tour this

on saturday, instead of going somewhere gorgeously warm with endless beaches, gerry and i decided to follow through with our original plan to take his parents to the nuremore (service was good, but the food was over-rated) and extend our trip by going to the giant's causeway and the jumping church.

sunday we made a day of it, despite the weather being...hmmm, what's more than miserable? we went to newgrange which is this ancient (3000 b.c.) passage tomb that is perfectly aligned with the winter solstice. anyway, it's on a hill, so (you can see two openings in the pictures) you enter through the bottom one, and squeeze between all these stones (it's totally dry inside) to get to a chamber. the sun shines through the top one, at an angle so that it lights up the entire chamber. very cool.


at newgrange (it was raining soooooooo much)

we were literally soaked. there had been lots of path flooding and streams flowing over paths etc.. i almost wanted to skip the jumping church... and how lucky we didn't!!!

at the jumping church


this is the caretaker from the jumping church. when we were driving there, he was walking along the road. he saw us and chased after us. he then gave us the best tour ever! he told us about the graves that are there, and stories behind them. this guy was a total character. we're going to send him one of the pics, and possibly a new hat.

really, this guy is classic. he was really into what he does, and he knew everything. he was definitely my favourite part.


giant's causeway-the stones are hexagonal pillars... similar stones have only been found on the other side of the causeway, in scotland. this was also a favourite part of the trip. in fact, the jumping church and the giant's causeway are my two favourite sites in ireland. i liked west cork, but the jumping church is such a great story, and the giant's causeway is amazing.