gollygoshgumgoonz: Southern Ireland road trip

For the last few days we have driven from Dublin down to Cork, over to Schull then back up the other side to Galway.
We haven't seen much of the Countryside or coast as it has been foggy, and raining most of the time as you would expect in December.
The town centres are cute though. All the rickety rows of houses and lots of people around enjoying the festivities. Loads of bars, cafes, and cute little shops. We went to Schull (Skull) as it was the place where my great great Grandfather was born and I wanted to check out the local graveyard and see if I could find a headstone with 'Coleman' (or Donovan, Scanlan, or Morrison - ancestor wives and parents) on it. As it happened, we did find the graveyard but most of the old headstones were worn down with nothing legible on them. It was good to get a feel of the place anyway, looking at old buildings and ancient stone fences and wondering if my great great grandfather played around them as a boy.
One thing that was very cool, is we walked into a cafe to have some lunch and a man recognised our kiwi accent. It turned out he worked in New Zealand on the Lord of the Rings and Hobbitt films as a stuntman/extra/actor and had just printed out all his photos of his time there after some 8 years or so of never getting around to it. So we had a great time chatting away with him, and some of the locals. He asked us to stay on and join him for a party he was having the next night but sadly we needed to carry on as we had our accommodation already booked as well as a schedule to be in Northern Ireland by Christmas.
In Tralee, we learn't all about the Rose of Tralee. I had known about the competition but never knew the story or ballad written by William Pembroke Mulchinock, a wealthy Protestant, out of love for Mary O'Connor, a poor Catholic maid in service to his parents.
We didn't hear any limericks in Limerick but enjoyed a stroll around the town before heading off to Galway.
Hopefully we will get back to Ireland one day in the summer months. Its beautiful but it will be even better when we can see the sea, and into the distance.