The National Stud, Kildangan Stud Tour, and the Cliffs of Moher

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Rebekah Pierce here.....By now we all are aware that the Irish are extremely nice people but we never thought that a single Irish tour bus driver would make us all fall in love with Ireland even more. Paul was our bus driver for the day and he was a storyteller for the books. Teaching all of us more than we could have ever learned on our own and not only teaching us but also intriguing us with the heritage of this beautiful place. When we got on the bus we asked Paul if he liked horses his response was positive saying that it is the Celtic Irish belief that the spirits of their greatest ancestors live on in the Nobel horse. Before we started our trek to Galway from Dublin we were told that over the next 2 days were would be fitting in what it takes most travelers 4 days. With that our first stop of the day was at Kildangan Stud for a tour of the grounds. Kildangan was a very classy and upscale facility that was an enjoyable place to visit and see the beautiful landscaping and houses, but I believe that the high light of that visit for most was the opportunity to see the mares with their new foals and enjoy the simple and classic beauty of mother and child. It also could have been the ability to take a picture with a stud whose fee is over 65,000 Euro. The farm was a refurbished old farm where all these amazingly muscled athlete horses keep their tradition of winning through the generations. They showed us their horse manure compost piles where they keep a machine to "stir" the compost piles. They then used this compost to regrow hay for the horses. We continued our travels to the National Stud and Japanese Gardens, where were tour the grounds and learned about a different way of maintaining a profitable stud business in Ireland. The people running the National stud showed their love for these horses by keeping a top winning horses name on the stall he was born in and the list of races he won. They were defiantly different ways of management but it would depend on preferences as to which one you preferred. I personally enjoyed Kildangan believing it to be classier and a very beautiful place to visit. Despite the already eventful day, I believe the moment of the day and that many finally realized we were in Ireland was when we were standing at the top of the Cliffs of Moher looking out and seeing a sight so beautiful that it could easily take ones breath away. The beautiful cliffs can be captured in pictures but until you are standing there seeing it with your own eyes and feeling the crisp fresh air blow throw your hair and into your lungs you haven’t truly experienced the beauty of Ireland.

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