On Thursday, August 20, 2026, I took one last bike ride through Killarney National Park on the paths near our home exchange.
I rode far enough that I could see Ross Castle across the lake.
I passed some jaunting cars as I rode along.
And I bought some cobbler (one strawberry rhubarb, and the other apple) at a little shop with a cute thatched roof that uses its profits to help folks with Downs syndrome. It was tasty!
Meanwhile, Linette was able to go inside St. Mary's Cathedral during her jog.
Finally, we bid farewell to our wonderful home exchange place, and headed north for a full day of exploration on our way to Northern Ireland.
As we drove through the town of Limerick, we were all encouraged to share one.
Here is Linette's first limerick, relating to our first Home Exchange and what we found there:
Then I shared a limerick, relating to the Irish roads:
Linette shared a bonus limerick, where she references how Jared slipped off a rock and cut his finger and then Linette's bike slid out from under her, landing her in a bit of mud and manure on the road, as we rode bikes up to the Gap the day before.
I had another one, similar to Linette's:
There once was a woman from Ida-her
who slept with her husband beside her
the house that they had,
it wasn't that bad,
once they swept up 80 spiders.
Jared also had one about Katelyn's nose or something, and Katelyn was waiting to see if one came to her, but it never did.
Our first main stop that day was at Bunratty Castle and Folk Village. First, we had lunch at a burger place across the street, which was much like our dinner the night before.
Bunratty Castle was built starting in 1400s and changed hands several times.
I had a nostalgic moment when I saw a door labeled "Captain's Quarters", since we had a fun room named that in our house in Eugene, Oregon. The sign says "No Entry," which made me think of "The Game!" (where the little kids would try to sneak into the Captain's Quarters in Eugene while the big kids tried to haul them out).
I've heard that one reason for the fancy-looking canopies over the beds is to keep dirt and rodent droppings from falling down through the ceiling. It is interesting to me that the most powerful monarchs back in the day lived in conditions that were not as nice as very mediocre modern homes (which have electricity, clean hot & cold running water, indoor toilets, heat and often air conditioning, and not nearly the problems with bugs and rodents). I guess we should be grateful for what we have, and realize that we often live like kings—or better!
You can see the inner workings of this clock.
From the top of the castle we could look over the countryside.
In the great hall, we heard a tour guide lecturing a big group of tourists from Italy.
It was a cool castle.
The grounds had a white peahen (female peacock).
They also had several Silkie hens (which we mistakenly thought were baby peacocks at first). While most birds have tiny hooks ("barbicels") that lock feather barbs together into a smooth, solid surface, Silkies don't have them, which allows their feathers to be all loose and fluffy, which feels like fur (and also means they can't fly!). They tend to be friendly, so people like having them wandering their property as fun, fluffy, friendly pets.
Next to the castle was Bunratty Folk Village, with old structures and folks who dress and act like the olden days. We went in to see a blacksmith do his thing for a few minutes.
I walked into one building that had furniture that would have been pretty fancy for its time.
Here is another fancy room in that house.
When I came back into the main room, I was startled to see this girl standing there, all in white, like a ghost. Now that I look at the picture, I feel like I was right to be a bit creeped out.
Linette and I went into the schoolhouse, where an exuberant guy told us all about what school would have been like in the olden days. He showed us the numbers 1 through 10 in Irish, and then played an Irish penny-whistle.
The grounds had some deer and donkeys.
There were cute paths around the little village.
Ardcroney Church was built in 1824 about 50 miles away, but by 1986, attendance dropped and services stopped, and the church faced decay. So in 1995, the stone church was carefully dismantled stone by stone and meticulously reassembled in Bunratty Folk Park where it officially reopened in 1998. It is now used for events like civil ceremonies and small weddings.
It was fun walking through a "tree tunnel" in the village.
Many of the "actors" had called it quits for the day by the time we got there, but everything was still really cute.
Here are some girls playing with the piggies there as we headed out.
Our other main destination for that day was the famous Cliffs of Moher.
The Cliffs of Moher stretch for some nine miles along the "Wild Atlantic Way" on the west coast of County Clare in Ireland. The cliffs reach heights of up to 214 meters (702 feet). Here was my BeReal for the day.
Kelsi called while we were up there, so we had fun chatting with her and her little ones while we walked along the cliffs. It was 7:30pm where we were, but only 2:30pm in Charlotte.
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| FaceTiming Kelsi and Josie from the Cliffs of Moher |
When we walked up the way a bit, we could see..."The Cliffs of Insanity!" (from The Princess Bride).
Here is the view as we headed from the Cliffs of Insanity back to O'Brien's Tower.
O'Brien's Tower is an observation tower built in 1835 by Cornelius O'Brien. He built it on the tallest part of the cliffs specifically as an "observation deck and folly" (where "folly" means a structure built to look cool but not really be especially functional). It looks like a lookout tower or mini-castle, but was really built for tourists to enjoy.
