{"id":1998,"date":"2014-06-20T11:52:36","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T11:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bretandemily.com\/?p=1998"},"modified":"2014-09-09T18:54:16","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T18:54:16","slug":"catching-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bretandemily.com\/ireland\/?p=1998","title":{"rendered":"catching up…"},"content":{"rendered":"

May was definitely been a big month.\u00a0 I probably will never get caught up with writing about all the adventures. Lots of fun, friends, and traveling. Kim and Rocky’s arrival started the great adventure. They arrived the day before my 40th birthday on a rare beautiful day in Cork. We started off in style by visiting a couple of our favorite restaurants and pubs, and getting a new pub to add to the list<\/a>, Crane Lane.\u00a0 We got to see a couple of live, local bands in an awesome venue.<\/p>\n

Of course, that left us a bit tuckered for the actual big day.\u00a0 We got a leisurely start and made our way to Killarney, stopping for a lovely walk in Macroom.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2828\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We made it to Killarney just in time for cocktail hour.\u00a0 Here is Kim with her favorite kind of Irish beer, the half-pint of stout.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2837\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We spent the day taking in the town.\u00a0 We were not that impressed with the actual town of Killarney.\u00a0 It seems we came the same weekend as a bunch of race car enthusiasts, so neither the crowd nor the other tourists were all that interesting.\u00a0 We did find a sweet Italian restaurant at which to celebrate my bday.\u00a0 If you are really lucky, Bret might even some day show you a video of my post-dinner reenactment of my afternoon happy dance at finding a nice-looking Italian restaurant for dins.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2838\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The next day, we got to an early start for a hike through the gap of Dunloe.\u00a0 As Bret mentioned, the gap of Dunloe is a narrow pass between the Macgillycuddy Reeks and Purple Mountain-\u00a0 not that we were actually able to see either as it was a windy, pouring rain, low ceiling kind of day.\u00a0 The Gap of Dunloe is the Anglicization of the Irish name Dun Loich which means, “Loich’s stronghold.”\u00a0 Loich was the leader of the Fir Bolg who were some of the first permanent residents in ancient Ireland. The Fir Bolg, or ‘men of bags,’ are apparently descendents of another group which abandoned Ireland for the mainland and were enslaved by the Greeks and forced to carry bags of clay.\u00a0\u00a0 After 200+ years of enslavement, they later escaped Greece and went back to Ireland via Iberia.<\/p>\n

Anyhoo… it was a wet hike through the gap and perhaps and even wetter boat ride back to Killarney.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2860\"<\/a> \"IMG_2866\"<\/a> \"IMG_2868\"<\/a> \"IMG_2870\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We dried out on the car ride to Schull.\u00a0 Schull is a small town on the southern most peninsula in Ireland.\u00a0 That night we stayed at a really lovely B&B, the Grove house<\/a>.\u00a0 It turns out there is a film festival in Schull later in the summer, and the Grove house was expecting to have Dame Judi Dench as a guest!<\/p>\n

After a leisurely breakfast the next morning, we toured the peninsula and made it down to the southern-most point in Ireland, Mizen Head and found our own private beach to explore.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2881\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We then drove back to Cork city along a scenic route, which may have included a wrong turn that nearly led us to kill the rental car transmission.\u00a0 We did eventually find the Drombeg Stone Circle that we were looking for.\u00a0 The stone circle dates back 3000 years!\u00a0 It is a recumbent stone circle, which means it has a big rock laid horizontally flanked by two upright rocks.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2894\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There is also an ancient home site next to it.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2889\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We hit the road again the next day.\u00a0 Kim, Rocky, and I bussed up to Dublin for a quick visit with our cousin, PD, who just finished his freshman year at Trinity College Dublin.\u00a0 Then Kim and I had to bid farewell to Rocky and head off to ITALY for our sisters trip!!!!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May was definitely been a big month.\u00a0 I probably will never get caught up with writing about all the adventures. Lots of fun, friends, and traveling. Kim and Rocky’s arrival started the great adventure. They arrived the day before my 40th birthday on a rare beautiful day in Cork. We started off in style by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-killarney-and-schull"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bretandemily.com\/ireland\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bretandemily.com\/ireland\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bretandemily.com\/ireland\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bretandemily.com\/ireland\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bretandemily.com\/ireland\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1998"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bretandemily.com\/ireland\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2061,"href":"https:\/\/bretandemily.com\/ireland\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998\/revisions\/2061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bretandemily.com\/ireland\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bretandemily.com\/ireland\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bretandemily.com\/ireland\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}