Our Emerald Isle Adventure

We are still in the lush haze of Ireland, the memories of our trip an utterly delectable collection that just won't sink below the surface...

It's been a long time since I ventured there...I've been 3x in the past 20 years (once with my folks, once as a student traveller and once with my hubby) but never with kids in tow. I must confess I am more in love with the country, its lifestyle, its beauty and its history more than ever...

The west coast of Ireland is thought by many to be among among the most beautiful places on the planet; it tops charts for scenery, its welcoming culture and the whimsy and magic of its own old stories. There, people live simply finding most of what they need locally, they laugh loudly, play their music together spontaneously and yet, they sing their own songs...

The Irish people's well-deserved reputation for wit and hospitality make it irresistibly charming despite vast stretches of wind swept meadow and rock, it is utterly navigable with never a wrong turn -- though 2-way roads often span just 10 feet and are flanked by hedgerows of blooming fuchsia, thousand year old rock walls and yes, they're clogged with sheep (that's not just in the movies...)The west is completely fresh and serenely energetic in its role as an agricultural land, though it is drenched so deep in history it plays host to Europe's oldest stone structure at Carrowmore. (If you go to the west of Ireland you can run through innumerable stone circles, and climb the plentiful ring forts -- some of these ruins and remnants or long-forgotten people pre-date the pyramids I climbed at Giza by thousands of years.)

Here are some of my fave pics from our adventure...like the postcards you've seen, or the peeks at the famous landscape in some film, they cannot possibly capture the magic; you simply need to go and experience it for yourself.














I am sure we will all go back soon..and many times again. Charlotte wants to move into a thatched cottage and write and draw for days on end, Aidan made a friend from Meath he wants to visit and he cannot wait to surf at Lahinch, Rory wants to go back to FortField farm and feed the baby calf and find more wild donkeys, Micah wants to climb more rocks and find more stone circles, I want to go back to the Clare Jam Shop and the Burren Perfumery because the goodies we brought home (just about everything there is handmade, organic and artful) have already been gobbled and used up in the 3 weeks we are back.

...and perhaps more than all of these wants put together, we need to go back and take another meandering tour in some direction just see what we find; because it's Ireland, we're all pretty sure it will be wonderful.

xxoo Jen
Earth Angels