A Day with Desmond

The Tower at the Cliffs

Ok..so the long awaited tale of my trip to the Cliffs of Moher and The Burren!  Probably most of you have heard of the Cliffs of Moher before, and if you haven’t well you’ve at least seen my brief and LOUD video tour of them..  But you are probably asking yourself, what on earth is The Burren…well I’ll get to that.  But I better start from the beginning of the day and my work my way to that question.

So, to go on our bus tour with Galway Tours, my roommates and I had to wake up at 8:30am and meet the bus outside of our apartment complex at about 9:15.  Not necessarily my favorite waking time on a Saturday morning, but hey… You do whatcha gotta do.  So, the 3 of us loaded onto the large shuttle bus sent to pick us up, and we left the complex.  The driver had to make a few other stops, including making a u-turn and going back to our complex (a group of 3 or 4 other girls had gotten on the bus with us and then become convinced that they were on the wrong bus so they had immediately disembarked…guess what…they were on the right bus…so we had to go back and get them).  Finally we arrived back at the Galway bus station where I had first entered Galway about 2 weeks before.  Here we all had our tickets checked and the 2 tours separated onto different buses (one tour group was going to Connemara, and the other was going to the Cliffs).

After loading up onto our different buses, we were off!  There were about 13 or 14 of us that knew each other, and we all sat together in the middle of the bus, brimming with the sort of exhausted excitement that bubbles over quickly before completely fizzing out into sleep.  Then, we met Desmond.

From Left to Right: Logan, Kyle, DESMOND, and Jason

Desmond Morrie was our bus driver for the day, and boy was he a character!  If you Googled “quintessential Irish grandfather,” his face would be right there smiling.  His jolly voice introduced himself and he began the day by giving us all his mobile number in case of emergencies (god only knows what could have happened to us at each of our 15 minute stops, but the motive was sweet).  This seemed pretty run of the mill, but then he followed up  with one thickly accented sentence that shook us all to our core, “Now ladies, this does not mean that you can just call me up tonight to have a good time, this is for emergencies!”  Oh man, and with that we knew we were in for a fun day!

As we got going on our long bus ride, Desmond began his tour guide spiel, and to be honest, I only halfway paid attention (partly because I could only understand about every other word, and partly because I was so caught up in the landscape that I didn’t even try to hear him).  However, I did here  this joke that Desmond told at the very beginning of the trip when he was warning us/apologizing in advance for the rough and windy roads ahead of us:

“So there’s a priest who says Mass every Sunday in church.  He does his job faithfully and well.  One day the priest dies.  When he gets to the pearly gates he tells Saint Peter his name and profession and then asks to be let in to Paradise.  However, Saint Peter says ‘Oh no, I’m sorry we weren’t ready for you yet.  You’ll have to wait.’  The priest is confused and waits.  Suddenly there appears another man in front of Saint Peter, who again introduces himself, “My name is Desmond Morrie and I’ve been a bus driver for 37 years.”  Saint Peter smiled and immediately opened Heaven’s gates, welcoming Desmond to Paradise.  The priest is confused and asks Saint Peter, ‘I don’t understand.  I have been a priest all of my life, preaching for the good lord.  That man was only a bus driver, why can he enter while I must remain?”  Saint Peter replied, “Well sir, your sermons didn’t cause people to ponder God, they really just put people to sleep.  But that man drove the same road each day for 37 days and he turned thousands of people to God; each person he drove ended up praying to God.” (At this point Desmond broke into peels of laughter before warning us that the windy and narrow roads were going to turn us all into believers)

If that one joke doesn’t personify our spunky driver, I don’t know what else could. He was a witty 70-80 year old man who clearly loved his profession, and milked it for all it’s worth.  He flirted with every girl, calling us “honey” and sang loudly to the song “Galway Girl” while substituting it with “American” or “Italian” depending on who he was flirting with at the time.  He also spoke in depth about the aphrodisiac qualities of oysters!  His constant stumbling and stuttering chatter was entertaining and well0informed, though the presentation of facts could sometimes lose their force as he repeated some sentences 5 or 6 times. But really, I could not have asked for a better guide.  When it came down to it, Desmond really just wanted us all to love Ireland as much as he does and to have a wonderful day.  When the credit card machine at the pub we stopped off at for lunch was broken, Desmond even paid for my lunch!

At Dunguaire Castle
From Left to Right: Caitlin, Me, Nicole, and Cassie

Anyways, apart from our driver, the landscapes themselves were exquisite and interesting!  In total we stopped 6 places: Dunguaire Castle, Corcomroe Abbey, Poulnabrone Dolmen, Kilfenora High Crosses, Fairy Fort & Fairies, and of course the Cliffs. 

Dunguaire Castle was the first place we stopped and everyone rushed right out to get pictures of ourselves in front of a real life castle.  It definitely fulfilled a bit of the little girl princess fantasy while allowing me to “nerd out” over a historical landmark.  The castle was built in the 16th century  and was once home to Irish king, King Guaire.  Now it is known as being home to the traditional sailing boats known as “Hookers” (for some reason this word is really popular in Ireland, Galway has a beer named “Hooker” too…kind of a weird thing to do, to walk up to a bar and order a nice cold pint of “Hooker”).

