Ireland, continued

Continuing from yesterday's blog about my travels and life in Ireland, here are a couple of pictures of the house I lived in for my final year in the country. From my upstairs bedroom I could see Ballydonegan Bay and further out to the Atlantic. The second picture was taken of the front; the two story portion was my house, and the one story addition contained a workshop with lots of tools and machinery, plus a barn-like space for the cows during the terrible gales that blew all winter. It's kind of interesting having cows living in a sort of duplex with me, but they were nice neighbors. I didn't notice a barnyard smell at any rate.



Looking at the next two pictures, I think I posted the first one yesterday: the Square in Castletownbere looking in one direction, and the next picture shows the opposite direction, and was taken during one of Jeannie's visits.



The next is a road sign, always written in English and in Irish. The next two were taken in the neighboring village of Eyeries, which is a very colorful place.




Here is one of the arches carved by the sea that I spoke of in yesterday's blog:


Donald, Jeannie, and Ara visited me and we took some photos at Dunboy Castle, just outside Castletownbere. The first is of Jeanne and Ara in front of the Castle; the next is a tricky photo of the four of us taken inside the ruins, and the next is Ara and me playing around the ruins.




We visited a stone circle just outside Castletownbere, of which pictures can't do justice. It is an overwhelming feeling to be inside the standing stones.


I will end up with a couple of pub shots. Jeannie and Ara came to visit, and of course you have to visit the pub to see and be seen, but they had traveled approximately 14 hours from Sacramento to Ireland and they had jet lag. While we were enjoying ourselves, someone noticed that Ara had just laid her head on the bar and fell asleep. So of course we had to set a pint in front of her and take another picture. This might have gotten us in trouble in the U.S., but the atmosphere is just different in rural Ireland.