Intermission

I think we drove more miles in the south than we've ridden our bikes on the rest of the whole trip. Rather than bore, shock or alarm you, our gentle readers, with the gory details of a Pierce family holiday, we thought we'd take you through a little 'daily highlights' package from Ireland.

Stone Circles @ Cregganconroe



A series of 7 or 8 complete stone circles, all quite low to the ground but very much intact. To my mind, the best we've seen apart from perhaps the Castlerigg circle in the English Lakes District.

Galway Coast and Mountain


Alex's view for much of the trip


Kylemore Abbey (not medieval)


Along the coast

Newgrange and Dublin


Not one of ours - you're not allowed to take pictures inside

Newgrange is an incredible Neolithic site, the purpose of which is unknown. It was built 500 years before the first pyramid at Giza, without use of the wheel.


The external wall at Newgrange, reconstructed out of the stone found on site.

Newgrange was found by a man who thought the hill would make a good place for a quarry. It's doing better than another tumulus in the area, which had a road and a teahouse built on top.


Also not one of ours, for the same reason

This is the Long Room, at Trinity College, perhaps most famous for holding the Book of Kells (seeing which was one of Alex's long-held ambitions). This room holds some of Trinity's oldest books.

Glendalough


A round tower

Alex says: James has gone on and on and on about round towers. Now I've seen one. This one is from the tenth century; built to keep precious monastic things safe from nasty marauders. Glendalough is famous for its monastic settlement, based around the hermitage of St Kevin.



Military Road


A spectacular valley we travelled on our way back to Dublin, to catch the ferry.


Happy families taking happy snaps.