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Hmmm
Does this mean you can walk on the water here? Ireland is a country that revels in its history. Traditional music is everywhere, houses that don't fit the style of the past are rare and events such as a battle between a king of another country and his father-in-law that happened in the 1600s are celebrated with fervour in some quarters. Lough Gur is a place where you can be nice and close to really old Irish history.
Lough Gur is the site of one of the earliest known settlements on the island of Ireland 6,000 years ago. There is physical evidence of occupation from the Neolithic time, through the Bronze Age, Iron Age, Early Christian and Medieval to today. The site allows archaeologists, historians and the rest of us ordinary mortals the opportunity to see and hear about how our forebears have gone about addressing some of the fundamental challenges of life and development through the ages.
The site itself is beautiful – it is in Ireland after all – and the stories of the magic of Lough Gur add some extra colour. There are myths and legends about underwater palaces, fairies, witches, a dead knight who gallops his horse shod with silver around the lake on an
For Lucy & Aidan
Some of the houses in the Lough Gur Fairy Village appointed day and who is doomed to do so until those silver shoes wear out. He has been doing this for a couple of hundred years at least. Clearly, was dudded by the blacksmith.
The star turn for us though was Brian, the bloke on duty the day we visited, who walked us through the relatively small museum of artifacts and delivered an hour and half exposition on the history of this part of Ireland over the last 4,500 years. I will say that he spoke pretty quickly. I was picking up about every third word early on but, as he progressed and warmed more to his subject, I was picking up a lot more. Travelling around you hear a lot of guides and most of them are pretty good. This bloke wasn't a guide. He was an archaeologist who was very knowledgeable about the area and who had a firm grasp on what he considered to be right and wrong.
We had a great time there. It seems now that those red headed Irish – whom I might have seen as 'typical' - are probably the result of the forays of the Scandinavians, particularly the Danes, into
Checking it out
Lime kiln Lough Gur this part of the world. The original people here probably came from Brittany or even a little further south, floating up on the currents on coracles or similar. These were the Celts or their precursors. Later more Celts came and they were also darker then some other later Europeans.
If you do go there, the Vistors Center and the area surrounding it, along with the archaeological sites nearby, are the first port of call. It is a good place to wander around but it isn't a theme park so there are no spectacular displays. Your imagination will be handy. The sites that you need to drive to are worth looking at and, if you visit no other you should get yourself to the Grange Lios Stone Circle – after you have talked to the people at the Visitor Center about what it may be about.
Lough Gur isn't far from Limerick, which isn't far from Ballina. There are a lot of places in Limerick to interest visitors but let me just say it is a confusing city to drive around and through. Probably no better or worse than any other Irish city but after spending a nice time
wandering about archaeological ruins I wasn't in the mood for traffic and roads and such. Getting out was a lot more difficult than getting in and that will do for Limerick.
It was in Limerick that we came to an intersection of 4 or 5 roads – Limerick has a lot of such intersections – where we spotted on one of the roads coming in a cart pulled by a couple of rather healthy looking draught horses, driven by a man with a beard longer than mine – but not whiter – with feed bags and a couple of children in the back. We thought for a moment that it was part of some display or tourist thing. No, it was just a man taking his family to the shops using his favourite method of transport. I should note that he was moving every bit as fast as the cars.
And while we are on beards, this was the day where I noticed a little girl standing staring at me. She went away but came back a couple of times. Eventually, she came back with her father who explained that she wanted to ask me a question. Very
End of the road according to Garmin
Satellites are pretty good these days softly, but bravely, she asked if I was Santa Claus. I had to say no but I'm not sure she was convinced. There aren't that many old men with beards around here.
And, continuing with old men, we found a session that night (or one later) where two old men – to be absolutely honest one was old and the other not so old – played flutes. They had a guitarist and a fiddler to accompany them who were both good musicians but it was the two flautists who were very much in charge. This session was in another pub, this time in Ballina (the one in Co. Tipperary) called Liam O'Riainns run by a man named Harry.
This time there were almost all locals. When we arrived it was a younger crowd and some of them stayed on but, as the night went on a squad of old men turned up, all clearly well known to each other, and proceeded to consume pints at a rate that would have had me dribbling in no time at all.
We wondered whether they were on a curfew or whether there is a TV show that they all just
A lot to take in
Especially when the after-school traffic is in a hurry all around you. can't stand that comes on at that time of night. They were certainly well practised in their activity and completely ignored the music. Difficult in a bar the size of a small lounge room.
We are becoming used to driving on skinny roads and we rarely notice now when the growth at the side of the road brushes against the car. Walking along such roads is a different matter. We decided one day that we needed a decent walk. There is a walk in this area called the Lough Derg Way; 67 kilometres if I remember correctly. A bit more than decent. But we thought we could handle maybe a part of it.
A lot of this walk is more mountainous than we were looking for so I found a part that seemed reasonably flat. We headed out through Killaloe and along the road, found that we needed to take a smaller road which became even smaller, then bushy – but still with cars doing 80 kph. Gave that a miss.
We were disappointed that there wasn't a walking trail around the shores of the Lough. It seems that the land along the Lough is all private
and access for walkers isn't possible. The Lough Derg Way does run along relatively flat land once you make it to the canals along the Shannon on the way into Limerick. That part is only 23 kilometres but my powers of persuasion were insufficient to win that discussion – and probably just as well.
We did get a bit of exercise walking in and out to the various pubs and other things in the villages. Three and a bit kms with more than enough of it along a road without verges for much of the way and with rock walls and prickly hedges abutting the roadway. During the day drivers doing the requisite 80 kph are pretty good at spotting walkers – especially the ones who wave and fling their arms about. Drivers here will normally give walkers and cyclists plenty of room and don't pass unless there is room to do so.
At night it is a little more interesting but we had high vis vests – thanks again to Mary at the Air BnB – a red flashing headlight on the back of one head and a white light on the front of the other so
we weren't run down. Probably only drunks at that time of night and we all know they can't hit a target.
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Sarah
non-member comment
Swans!
Yay!