Irish Pride

My mother's mother's father's mother's father was an Irish Quigley who stowed away on a ship to America during a potato famine. So I really am Irish enough to claim Irish pride.

I know the oldest, most annoying thing in the world is a person coming home from a trip and making people see all the pictures from their trip. So I won't be offended if you skip the next three posts of our Ireland trip. I will post general Ireland pictures here, then U2 pictures, and then pictures from my Limerick "Angela's Ashes" Walking Tour for anyone else who is a nerd and would find that as interesting as I did. :o) And then someday I will post the video of each of these things, but they are taking too long and I am sleepy because I am still on Ireland time (add eight hours, it is almost 4:30 am.)

Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, it was beautiful.

This may have been one of our highlights. How cool is this?

We may have been the only people on the tour bus that didn't get off at this famous beer factory.

St. Patrick's Cathedral - wouldn't recommend it, although it might just be because they didn't have a mummified cat and rat, or that the whole building smells so moldy that I sneezed the entire time I was inside.

Ireland is BIG on their jail history. There are old jails all over the island. (A lot of times, people were so poor and starving that they would purposely get in jail just to be fed. And they were super strict and would put entire families, children included, in jail doing hard labor for debt or for stealing bread.)

Definitely a highlight: the Blarney Castle. It was so cool to walk through the grounds and the castle is one of my favorites I have ever been to.

And of course, we kissed the Blarney Stone! So far, no sign of infectious disease, and I still appear to have the Stucki girl curse of not being so eloquent with my words. Darn. Worth a try though!

This was at the bottom of a watch tower, but I thought it looked cool and creepy like "The Ring" movie.

These kinds of structures and cemeteries are everywhere. People just have these things in their backyard. It blew me away.

This picture was Josh's idea. We set the camera on the car and tried to hurry and pose but it didn't work out too well. We definitely wouldn't have won the championship!

Josh hiking through fields to see rock structures that were built around 2000 B.C.

Josh checking his work email in the middle of this prehistoric site.

Beautiful scenery shots. It is probably the most picturesque country I have ever seen. Green. Green. Green. (And lots of cows and sheep too!)

My poor little non-maternity rain jacket almost made it. The last day there, the bottom button popped.

Another highlight: The Cliffs of Moher (also, more famously known as "The Cliffs of Insanity" from "The Princess Bride.") Awesome view. Super windy.