We rose early on Monday morning for our travel to Ireland to meet up with Dan & Suzanne. Kate and Andrew saw as off just after 6am. They were both working on the bank holiday Monday, but the girls were off and taking advantage with a long lie. Although knowing Alice she would likely be up studying for her uni- prep exams before long!
We finally drove the car again – bit of a wasted rental in hindsight – and the drive, fill up, car return and check in and baggage check in all went smoothly. And then I screwed up… We were going through security when I realized that I had left the full bottle of Laphroaig in my carry on bag. We were early enough that I scrambled back to try to check in my backpack only to discover that it would cost as much to check my bag as the bottle cost in the first place! So I passed on that and ended up giving the bottle away to a sales clerk in the Celtics jerseys shop. So much for my great deal!
We arrived in Dublin and found Dan & Suz waiting for us after the emigration and baggage collection. We finally picked up a SIM card at a vending machine; we had resisted buying one in Scotland as it would not work in Ireland. Then off to our place in Dardis – replete with 2 lovely cats; Honey & Ginger.
We made a quick turn around and headed to visit Brú na Bóinne. It is an incredible World Heritage Site of stone age ruins which is over 5000 years old. Dan had tried to book online and as it was mostly full he could only select a smaller tour, but his online registration failed. He ended up phoning which was lucky as we managed to pick up a cancellation of a full tour.
The site is similar vintage to Stonehenge. Very little is really known of the culture, and interestingly new DNA testing shows no genetic relation to current Irish residents. There are 3 passage tombs / mounds; Dowth – collapsed / was destroyed (not on the tour); Knowth which is not accessible to tourists on the inside, and Newgrange which visitors are allowed to enter.
Newgrange was aligned for the winter solstice and we were able to experience the lighting on the inside via simulation. Knowth was aligned for the equinox. Both mounds had black and white granite stones around their entrances. 2 archaeologists cannot agree on the original positioning. 1 (an engineer) who did analysis believes they were originally on the external walls. The other believes they were on the ground at the entrances, perhaps dropped on pilgrimage to the tombs. All of these rocks originate from other places – one inland, one seaside.
By the end of the tour we were quite peckish as we had only eaten a sausage roll all day. So based on a recommendation to Dan and Suz from the waitress at their previous dinner, we tried ‘the Snug’ – which was very cute – but they only served beer, no food. So we ended up returning to their previous restaurant and no one was disappointed – although the meals are expensive!
Back at the BNB everyone caught up on photo editing etc. and I finally managed to sign off on the sale/purchase documents for Joanne and Mark to purchase Mum’s house. So happy for them!
