A Weekend in The Burren - The Aengus Finucane Memorial Walk

Aengus Finucane Memorial Walkers 2012 

Two weekends ago the second Aengus Finucane Memorial Walk took place in The Burren in Co. Clare, organised by a committee of former Concern Bangladesh volunteers from the heady early days of Concern, back in the 70s. Aengus was one of the founding fathers of Concern in Nigeria/Biafra in 1968 and it has grown from strength to strength since. Our lives are inextricably linked to Concern since we met as volunteers in Bangladesh in 1979, and we have a great grá (love) for the NGO that was home to us for over a decade between Tanzania, Bangladesh and Laos.

Jan and me at Ailwee caves

The famous signpost the CoCo shrank!

The Bare Burren Mountains 

Hubby Jan and me were walking for the first time as we had been unable to go the previous year when it was held in Leitrim.  This year I came home from the INMO conference in Killarney a day early and this meant we were able to head for Clare on the Saturday morning, arriving in Ballyvaughan in plenty of time to check into the hotel and have a snack before the walk. We also met some of the other walkers, friends and former colleagues in many instances. Most of the Concern family have met up over the decades at various AGMs and reunions, particularly the 40th Reunion a few years ago in 2008. It was a great weekend and it raised money for a cause close to Aengus Finucane's heart, the Jack Praeger Rescue Project in Calcutta (or Kolkata)

Tanzanian Friends Reunited in Ballyvaughan

The Poulbrone Dolmen - 5000 yrs old or so. 

Jan and me went to the pier where the meet-up was, and it was a bit drizzly at first  but this cleared up in jig time and we headed off to the walk, a gentle 5km out and 5km back the same route. We had a terrific guide who talked for Ireland and gave us a potted history of the Burren, its pots and caves and limestone history which you can read for yourself here. It's way too technical and geological for me, just know that it's the most unusual ecological and geological spot with rare unique flora that grows nowhere else in Ireland. The limestone surface is slowly being restored as trees begin to grow again, now that people are no longer collecting firewood in the hills. Seems like there's a reversal of deforestation going on in the Burren and I wonder will it change the place. The bareness is what makes it look so special, and it's very bleak in places with all the drystone walls and the dolmens or standing stones.

Windswept at the Poulnabron Dolmen

The walk was beautiful as the sun came out and we walked and talked through the path to the Ailwee Caves entrance. The caves have to wait for another day as they probably deserve a visit on their own with all the stalactites and stalagmites. We had a group photo taken at the Cave entrance. and then we walked back, with the view totally different and overlooking the sea at Ballyvaughan all the way across Galway Bay to Connemara. We chatted to various people and it was lovely to see everyone reconnecting, and meeting people we had last  met in Bangladesh over 30 years ago, or Tanzania over 25 years ago.

Limestone Burren landscape

We repaired to the pub when we got back, some of us getting ready for the night ahead first. I went for a very hot bath to prevent any possible muscle ache and it worked a treat, and then we headed out. Dinner was for 7pm in L'Arco Italian Restaurant in Ballyvaughan, across the road from the Burren Hotel where we stayed. There were some moving speeches as Jack spoke about his beloved brother Aengus, and the decision was taken to have next year's walk in Waterford - who knows, it may even be around Lismore!

We had a lovely meal and a great laugh at our table with a mix of people from Bangladesh and Tanzania days. Lots of photos were taken and promises to keep in touch, and we went back to a different pub after the meal where we continued the craic well into the night. Sign of the times and the demographic we all represented, we didn't party like back in the day when we would see in the dawn before hitting the hay, and we were all back in our hotels and hostelries between 2 and 3 am.

Hardy walkers under Bare Mountain on the Burren

One of the rare Burren flowers in bloom

The road back to Ballyvaughan

The next morning after breakfast another old Concern tradition was relived as Jack, a Holy Ghost priest like  his late brother Aengus, celebrated Mass in the conservatory of the guest house. It was a lovely personal and warm ceremony, with none of the distance and reserve that a formal church setting demands, and we all gained from it, whether religious or not. We all headed off homeward bound around lunchtime, and said our goodbyes till next year in Waterford!

Connor Pass, Dingle Peninsula, Kerry.

Jan and me took the long road home, going through the Burren and visiting the Poulnabrone Dolmen for a photo opportunity.We continued on down through Kerry after crossing the Shannon Estuary by the Killimer to Tarbert car ferry, going out to Dingle via Tralee and over the Conor Pass which has spectacular views over both sides of the Dingle Peninsula. We came  back via Killarney and Mallow, and we're still awaiting the summer that eludes us thus far.

A Weekend in the West - from Ben Bulben to Loop Head

Ben Bulben from a hill in Sligo town

 Two weekends back we went for a short break to the West of Ireland - hubby had a meeting in Sligo so I went along. We stayed in the Clarion in Sligo town and had booked in a few weeks earlier, so imagine our disappointment on arrival to find our room on the second floor offered a view of...the airvents of the hotel! There was no way at their prices we were going to stay put and even though the Irish are notoriously bad at complaining we were moved up a floor after a phone call. This was a bit better as we could at least see over the airvents to see the iconic table mountain, Ben Bulben, famed in poetry by Yeats "Under Bare Ben Bulben's Head".

The (first) room with a view in the Clarion Hotel Sligo!

