Our journey continued south to the dramatic Rock of Cashel where we walked among the ruins of a 13th-century cathedral set on a high promontory.. Castletown, known as "Ireland’s largest and finest Palladian country house," was our next stop. Begun about 1722 as the home of William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, it has beautiful plasterwork and is currently being restored.

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Then we pushed on to Killarney, our base for exploring the incomparable Dingle Peninsula. We made many stops for photos here, but we could have slowly walked the route and never stopped clicking shutters.

Now we began to head north again on our circuit of the island, heading toward Galway. The town of Limerick offered us many pubs to choose from for lunch before we reboarded our by-now-quite familiar bus for Bunratty Castle, set in a charming re-created village. Then we were off to the Cliffs of Moher. Their dramatic height and sheer drop to the waters below took my breath away, and when I saw young children standing right on the edge, I had to retreat to the bus so I could extricate my heart from my throat. The barren Burren was next–not quite so barren as I had expected, and with stunning views.

The next day we spent some time in Sligo, famous for its association with W.B. Yeats. It’s a pretty town with lots of book stores and other interesting shops lining the riverbank where a picturesque old mill still has its millwheel in the water.

I thought I had by now probably seen all the most beautiful views that Ireland had to offer, but on day 10 of our tour, we got our broadest views. Eamon coaxed the bus up a high hill to get us to Grianan of Ailech, a re-created circular fort with a 360-degree perspective on rivers and fields and ocean and distant mountains. I could see miles and miles in every direction.

That left Northern Ireland’s most popular attraction, the Giant’s Causeway, for our last full day. I don’t care how many pictures you see of such a place, it’s always stunning to see it in person. All those six-sided pillars jutting into the air were simply amazing. And there was more. Eamon drove us along the Antrim Coast, so lovely that I felt downright cranky when he turned inland to take us back to Belfast. But our grand hotel, the Hastings Culloden Hotel in Holywood, almost–but not quite–made up for it.

We lingered over dinner, and then we lingered over drinks, reluctant to say goodbye to each other and to Ireland. Thanks to my travel companions, to Breandan, and to Eamon for a truly wonderful trip.

Judy P. Sopronyi
Associate Editor

NOT SO SPECIAL?

I must tell you that I am very disappointed in the special World War Two issue that I just received. It took me all of two minutes to thumb through, see there was nothing of any interest to me whatsoever, and throw the magazine away! I am very concerned that you seem to be heading toward doing more of these special or theme issues. I am sure there are other people who are very interested in the topic, but aren’t you risking losing some of your readers by not having some sort of variety in the contents? It is all well and fine to focus an issue on a subject, but please, please not to the exclusion of all else.

As I only get six issues per year, I do so look forward to each one. After a two-month wait, getting a special interest issue that may not have a single article in it that I’d read is something I don’t care to subscribe to. Won’t you please consider scaling back on these "special" issues to the point where you do have at least some variety of subject matter included in them? Or better yet, if your surveys have shown subjects such as World War Two to be of interest to a significant number of readers, include one major article about them in each issue so the rest of us have something else to read!

Nancy Slechta,
New Prague, Minnesota

Editor’s Note: Believe it or not, Nancy, we appreciate getting letters like yours. We certainly understand the need to provide our readers with the sorts of articles they enjoy and the importance of listening to their opinions.

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