Toto, there is no place like home......

Doolin to the end.

Our journey to Doolin took a couple of detours. We stopped to have lunch and somehow, because we were in a hurry to get to the Burren left Kathy's chair and a gift behind at the pub. We got about 20 miles down the road, before it hit me that we had not loaded her chair! Finding a place to turn around is not as easy as it might seem in Ireland. Like England the roads are narrow and there are no shoulders, often the roads don't afford a good place to turn around either....but we did get back (faster than we had traveled the same road leaving, and found Kathy's chair AND the gift sitting waiting --- I had visions of it all being stolen, but GOD IS GOOD! All the time. When I walked in there it sat right where Kathy said she left it, completely undisturbed.

We drove up to the Burren not knowing what to expect. I imagine this would be a geologists or botanists or even a paleontologists dream vacation. The rock simply protrudes from the earth and between stones there are small plants growing. Scrubby plants that must be quite determined live here. We turned of the secondary road onto the Burren Way - a road that really looks more like a bike path or a place for walkers. Our car was initially followed by a car filled with teenage boys. I pulled over to let them pass, but they stopped. Then when I pulled onto the path again, they started driving as well. It was really the only apprehensive moment I had during the whole of the trip. Eventually, though they took a different path and we were left utterly alone on this barren landscape. On one side you could look down to the sea and on the other rose up the huge mound of stone! It was shaped by glaciers so it had not a sign of craggy outcropping, and the color was a pale color looking very much like sand from the distance. Scotland and Ireland both seemed countries shaped by turbulent pasts both geologically and in terms of human conflict as well.

Several times we met others coming from the opposite direction on the path. It was always a challenge to find a place where one of us could creep over enough to let the other pass. Some of these folk lived on the Burren, though it is a puzzle to me how someone could farm or ranch on top of the rock! Still there were homes along the way. You would have to be willing to live an isolated life out here, but then how different was that from living out on the plains of West Texas. We finally reached civilization again in mid afternoon and Kathy took the wheel for the rest of the drive in to Doolin. It was pleasant to look out the window for a change, and she was pretty confident that she was familiar enough with the area that she could find Doolin. There were plenty of ruins from the medieval times just off the roadway, old church yards as well as castles and keeps, and we arrived in Doolin around 4:30. We stayed at the Toomullin House just up from two of the village’s pubs, McGanns and McDermotts. We carried everything in and repacked, making careful account of all the gifts we were bringing home for U.S. Customs. Once that was done, around 7:00 or so we headed out.

We drove up to an old ruined church built probably around 1100 or so. The most interesting thing here was the churchyard. Not only was it all around the church but it was also inside the church. Not that people were buried in the floor of the church like the minsters or cathedrals, but there were actual graves with markers inside the church building. I asked one of the locals about this practice which seemed odd to me. He explained that the church had long since been a ruin and that the ground there was consecrated and therefore needed to be used. Interestingly people had been buried in that churchyard as recently as 2008! Some of these new markers look so completely out of place amongst those that are covered with likens and aged so that no trace of writing is left.

After we visited another ancient site we headed in for a pub. Our host suggested that we arrive at 7:30 in order to secure a place to sit and eat and then to listen to the music. We tried one pub, but found it already full so we headed on to McGann's. Pub is short for public house, so in Ireland and Britain these places are just that; the places where people gather. For my last night I had fish and chips with mash (that would be green peas). Kathy had the Irish stew which looked equally good. We sat on a bench on one side of the table and the people seated on the other side were complete strangers. This is another unusual ting that happens over here. If there are seats at your table, people feel free to sit and eat with you. A young German couple joined us. The woman was in her last year of preparing to teach at a hauptschule and her husband was in his first year in Industrial Psychology working with companies to help build team work. They are obviously very much in love and shared their dreams readily with us. We discussed many things, but these young people are obviously willing to work to make the world a better place. Among the things we shared were the shame the German people have felt collectively over World War II. We talked about how every country has things of equal shame. For us in the U.S. it is slavery perhaps. But we agreed that it was important to acknowledge guilt and to remind the world that the darkness of heart which brought about Hitler or slavery are within the realm of possibility for every nation. It was very affirming to share this moment with them.

The music began, but as the night wore on, the local people got louder and louder. A table behind us was playing cards and they especially were quite noisy. We decided to migrate to McDermott's. What was nicest about this for me was that they had a parking lot, and I didn't have to parallel part or park miles away! While we were in the first pub a storm had moved in and the rain had made a large puddle for Kathy to navigate as I pulled partially out onto the street from my crowning achievement (a parole parked car up against a stone wall without any scratches on the car!

McDermott's had a local group --- the girl on the fiddle was really quite good, the lad on the Irish drum also, but the guitarist was a bit weak....still they were quite enjoyable and for about 30 minutes all was well, but then the crowd that had been so loud at McGann's began arriving at McDermott's and it was the same story......so we headed out into the rain at around mid-night and crawled into bed. As Dickens would say, "I fell asleep upon the Instant."

The daylight spilling into the room awakened me at about 6:30, and we were up and out before anyone in the house was awake. The drive to Shannon was sunny and we met only a few cars for it was Sunday morning after all. I had passed a stone house---all caved in at least 3 times in the past 2 days....I remember the first time I saw it I thought it ironic--- for it has a big for sale sign with SOLD pasted over it. While I am sure it means the property was for sale --- it gives the impression that someone bought the stone ruin.....so I jumped out of the car and photographed it---

The airport in Shannon is smaller than Nashville -- very easy to navigate so we stopped for a bit of breakfast at the hotel just across the way where Kathy and Bunny stayed when they first arrived. Then sorted ourselves out as they say here, put our trash in the bin, went through security and caught our flight home. That is the way things ended -- In the morning we were driving around Western Ireland solitary in stunning sun and by nightfall we were back in Baltimore doing laundry....ah....but as it is said, "Toto, there's no place like home."