Last days in the Emerald Isle

Limerick wasn’t up to much and we had a couple more nights before heading back to Dublin in readiness to fly to Scotland. So we decided on a couple of nights in Ennis. Not many people have heard of Ennis let alone stayed there but we were surprised to find that Muhammed Ali has been to Ennis and has stayed (probably not at the same B&B as us). He came back, had a monument erected in his honour, because his roots are in this part of Ireland! Not sure who is doing his genealogy work but they must have worked back a few more generations of ancestors than myself.

However, Ennis was interesting. We drove about 30 minutes north to “The Burren” and went walking in the countryside. We walked through fields (no paddocks here) to see the remnants of old villages and settlements of peoples from years ago. Years ago, as it turns out, are pre pyramids days. I didn’t think there was anything in the World pre pyramids in Giza type stuff but there you go, learn something every day. We carried raincoats in the backpack but are pleased to be able to report that they weren’t required. There is no doubt that you wouldn’t go far from the farm house without your wet weather gear. Sales of SP50 in Ireland are nil….in fact they don’t know what it is. But the people are happy although very concerned of how they will fare with Brexit. There is no confidence in Boris as he has very much put the interests of the Irish on the back burner.

After 2 nights in Ennis we headed east, back to Dublin. We had to tidy up our little Duster and deliver back to Avis and then ready ourselves for another international flight, to Scotland. But this gave us a few hours to fill in Dublin and there could be worse tasks one could be presented with. We took a tour of the Rock and Roll Museum. This was about an hour tour with a guide and one could wonder how they could drag rock and roll in Ireland out that far. We focussed in on U2 of course and dragged out Thin Lizzy for a wee while then pulled in Van Morrison and Sinead O’Connor to keep us entertained. Not big rock’n’rollers but decent musicians all the same.  We were taken into a sound studio set up with drums, guitars and a keyboard which we were allowed to have bash at. Unfortunately there wasn’t a soul in our group that could play a chord so we moved on. If only I hadn’t broken that ukulele over my sisters’ head at the age of 9 I might have developed some musical talent.

We spent the afternoon wandering the Grand Canal and searching for geocaches before heading back to our hotel and readying ourselves for a flight to Edinburgh at 6.00am.