Honeymoon in Ireland
Saturday, November 25th, 2000 by Sean |
|
Candy and I spent our honeymoon in Ireland. My father was born in Ireland, so we were anxious to get a taste of our Irish heritage. We started out in Galway, where we stayed at a very nice B&B with a view of Galway Bay. We spent several days exploring the sites of Galway, and it is still our favorite Irish town. After leaving Galway we stopped by the Royal Tara China factory to do a little shopping on our way to the Cliffs of Moher. The view of the cliffs was impressive, even if the weather was not. Next we drove across the center of Ireland to the capital city of Dublin.
As capital cities go, Dublin is a nice one. We did a lot of sight-seeing…from the Post Office where the 1916 Revolution was born to the campus of Trinity College. A highlight for us, being from Washington, DC, was our visit to the Dail Eireann, the Irish Parliament. We got to sit in on a session of the Senate, which was very interesting. The Guinness Brewery and Old Jameson’s Distillery are also not to be missed.
On our way out of Dublin, we took a slight detour to the north to visit the ancient Celtic sites of Newgrange and Tara. We spent the night in Wicklow, before heading to Wexford and the Irish National History Park the next day. That night we went on to Waterford, and the next day took a tour of the glass factory.
Our next stop was Cork, where my father was born. In addition to the sites of the city, we got to see his boyhood home and to visit with cousins. We visited Cobh, from which the Titanic set sail on her fateful voyage, and climbed to the top of Blarney Castle to kiss the famous Blarney Stone. From Cork we moved on to the Ring of Kerry, and spent the night in Waterville, birthplace of my great-grandfather, Michael Brennan.
We spent the last night of our honeymoon in Limerick. On the last day, prior to returning to Shannon International Airport, we stopped at Bunratty Castle. The castle is designed for tourists, and after all of our travels, we felt it could not do justice to the diversity and history of Ireland.
