Dingle Peninsula, Ireland

We started off our third day with a nice homemade breakfast at the B&B and then ventured off to to the Blarney Woollen Mills so my dad could buy a proper Irish cap. The place was huge! We decided to skip the Blarney Castle since we didn't really care about kissing the Blarney Stone and Chris had already done it anyway so we devoted the rest of the day to the Dingle Peninsula. This is what it looked like:

Absolutely breathtaking. If Chris and I were ever to move to Ireland, I would want to live here. We would be cozy in a quaint cottage with a blue door surrounded by stone fencing and chickens pecking at the ground.

We followed the Slea Head drive around the peninsula and stopped periodically to check out the beehive huts along the side of the road or to snap a few photos.

Swoon. Yes, he is my husband.

Reportedly a dingy restaurant, but it sure does have a cool name.

Hope to see you again someday, Dingle Peninsula. 

After a day of breathtaking views, it was time to find our B&B in outside of Limerick in Lough Gur which was two hours away. We had originally planned on stopping in Limerick, but we were short on time so we decided to just go to the B&B. The only problem was that we got completely and utterly lost. I had printed off directions prior to leaving the US, but they weren't serving us very well at the moment. Our rental car came with a GPS, but it was set up to accept American addressed with house numbers not Irish houses with zero house numbers and completely different addresses. Throw in  some crazily narrow roads and rapidly decreasing daylight and you will find a lot of doubt that we were ever going to find our beds for the night. I have no idea how my poor brother was able to drive down the trails roads we found ourselves on. There was only room for one vehicle, and there were bushes or fences on each side higher than the car! The only positive to being lost in the middle of nowhere without a bathroom when nature is calling your name is that absolutely no one is around to see you make whatever decision you do. Thank goodness for that.

We finally made it to civilization - a little town of five buildings, tops. One was a pub so I went in to ask if anyone had heard of our B&B, and my dad followed me in to help. Once I pushed the creaky door open, I felt like I was in a movie scene when an outsider walks into a saloon and everyone slowly turns toward the door. There were probably ten guys surrounding the bar with beers in hand and all looking exactly like the stereotype of Irish men spending their nights at the local pub in your head right now. "Hiiii! My family and I are lost, and I was wondering if you knew how I could get to Desmond Lodge in Lough Gur???" And I was the stereotypical peppy and clueless American girl. 

Well, they sure wanted to be helpful. All of them started answering me with the thickest Irish brogues, and I could not understand a single word coming out of their mouths for at least the first fifteen seconds. But even if I had understood them, it wouldn't have mattered because their answers were: "Ten miles up the road!" "Just a mile if you turn around!" "Do you need someone to take you?" "Take a left and then a right." "No, no, no, take two lefts and then a right and then a left." It really was awesome, and I'm not being sarcastic. Finally one of the guys was more persistent than the rest and continued to confidently tell me where I needed to go. So to where did he give me directions? Another pub, of course! "Go to Reardon's. They are very nice people, and they will tell you the rest of the way." Who needs a GPS when you have pubs? I love Ireland. 

So I left that little peek into small village Irish night life, and we ventured back out through the two-way-but-only-one-car-fits roads. Lo and behold the Irish brogue did not lead us astray, we found the second pub, Reardon's. The bartender gladly told us how to find the B&B (we just had to go up the street), and basically demanded in the nicest possible way that we come back for a pint after we dropped our stuff off. 

We found Desmond Lodge, which is run by the sweetest Irish lady, Bridget, and her sister. She completely didn't care that we arrived so late, gave my brother and dad separate rooms since there wasn't a full house and encouraged us to go back to the pub because, "They pour the best pint of Guinness," she claimed repeatedly. And she assured us that there was such a thing as bad Guinness in Ireland. So we found ourselves ordering four pints of Guinness (which really were amazing. I thought it was like drinking dark chocolate, it was soooo smooth), sitting back, chatting with the bartender who had lived in the states for a ten or so years and watching his choice of television: Swamp People.  I guess the fascination with rat tails spreads far and wide. 

The next morning we woke up a bit later, ate the best Irish breakfast cooked by Bridget herself and had a conversation with her for over an hour like we were old friends. I really cannot say enough about Bridget and the B&B she runs. She was the epitome of Irish hospitality, full of charm and just so genuinely kind. And it seems like all of TripAdvisor agrees with me. 

Glendalough, Leighlinbridge and Cork, Ireland

Well, I only have five days until St. Patrick's Day so I better get this Emerald Isle recap moving if I am going to capitalize on the whole March = Irish = window for a six-month late Ireland recap hullabaloo. We started off day two of our trip in Scotland, but then hopped on very cheap and very short Ryanair flight to Dublin. International trips aren't going to very common for us so we fell to the temptation of planning jam-packed days. So we grabbed our luggage from the left luggage man, picked up the rental car and set off on a day that would include 200 miles of driving. Four hours in the car is not a bad thing at all when the view rolling by your window is the Irish countryside. It is just vividly GREEN. I could not believe it, and I kept saying that over and over. My favorite line from my dad from the whole trip was his reply, "That's what happens when you get a lot of rain." The ever practical farmer.  