From that high point, the cliffs going off to the south looked pretty impressive.
As the sun set, the tower looked cool against the orange sky.
It was cold and windy enough there that I bought an Ireland sweatshirt as a well-needed souvenir.
My other souvenir was a plush puffin, since we missed all the real ones in Ireland by a couple of weeks.
I walked the path to the opposite cliff from the tower and did this panorama along the way before returning to the tower area, where the view seemed best.
I brought an Irish tin-whistle (aka penny-whistle) on the trip, with hopes of playing an Irish tune at a dramatic place such as this. So as the sun was setting, I brought it out and tried to play it. But alas, the wind was so strong that it completely messed with my ability to blow through the whistle consistently, making it fairly impossible to play. Maybe another time, then.
The sun dipped behind a cloud that looked like a genie!
I talked to a photographer there who said he had come there every night for four nights to try to get a sunset, and it had been rainy the other nights, so we lucked out with a nice view.
Here's our little group. (Linette got a new hat there as well).
The Cliffs of Moher did not disappoint.
We drove that night to the famous town of Galway and stayed at the House Hotel.
Even though it was 11pm, the town was still hopping, especially in the famous nearby Latin Quarter.
At the recommendation of a cute Brazilian gal at the hotel desk, we grabbed a quick dinner at a local Asian restaurant called Xi'an Street Food.
The Latin Quarter is the historic, cultural and entertainment center of Galway. It is named that because they used to trade with Latin-speaking countries of the Mediterranean like Spain and Portugal.
The next morning, we enjoyed a breakfast at the hotel and saw some cute colorful buildings on the way to the parking garage before beginning our journey to Northern Ireland that day.
As we drove through County Galway, Jared tried playing the penny-whistle a little. In this 20-second video, I make a face like, "This has 'long road trip' written all over it!" He actually did pretty well.
Our first stop was at Ashford Castle. I forgot that it was a private establishment, however, so we got turned away by a guard at the front gate. Then we resumed our original plan of stopping at the nearby Cong Village at the ruins of Cong Abbey, which were pretty cool on their own.
Cong Abbey was settled by monks in the 7th century by Saint Feichin. It was destroyed by fire in the 1100s, rebuilt as an Augustinian priory by Turlough O'Connor (High King of Ireland), and then inhabited by his son, Rory O'Connor—the last High King of Ireland—during the last 15 years of his life. After attacks by Anglo-Norman warlord William de Burgh in the early 1200s, it was rebuilt in its present style.
Like other ruined churches we saw, it was shut down by King Henry VIII in 1542 and eventually fell into ruin.
In 1855, Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness (the brewing tycoon famous for Guinness beer) bought the nearby Ashford Castle estate and did some major restoration work to preserve the Abbey ruins.
We heard that you could walk through the woods nearby to get a good look at the castle from afar.
So we crossed the cute bridge to head into the woods.
There was a stone building by the bridge called the "Monk's Fishing House". It has a hole in the bottom of the building that allowed monks to sit inside by the stone fireplace and catch trout and salmon as the water flowed below.
From the bridge, we caught a little glimpse of Ashford Castle, which was originally built in 1228 but has since become a luxury hotel.
We walked down a forest path to see if we could catch a better look at the castle. But we were very surprised to find a well-dressed guy sitting on a chair in the middle of the forest. His job was to keep people from entering the estate grounds from that direction, so we turned around and headed back.
Linette thought this tree was cool. I think that she's cool.
Our next stop was Kylemore Abbey. It was originally built as a private estate from 1867-1871. It is a beautiful 40,000-square-foot Victorian castle built by Mitchell Henry for his wife, Margaret. He was a wealthy London doctor, politician and textile heir. The couple fell in love with the beautiful landscape during their honeymoon there in 1850 and built the castle a few years later.
We thought it looked like "Pemberley" from Pride & Prejudice.
In this 10-second video, you can hear the bells ring over the landscape.
Things were pretty fancy inside.
There was a mirror with a ghost who occasionally walked by, as you can see in this 25-second video:
They had furniture from the appropriate era.
Tragically, just three years after the castle was complete, Margaret died of dysentery when the couple visited Egypt in 1874. She was only 45 years old.
Mitchell built a beautiful Neo-Gothic Church on the grounds in her honor, and they are both buried together in a small mausoleum on the estate near the church.
The castle passed into the hands of an investor who couldn't find a buyer at the 150,000 pounds he was asking, and it was costing him 40,000 pounds per year in maintenance, so he sold it to some Benedictine nuns in 1920 for 50,000 pounds when they made the offer. They had fled their monastery in Ypres, Belgium after it was destroyed during World War I. They converted the castle into an abbey and operated an international Catholic boarding school for girls, which operated until 2010.
We took a shuttle to the gardens of the estate, and enjoyed lunch at the little cafe there.
