Day 4 in Ireland: "Away, Away, Come Bye, Come Bye"

Ann is back chronicling our fourth day in Ireland.

Today we headed directly south to County Cork to our next house. My kids have read all three of the books from The Cottage at Bantry Bay series, so we were looking forward to staying in Bantry. Before leaving this region of Ireland we visited two more sights that were pretty much right on the way. First, we headed to Caherconnell farm to watch a sheep herding demo. The man who ran the demo explained how dogs have to get trained to a person’s voice first, then they train them to recognize whistle calls. They need to hear the whistle as our voices don’t carry as far and the dogs needs to be able to hear you when it needs to bring in a sheep from far away. Kelle and Brian starting using the commands “away, away” and “come bye” on their kids afterwards getting them to head to the right or left. The kids didn’t’ pick up on the commands as quickly as the dogs did! It was neat to see how the sheep respond to the dogs and how the dogs knew commands and whistle calls specific to them. This was my nine-year old’s favorite things we saw in Ireland. She loves dogs!

 Watching the Demonstration

Everyone enjoyed petting the old retired sheep dog.  She was the oldest dog they'd had, maybe around 19 years old.

Outside the Sheep Dog Farm, showing the stone "fences" famous in Ireland

The Demonstration

You can see the dogs sitting around the outside of the circle keeping the sheep in one spot while they guy showed us the different kind of sheep he hand there and explaining their markings.

Wearing Daddy's Glasses

Just a mile away from the farm we visited Poulnabrone Dolmen, a tomb structure reminiscent of Stone Hedge. It dates back to the fourth millennium BC during the Neolithic age. How could we not stop to show the kids something that old?! Other than the one standing tomb, the rest of the area was covered in limestone rocks that showed off the landscape of the Burren region in western Ireland. The kids all took off running in different directions beyond the tomb. We stayed there about a half hour, but it could have been a quicker visit.

We stopped just for lunch in Ennis, which is the largest town in County Clare. No time for sightseeing as Google maps said it would take almost 3 ½ hours to get to the house at Bantry. Lunch was at Cruises pub, and we squeaked in for lunch just before the kitchen was closing. Turns out some pubs have the kitchen close down between lunch and dinner.  I had a delicious Irish stew and we also ordered English Toffee Pudding. Brian had tried ordering it at the pub by Lisheen house and they had run out. Thankfully the chef agreed to make us two, one for the kids table and one for the adults, even thought the kitchen had closed by the time we ordered dessert. It was delicious!

So, Google maps was wrong and it took closer to 4 hours to get to Bantry. The final hour of the drive took us on a windy, single lane road through an uninhabited portion of a mountain. I kept praying we didn’t break down. Did I mention there were no potty breaks between Ennis and Bantry? We really didn’t even have any options for stopping. When the owner of the house greeted us and we told her about our ride she told us, in her lovely Irish brogue, “Didn’t ya read the directions I sent you in the email? You would have been much better off comin’ round directly to Bantry town then head to the house.”  Brian said something about remembering that now that she’d mentioned it.  For the record, when we headed back to Kerry airport on Monday we went a different way, and the road was shocking similar except it that just had a lot more houses on it. I think just getting over the mountains to get to the coast has limited road options in this section of the island.

The Front Yard of the Bantry House:  The view was amazing, and the kids immediately took off running and playing the minute we pulled up in the cars.

The owner of the house was kind enough to leave us a basket of fresh fruit along with some delicious Irish cheddar, a fresh ½ gallon of milk, Irish butter, and a few other things to enjoy. We (read the kids) enjoyed/devoured all of the fruit and most of the cheese, which tided them over until we headed out to dinner. For dinner Kelle and I dropped everyone off in the town of Bantry, about 10 minutes from our house, and we went grocery shopping at Lidl (similar to Aldi) while the dad’s found a place to eat. We planned ahead for breakfast and snacks to get us through Monday so we didn’t have to make another trip to the store. A soccer game was playing so many of the pubs were full of people watching the game. We met up with everyone as they were finishing their dinner at Wharton’s Fish and Chips. The shop also offered real southern friend chicken, which some of the kids, including Genna, enjoyed. I’m singling out Genna because on Monday, when we returned to Kerry airport, Genna turned to her mom and exclaimed, “Oh no! I didn’t have any fish and chips!” How this child missed out on every chance to order fish and chips baffled us all. Especially after one meal was at a fish and chips place.

We ended the night with some beers at the house and the adults playing cards. The men might say the only negative about this house was that it wasn’t’ walking distance to a pub.