Ireland

 Grandma and Grandpa joined us on our summer vacation. The whole family went to Ireland. This was really a unique trip, the first time we have ever traveled abroad as a family. We spent a week touring around the country and having lots of adventures.

I've got a ton of pictures. Let's take it one day at a time.

Friday:

We arrive in Dublin airport

Grandma and Grandpa were coming from Salt Lake City. Their flight was delayed a few hours, so we caught up on missed sleep at the airport food court.

 

We picked up our rental cars. They had a pair of Toyota C-HRs for us to tour around Ireland. They look like this:

There was just enough room to fit our bags:

Jen getting used to the driver's seat on the other side of the car. (Many, many times we flicked on our wipers as we attempted to signal a lane change.)

When we were preparing to come to Ireland, we understood the challenge of driving on the left side of the road. However, there is so much more to it than that. The roads are so narrow, the intersections are so unfamiliar with the complex roundabouts. The road signs work differently. Multiple new factors to try to adjust to all at once. Driving was a challenge. It all worked out, but it took so much more concentration than usual.

We started our trip with a visit to EPIC, the Irish Emigration museum. We wanted to kick off the week by first connecting with our Irish Heritage. Jen's Grandpa and my Grandpa are both Irish, so both of us and the kids are all 1/4 Irish. 

The museum was very well done, chock full of information and high tech exhibits.

Then we wandered about a bit. We walked down the River Liffey and went to Trinity college and Grafton Street.

We spent our first night in Northern Ireland in a Town called Newry.

Saturday:

They eat big breakfast in Ireland. This is a full Irish breakfast: bacon, sausage, black pudding, white pudding, two eggs, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes and some soda bread.

The first place we visited on Saturday was Gobbins Cliff Pass. Gob is an Irish word for mouth or face as in "shut your gob". So "Gobbins" was named for the Irish headlands.

It was an awesome trail, built right on the side of a cliff, but with plenty of protective handrails, it offered a unique perspective of the cliffs.

I'll admit it is hard to really see in the photo, but off in the distance you can see the shore of Scotland.

Next we went to Dunluce castle. This was quite a cool old castle ruin, built on the edge of cliff (In fact part of the castle had fallen into the sea on a stormy night a long time ago.) The view was amazing. The wind was amazing. The imagination gets going with a backdrop like this. This castle was the seat of the clan McDonnell- not sure how closely they were connected to our McConnell ancestors, but probably connected somehow.

That's where the kitchen slipped into the ocean one night.

Then we went to the Giant's Causeway. We love a good pile of rocks to climb on, don't we? As lava cools slowly it starts to shrink and create stress in the material. The stress is most effectively relieved by splitting at 120 degrees, so lots of hexagons. Or legendary Irish heroes could have done this.

Everything is so quaint and charming in Ireland

We had fish and chips for dinner (of course). Best fish and chips I've ever had.

Sunday:

We attended church with the Foyle Ward in Londonderry. It was a good service and a friendly ward. All of Northern Ireland is one stake, so the visiting high councilor came from Belfast to speak to the congregation. The ward was small, with a lot of other out of town visitors like us.

Next we walked around Londonderry including the Derry walls and the Peace Bridge. The Derry walls are one of the best maintained old city walls in Europe. The Peace Bridge was built to recognize the history of Londonderry/ Derry during the troubles. This bridge crosses the Foyle river and connects politically and religiously different neighborhoods. 

We then crossed back into the Republic of Ireland for the rest of the trip.

Our Roxborough ancestors are from County Londonderry, and our McConnell ancestors are from County Donegal. These are not very far apart, but modern history has separated these two locations across an international boundary. By the way, as we were driving from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland, we were on a small country road and there was no indication when we crossed this international border.

Our next destination was Raphoe. This is a small town where the McConnells are from. According to my research, my great-great grandparents were married in the First Presbyterian Church, and some other family members helped contribute to the building of the church. The cemetery does indeed have some McConnells and McCleans, but they are much more recent than any of my direct ancestors.

We then continued on to Donegal Castle. This castle is partially restored.

This castle was controlled by another family with a similar name to McConnell, so not sure if there is any connection here.

Then we went further south along the west coast of Ireland to County Mayo to see some sites associated with Jen's ancestors.

We found this cottage, which was not actually the place her ancestors lived, but has a very similar appearance.

That night we had a devotional in the hotel. Spencer gave us a lesson about the McConnell and Doyle family crest and what the symbols mean. The younger kids reported on the lives of their ancestors that emigrated from Ireland.

Monday:

I woke up feeling terrible. I got food poisoning, with all the expected GI symptoms. No one else got sick. Must have been the lamb I had the night before. Ughh...

Also, it rained a lot on Monday. We saw a bit of rain on other days, but Monday was a good old fashioned Irish rainy day.

Any way we carried on, and did a few amazing things.

We drove out to Killary to a sheep dog demonstration. The countryside in this region was really amazing. It was fun to watch the herdsman call out his instructions and see how readily the dog responded to round up those sheep. The demonstration included shearing a sheep. (Only Grandpa jumped up for that one), and feeding the lambs. (The lambs are about 4 months old now and can down a bottle of milk in a few seconds!)

We then traveled to Cong, at the estate of Ashford Castle for a Hawk Walk (falconry experience). This was the most popular activity we did all week.

We then headed on to Doolin for dinner at the pub.

Clark is keeping well hydrated.

Tuesday:

Doolin is right next to the famous Cliffs of Moher. We arrived during a fog, so it was rather unimpressive at first, but we waited out the fog and saw the attraction.

By the way, check out those Irish eyes!

Next we parked the cars and took a ferry out to Inishmore. 

Inishmore is a rugged but cute island at the western end of the Aran Islands. Visitors can't bring a car, so your options are a taxi or a horse or a bike. We rented bikes for two days and rode around everywhere we went.

We stayed in Glamping (Glamorous Camping) accommodations.

Wednesday:

We biked in some rain to Dun Aengus. 

This is 3,000 year old stone fortification with an amazing view.

Then we went on a snorkeling adventure. Wet suits are a must in the North Atlantic. Personally, I saw one seal under the water (which was exciting) but Grant is the seal whisperer. Our guide was visibly excited and amazed at how much the seals paid attention to Grant.

We spent the rest of that day hanging out, exploring a little and relaxing at our beach side glamping huts. We grilled some local seafood and potatoes of course.

Thursday:

Time to head back to the mainland and back to Dublin.

We stopped for some souvenir shopping first. Everyone bought a wool hat.

How about that color combination?

Now, we'd have been OK without the hats, but isn't it amazing that it was cool enough in August to wear this cold weather gear?
By the way, Spencer doesn't get cold, so he bought this fashionable flat cap instead.

We did the crossing back to Doolin.

Our hotel in Dublin had a replica of the book of Kells.

And we were located right by St. Stephen's Green

The last thing we did in Dublin was Riverdance.

We got seats right in the front row of the upper balcony of the Gaiety Theatre.

Laurel did an Irish Dance performance recently and has been really excited about this.

The show was awesome...

Great music (drums, fiddle and bagpipes included) and of course all the furious foot stepping action.

Friday:

We returned home

How many people can we fit in a lift?

We drove 1200 km on this trip!

This trip was a lot of work, and not everything went swimmingly, but overall it was a great adventure and I will remember this week fondly.