Ireland

The term British Isles describes a group of islands, the two major ones being Great Britain and Ireland. The island of Ireland is split into two political entities, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom consists of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Scotland, England, and Wales form Great Britain.

Smaller islands within the British Isles are the Isle of Man, Guernsey, and Jersey. Additionally, there are numerous islands belonging to Scotland, e.g. Orkney and Shetland Islands, Ireland, and England. Total, there are 187 inhabited islands. This should clear up my error in using the plural form of Ireland.

Dublin, Ireland

Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland and the birthplace of many of Ireland’s finest writers from Nobel laureates William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw and Samuel Beckett to Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift and the creator of Dracula, Bram Stoker. It’s also home of Trinity College where the Book of Kell’s is housed. That is the illuminated manuscript of Gospel’s in Latin.

Today we selected a bus trip to Ballyknocken Farm House and a wise choice it was. Catherine Byrne was the baker and today she was making Irish scones and soda bread. Catherine has numerous TV and radio shows in Ireland and one in the US. She was the perfect teacher; funny and knowledgeable. She’s Irish and married an Italian fellow. They have 2 children and as she said one of each. The boy is a bright red head. The dark haired, big eyed girl is a definite Italian. Catherine’s theory about baking is that it’s not the ingredients; it’s how they are blended together. I learned a lot and the scones/bread…YUM. Washed it all down with a special tea with whole milk. I may give up coffee.

Our second excursion was to see the City Views of Dublin. We had a guide who liked to sing, as do all the Irish, second only to drinking! Unfortunately, we couldn’t get inside St Patrick’s Cathedral, it was under construction as has been every Cathedral we’ve seen so far.  Jack, our guide; tweed jacket, black boots, scruffy facial hair, Irish cap, and could have used some dental work sang us a few verses of Molly Malone. He really did have a good voice. We got a glimpse of Dublin Castle and the famous Guinness Storehouse and many other sites before Jack, who we suspected spent many hours in the pubs, ended the tour with a really good rendition of, what else, Danny Boy.

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland. We hopped a shuttle to city center and roamed around for a couple hours. Bought scones and soda bread in the Saturday market. Still haven’t had enough scones. Sadly, half of the soda bread did not survive the bus ride back to the ship. 

Back to the ship for a quick lunch, then boarded our excursion bus which took us to the Giants Causeway which is on the North Atlantic Coast. We walked down a couple miles to view an aggregation of approximately 40,000 interlocking, hexagonal basalt columns – the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. The Causeway provides a glimpse into the Earth’s most ancient past. A 60 million year-old legacy to the cooling and shrinking of successive lava flows (just like Oregon, ha). The symmetry of the columns is astonishing. Nothing seems to change them.