As we were only staying a night in Sligo we had a lovely meal in the hotel, and a few drinks in the bar. The journey up had taken over four hours so we weren't ready for a night out in Sligo town, and the hotel was a bit too far for a stroll to town by my reckoning. The following day after the meeting ended our time was our own so we drove around some of the renowned beauty spots of the area - Lough Gill with the Lake Isle of Innisfree famed again by the prolific WB Yeats in his eponymous poem, and Glencar Waterfall which is actually in Co. Leitrim! These were two places I'd often heard of but never visited before, so it was an opportunity not to be missed. Never mind that it drizzled and was a typical Irish misty day, muggy and close but deceptively wetting, as you can see in some of the photos. Val, who lives in Sligo, blogged as Magnumlady the week after of the same places we'd seen only her trip was in glorious sunshine, so you can see in her blog how it can look in fine weather.

Lough Gill Co. Sligo

Lough Gill in the mist.

We drove down through Mayo and into Galway in very inclement weather, after a loop round Strandhill and Knocknarea, with Queen Maeve's burial mound at the top, visible for miles around, and bade farewell to Ben Bulben, which will always be Sligo to me, since I first saw it in 1976 when I went to a number of weddings in Sligo of nursing colleagues who were quick off the blocks and got hitched as soon as they finished nursing school.

The trip through Mayo was blighted by the bad weather so we amused ourselves with taking photos of funny signs - the poll topper being the one for the Cowdung Festival, closely followed by the Enniscrone Black Pig Festival, which takes place not too far from Muddy Burn's pub! We arrived in Galway by early evening and checked into the Harbour Hotel, which we'd booked on the way down from Sligo - thank heaven for smartphones with apps like TripAdvisor! The hotel was nice and we'd another lovely meal. There's something about arriving in a new hotel after a day on the road that never loses its appeal, whether it's after a day's driving or hitch-hiking as we did in our youth, or a day trekking in the hills as we did in our backpacking days in India and Nepal, and indeed Africa, though that was less so as we had kids then and couldn't be as free and easy as when we were on our own. Now we've come full circle, as we're back to just the two of us - our teen queen is at the stage where hols with parents are total anathema unless mitigated by the presence of a handful of peers, such as when we hit Dublin for Summerjam 2011!

Parke's Castle, Lough Gill, Co. Sligo

Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny and we had an early breakfast, followed by a relaxing walk through a sleepy Galway city centre - through Spanish Arch and along Shop St. to Eyre Square which I hadn't seen since the controversial revamp a few years ago. There are some seriously odd pieces in the Square, of dubious artistic or cultural merit, so I can see why the revamp was not universally acclaimed. Padraic O'Conaire, the writer whose statue marked a meeting point in the Square and a photo-op for every tourist who sat on his little lap, has vanished to the confines of a nearby museum. In his stead is part of the facade of a merchant's house from the 18th Century, and a very modernistic Galway Hooker - no, not that, we're talking the type of schooner famous in this neck of the woods!

Glencar Waterfall, Co. Leitrim

Onwards to the final leg of our weekend jaunt - we decided to take the scenic route through Co. Clare and hug the coastal road as far as possible, which was a fabulous trip as the sun shone and we had a lovely day. Through southern Galway and around by Kinvara and the Burren, the famous limestone scarp in Clare. We didn't follow Corkscrew Hill, which would have taken us inland, so we stayed coastal after Ballyvaughan and headed down towards the Cliffs of Moher - we passed the tourist trap of the Cliffs, as it was just too packed with busloads of tourists, and there seemed to be a people jam on the way to the Interpretive Centre which is the gateway to the cliffs. The last time I was there was in 1998 with my mother and three youngest kids, and it was just park the car and you were off on your own up the cliff path and prayed that the wind wouldn't blow you over the edge! There was a barrier fence but it was rudimentary and quite low.

We decided to head for Kilkee and go to Loop Head instead - and were delighted to see unspoilt beauty in West Clare, particularly Loop Head which is like a mini-Moher - cliffs with about half the height but all the wild ruggedness that Moher had before crass commercialism took priority - and there was a splendidly vertiginous sea stack - a breakaway cliff that stood alone and parallel to the cliff we were on - and it was not a place for the faint-hearted or anyone with a fear of heights. There's a lighthouse on Loop Head open to the public but we were a little late for that so we just walked off on a lovely clifftop walk, and looked across to the Aran Islands which are best reached from Co. Clare even though they are part of Co. Galway.

Jan and me in the mist at Glencar Waterfall - soaked!

Something for the weekend!

We enjoyed the drive home through the Limerick Tunnel, bypassing the city, and were back home by 8 or so - in good time for a rest before I returned to work the following day, well refreshed after my two week staycation. Enjoy the photos - they're all taken with my iPhone which has made my poor camera well-nigh redundant.

Muddy Burns pub in Co. Mayo

Somewhere in Sligo or Mayo!

Spanish Arch, Galway

Galway signs

Árd Rí = High King - Galway

Nice juxtaposition of speciality treatments!

Merchant's House facade in Eyre Sq. Galway

A Galway Hooker - sort of - Eyre Sq. Galway

Cliffs of north Clare

North West Clare looking out to Inishere Aran Islands

Cliffs at Loop Head, Co. Clare - with sea arches and caves.

Sea cliff caves Loop Head.

Closer view of Sea Arches, Loop Head.

Closer view of Cliffs and Arches Loop Head

Sea Stack off Loop Head - hard to get closer cos of Cliff Edge!