They even have a texture and scent garden for blind visitors.
They've planted rosemary, lambs ear and other touch sensitive plants. Justin checked carefully, but no poison ivy.
We visited Kilmainham Goal, The goal is infamous as the jail and execution location for the founders of the Irish revolution and later, the largest jail for the poor and starving during the famine. Criminals, women, children were all jailed together. Kids were jailed for weeks for stealing food and food was so scarce jailers sometimes caught people scaling the walls to get in so they could at least get two meals a day.
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| The hallway off of which cells of the most famous political prisoners were located |
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| Typical cell door with a peep hole, called "the all seeing eye" so guards could watch inmates at all times |
Following two days in Dublin we headed to the Dingle Peninsula for seven days of hiking through fields and along the coast line. The Dingle Peninsula is along the west coast and we planned to walk from Tralee, south along the coast toward Mt Brandon and back to Tralee. All together the hike is about 100 miles.
Day one, we head out for the trail.
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| So full of energy, so temporarily dry... |
The hike itself is beautiful, with sheep, cows and goats to keep you company. Its lambing season, so we saw many little lambs. They look like graffiti victims but the the farmers tag them so they can free range nibble in the fields.
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| This lamb was so young, its was still wobbly on its feet. |
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| Fast but not as fast as the spray can! |
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| View from the trail above Tralee |
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| The Blennerville flour mill, rebuilt from the 1800s. The tallest of its kind in Europe |
We stopped at a field gate, and the goats came running for us, We had to pick them some fresh snack flowers.
We hiked for three days before pausing to visit the small harbor town of Dingle. To celebrate Justin's birthday we took a harbor tour and went to see Fungie, a single dolphin who has adopted the harbor as his permanent home.
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| Don't adjust your monitor, that is Ireland under sunlight... |
Fungie moved into the harbor in 1984 and hasn't left. He likes small boats and frequently shows off to make them putter near by.
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| Fungie almost dancing with the small boat. |
We resumed hiking after a day off and had our best two days weather-wise.
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| A beach off the Dingle coast |
We found a medieval bridge. Made of dry stones, it self supports using an ingenious arch.
The fields have their dangers too....we couldn't find the bull,
After five days of hiking in the rain, this seemed ironic...
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| So Ireland is out.... |
On day 6 we woke to this and said "we're out!" We headed to Galway to enjoy the city.
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| There is a mountain back there... |
