Curraghchase Caravan & Camping Park, Kilcornan, County Limerick, Munster

Here we are at the end of another excellent day albeit stuffing around with laundry. My ideal day is to arrive home after excellent sightseeing, have Chris cook dinner, me clean up and then attend to updating this blog; end of story. Not stuff around with laundry albeit free of charge. Yesterday evening I did manage to wash and dry the household linen contingent of the laundry pile, but the second load sat in the washing machine doing absolutely nothing for an hour until I returned to extract it. The ladies with the next laundry bag in line were not impressed; nothing had happened to mine. It seems that when the boiler fixit-man came he cut off the water to facilitate the fix and the washing machine became a victim of the otherwise happy story. I removed my dirty dry washing from the machine sacrificing it to those that had been patiently waiting and decided to get in before anyone else on the morrow, which of course is today. So when we arrived home this afternoon, over I went, to find a recently started machine, another bag-in-waiting and then mine. Given that the machine takes over an hour and a half to wash, this being the normal amount of time domestic goddesses in this part of the world accept as normal; I am in for a long night. My tour companion remarked that no tour guides, novels or movies dwell on the frustrations of laundry or hygiene demands of any sort; I am doing so here!

But let me concentrate on the plusses of the day. I am delighted to report that the trusty Chauffeur excelled himself in undertaking a very long sightseeing day up into County Clare today. We set off at 8.30 am ready for that long day which clocked up a total of just over three hundred kilometres.

We headed initially toward Limerick, and then crossed the River Shannon in the tunnel emerging near the toll collection agency which makes sure no one gets through gratis. Actually the toll is only €1.90 (about NZ$3.45 which is less than we pay for the Northern Motorway north of Auckland), and while we paid the same on the return, one really cannot complain. (I am not doing so here)

We headed on up the M18, turning west near Ennis, then south west to Kilrush, a lovely little marina and ferry port for Scattery Island, on the northern bank of the Mouth of the Shannon. We stopped here briefly, just so Chris could use the Tardis type loo, 50 cents for the privilege of a pee, and I could note the monument on the town centre commemorating three gallant rebels who were executed in Manchester way back in 1867, the three Fenians known as the Manchester Martyrs.  

We then pressed on to toward the Atlantic coastline, to Kilkee, then north up along the N67 through Doonbeg, to the seaside resort of Quilty where we stopped and purchased unnecessary munchies for our mid-morning stop. We sat devouring these with views over the bay, in a fairly sheltered walled corner which had managed to capture a week’s litter at our feet. 

Quilty is most celebrated for the bravery of the townsfolk who rescued the French crew off the Leon VIII in 1907, a vessel carrying a cargo of wheat from Portland USA to Ireland. The story of the rescue made international headlines, underlining the dismal conditions of the rescuing folk in this corner of Ireland. The generous recipients of this wonderful story put together a fund to thank the good folk of Quilty; and what became of it? A church was built to thanks these poor souls for their efforts, no doubt a church which housed a priest who begged alms from his parishioners who could barely feed their own growing broods, of which they were encouraged to have more. No guesses as to my affiliations!

In 1911, “Stella Maria – The Star of the sea” church was opened as a lasting memorial for the heroes of Quilty, and it is indeed a landmark to all with its rather unusual round tower, which Chris suggested was phallic and I countered with the suggestion it was more minaret like.  No more said. 

We travelled on, our route hugging the coast, around past Spanish Point, Rinned and Lahinch where we joined the throngs of coaches and independent travellers to the Cliffs of Moher, one of two iconic Irish tourist attractions on our itinerary for the day. There were digital signs at the beginning of the loop warning of excessive delays there due to numbers and as we approached the visitor centre we could see thousands of folk winding their way up to the top of the hill above the Hobbiton-style centre to see whatever view of the cliffs might be had from on high. 

The gates to the car park, full of marshals directing and sorting traffic, were manned by a series of little booths where upon one paid about €8 each, or a lesser €5 in our case being OAPs. This would give us access to the car park, pathway, the visitor centre which we had read rather scathing reports about and the café where we would have the opportunity to spend even more. We just wanted somewhere to put our wheels so we could walk up and see this natural wonder. The fee is the fee, we were told, so my ever principled husband and chauffeur extraordinaire asked that we simply enter the one way system so we could immediately exit again. Fortunately we had seen the cliffs from the south end, and were to see them again when we parked at Doolin, so we did not miss out entirely.

The star of the day was the Burren, derived from the Irish for “stony place”. Here in the west of Clare is the amazing geological wonder, a desolate plateau of fissured limestone caused by the sea pushing up these undersea pavements against the existing lands. We have seen tessellated pavements and pipe-organ rock formations in Australia , and a similar geological formation north of Skipton but this beats them all to date. Our guide suggested the outer limits to this are as being Doolin to the south and Ballyvaughan in the north, but in fact it extended so much further.

We paused as we travelled along the coast road near Fanore, and stepped out across this barren landscape, and the again when we arrived at Ballyvaughan, there to enjoy the pier rather than the natural wonders of rock formation.

The harbour here as built in 1829 to assist the fishing industry, and as a result the village developed  as a major trading centre, and soon after steamers started to bring tourists from Galway, because here we were on the southern edge of Galway Bay, more or less opposite where we will be camped by the end of the week.

From here we climbed up into the more mountainous section of the Burren, heading south east on the R480/476 toward Ennis, stopping at the first car park full of coaches and strings of toruists which suggested we should join them. This was the Poulnabrone Portal Tomb, a megalithic tomb built during the Neolithic or New Stone Age, when the practice of farming was first becoming established. 

Over ninety megalithic tombs are known to have survived in the Burren, the earliest of these are the court tombs and portal tombs built in the fourth millennium BC. This is one of the two constructed in the Burren and is perhaps the best-preserved example in the country. Excavation work in 1985 uncovered the bones of thirty three people here at Poulnabrone, but it is unclear as to whether they were all placed in the tomb at the one time or at different times over 600 years, that quandry alone making any sensible cultural significance a game of a thousand guesses.

But the setting is more than just an archaeological site, the tomb having been constructed from great slabs of limestone over five thousand years ago. Here all around the karst landscape spreads out before the eye, with features such as clints and grikes, kamenitzas and dolines; terms which will surely make more sense to one of my clever daughter-in-law who studied such matters for her degree.

 

We read on one of the interpretative panels that even here in this apparent barren landscape grow over 70% of Ireland’s native plant species. With that information, we put greater attention into observing the biological; wonders of the bizarre universe, and were duly delighted to find so many plants growing up out of the fissures and filling the few earth filled gaps: wild thyme, wood sage, wall lettuce, ferns, herb Robert, the common violet, milkwort, spring gentians, lady’s bedstraw, harebells, bloody cranesbills and a large variety of orchids, to name but a few. 

Amazingly much of the Burren are grazed by cattle during the winter months, in an annual enactment of an ancient farming tradition known as winterage. The calcium and mineral rich grassland pockets provide a healthy bite or animals, while the winter grazing regime minimises disturbance to the rich flora. If grazing were to cease, the site would gradually disappear under a covering of scrub, and then there would be no obvious attraction for the tourist who must surely be the only real economic income to this area.

The rest of our trip was a pleasant one; after reaching the ring road near Ennis, soon joining the M18 through to Limerick, passing under the River Shannon and so on south to our camp not too far off the N69.