More of Ballycastle

Everyone talks about the beauty and how impressive the cliffs of Moher are, but I can tell you that the North coast of Ireland is by far the more beautiful. Dolores and Alan took us to the secret beach. ( The National Trust hasn’t got their hands on it and there’s no sterile path to it). I saw a couple making a sign with stones and when I offered to take a picture for them I found out they had just buried their mother the previous day and that was for her.

The weather had improved considerably since we had our sail with Pat Mc Carry and I commended Dolores on this. She replied that Pat has always been inconsiderate and didn’t think of changing the weather. Sorry Pat, I know you read this but that’s what she said and frankly the year before, when you took us sailing it was freezing and rainy as well. As you can see from the pictures Pat is still in his tee shirt so maybe he just doesn’t notice.

We did have a great sail with Pat and have planned to meet in New York next year to sail the Long Island Sound. (Aint life terrific!). As you can see blue skies before we get into the boat.

This photo has nothing whatsoever to do with the trip except is was in my youth when Wee Dan was going out fishing and took Siobhan Grose and I with him. Siobhan took the photo.

I’ve so many beautiful pictures which really don’t do Ballycastle and around it justice and also the times just sitting shooting the breeze with friends I hadn’t seen in so long like Margret Mc Donald (Not often you can call a teacher your friend but that sort of shows what a great teacher she was). And the afternoon with the Browns and Maura’s wonderful meringue, perfectly gooey in the centre.

We had a great day with the Mc Brides. We were just going to putz arund the horse fair but when I was driving them home we decided to go to Torr Head and ultimately Cushendun. In one of the previous posts I mentioned NewGrange the ancient burial place with is older than the pyramids and better than the couple of rocks around Stonehenge ( OK I know they took the stones from Wales and how they did that no one knows but why they did it I don’t know). Well the picture on the right here is just another one of those graves that is in a farmers land and will be forever untouched. It’s called a Fairy Ring. I remember playing around one that you could actually get into but you never went right in as it was too compact and you would be cursed for life if you did. Maybe we all got blessed for leaving them alone. One of them was quarried by a local and he died soon after from a brain hemorrhage.

We had a brilliant day with Fiona and Adrian driving through the Glens in his Citroen waving to everyone as we went by. The chapel in the corner photo is one of my favorites. I think of it as a chapel but I was reprimanded very sternly by a local who said it was a church not a chapel. If you get the chance read the poem ‘The Forsaken Merman’ by Matthew Arnold. My sister Siobhan read it to me when I was young and it remains one of my favorite poems. Well I think that this might be the Chapel.

I hope I’ve done the holiday justice and our next trip is Alaska next week when we try to see the Northern Lights. Once again taking Pat to a cold place. He should be canonized.