Who is Cliff Moher?

The morning of our second day in Eire, we woke up bright and early, our zombie-like state from the previous days lack of sleep pretty much erased by a good eight to ten hours in a comfortable bed. The Strand Hotel put on a nice buffet breakfast the price of which was included with our room, so we set out well fortified for the day's wanderings.

Our first stop was to be the fabled Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. They are located to the east of Limerick City. With a firm grip on the wheel, the help of the Bitch in the Box, and a lot of luck, we made it across the country roads of Western Ireland to the famous cliffs. They were spectacular. I won't even try to describe them; I'll let the pictures we took do it better.

A view looking southwest. The next stop from here is America.

O'Brien's Tower - a nineteenth century observation tower. The cliffs reach their maximum height of 702 feet above the ocean just north of here.


The cliffs just below O'Brien's Tower with the Atlantic breaking at their base.


Abe had me pose for this; Michelle swore she didn't pay him to get rid of me.

In case one did not get the point, these grim cartoons were all over the place.

Finally, we saw this sign near the edge - the Irish suicide hotline. This sign tended to turn up in places where people might jump - by rivers, cliffs etc.

There was a visitors center at the site with the usual interpretive center, lunchroom, t-shirt shops etc. The non-usual part of the center was the fact that it was mostly underground, set into the grass-covered rolling hills which lead up to the cliffs. This design minimizes the visual and ecological impact of the center and impressed me as very smart planning.

A portion of the visitor's center - it was all set into the hillside like this.

Anyway, the cliffs are one of Ireland's top tourist destinations and are listed in Roz's book of 1,000 places to see before you die. Of course, if you ignore the signs and get too close to the crumbly edge, you just might see the cliffs and die. Oh well.

Our next adventure of the day took us through a region in Western Clare called The Burren. In green and grassy Ireland, this is a region literally covered in grey stone. Once again, I'll let the pictures tell the story.

The stark, stony landscape of the Burren

A sign explains the geology of the region

The "limestone pavement" described in the sign above

The Burren was a stark, interesting landscape and a marked contrast from the usual lush green countryside of Ireland. Since the area consisted of stone, more stone, and not much beside stone, guess what was the favorite building material of the locals from prehistoric times onward? Yup, stone.

We saw evidence of this when we stopped at the Caherconnell stone ring fort in the middle of the Burren region. This was a dry stone circular wall with auxiliary walls and cattle pens which protected a local noble family and their livestock from around 400 AD until the end of the middle ages. In ancient Ireland, one's wealth and power were measured by the number of cattle and sheep one owned. Thus protection of the animal herds was nearly as important as protecting the people.

A portion of the main wall of the ring fort.

Some of the local "wealth" on the hoof.

To this day, cattle and sheep appear to be important to the local economy (even in modern high-tech Ireland). Nearly every available field seemed to support a herd of sheep or dairy/beef cattle.

Dry stone wall near the ring fort - note how the flat stones are laid vertically

It started raining pretty heavily while we were at the fort, so we beat a hasty retreat to our car and continued our trip through the Burren. Along the way we passed a prehistoric passage grave known as the Poulnabrone Dolmen. We did not want to stop in the rain so we just took a passing photo.

The Poulnabrone Dolmen circa 2000 BC

A ruined church in a small town in the Burren region. I thought it was interesting how they built a glass roof over the ruin to protect it from further deterioration.

After the Burren, our next stop was the university town of Galway and the famous Galway Bay. I was going to talk about Galway and our medieval banquet at Bunratty Castle in this post, but I think this one has been long-winded enough. So until next time. Slainte!