ireland, which doesn’t stop the locals from barreling along at 100 km/h on windy roads, into blind turns. After veering off the road at one point to avoid a van and putting the poor Focus up on two wheels, the frustration level set in, enhanced by an inability to locate Kilfenora, the southern start of The Burren, a region comprised nearly entirely of rock and our next stop. Perhaps the capper to this portion of the drive was when we encountered a road sign that indicated that the town of Doolin actually lie in two different directions. Chuckling, I eventually found Kilfenora, where we found a visitor’s center next to Kilfenora Cathedral, which dated to the 12th century.


From Kilfenora, our first stop was at the Caherconnel Stone Fort, a Celtic ring fort that is believed to have been constructed in 500 A.D. (seriously). We were treated to an unintentionally hilarious short piece of animation that envisioned Caherconnel in 1,000 A.D., then we walked around the grounds with the aid of a map that showed where various aspects of the fort likely lay at one point.


Massaging my already-tense muscles created by the savagely intense driving conditions, I took us on to Poulnabrone, which was amusingly pronounced as something close to “Poorboy in Durham.” Translated literally as “the hole of the sorrows,” this was a stunning Stonehenge-like structure that lie in the middle of a field of rock, dating back an amazing 4,500 years. We encountered some tour buses at this spot, so navigating the rock landscape while avoiding both large fissures in the ground that screamed broken ankle and Germans with cameras was a challenge. However, the pure sense of history created by this humble tomb made it quite an incredible experience.


After passing through Lisdoonvarna and a couple of smaller villages, we eventually made it to Ballyvaughan, the northernmost part of The Burren, just on the coast. Though a quaint town, we arrived just as church was letting out, which created a rather remarkable traffic jam in the center of town. Eventually, we got through the traffic, past a youth biker gang and on to Monks, a well-known seafood restaurant just on the bay. Now, usually, you can tell how good a place is by gauging the number of locals who are in there; well, there were none, basically. So we had the mussels and an open-face crab sandwich, which were fine, but we couldn’t shake the feeling that this was simply an underwhelming tourist trap.

Desperate to reach our bed & breakfast at this point, we continued driving along the coast road, around Blackhead point, in search of Doolin. We saw churches and castles in the middle of nowhere, but the sheer beauty of the entire County Clare region was at times difficult for me to appreciate because of the difficulty and super-intensity of navigating while staying on the tiny roads. After some more hairy driving and close encounters with runaway Irish vehicles, we eventually stumbled into town and just about ran directly into Sea View House, our B&B.


Since we were a little early, we walked along Fisherstreet, checking out some of the quaint little shops of Doolin. Though it was a cold, windy day, the sun was out, and we noticed old men emerging from pubs with Guinness in hand to walk across the street, plop down at a picnic table next to a stream, put their heads in the wind and enjoy their frosty beverages. Not a bad way to pass an afternoon. The five-hour time difference was catching up to us at this point, so we checked into Sea View — which has a great view down into town (below) — and took an afternoon nap.


Gus O’Connor’s pub basically serves as the town square and city center, and we were told that visitors were treated to “trad” (traditional) music every evening at the pub. So we decided to amble down the hill and into town for a coupla brews, dinner and some music. Led by a beautiful young accordionist, the music was phenomenal, with locals leaning up against the bar in their tam o’shanters and tourists encircling the entire pub. We quickly dubbed a bug-eyed woman from the northeastern United States as the “Maine Mullet” and a foreign couple as the “French Lesibans.” Though odd to see enormous, high-powered cameras in a historic old pub, it was quite an experience. We had fish and chips and Irish stew, with Guinness, Bulmers, Murphy’s and Smithwick’s accompanying. It was the ideal way to end a day that had begun so long ago and so far away …



The next installment of the Irish adventure, Day 2, will be forthcoming in a coupla days. P.S. You can click on the pix for bigger versions if you like. All photos taken by the Scoot. Giddyup.