Tasting Black Gold

The title of this blog of course references Guinness.  Well we have been putting off tasting our 1st Irish Guinness wanting to build the anticipation and yearning . . . mmm not what I remembered, tastes bloody horrid, definitely an acquired taste.  You guessed it, we wont be having another one. (Christine)

Cong - County Mayo

Cong was a charming little town whose main claim to fame is a film directed there in 1952 by John Ford, “The Quiet Man”, a romantic-comedy that starred John Wayne. Yes, a romantic comedy. Apart from that there was a wonderful old ruin of an Abbey and a walk through what can only be described as an enchanted forest out of a Grimm fairy tale. The highlight though was a boat cruise out to Inchagoill Island, where we visited the ruin of a 12th Century church, which struck us as pretty old, until we walked another 100m along to the 5th Century church that had been built by St Patrick and is thought to contain the grave of his nephew, Lugnad the Navigator.

A beautiful place that truly made you feel like you had stepped completely out of time.  The boat came back by Ashford Castle, now converted into a five star resort for the rich and famous and slightly out of our budget. 

Ennis - County Clare and the Cliffs of Moher

It should come as no surprise that Toohey comes from Royalty.

The Cliffs of Moher

On our way to Ennis we stopped by the Cliffs of Moher to take in a truly grand view, along with several thousand other tourists. We have done well to avoid the busiest spots, and deliberately visit the more out of the way places, but this was worth the effort. 

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Our day in Ennis was pretty relaxed as Christine tries to recover from a head cold. We walked the town but actually spent a lot of time talking to the other residents of the B&B. One couple was from Wurzburg in Germany, and spoke of it so highly that we have now adjusted our travels and will stop there as we head across to Prague. The other couple was from Dallas, Texas. We got along famously and as we are going through Dallas in a couple of months we have arranged to catch-up with them for drinks.  No town is complete without a statue of a man pointing into the distance.

Dingle - County Kerry

Dingle is about the furthest town west in Ireland. It is essentially an ancient fishing village that for a very long time did a roaring trade with the Spanish, who brought in wine and spices that eventually made their way to London via the blackmarket - as for a long time the British were continually fighting the Spanish  and so couldn’t legally acquire their goods. So Dingle’s economy was built on smuggling and earned it the name of ‘dirty dingle’. The town also has a vibrant arts community with some splendid galleries and the whole feel of the place reminded us of Provincetown in Massachusetts. We did a cruise of the harbour and took in some of the magnificent cliff faces and the stratification that has been laid bare by the relentless erosion of the Atlantic.