It was a quick 10 days we Mississippians got to wander around Ireland. And we saw stuff that is so old it had already been in ruins centuries before the United States ever came into existence. But new and modern at the same time.
The biggest concern of the nation the week and a half we were there was if County Kerry was going to beat Dublin in Celtic Football at the national games, and also if Ireland could knock off Australia in Rugby, which it did. And it was as we were visiting the village of Adare that our driver, guide and genial companion for our tour, Pierce Cavanaugh had to delay our departure a few minutes to catch the end of the game on play by play on the radio.
Pierce was a wealth of information. He had statistics and stories about every place we visited. For example, he stopped so we could get a shot of this, a fairy tree. A fairy is supposed to live under this tree. And it's good luck to tie a strip of cloth to it. And evidently it works just as well if you tie it to the barbed wire fence that is supposed to keep you away from the tree.
This is the folk village out behind Bunratty Castle. It preserves the way life would have been lived a hundred or so years ago in Ireland. Or the way the homes would have looked. Life is still lived this way pretty much. The fire in the fireplace is from burning peat. Peat is harvested from peat bogs out in the country. It is decomposed plant material all compressed into what is eventually cut into small logs or bricks. And it smells a lot like coal when it burns.
The hotels where we stayed were all unique. Some of them old castles. After our night's stay in one and as we were moving on to another the next morning, Pierce asked if any of us had seen the ghost. I wanted to go stay another night, then, so I could look for it. But castle ghosts are about as elusive as fairies. They only show up in your dreams. Just as elusive as Ireland is now for us who went, where it only lives in our memories.
Copyright 2012 WLBT. All rights reserved.
WLBT 3 - Fox 40