Walking through the gate to the garden seemed like entering a secret passageway to a hidden world.
The gardens were beautiful!
Linette and I had fun talking to a gardener there who was quite a character.
As we walked away, we heard him singing away as he worked.
There were a few buildings within the garden area that had old furniture in them. This desk reminded me of the secretary desk my parents inherited from my grandfather, C.B. Wilson.
Some greenhouses along one side of the garden allow them to grow tropical fruits year-round.
There was a "pig talk" on the schedule, so after visiting the garden, Linette said, "I want to go hear the 'pig talk.'"
I asked, as though wary, "...and what do you expect the pig to...say...?"
The lady told us about how the pig eats non-stop but especially likes the lettuce they bring it. And if you are interested in seeing this pig eating lettuce and grass, here's a 30-second video:
We could see one of the nuns making chocolate in the Chocolate Kitchen.
Here is a view of Kylemore Abbey from the street on the other side of the lake. What a fantastic place!
We stopped briefly at Aasleagh falls (pronounced "ASH-lah") on the Erriff River as we continued on our way. It empties into Killary Harbor, which is Ireland's only glacial fjord. Sometimes people see salmon leaping up through the rushing water to reach their upstream spawning areas.
The Great Famine devastated Ireland between 1845 and 1852, when a blight destroyed the potato crop, which was the main source of food for over half the population. It was compounded by the policies of the British government, which continued to export grain and other food out of the country and shut down soup kitchens and other means of relief.
In the spring of 1849, starving people in the Louisburgh region were receiving government food rations under the Poor Law. But officials suspended the relief and told them to present themselves at Delphi Lodge, which was 12 miles away, at 7am the following morning if they wished to continue receiving food.
Hundreds of men, women and children walked through the freezing night in rain, wind and sleet to reach Delphi Lodge. When they arrived, the Poor Law guardians were eating lunch and told them to wait. When they came out, they refused the request for aid and sent the people away empty-handed. As the starving people hiked 12 miles home along the shores of Doo Lough ("Black Lake"), a sudden freezing blizzard hit the valley. Dozens and perhaps over 100 people died along the roadside.
There are now a couple of markers there to remember the "Hungry Poor who walked here in 1849 and walk the Third World today." That last part is a call to action to help the hungry of the world in our day. (For example, you can donate to the UN's World Food Programme)
As we continued on our way, we passed by Benbulbin, a dramatic peak that was carved by glaciers during the last ice age. ("Ben"=peak or cliff; Bulbin comes from Ghulbain, which means "beak" or "jaw", so it's a "beak-shaped peak").
Our last stop that day was at the Fairy Bridges, which consist of a couple of natural arches by the ocean and slow blowholes. Local legend say that this is the domain of the Daoine Maithe (the "Good People" or fairies) and you should avoid disturbing the rocks or going at night, or you might get scared off by wind or spray from the blowholes, which were "portals to the underworld."
There is also a natural throne there called "The Wishing Chair", where you sit, clear your mind, make a silent wish, put both hands on the arms, and tap the stone seat twice with your heels before standing up. And then what you wished for might happen.
Here are Jared and Katelyn on the bridge.
Here is Linette on the other little bridge there.
There was a guy surfing out in the waves. I saw him get up a couple of times, and talked with him later at the parking lot. He said it wasn't too cold if you had a wetsuit.
The sun started to set, but we needed some dinner. So we drove to the nearby KFC and came back and ate while we watched the sun go down.
We had originally planned to go to some other cliffs for the sunset, but decided to drop that from our itinerary so that we wouldn't be arriving at our AirBnB at 1am. So after we ate, we drove straight there.
We didn't really notice when we crossed into Northern Ireland, except that the speed limit signs were in miles per hour instead of kilometers per hour. (Our car only had kph, so we had to do a bit of math to know how fast we were supposed to go).
If you are confused about how the geography works, here is a summary:
The following diagram illustrates this, but it took several tries to convince an AI to draw it correctly, because apparently it was confused as well.
At one point, we arrived at a roadblock, and the police told us that there was a parade on the road ahead, so we would have to go around on narrow, sketchy country roads. It was actually kind of fun! In fact, it was so fun that we sang "Country Roads" as we drove along, as shown in this 30-second video:
I saw from Sharon's BeReals that Erika & Kyle were having fun at Sharon & Roger's house. We had agreed to let a family stay at our house as a Home Exchange while we were in Ireland before we knew that Erika & Kyle would be staying there as they waited to move into their new house. Since we already had a deal, Erika & Kyle were kind enough to clear out for a few days, and the guest had no problem with a bit of extra stuff in the basement.
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| Screenshot |
We arrived at our AirBnB and it was a cute cottage. We enjoyed the warm electric fireplace, as it was a bit chilly out.
In the next episode, we explore the northern coast of Northern Ireland and spend a day in Belfast, before finally returning home.