Pat & Karen's Grand Adventure: Incredible Ireland

After three weeks, Pat and I are leaving Ireland today and heading back to London. During our time in the Emerald Isle we saw the sights with my parents, worked on the goat farm, and saw even more sights for a week after that, just the two of us. But back to the farm...

The Ardagh Castle Goat Farm is a small farm in the very south of Ireland, not far from the fishing village of Baltimore. It is run by Judy who is actually British but has been living in Ireland for about 16 years. On the farm there were:

5 goats
4 sheep
6 chickens
5 cats
3 dogs.

There is also a dog and cat boarding kennel but it was empty except for one cat during the time that we were there. We mostly did regular farm kinds of things... that is, we helped out with:

feeding the goats, chickens, and sheep. Aside from the regular feed they got, we found out chickens eat everything (even cooked chicken... uh oh) and goats eat some things (carrot peelings yes, bell pepper stems no, rose hedge clipping yes, banana peels no).
mucking out the goat stalls. Translation for the city folk: cleaning out all the pee-and-poo-soaked straw and replacing it with clean straw. This was not my favorite job.
collecting one egg from the chickens every other day.
chopping firewood.
putting the goats and chickens in the barn for the night.
milking the goats. We mostly watched Judy do it but we both had a couple of tries. We were starting to get the hang of it!

And we did quite a bit of gardening. We also ate a lot of goats cheese (hard and soft cheeses) and helped making goats yogurt (which tastes the same as cows yogurt). I have to say I liked the goats the best. They're far smarter than sheep and these goats were very tame and happy for the attention (read: food). Pat had a lot of bonding moments with the dogs, especially Teddy (Teddy Edward when he was bad), and discovered he definitely has more of a green thumb in the garden than I do. Country life was good. But at the end of the day, farming is hard work! Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. While we didn't really work that hard, real farmers have loads of hard physical labour to do and then if the season is crappy or their animals get sick, they might not even be able to sell the fruits of their labour. So I don't think I'm cut out to be a farmer but it was nice to work outside with the animals and have food on the table that was actually generated in your own backyard.

Big Ging, the cat.

Country views from the farm.

Gloria the goat.


Florence, the goat. She was the youngest and the naughtiest. Here she is trying to eat my jacket. She was also my favorite.

The sheep! And the farmhouse.

The Girls.
l to r: Florence, Noula, Middy, Maizy, and Gloria's in the back.

Pat's making yogurt!

Good ol' Fran. She was 15 years old!

Pat and a seal at the harbour in Schull, another fishing
village nearby.

Pat and Teddy, best buds for life!

But city life is not too bad either... So we got back on the bus to Cork. Mission: to rent a car and explore all the rest of Ireland- in seven days. Ok, so we didn't get to experience everything there is to do and see in Ireland, but we did manage to squeeze in quite a few things:

Kenmare and Killarney National Park.
Dingle and the surrounding peninsula, with it's jaw-dropping scenery.
a ferry across the mouth of the Shannon.
a cottage on Lough Derg.
Boyle, where we rediscovered Pat's family heritage at the local Catholic church.
Dublin, including the botanical gardens, Trinity College, and the Gravediggers Pub, with our awesome hosts - thanks Tom and James!

The highlights? For Pat it was looking through the church records (beginning in the 1790's) at his family history and the Cliffs of Kilkee, which are similar to the Cliffs of Moher; not quite as tall but definitely off the tourist track. For me, I'd have to say the Dingle Peninsula was stunning and just driving through the countryside was really nice. Bottom line, Ireland is a really good place to travel. The people are extremely friendly and hospitable, the environment is beautiful, and if you have a car, you can drive to wherever you need to be within one day. Now we're back to London for five days to hang out with Jeff (Pat's brother) and then... Toronto!