Ireland is...

City, town, castle, country, cliffs...and we have only been here for two days. Day one; next post, was spent exploring New Grange, a monument that earned the name honestly. It is a passage tomb over 5000 years old...more on that tomorrow. We also spent an afternoon in Dublin, below, and today we had a day of sight-seeing along the coast and inland in Clare County, Ireland. I may have a new favorite country.

Christ Church Cathedral: https://christchurchcathedral.ie/ (for better photos):

 This was Lahinch, where we picnicked with a view of the cliffs:

 Yesterday's picnic in Dublin; St.Stephen's Green:

Dublin blue door (now I know why those posters were first made with "Doors of Dublin"!)

St.Werburgh's Church:

Boston College:

And the lovely, friendly town of Ennis:

We shopped and had a lesson in Irish culture here. A very kind gentleman in a wool shop (be-still my heart, my favorite place to ever buy anything, too bad I am allergic to wool), explained to us that soccer was not a sport on the same level here as hurling, for a visual: video: hurling or Gaelic football. For this reason, if we wanted lunch, we should get to the pubs before 2, because by then they would be filled with the locals gathering to watch a hotly-disputed match of hurling; it was Clare against a neighboring team. What, we asked, did he mean by "hurling"? Well, he said, it was a little like hockey/lacrosse/rugby. You played with a stick and you could beat the other players with it as well. The boys all thought this was great fun. Later, in the hotel, we caught a game of Gaelic football on tv; I liked this sort of soccer! You can use your hands and the uniforms are spartan, without all of the bulk of American football, and with shorter shorts than soccer. 

We traveled on along the Wild Atlantic Way, where we picnicked with a view of the pretty cliffs posted above. The sea here is wicked and wild. Lahinch:

 Spanish Point:

 Our accommodations last night were simply lovely...a castle just outside of Dublin. It was like a fairy-tale:

The "casual dining space", with children, whose expressions are a reminder that one can, quite inadvertently, subject children to an overdose of photography in one trip.