Then after a bit more of a drive we stopped at Corcomroe Abbey, its name inspired by the environment “Sancta Maria de Petra Fertili” translated to→ “St. Mary of the Fertile Rock.”  It is named that because of the abbey’s location in the Burren…so now, here is a bit of an explanation of the Burren.  The Burren is a completely limestone landscape that covers 320 square km (about 124 square miles) of Ireland.  It is considered a National Park as the area is home to over 70% of Ireland’s native flora, and boy is it a strange sight!  It’s almost like driving over the moon!

Caitlin's looking for a Fairy!

Then we stopped at one of my personal favorites…Ballyalban Fort, also known as “Fairy Fort”.  It sounds really exciting, but at the time it was a bit disappointing.  It’s really just a prehistoric ring-fort where ancient farmers are thought to have built circular dwellings.  However since then much mysticism and folk lore have been applied to them, and they are now thought to be the hiding places of leprechauns and fairies!  This was pretty fun to see, and it was a good excuse to get out of the stuffy bus and climb around in the grass and dirt!  I felt like I was five again; running around a big hole, jumping and playing while secretly hoping that a fairy would suddenly fly by (I always liked Tinkerbell!). 

The Poulnabrone Dolmen

After briefly returning to my childhood for a bit, I was transported back to my 20 year old History nerd self when we next visited the Poulnabrone Dolmen.  This is The Burren’s most iconic landmark and it was constructed by Neolithic famers about 6,000 years ago; it is older than the Egyptian Pyramids!  It is a burial site, within which uncremated remains of about 30 people were found.  Apparently this was originally on a farmer’s land and he and his family would hold parties and dances around the stone structure, with people even dancing on top of it!  The structure was beginning to lean and slide, when the government of Ireland finally stepped in and took over the care of the historic landmark, posting a security guard at the site and ensuring its safety.

One of the Celtic Crosses at
Kilfenora Cathedral

Our last stop before the Cliffs of Moher was the Kilfenora Cathedral.  This Cathedral is known as “The City of Crosses” because of its abundance of Celtic Crosses.  It is a 6th century monastery and within it there is a bishop effigy that we saw.  This was a short stop, and most of us were hungry for lunch, so we didn’t spend too much time here.

A Rainbow I saw while on the Bus

Lunch.  Definitely always one of the most important parts of the day.  Like I already said, the credit card machine wasn’t working at the pub, so Desmond paid for my lunch (I immediately borrowed money from a friend and paid him back of course, but it was definitely a sweet gesture!).  Desmond always brings his tour to his particular pub because the food is less expensive than the food sold at the Cliffs of Moher (which is definitely true after looking at the menus there).  I ordered the Beef and Guinness Stew that came with brown bread.  Omigosh.  This was truly one of the heartiest, stick to your ribs meals I’ve ever had.  It instantly warmed me up and made me want to get up and go do things!  Now I know at least in my family that not everyone enjoys stews, but I’m making a point of saying, that if you ever come to Ireland, not only must you eat the obligatory fish and chips, but you also MUST try some Beef and Guinness Stew.

The Cliffs of Moher

Drum Roll Please!  After a hearty lunch, we were finally taken to the famous Cliffs of Moher.  And my oh my was it pretty!!!  You have all probably seen my video and read my commentary on the gorgeous views, but it is truly not something to be understood until you see it yourself!  Before getting off the bus, Desmond warned us all to be careful as the winds of the cliffs are so strong that they have swept people off before, in fact 14 people died this way in 2010.  So with that in mind we all headed out to the cliffs, and boy he wasn’t kidding!  The wind was so fierce that if I leaned into it, I almost felt like I was flying!  But with the stunning sunset over the cliffs and ocean, the vivid greenery surrounding the scene, and the feel of ocean spray as it hit the rock, this was one of the most relaxing and retrospective moments I’ve ever had.  I’ve never been particularly in touch with nature, in fact I shudder at people who are too what I consider “crunchy granola.”  What can I say?  I like driving my car, I forget to recycle, and I have no idea what my carbon footprint is.  But at this moment, I felt so at peace, that I understood what my dad’s always saying about going camping and getting out into the wilderness.  It was one of those lifecycle moments, when you feel a part of something larger than yourself.  No, this was not a religious “coming to God” moment, it was more that I felt my size.  I felt the sheer magnitude and strength of the scene around me, and how very small I was in comparison, and rather than that making me feel insignificant, it made me feel at peace and in control.  Anything that I choose to do is just one small decision in a large world, and there’s something so comforting in that thought.

This trip was wonderful, and while this is a long post, it doesn’t even kind of go into enough depth. All I can say is if you ever get to Ireland, the Cliffs of Moher are an absolute must-see!