I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! (Updated with pictures!)
I'm back ladies!!! I'm at work this morning and I'm all jacked up. ![]()
I woke up at 4:30 this morning ready for breakfast and couldn't go back to sleep. And I'm at work. Booooooooooooo! But the trip was amazing, we had a blast. The wedding was soooo different than they are here, but it was a great time! I'm going to try and upload some photos later on since it seems to be pretty quiet here! Anyway, just wanted to say hiiiiiiii! ![]()
ETA: Whooooooooo! I finally uploaded all the photos! I took 600 in total so it took foreverrrrrrr. Here's some of my faves and highlights though!
We stayed in the nicest cottages in Bruff, right outside Limerick. They looked like barns from outside but they were massive and modern inside. And we had some lovely sheep for neighbors.![]()
And yes, someone fell over that half door trying to get into that house to turn off the alarm.
The next photos are from the local church and the attached graveyard. DH's grandparents were buried here. I know it's a little morbid taking photos of a graveyard but it was so old and the stones were beautiful.
Some pictures of the stream next to the church. (Mahore River)
Clovers, all three leaf.![]()
Some pictures from the wedding...
The bride and her father.
One of the ringbearers in his adorable tux.
The bride and groom.
The cake.
The mother and father of the bride and the drunken priest. (Isn't he exactly what you would expect him to look like??)
Cake cutting.
The pub- if you're ever in Knockainey for the best Heineken on tap I've ever had. Tell 'em you were sent by O'Connors! As a sidenote- this is the front entrance to the pub on the street, but their house is attached! It was awesome to be able to slip down to the pub in your PJs, grab a bag of crisps (Cheese and onion tayto's anyone?) and a pint and pop back into the house. Plus, the bars close very early (1 AM or 1:30 AM the latest) so DH, myself, and DH's cousin James (who is my favorite relative of his of all time) would sit in the bar after it closed and have a few drinks and listen to music. DH and I had our first shot of Absinthe in Moloney's after hours with James! lol!
The pubs backyard. And a little bow chicka wow wow.
Loch Gur. When we climbed this... this... hill... we thought it was the highest, steepest thing we've ever seen. Not so.
View from the top.
DH & BIL.
This is the Old Church in Knock, where my MIL/FIL were married. I didn't get too many photos because I was reeeeeaaaalllyyy sick that day.
We stayed at MIL's house that she grew up in in Mayo. And these were our lovely neighbors. They ran right over to us, from way across the field, every time they saw us on the road. We'd feed them grass and sugar apples and sometimes, even chocolate.
DH feeding our friends.
And just so you get an idea of how close they were, this is the view out the kitchen window.
This was my favorite part of the trip- our climb of Croagh Patrick. The top is 2,500 feet in the air and the climb is 3.5 miles each way and it is not easy going. It's rocky, slippery, steep, and absolutely terrifying. Walking sticks are highly recommended (And we used them.). There is a church at the top (stupid idea, right?!) and a pilgrimage to the top is meant to be done barefoot and is considered a religious experience. We didn't do it barefoot, obviously, because we're not insane. The first 3 miles of the climb is extremely difficult, the last half mile is almost impossible but once you get 3 miles up, you figure you might as well go the rest of the way. We did it. And then MIL bought us all t-shirts saying 'I climbed Croagh Patrick' and a victory beer.![]()
Here's some photos, though I was way to wrecked to be snapping a lot.
DH.
View from the 3 mile peak.
Once you get to the top, the wind is so insane that nobody even can stand up straight. And of course, a storm was rolling in as we reached the summit. It was so bad that I took literally TWO photos and flew back down that mountain. I never wanted solid ground so badly.
The view from the top.
The church.
Here's what the last half mile looks like and this does not illustrate nearly enough how steep and scary it was.
Me and my walking stick after getting back to the bottom. It took us 3 hours for the complete hike.
Our victory drink.
Then on the way home, we saw a rainbow. It was beautiful!
Another beautiful place we visited- The Cliffs of Moher. It's really nice, but we had such a nice day for it, that it was PACKED with people. Oh well, what can ya do? Also, the museum with it suckkkedd.
Cliffs of Moher.
The castle on the cliffs.
The last place we went to visit was Bunratty Castle, but we were so hungry we decided to eat first and then we missed the last tour by like 5 minutes. Boooooooo. So here's two photos of the outside, but inside there's a whole old fashioned town with houses with thatched roofs and they even do a sit-down banquet like at medieval times. I've heard it's awesome, so check it out and tell me how it is. lol! We did get to visit the gift shop which was awesome and very reasonably priced, too. Just saying...![]()
Anyway, sorry for the photo overload. We didn't get to do as much sight seeing as I would've hoped- we did a lot of traveling back and forth between towns for weddings, b-days, reunions, and other various family activities but it was a lot of fun. We also visited Limerick City a few times to shop and go out to dinner. I wish I had my camera, but I had left it at home, because Limerick City was kinda cool. All the doors were all brightly colored and had fancy, old fashioned knobs in the center of the doors. It was very pretty, as were all the cities and towns we visited. But anyway, hope you liked some of the photos and maybe they even inspired you to visit a few places. Croagh Patrick was definitely an experience that I think everyone, especially of Irish descent, should do once! Thanks for looking!![]()
ETA: Whooooooooo! I finally uploaded all the photos! I took 600 in total so it took foreverrrrrrr. Here's some of my faves and highlights though!
