The First Irish Installment

Mossy Old Forests- I think this one is a Leprechaun Breeding Ground

We discovered herd of ancient breed sheep from the iron age at a recreated village. When we first saw them we had arguments and bets going as to whether they were sheep or goats but they had a dog-face too, look sort of like mutt huskys. Seems they are 'Soay Sheep' a prehistoric breed descended from a feral herd on the isle of Soay. They are small in relation to domestic sheep, and other than grass cutting I don't see much use for them beyond historic.
There were swans in herds wherever we navigated, have never seen so many- well that's not saying much since I've hardly ever seen more than two at a time! Some had babies trailing behind, others were just hanging out in the shallow areas fishing, but there were always bunches of them, so pretty! Sept 1 was the opening of duck season, and with the first shot we never saw another duck- they take to hiding immediately. But the swans remain knowing they aren't in danger. We saw many hunters out on the river with their bird dogs and heard shots all around us. We ate duck that night too, the barge barters with the hunters apparently. Now that I think about it, I don't know who gets the breasts- we each had a leg and thigh- maybe she saves the breasts for the next trip! I did notice that not a thing was wasted. If there was bread left over after a meal it reappeared as bread pudding the next day, called 'breakfast pudding' and was savory rather than sweet. Something was left over from the duck because it came back as a bowl of 'rillettes' which I single handedly polished off. There were only three of us who ate the duck too, amazing! I happen to love it so got my fill, before even getting the 4 helpings of duck liver. I did it quietly- most people thought I only had 2 helpings but I kept trading my empty scraped off plate with those who wouldn't even TRY it! OK, so I didn't encourage it!


Scenes from the boat as we slid by, cows and horses in their beautiful pastures. There are apparently 3 cows for ever person population-wise. One night we had beef cheeks for dinner which was delicious, but the other beef we had in restaurants wasn't anything to write home about- they don't do 'rare'. Beautiful herds of horses, we saw many more but my battery went dead so these aren't terribly good pictures- I'll steal TY's later.


In a great room of a partially restored castle (a family had renovated and used a portion of it as a summer house in in the 60's), there was a huge set of antlers that had been pulled out of the bogs perfectly preserved after thousands of years. This set was probably 12' across and over the week we saw several even bigger. This was an Irish elk, extinct for over 11,000 years! Yeah ELEVEN THOUSAND! Apparently this giant elk isn't a real elk but a deer species that roamed all of Europe before the ice age- it's called Irish because of the many skeletons they have found intact in the bogs.


And now for Stoopid People Acts: This bunch of Galway street musicians stood on these poles for their whole set. They weren't particularly good, I think the poles required too much concentration which should have gone into their music!

Our last day in Dublin found us wondering why all the bridges over the Liffey River were jammed with people looking over until we got close enough to see swarms of swimmers doing a swim for charity that has gone on for hundreds of years. Don't know about you but I'd think twice about jumping into an urban river and swimming a couple of miles. I decided that the charity they were collecting money for was probably former Liffey swimmers!

You may have noticed that I haven't included any of my many different castle shots, hardly any vista shots, no shots of the locks opening and filling and closing around us, and no wee villages! I might also have 50 shots of stone walls with moss on 'em but I'll save all that for another time. Okey, dokey, it's now 8:30 and I've been up five hours- sure hope this jet lag doesn't last long. Geesh, the sun is out here, haven't seen that in 2 weeks!