I am a big fan of the Irish breakfast but a constant practice of this activity followed by any size lunch within 5-6 hours is not a good idea unless one is engaged in massive activity; bear wrestling, sheep shearing, bulldogging, marathon running, or rowing a boat from Galway to Innis Mor come to mind.
Shortly after breakfast we drove SW to the Rathbauren Farm. Along the drive I was reminded of a couple more differences between Ireland and America; house construction seems to be mainly cinder block. Roofs are slate or stone covered wood and the cinder blocks are covered by a variety of materials. Also, a large percentage of houses, attached and detached, have drives in front of the houses. Rarely is the driveway aside the house or leading to a garage. It is not unusual to see a house circumnavigated by a drive.
The farm had a number of structures the oldest of which is a 250 year old thatched roof house that the current owner was born in,
We were initially ushered into the dining room of an attached structure which also contained a kitchen. We stood around the five tables in the room
and donned hair nets, plastic aprons, rubber gloves and for the next 30 minutes we mixed hand cut out scones.
Our helpers put the scones in the ovens while we went outside for sheep farming class, lambing, how to sheer a sheep, why wool isn't a great commodity, the use of a boarder collie (the only dog ever used), the price of meat, while small farmers (40-60 acres) don't do very well. Then we ate our hot scones with butter, rhubarb jam, whipped fresh cream, and had tea.
Then a drive across/through The Burren brought us to Kilfenora and the Burren Center and information about the geographical history of the Burren and the general area.
Driving from there SW we passed fields checker squared with rock fences and landscapes housing half castles surrounded by fields where cattle, horses, sheep and the occasional burro were grazing. We were headed for The Cliffs of Mohr.
The cliffs were the same as when we were last here but the surrounding area was quite different with a huge visitor center cut into a hill, new paths with stairs, a created wall that could be viewed over but not climbed over easily without being obvious and probably yanked down; a whole new section for visitor viewing had been opened. Today the wind was really serious, close to gale force actually and walking up the hill to the castle one risked serious wind burning.
From the cliffs, Mick drove SE to Limerick and another free evening for Joan and me luxuriously dining and overlooking the Shannon.
Shaun and Joan McMahon
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