Our first stop was Glendalough in County Wicklow just about an hour south of Dublin. Chris planned a lot of the trip, and when Chris researches something, he really gets into it. He spent days working on it and then gave me an Excel spreadsheet with groups of possible sights to see all organized by their locations. Then I just would google-image the places and pick out the ones from the list that were the most scenic since they were all historic. 

Glendalough was one that I marked as one that I really wanted to visit so I was happy that it worked perfectly into our first day in Ireland. It is home to a monastic city dating back to the sixth century that was founded by St. Kevin. Very neat and very fitting to visit since that is my Dad's name! My photos really do not do justice to the beauty of the valley at all. 

I loved all of these celtic cross gravestones in the cemetery.

My Irish men! 

Chris, of course, had to go off the beaten path and climb up the mountain along the littler waterfall. He was much higher than it looks in the photos. 

After walking around Glendalough for about an hour, we got back in the car and made our way to the little town that my ancestors came from! Bet you never would have guessed that I'm Irish :).

My great-great-great grandparents immigrated to the US from Leighlinbridge, Ireland, a tiny town in County Carlow. We found the church that they were married in, St. Lazerian's, and peeked inside. It was so surreal to imagine the wedding that came five marriages before mine and to think about my great-great-great grandchildren peeking into the Basilica. I'm a sap.

St. Lazerian's Church

The interior of the church

Five generations later :)

We didn't see any family stores with my maiden name, but we did find this!! I guess the town knew who I would marry ;)

After we found a place serving lunch, which was actually pretty hard to do because it seemed like the entire town was empty, we ventured off to find the town cemetery so we could find some of my great-great-great grandparents' relatives. My grandma, uncle and aunt had found the graves during their trip to Ireland a few years back so we knew they existed, and my Aunt Laura, the family genealogist, had given instructions to make sure to go to the old cemetery by the old church not the new one. We thought we found it, but that one turned out to be the new cemetery since the oldest grave in it was maybe from the sixties? Yeah, we were looking for 100+ year old graves. So we drove around the little town until we found a man who was out walking and asked him where the old cemetery was. He gave us spotty directions, and we somehow found this cemetery behind the ruins of an old church that was behind a little house with a dog. This cemetery was plenty old as you can tell by the photo below. Most of the gravestones were covered in thick three foot tall grass or were completely illegible. After twenty minutes of searching  every grave above the sea of grass to no avail and my dad vaguely remembering that my grandma mentioned that the cemetery was pretty unkempt, we decided to snap a pic and move along. I actually just did some google-searching about the cemeteries in Leighlinbridge, and there might be one right past the church...which we never went past, just to. I kind of hope not or else that would mean that we were so close to it, but missed it.

Maybe my ancestors skipped some rocks at this very same spot?

After we left the cemetery, we made the drive to Cork, Ireland which is where we think Chris' family is from! We stayed at a quaint and cozy bed and breakfast, Glencairn B&B, that was run by a man from Ohio (imagine that!) and his Irish wife. And on the way to Cork, we spotted this beautiful rainbow adorning the Irish countryside. Surprisingly, we did not find a pot of gold. 

Edinburgh, Scotland

Since it is March and the month of St. Patrick's Day I thought I would recap our trip to Ireland from back in September. A stretch? Maybe. But it's happening. 

I have a very generous brother. So generous that his wedding gift to us was part of a trip to Ireland so we could watch the Emerald Isle Classic between our alma maters, Notre Dame and the Naval Academy. I know, what a brother. And to top it off, my dad came along so I got to spend 10 days with three of my favorite men! Ryan did not make the trip with us, but I will write more about that decision another time...this post is about the land where Prince William and Kate Middleton fell in love.  

View from the Edinburgh Castle

We hopped over to Edinburgh (I want to type Edinborough every time...I can hear my UK-raised-husband's chuckle from reading that) just for a day trip...thank you RyanAir for being cheap. 

Tales of a nursing mother, pumping at the pub

My men at the Palace of Holyroodhouse

It was pretty chilly and rainy (surprise, surprise) since we were used to August weather in the Midwest so after seeing the famous Edinburgh Castle, our chilled fingers and toes were yelling at us to find a pub with warmth and wireless. We went down a little pedestrian street off of the main Princes St and found Halfway House, which was a quaint little pub that introduced me to haggis. If you know me, I pretty much like any food, and that quality does not exclude haggis. Anyone else a fan?  

Next, we hiked up Calton Hill to see a gorgeous view of the city. This was my favorite part of the day besides the haggis and beer. 

My handsome husband and some hills

We topped the day off with dinner at Mum's which lived up to its reviews on Yelp although I wish I had ordered some haggis since it's not like I travel to Scotland every day. Okay, I think I've mentioned haggis enough times in this little post.

My face gives away that I had some cider with whiskey. Life of a half Filipina.

Edinborough Edinburgh was perfect for a day trip. I would love to go back to Scotland and see Braveheart scenery and maybe a duchess or prince at their old stomping grounds...too much to ask for?