Tom OConnor
Member
For those who have been following along, we left Prague and drove across the Czech Republic and Germany back to Frankfort and flew to Dublin, Ireland. This is the third time that we have been in Ireland so it was like coming home in a sense.The first pictures are of Powers Court, a country estate near the little town of Enniskerry about twenty miles south of Dublin. This is a golf club, equestrian center, resort hotel and magnificent botanical gardens all located in the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains. One of the most beautiful drives that I have ever been on is to drive south from here to the town of Arklow and then return up the coast line of the Irish Sea. As far as the farming goes nearly every Irish farmer has a version of one of these tandem axle dump carts to hitch behind a tractor and will use it for numerous things. Tractors can travel on the motorways and nearly keep up with the cars. A lot of open range and I know that we saw at least a million Holstien cows and for every cow we saw probably fifteen sheep. Really didn't expect to see the goats and thought if I blew the horn at them they would probably jump up on the roof of the car. From all this, wonderful dairy products and woolen goods. Stopped at the woolen mill and saw where they unload raw wool in one end of the building and rolls of beautiful material come out the other end. It is really fascinating to see a modern computerize loom in operation. Many talk about the narrow roads in Ireland but it is hard to imagine. We drove over ten miles on this road and it is not a one way. In ten miles we met four cars coming the other way but no problem. Every so often there is a gate to a field so one of you just pulls over enough to let the other get by and there is a big smile and a wave of the hand and all is well. A good GPS is a "God Send" though and unless you can read Gaelic you soon can be lost. I had four years of Latin in high school so being in a foreign country I could figure out enough words to get an idea of what was going on. The Irish people have been speaking English for well over two hundred years and I have been speaking it for nearly seventy five years now but when they say something you really have to hold on. There seems to be about a three or four second delay in my brain to figure out their phraseology. An example, when I rented a nice new car at the airport I asked if there was anything special I should know about this car. His reply was,"IIIeee, it's topped up now but I certainly would be mindful of petrol reservoir meter." I can't tell you who owns the place where we stayed the last four days of our trip without getting over in the political column so you can read it off of the clock. It is a magnificent golf resort on the Atlantic side of the island not far from the Shannon Airport where we departed from to return home. We have stayed at some of his places before and going from there to the Ritz-Carleton is a big come down. Hope some have enjoyed the pictures. It is only a sample. Tom
