Below are a few of the sayings that were underneath them, I really loved them, especially the last two!
I hope and pray that I am doing this for my children.
This church didn't have all the stained glass windows like the other ones did, instead it had paintings up front.
This was on the side, I think it was left up from Easter, but it is very well done and I loved all the fresh flowers in there also. It was very quiet and peaceful in there in the morning. I walked across by myself and left all the boys in the room. It was very pleasant.
This is a 15th century castle, O'Dea Dysert Castle. It was built in 1480 by Diarmuid O'Dea and stayed in the family until 1691. Unfortunately it wasn't open yet for the season. So we weren't able to go inside it.
But there was a canon, I think the boys were trying to blow us off the road. :-)
We found a cauldron off to the side and it looks like Michael was going to boil AJ who was pleading to get out.
David is looking a bit worried about being boiled alive.
AJ finally gave in and Michael seems happy about it. LOL He is giving us the thumbs up sign.
AJ is showing us the way, not sure to where, but the way. If you look closely you can see Michael on the left side. He is going through what is called a Stile - it is put there so you can go over the wall without having to open the gate. That way you don't have to worry about your animals escaping.
This, The High Cross, was out in the middle of a cow pasture, we would have never found it had it not been for Fran. It has been there for centuries and the farmers just built up around it. It bears a large figure of Christ with arms outstretched in prayer. Below this is a figure of a bishop whose right hand, probably raised in blessing, is missing. The base contains fragments taken from the altar of nearby church. This cross may have been built to commemorate the establishment of the bishoprics in the 12 century.
The circle tower on the right was built for many castles. Normally the window is even higher up. That is where they would keep their treasure and valuables. It was only accessible by a ladder that was pulled up and it wasn't easy to reach. Usually it is about 20 feet up where the window is. They would have one or two guards up there that could easily defend the treasures from the high ground.
This doorway of the church, which would originally have been in the west wall, was carved in the 12th century Romanesque style using decorated rounded arches and is one of the finest in Ireland. There are also other Romanesque style dating in the 13th century.
The monastery was originally known as Disert-Tola, the quiet place (literally, the "desert") of St Tola, its early 8th century founder. I found it quite interesting that when the churches were no longer used, they started making the inside of the church a burial ground also.
Out enjoying the wonderful countryside!!!
This is the Caherconnell Fort. It is thought to be built in the 10th or 11th century and used all the way until possibly the 17th century. It is more than twice the size of the regular fort. It was uncovered by a farmer who was digging in his land. He had no idea that it was that large. He decided to let others come excavate it and let tourists come and enjoy the history.
This was the grave where they found the bones of the inhabitants from the 15-16th century, but what is interesting is they found bones that were put there in the last few hundred years.
This is called the Burren, which means a stony place. It is very well named because the stones are all over the place. There wouldn't be any good place to grow crops in this area.
The Poulnabrone Portal Tomb is situated in a karst limestone plateau. The tomb was constructed from great slabs of limestone over 5000 years ago. They have discovered the remains of over 30 people at this ancient site.
There is Michael out on the rocks. AJ and I followed. We went quite a ways until we couldn't really see David and Fran and decided it would be best if we headed back. We probably could have climbed over rocks for hours there and never run out. They were as far as the eye could see.
Fran had promised the boys a cave to go into. So we headed to the Aillwee Caves. These were actually pretty neat. A farmer had lost his dog and went to search for him and found him in the caves in 1940. He went back to get some candles and searched around the caves. He then kept it a secret for about 30 years. He only mentioned something about them after he had been drinking in the pub with some friends.
Here are AJ and Michael starting the walk through the cave. There are many parts where David and I had to duck because the ceiling was too low.
These are bones from a brown bear that are dated to be about 2000 years old.
You can see the indention here in the stone floor where the bear slept for the winter. I would not have wanted to come in while the bear was sleeping.
These are dated about 10,000 years old. The ones on the ceiling that are small never get that old because they get too heavy and fall to the ground.
This is a picture to show you the top. It used to be a river running through the mountain. It was in a tube and it took thousands and thousands of years before the river broke through the bottom and made this cave.
This is the waterfall that was deep in the cave. It was a good long walk around. He also shut the lights off at one point to show how dark it was and it was pitch black.
This was a place along the road that you could actually get drinking water from. The sign says to keep it clean because of the drinking water.
This is a picture of the coast line in the burren. As you can see that it is much different than down in Dingle where we were the first few days. You realize why this is called a stony place.
This is a little hard to tell in the picture, but those white animals in the back are llamas. They aren't a widespread animal here in Ireland, so it was neat to see them.
This is Doolin village, it is a quaint village on the coastline. You can see the bright colors, the horse on the left and the lady on the bike. I love small towns!!!
The wind was really blowing as you can see here, as the waves broke it blow almost twice the size.
AJ was very enthralled with watching the waves, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree because I could spend hours watching the waves.
Just another cool shot of the waves crashing in.
This was the crossroads of many different places.
This was the Cliffs of Moher - it was such a picturesque place!! They are the most famous cliffs of Ireland!!
This is O'Brien's Tower that is located half way and was built in 1835 by Sir Cornellius O'Brien who built a watchtower. It is said that it was built for recreation or for the ladies.
The cliffs are nearly vertically in many places from the Atlantic Ocean and extending over a length of about 49 miles long. They are as high as 702 Feet.
Michael loves riding on Daddy's shoulders and is pointing out to some more beautiful scenery!
We are passed the O'Brein tower here.
Looking back towards the O'Brein tower, you can see the other tower in the distance.
I just thought this was a very cute picture of my boys!!
I walked down the other way and this is looking back on O'Brein's tower. We were so lucky here, the morning was full of fog and we didn't think that we were going to be able to see anything at the cliffs. But the fog cleared and we had such wonderful views!!! Also the rain was threatening to come and it stayed away until we were leaving and then the rain came.
This is St Bridget's well. It was a pagan goddess turned Christian.
It is said that drinking from this well is healing. It started in the old days people went to visit the well and left religious objects like images of the Virgin Mary and Rosary beads.
Now there are pictures of people, prayer requests, toys, photographs and so much more. It has items from the wall to the floor.
After the well, Fran told the boys that she was taking them to a beach to run on. Well when we got there, it was more like the Burren, all rocks and no beach. But luckily there was a park right across the road.
There was this great zip line at the park that the kids loved!!!
Albert's turn
Then David and Michael thought it would be fun to ride together. Thankfully they made it okay!
AJ thought it would be fun to push Mommy off the ramp so I could get moving faster.
So up I swung. Michael did this the first time and was a little freaked out but then got over it.
They also had this for climbing - of course they wanted to go all the way to the top multiple times. It was a great park to run off some energy. They did such a good job hanging with us for most of the day! After this we headed back to the hotel for another evening of Uno this time! The boys really liked playing games and I think Uno was their favorite!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment