wedding/rain in ireland, 2006

It rained in Ireland recently. We know because we happened to show up on the day it started, and it rained for most of the time we were there. Then it stopped shortly after we left, and the normal idyllic and balmy Irish weather resumed.

I'm kidding. Actually it rains quite a lot in Ireland, and not just when we happen to be there. According to the Irish Meteorological Service, the east gets between 750 and 1000 millimetres (mm) per year and the west gets between 1000 and 1250 mm per year. (You can do the math to convert those to Imperial measurements on your own time, Mr. Smarty Pants - we hear it involves subtracting 32 and then multiplying.)

We could have told you it rains more in the west without looking it up, because that was where we were the most cold and wet. In the east, where we attended a wedding near the town of Castledermot, we found things to be a bit sunnier and drier.

I just noticed something: Having been in the British Isles for over two years of my adult life, I seem have picked up the habit of discussing the weather a bit more than is really necessary. Sorry about that - I don't mean to bore you by droning on about the rain and sun, and the sudden drops in temperature during which it becomes 10° Celcius in the middle of May, even though it was nearly 20° a couple hours ago, and the likelihood of showers during the weekend, and the probability that the Bank Holiday will be rained out, and how the weather differs in different regions. I promise that the rest of this introduction will not be about the weather.

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Hmmm .... what shall we talk about? Ah yes ...

This is a half pint of Guinness. This was the best Guinness I've had in a long time. And no surprise: it happens to be in the Guinness Brewery in Dublin.

Andrea with same. This is in the rooftop bar of Guinness Brewery in Dublin, a new addition since the last time I was in town. With spectacular views it's one of two things that make the tour worthwhile. The other being the Guinness. Actually the tour isn't terribly interesting and this isn't even the actual brewery, but rather a store house located in the same area around St. James's Gate. But the important thing is that they serve Guinness.

And I enjoy another one. There is something different about the Guinness in Ireland - it's somehow perfect. In England and America I've more or less given up drinking it, as I'm more interested in real ales and continental beers. But wow. There's really nothing else I'd rather drink in Ireland.

The view out toward St Patrick's Tower (with the green turret). Each window had a Dublin-related quote, many by James Joyce.

Not a bad shot of us at the gate, really, coinsidering I used the timer on my camera and propped it with a backpack.

Kilkea Castle, not far from Castledermot. This is actually a hotel, and our friend Dawn's mother works there. Dawn and her husband Chris were married there on May 18th.

We spent the wedding morning in County Wicklow. This is Andrea and our friend Janis Breeze on a hill by the seaside. Janis used to work with me at McLean Hospital, and was interested in visiting Wicklow because some of her family came from there. It was really a very beautiful part of the country; time consuming to drive around, but the hilly scenery was occasionally rendered brilliant green in the sun.

Another view of the same seaside hill in County Wicklow.

Andrea and Janis with the car we rented while in Ireland ...

... and the same car from the inside. I had thought that the right-drive car would be a major challenge, or perhaps that the left-drive road would confuse me. In fact I had no problem driving on the left, and the real challenge was navigating along these narrow country roads. The signage on Ireland's roads is either nonexistent or ambiguous, and leads to frequent fits of frustrated backtracking. It reminded me of Boston. And in fact, since poorly-signed Boston is regarded as a very Irish city, driving there suddenly makes a lot more sense.

Further along the road to the town of Wicklow we stopped to enjoy the view of the hills and the Irish Sea.

You can only barely them here, but just off the coast to the south is a wind farm. Just to the left of the rising hills you can see faint vertical lines rising above the horizon, which were much more clear in person.

We took a wrong turn and stopped to check our map, and came across these Horses near the N11 I took photos as much because I liked the view of the hills in the background.

Janis got along with the horses.

We reached the town of Wicklow a short time later, and parked. Car looks like it's in the spot, right? Because I got a ticket, a flimsy thing folded and stuffed under the windshield wiper that I first thought was an ad for something. It had three options to check for what "offence" I had committed, and none were checked. It also did not specify how much money I owed, but suggested someone would be contacting me about it. Altogether a very poorly done ticket.

A pub in Wicklow. This pub happens to be where Captain Robert Charles Halpin grew up. Halpin was the captain of the Great Eastern, the ship that laid one of the first transatlantic cables in the 1866. Great Eastern was the largest ship in the world at the time (and designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who built the world's first tunnel under a river in London as well as a number of other engineering marvels). There were a number of photos inside depicting this this pub in the ninteenth century, including one of an elephant walking down this very street.

I mentioned that the Guinness at the brewery was one of the best I've ever had. This was also one of the best I've ever had.

So was the one I'm holding at the castle. Yes, they had Guinness in champagne glasses (better than wasting them on champagne, in my mind).

They also had a piper.

Dawn and her mum arrive. (You've hopefully guessed that the photo of me with the Guinness was out of sequence - I wasn't drinking before the wedding.)

Dawn and Chris.

This was in the dining hall of the castle (rain prevented the any of the ceremony from happening outside).

The piper in the reception immediately following the ceremony.

And the cutting of the cake.

I snapped a few (well, a dozen) photos of Kilkea Castle at night.

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This is some of the best whisky I've ever tried - Middleton, which the bartender recommended. Justin, a former McLeaner from the hospital's Brain Imaging Center who now works at MIT, is a connoisseur of fine scotch whiskeys, so this was an interesting academic exercise.

The next morning we navigated more of Ireland's perplexing roads and saw some of the most beautiful green country anywhere. Look very carefully at this picture ... the mountain goat is hiding. If I'd had my camera ready we'd have been able to get some clearer photos of him, or the half dozen others we encountered in this little nook of the Slieve Bloom Mountains.

After a few hours we reached the coast in County Clare. Here Andrea is walking around Dunguaire Castle near the very cute town of Kinvara.

We hiked around the castle to admire the views of the rocky bay. Andrea was not wearing The Right Shoes™.

A view from the front of Dunguaire Castle. The tiny town across the bay to the left is Kinvara.

From Kinvara we headed down into County Clare to find an area called The Burren. It's an area of scenic beauty, and in Boston we regularly visted a pub named after it. In the pub there is a large painting of a large paleolithic rock tomb amid a distinctive rocky plain. This is the Poulnabrone dolmen, and we were determined to find it. We were also determined to go from there to the Cliffs of Moher, but driving took a lot longer than we had expected and The Burren was the last real thing we did that day. Here you can see the rock-covered hills of The Burren.

And here is a view from the hills toward Galway Bay. It was really stunningly beautiful, and this wrong turn was worth making for the view. Despite the bad signage we had no trouble finding The Burren, but that is only because it is a huge area of County Clare. The Poulnabrone dolmen specifically was a bit harder to find ...

... and we didn't find it until after we hit a rock and got a flat tire. At least we assume it was a rock, since there were plenty of them around. As soon as we parked the car it started to rain, so we changed the tire in the rain. To demonstrate the timing of it all, look closely above the car and you'll see, almost directly above our flat tire, and just in front of a distant shed, the rock sculpture we were looking for. So close and yet so far!

After changing the flat we walked up to the Poulnabrone dolmen.

This is what the ground looked like in the immediate area around the dolmen.

Andrea inspects an upright rock in front of the Poulnabrone dolmen. (Enlarge this photo to see an inset of the painting in The Burren pub in Somerville, MA.)

Because we were wet and dirty after changing the tire in the rain I insisted on taking a lot of photos here, including a couple of ourselves with the dolmen.

A last view of the Poulnabrone dolmen. This was actually a burial chamber thousands of years ago (predating Stonehenge), and contained some thirty people.

This is back in Kinvara, County Clare. We passed through a second time as we drove north to Galway. A pretty town.

Of course you are advised to be careful while driving there.

Across the bay from Kinvara we had a great view of Dunguaire Castle again.

The next morning we awoke in Galway. This is a crowded market street where we had a fantastic Parisian-style crepe.

A house on Nun's Island in Galway.

A peaceful stretch of the River Corrib. Most of this river is actually very fast flowing, despite its appearance here.

The mouth of the river at the harbor. This is a rather famous row of buildings.

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I've never seen so many swans in one place. In some areas there were at least a hundred of them, though this photo contains just one of the buggers.

Galway Bay. Absolutely beautiful, with rolling green hills in the distance. When the sun is out (and it occasionally is) the water is a Carribean blue.

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The lighthouse on Galway Bay.

Here are those buildings again.

And again.

Galway was a very busy, if touristy, city.

St Nicholas Church is one of the oldest in Galway, and actually dates to medieval times. There are very few buildings of this period left.

At the O'Brien Bridge you can sort of see how fast the over River Corrib flows. It had white caps, and looked suspiciously like it would sweep you away if you got too close.

Another street in Galway.

The official traditional Irish Celtic font appeared everywhere in the country, so it's not just a St. Patrick's Day gimmick after all. Here it appears on a plate on the footpath.

Lynch's Castle on Shop Street is another of the few medieval buildings remaining, and has some unusual sculptures on it, including the Serious Moustache Dude. The building is now a bank.

There's also the Browne Doorway in Eyre Square, which was the front of a merchant's shop. The rest of this square was recently renovated at a controversial cost of serveral million euros.

Our last attempt to do something in Ireland was a backtrack to the Cliffs of Moher. Here is Andrea looking cold.

Usually I look through my photos after a trip and find that they don't compare with the experience of being on the spot where I took them. The photos are rarely as beautiful as the place; but in this case I'd have to say that viewing this photo is way better than actually being at the Cliffs of Moher, at least on the day we visited. The rain was really cold and nasty, and we could barely pay attention to the view.

Another shot of the magnificent view that is really better from the safe viewing distance of this website. You can barely see the rain, but it rained all day and the weather made for a fairly miserable drive.

Andrea's billowing "rain bag" says it all. Did I mention it was really windy and rainy? We bought this rain bag at a leaky gift shop nearby (I'm not making that up - the building was not ancient but was rendered leaky by the heavy, unending rain). The shop marketed the €2.50 bag as "reusable." Lesson: bring rain gear to Ireland. You will enjoy it, if you are prepared to be wet.