Crazy Ranger, The Burren, the Well of Sorrows, the Fairies, the Cliffs of Insanity and Leprechauns! All in ONE day!

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Ireland day 3

Leamena castle (spelt leamach), the home of the dreaded Moira Rooah. Perhaps the person responsible for making Irish people supersticious about red haired people. She was a red haired woman who's husband died and she went into the local pub in town to get a new husband, took himuostairs to see the view from her castle and he had an unfortnate (or fortunate) accident within a week of being married and fell out the window to his death on the rocks below. Not dettered, Moira headed back into town for another husband, this one accidently slit his own throat while shaving....pattern developing? Perhaps a series of unfortunate events even? Haha Anyway Moira went through 20, yes 20 husbands in her time, not to mention the staff she had working for her which she hung out the castle windows by their hair if they made a mistake.... Not a nice ranger at all! Spooky place, even now 100's of years on.

We spent the day driving through the Burren, which means great rock, spelt Boirenn which is made of klints and grints from 350 million years ago, it is about 250 square kilometres of limestone. Amazing to see something so old and so vast.

This led us to Poulna Brone, the well of Sorrows. Archeologists still aren't sure what exactly it is but they found the remains of many many bones in the crevices outlying the main burial chamber which is in the centre. A whole human body minus the head was found in the centre. It is a very erie place. It is known by the Irish to be the lovebed of Dearnman and Groinya, two giants from a famous Irish fairytale...as Groinya ran away with a man she was not yet wed to and a witch put a spell on her that they could not love eachother on Irish soil....so they found the Poulna Brone which was above ground - found love, but then died in eachothers arms due to the powers of the Poulna Brone.

My favourite stop was the fairy fort, Carol is very supersticious and told us various stories of the horrible things that had happened to tourists who broke the rules of the fairy fort and destroyed their peace. Some raucus Aussie males had gone into the centre which is forbidden, later their bus broke down and they were delayed for 4 hours, another time someone broke the rules and the whole bus lost their photos of the next destination, they just disappeared! Mal later told me that this was all a grand tale of Craic, and none of it true. Anyway it was a beautiful and magical place and I loved it.

Talking of fairytales, fans of 'The Princess Bride' and 'Harry Potter and the half blood prince' will be impressed at my photos of the cliffs of Moher, known also as the cliffs of insanity or the entrance to the cave where Harry and Dumbledore travel by boat to get the Horcrux. Definately a highlight. Beautiful, wild, free and breathtaking, literally! The tower at the top was built by a bachelor to impress the ladies, but it didn't work, he remained single. He wanted the town to build him a bigger monument in rememberance, but he wasn't sure they would as he wasn't as amazing as he thought he was so just to make sure it was done properly, he had it built before he died. Haha If you want something done, do it yourself, definately effective anyway!

After lunch at the beach town of La Hinch, the home of the Knvarra hooker boats we stopped on our way to Galway at the Leprecan's house to make a wish. We had dinner at Buska Browns, where we finally told Carol that in true Australian fashion we had decided to re-name her as one of the girls kept calling her Coleen by accident and it stuck. This is beginning to be a trend when we meet a guide we like! Afterwards we headed out to the Kings Head for some traditional music and even traditional Irish dancing, done by some handsome Irishmen. Mal even stopped in for a drink with us, but refused to show us his tap dancing skills! A great night, more hot whisky, guiness and good times. (I tried guiness but I am not a fan....I will stick to hot whicky)

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