Clare & Tipperary

The Burren in County Clare - huge areas of limestone giving an eerie look in places. Plenty of stone for fences, buildings & ring forts.

This ring fort at Caherconnell was built over 1000 years ago & occupied by descendants of the same family until the late 1600s.

Poulnabrone megalithic burial tomb had remains of 33 people dating back to 3800 BC.

We saw an interesting bird display. An owl can hear a mouse's heartbeat with non-aligned ears each side of its saucer shaped face (designed to collect sound - a natural satellite dish!). Apparently they are not as wise as they look. Some hawks can travel up to 240 km/hr!

A lovely walk to the caves

These straws in the Ailwee caves grow very, very slowly, just one drop of water at a time.




Cliffs of Moher, 214m high, with a viewing tower built in 1835.

Ruins of Quin Abbey (below), which began as a castle in the 1200s.

Knappogue Castle (below) – originally built as a tower house in the 1400s. Now restored & extended by a couple from Texas who provide accommodation & medieval banquets. There were around 7000 tower houses built in Ireland between 11 – 1500s, until cannons arrived on the scene & more comfort became important. For clans, who were eventually subdued as Ireland became England's first colony, they were symbols of power & status.

Clan chief Mike waiting for his subjects.








The walled garden

The replica boat used in the 1970s to travel St Brendan's apparent route to the Americas in the 500s, 1000 years before Columbus. So the Irish got there first!

Kay's paternal grandfather, John Green, and his predecessors came from County Tipperary (his mother was a Whelan!). We found the villages they came from, & explored some graveyards (with no luck amongst the moss).




The village of Cappawhite, where John was baptised.

Our next stop is a week in a cottage at Anascaul on the Dingle Peninsula.