The air was cool but pleasant; the wind was mild. We went to the Burren and the scary cliffs of Moher.
All around us as we drove, the long stone fields of Clare fell away to the ocean.
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At night, in Galway City, we keep seeing belligerent drunks getting into fights.
Everyone’s talking about the economic collapse. People are furious, frustrated. They shake their heads, take long drags on their cigarettes. “There’ll be no getting out of it for ages.” Their faces swell with rage.
March 16th, 2011 at 9:36PM
very sad, i had been there in the 80’s when things were pretty grim and so was quite happy for them when they seemed to be on an upswing….
March 17th, 2011 at 1:31AM
My forebears left County Clare in the 1840s for Australia. I got to visit the auld sod in the 1980s. Your term “the long stone fields of Clare” is accurate. My main impression was to recognize for the first time why they left.
March 17th, 2011 at 2:41AM
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! The Cliffs of Moher give me the willies, but the sea cliffs at Dun Aengus on Inishmore of the Aran Islands are just as high, with no wall like the one they recently built at Moher.
March 17th, 2011 at 11:06AM
Is the ferry to Inishmore running this time of year? Have you been? It’s amazing. And a remarkable companion is Tim Robinson’s cartographically obsessive Stones of Aran.
March 17th, 2011 at 11:34AM
Thanks for calling Stones of Aran to my attention, Erin! I’m headed to the library now to find it.
March 18th, 2011 at 10:14AM
Erin\; \i’m on \inishmore even as we speak. \i’m relaxing in an internet cafe at the harbor; \i’m rather tired after the Dún Aenghusa walk. We’ve just seen some seals as well. Another glorious sunny day. Go figure.
March 18th, 2011 at 10:27AM
Margaret, I am jealous! And I am delighted it was a glorious day.
PP: Enjoy! Robinson just appealed to my own obsessive relationship to Irish ordinance survey maps. He writes about every rock and cliff and half-made path on the island, giving you history and geology at once.