We stayed in the nicest cottages in Bruff, right outside Limerick. They looked like barns from outside but they were massive and modern inside. And we had some lovely sheep for neighbors.
The next photos are from the local church and the attached graveyard. DH's grandparents were buried here. I know it's a little morbid taking photos of a graveyard but it was so old and the stones were beautiful.
Some pictures of the stream next to the church. (Mahore River)
Clovers, all three leaf.
Some pictures from the wedding...
The bride and her father.
One of the ringbearers in his adorable tux.
The bride and groom.
The cake.
The mother and father of the bride and the drunken priest. (Isn't he exactly what you would expect him to look like??)
Cake cutting.
The pub- if you're ever in Knockainey for the best Heineken on tap I've ever had. Tell 'em you were sent by O'Connors! As a sidenote- this is the front entrance to the pub on the street, but their house is attached! It was awesome to be able to slip down to the pub in your PJs, grab a bag of crisps (Cheese and onion tayto's anyone?) and a pint and pop back into the house. Plus, the bars close very early (1 AM or 1:30 AM the latest) so DH, myself, and DH's cousin James (who is my favorite relative of his of all time) would sit in the bar after it closed and have a few drinks and listen to music. DH and I had our first shot of Absinthe in Moloney's after hours with James! lol!
The pubs backyard. And a little bow chicka wow wow.
Loch Gur. When we climbed this... this... hill... we thought it was the highest, steepest thing we've ever seen. Not so.
View from the top.
DH & BIL.
This is the Old Church in Knock, where my MIL/FIL were married. I didn't get too many photos because I was reeeeeaaaalllyyy sick that day.
We stayed at MIL's house that she grew up in in Mayo. And these were our lovely neighbors. They ran right over to us, from way across the field, every time they saw us on the road. We'd feed them grass and sugar apples and sometimes, even chocolate.
DH feeding our friends.
And just so you get an idea of how close they were, this is the view out the kitchen window.
This was my favorite part of the trip- our climb of Croagh Patrick. The top is 2,500 feet in the air and the climb is 3.5 miles each way and it is not easy going. It's rocky, slippery, steep, and absolutely terrifying. Walking sticks are highly recommended (And we used them.). There is a church at the top (stupid idea, right?!) and a pilgrimage to the top is meant to be done barefoot and is considered a religious experience. We didn't do it barefoot, obviously, because we're not insane. The first 3 miles of the climb is extremely difficult, the last half mile is almost impossible but once you get 3 miles up, you figure you might as well go the rest of the way. We did it. And then MIL bought us all t-shirts saying 'I climbed Croagh Patrick' and a victory beer.
DH.
View from the 3 mile peak.
Once you get to the top, the wind is so insane that nobody even can stand up straight. And of course, a storm was rolling in as we reached the summit. It was so bad that I took literally TWO photos and flew back down that mountain. I never wanted solid ground so badly.
The view from the top.
The church.
Here's what the last half mile looks like and this does not illustrate nearly enough how steep and scary it was.
Me and my walking stick after getting back to the bottom. It took us 3 hours for the complete hike.
Our victory drink.
Then on the way home, we saw a rainbow. It was beautiful!
Another beautiful place we visited- The Cliffs of Moher. It's really nice, but we had such a nice day for it, that it was PACKED with people. Oh well, what can ya do? Also, the museum with it suckkkedd.
Cliffs of Moher.
The castle on the cliffs.
The last place we went to visit was Bunratty Castle, but we were so hungry we decided to eat first and then we missed the last tour by like 5 minutes. Boooooooo. So here's two photos of the outside, but inside there's a whole old fashioned town with houses with thatched roofs and they even do a sit-down banquet like at medieval times. I've heard it's awesome, so check it out and tell me how it is. lol! We did get to visit the gift shop which was awesome and very reasonably priced, too. Just saying...
Anyway, sorry for the photo overload. We didn't get to do as much sight seeing as I would've hoped- we did a lot of traveling back and forth between towns for weddings, b-days, reunions, and other various family activities but it was a lot of fun. We also visited Limerick City a few times to shop and go out to dinner. I wish I had my camera, but I had left it at home, because Limerick City was kinda cool. All the doors were all brightly colored and had fancy, old fashioned knobs in the center of the doors. It was very pretty, as were all the cities and towns we visited. But anyway, hope you liked some of the photos and maybe they even inspired you to visit a few places. Croagh Patrick was definitely an experience that I think everyone, especially of Irish descent, should do once! Thanks for looking!
