Cliffs and Castles

Of the most prominent not-to-miss sights of Ireland, especially Western Ireland, are the majestic Cliffs of Moher.  I'd seen plenty of pictures before, and was excited to visit, but in reality, the pictures could never do it justice. (And even though a photo is worth a thousand words and even that wasn't good enough, I'll still try to explain some of it a bit.)

About a 90 minute drive from Galway city, the cliffs slice the sky above the sea, a sheer rock face dotted with seagulls, where grass grows right up to the edge. I didn't realize this until after I'd left, but they also feature in two fantastic film moments: as the Cliffs of Insanity in Princess Bride, and as the rock face in front of the cave Harry and Dumbledore visit to find the locket horcrux in Half-Blood Prince. Ahh! That actually makes it all the more incredible, something I didn't think possible a few hours ago when I actually stood there, taking in the immense beauty of the natural landmark with some wonderfully welcoming new friends from Marquette University, all of us repeatedly exclaiming about how beautiful it was, over and over. I've yet to put my photos up on Facebook, and the full lot might not make it (sorry Maggie), because they tend to get a little repetitive- but it was hard to restrain myself from wanting to capture every moment.

At one end of the 'visitor's center' portion of the cliffs we visited was a small castle. I'm not sure if it was there purposely for tourists and relatively new, or actually ancient: it's always so hard to tell! Anyway, it looked pretty cool...but so did everything! Just standing out there, not even the cliffs and sea and sky, but the countryside with it's rolling hills and dots of little farm houses or communities were just perfectly picturesque. The visitors' center was a little hobbit-hole of an establishment, complete with a sort of ridiculous CGI-video of the 'cliffs experience' (just go see the real thing!) that talked about the history and geologic makeup of the rock we were standing on, and also promised puffins. Well maybe it didn't promise them, but they're recorded to live in that area, but we weren't fortunate enough to see any- maybe the only unfortunate part of the whole day. The sun was shining, it was cold but not unbearably so, and none of us had our eyes pecked out by crows (though there were a few close calls).

On the bus ride back to campus, the drivers and leader of the International Students Society we went with treated us to a few extra stops, for photo-op purposes. All of these were additionally gorgeous, but the best of which was our detour to Dunguaire Castle, which I'd glimpsed from the bus window on the way down. Wikipedia tells me what I'd suspected, that this is the real deal: a 16th-century tower and defense wall, named for the legendary king of Connacht. Walking up to the castle, I was overwhelmed with a flood of daydreams about how it must have looked and felt in the height of it's glory, imagining noblemen riding in through the front gate, peasant children running about...

This bus trip was my first real Irish experience outside of Galway city center, because I can't rightly count my jetlagged bus ride from Dublin on day one. As I stared out the window thinking the deep thoughts that one can only think through a rainy bus window, I remembered my somewhat rushed study abroad application where I described Ireland as the country of choice for 'developing my soul'- or something similarly cheesy. I might have been right, though. I'm reading old fairy tales on my kindle, alongside a dreadfully dull book for my modern lit class, and while I've yet to meet any of the "good people", today I had a thrilling feeling of confirmation that this is where I'm supposed to be now.