Ireland - England 2008 Click here to return to Part 1 (click on any picture to view it at full resolution, then use back button to return)

Mountshannon, Ireland, looking downhill to Lough Derg

Sign post in Mountshannon

Rose peeking over a stone wall in Mountshannon

Nell and Cliff's Fiat which Cliff compared to a washing machine (it seats six): typical road and typical left side!

On the way to Galway: click on the pic for a movie of Clara and Nell singing an Irish folksong!

Dinner in Kinvara on Galway Bay on the way home.

Long long summer days with long dusky evenings. (West Ireland countryside.)

Rural, scenic..on route to the local 'dolman'.

East Clare Way, a public open space in the hills above Mountshannon. Marty and Nell

Wildflowers

Beetles

Lough Derg with the locals.

The local dolman. There are megalithic sites(~4000 years old) all over Ireland. Aye, laddy, thinking of our forebears.

Marty, Kurt and Cliff- and it's not raining!

This open ground is all mostly covered with peat. People still come here to harvest it to burn as fuel.

Kurt and Cliff

10 + miles south to Killaloe for the Sunday farmers market.

Market complete with fiddler!  Click on the pic to see the music video.

Plants, cheese, fish and veggies and ...

Ancient tree at Brian Boru's Fort. Brian Boru united the Irish against the Vikings...

View of the Lough from the Fort. Green, green, green!

A stand of Birch near the Fort.

The hills are beautiful most everywhere because they have zoned it so you cannot build up there.

Marty trips off to Great Britain for 2 days, actually England proper, to help Her friend - Kate Showers, soil scientist, move from Oxford to Lewes for the remaining months of her research project about trees and forestation in Lesotho, Africa.

These are duplexes and Kate will housesit one of them, two doors down, for 6 months. Most homes are quite small. These are considered large and elegant - there's a view of the English Channel.

Kate, as we walk in the late dusk in Lewes. 14th century building where you see the two lighted windows.

Lewes - older buildings with the old 'gutter' where you would throw your used water. Looking south over the marshes to Newhaven.

The stones in this wall, and many buildings here come from the white chalk cliffs (Cliffs of Dover) on the Channel.

The home of one of Henry the 8th's wives, in Lewes.

Darkness falls and the black cat...... reminded me of mine at home!

Lewes train station, old, with modern trains!

Lewes Train Station

Life boat at Birling Gap, east of the Seven Sisters - the way it used to have to be done - let the boat down the ladder. That stone down there is in the houses in Lewes!!

Back in Ireland and off to the Burren in the West. This is the Poulnabrone Dolman, more than 5000 years old.

St. Brigid's well as the fog descends.

Tamarind, Nell and Cliff and Clara's spirit dog, with rope.

The old architecture in Mountshannon.

The new architecture rather rigidly zoned visually.... but over-built like here... recession awaiting.

A swale of yellow water iris and hawthorn trees dot the pastures looking to Lough Derg. This is very near that peaty moorish area. But this is green. I'd imagine that the peat has been mined off and then there's real soil for the grass to grow and the water to penetrate?? Not sure about that!

Less than a mile away - the peat holding the water, lots of sedges/rushes and wild foxglove.

Nell's sister, Fran, and Clara

McKernan Weavers in Tuamgraney. This loom is doing woven-ended wool boucle throws.

McKernan scarves on display.

Click on the pic for a loom movie - making scarves.

Nell introducing the play, Love's Labors Lost, she had been working on with 16-17 year olds for six+ weeks. (second to last night in Ireland!)

Near Scarriff.

Scarriff, typical small town in West Ireland

Clara

Clara and Tamarind

Flying back over Northern Canada, Baffin Island, methinks.

That's all! Just 75 pictures out of 2125 taken (1750 by Kurt and 375 by marty), of which 1750 (coincidentally) were kept and 375 deleted (mostly Kurt's).
In this collection of 75 (from both pages), 27 were taken by Marty and 48 by Kurt.