Ireland

This June, I was extremely blessed to be able to take a family trip to Ireland. And it wasn’t just my immediate family….aunts, uncles, cousins….there were a lot of us! As fate would have it, my cousin was getting married to a lovely lad from County Clare! So we all packed up and flew from Wisconsin, USA, to the Irish West coast to celebrate their wedding! It was such an amazing experience!

My cousin’s husband is a musician, and so are most of his family members, so there was a ton of traditional Irish music along with a healthy dose of American old time music (my cousin is a musician too and plays a lot of old time fiddle as well as guitar). I even got up and danced! Which for those who know me, pretty much never happens.

We stayed at the lovely Ballymacooda House. I can honestly say I have never stayed anywhere so fancy before. It was an absolutely stunning location. There is a part of me that wished I could just spent the entire week isolated there with tea, a book, and some knitting. It was so quite and the views were amazing.

There were also….cows! That may have been the best part. There were also two guard donkeys. And boy, were they loud. There was a brown and white guy who screamed every time we came outside for the first time in the morning or when we got back to the house. But you can’t blame them, they were just doing their job!! There was one night, though, where I was awoken at 2am by his loud bray…. maybe it is because I had been reading Irish horror novels and watching Irish horror movies in the week leading up the trip, but we were at an isolated farm in the country side….what was he screaming about at 2am?!?!

My favorite part of the trip (aside from the wedding, of course) was our day trip to the Aran Island of Inisheer (or Inis Oírr in Irish). We took the ferry from Doolin and then had a nice walk around the island before having lunch and heading back to the mainland for the day. My cousin actully worked as a tour guide for a bit when she first moved to Ireland, so it was extremely cool to have a pretty much professional tour with a personal family touch! I think I would like to go back and stay on the islands some day. I have never experienced small island life, and I would imagine it is very different from what I am used to.

I will be honest, I am not big into traveling. There are *so many* places I want to go and experience, but I get very easily stressed out and anxious when traveling. I am a homebody. A true Hobbit. That being said, Ireland has always been in the top three of my traveling bucket list, so I am so happy I was able to go. The fact that is was for my cousin’s wedding made the trip even more special. While I miss her so much, it was fun exploring her new home and made me so so happy that she moved to such a beautiful place.

I told my boyfriend I would love to go back and stay on the actual coast again in winter. I can imagine the crashing waves and slate grey sky and chilly weather….the perfect time to pull on some woolens and take a walk. We will see. I am sure I will be back again no matter what to spend time with my cousin. As it stands, I had a amazing trip 🙂

Until next time,
-Alison