So I need to say how brave and incredible my husband is. Total out of his comfort zone he went behind the wheel (that was on the right hand side) and drove out of the city of Dublin and across the country of Ireland.
I was the navigator, we brought our GPS, but it didn't show us all the streets and side roads of Ireland. So we had to do it the old fashion way-by map.
So a few things that we discovered on our car trek. Ireland LOVES their roundabouts. In some places we hit 5 or 6 roundabouts within a mile of driving! And all the roads except the Motorway are very narrow, twisty and fast!
To give you a visual, picture a narrow camp or park road that is nicely paved and is barely wide enough for two (small) cars to go past. Zero shoulders because the road juts up right against rock walls that are covered in shrubbery and then add twisty corkscrew turns. Okay so right now your thinking okay, not great but doable if you take it nice and slow. Ha! Well the average speed limit on these roads are 100 km which is the equivalent to 62 mph! Bryan did go slower on these twists and turns, but the locals did not. I don't think I've used the Lord's name in vain so many times in my entire life.
We would be going around a sharp corner, and a car or sometimes tractor, would come whipping by making Bryan having to pull over onto the side of the road, except as you remember there is no shoulders on the road, so that meant me screaming some profanity as bits of hay and grass whack me in the side of the head as I try without success to throw myself across the seat.
Thankfully we took the car insurance.
We eventually made it to the house in Gort with a few extra scratch marks on the car and start to get settled in.
The owner of the house is from Ireland and he was one of the nicest gentleman. He gave us a tour of the house which was built in the early 1800s. It was a schoolhouse and before that a soup kitchen. John (the owner) told us that when Ireland was under English rule they opened up the soup kitchen to feed the poor and hungry.
However there was a catch. For those who wanted food for themselves and their staving families they first needed to renounce their Catholic faith. Real nice, huh?
The owners still have the original soup kitchen table, but that was all that was left. The place was just an empty shell when they first started renovating it. Which took them one in a half years. The place was much too big for just the two of us. The plan was to have another couple stay with us, but unfortunately were unable to make it.
There will just have to be a next time. :)
The front of the house
As you walk through the front door
Kitchen
Backyard
The place even came with donkeys! We feed them carrots and named them Honkey and Tonkey.
That is Tonkey below
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