BURREN NATIONAL PARK, IRELAND: Guest Post by Marianne Wallace

Ireland:  Burren Roadside Holy Well, along Galway Bay Road

My friend and fellow children's book writer/illustrator Marianne Wallace and her husband Gary, a botanist, went to Ireland recently, visiting Dublin and hiking in Burren National Park in County Clare. Here are some of her reports from their trip.  Marianne's most recent book is River Life: A Journey from Headwaters to the Sea (Butler Books, 2013). You can find out more about Marianne and all her books at her website.

Our room at Cappabhaile House,  Ballyvaughan, County Clare

April 28
Arrived in the Burren to the wonderful smell of peat fires and the taste of fresh seafood (salmon for Gary, crab for me). Intermittent rain should be gone by tomorrow so we're hoping for some good hiking weather. Our B and B never disappoints. The rooms here are always nicer than ours at home and the white duvet cover is beautifully embroidered. Each afternoon, we enjoy fresh tea and chocolate covered orange biscuits (cookies) in our room at the table next to the view. (And all for 30 euro/day LESS than the cell of a room in Dublin.)

"Early purple orchid"

April 30
Spent the day with a botanist friend here who took us hunting for early flowers. The winter was brutal and although today was sunny with little wind, the mornings and nights are still in the high 30s so spring is late in coming. We managed to find some blue gentians and the ubiquitous "early purple orchid" which is the first of many orchid species to flower each year.

Mustard relative growing in a gryke or crack

May 3
In the few hours between the morning blowing rain and the afternoon blowing rain, we got out to the Atlantic coastline and saw these flowers in the grykes (cracks) and protected areas of the Burren's limestone pavement. Now we're cozy and warm, sipping tea, enjoying the view from our room. Nice.

Mullaghmor Mountain

May 4
We postponed our hike up one of the hill/mountains in the Burren due to the strong - and very cold - wind. En route, we had stopped at Cassidy's Pub (the Cassidy family has operated a pub here since the 1830s) and took our drinks outside to eat our lunch at their picnic tables while enjoying the stunning view of a valley and the Burren hills beyond. After nearly freezing to death, we opted instead for a pot of hot tea at the nearby Perfumery's cafe.

Burren Perfumery, Moss Man in Bathtub

A circle of trees protected us enough from the wind to allow for a walk through their herb garden. The Burren Perfumery has a touch of faerie in their sensibility, I think, and everything is sweet and charming. A topiary man bathes in a rusty claw foot bathtub, a shelf along a stone wall supports a pot of flowers and I take a seat on a sunken circular stone bench.

May 5
There are miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers) of walking trails around the Burren. Today we took a 4.5 km trail up and back one of the hill-mountains called Mullaghmor [moo-lock-more] in Burren National Park. On the trail markers, we followed the green circle. From the top, next to the cairn, we could see at least 20 miles.

Burren pavement, Fanore

We were very proud of ourselves, summiting one of the hill-mountains in Burren National Park. Then were immediately humbled when a mom (wearing a short-sleeved blouse while I had on four layers of warm clothing) and her 3-year-old son arrived on top as well. These Irish are hearty folk!

Dolmen tomb in farmer's field, Big Dipper Road

Later we finally stopped on this very narrow road (like Ireland has any country roads actually big enough for two cars to pass...Ha!) and took a photo of the rock tomb that we'd passed before in someone's field. We figured it was about 4 ft. high with an 8 foot-long rock slab on top. It's about 25 feet from the road and you can only see it from a distance so you have to guess when you're adjacent to it and stop along the road and climb a hedge to take the picture. The Burren is "littered" with tombs, ring forts and other ancient remains.

Atop Mullaghmor (moo-lock-more). Rock cairn behind Gary. Lake in distance above my head.

New Quay, County Clare

May 8
This sign was at a Irish waterside pub where there was no barricade between the car park (parking lot) and a 10 foot drop off into the bay.
Imagine how important it is to be reminded of this after you've had a couple pints of Guinness and you put your parked car into "drive" before "reverse."
 
Marianne's report on their time in Dublin was posted on July 19, 2013.