I know firsthand how adventures and travel are always just a slip away from injury and trauma. It really shouldn’t surprise me anymore when a moment’s misstep waylays a plan or an intention.
This section of our family trip through Ireland was filled with awkwardness, irritation, and also beauty.
Fortunately, my accident was a mere fall. A foot stuck at the wrong angle in a rut worn into ancient steps, a hard crack to the knee. Everyone around gasping and pain shooting through me. Yet with all falls, the fear of what it could be or what could have happened is always skipping alongside the incident. I got up and walked around, finding nothing broken or shattered outside of my expectations.
And so for the day, I reacted with frustration while my family hiked the Burren and I sat, weepy, in the field waiting for them.
My reaction was a bit dramatic, yet it also wasn’t. I sat in a grassy knoll in the countryside of Ireland, waiting for loved ones who brought me back a handful of picked wildflowers. How bad was this, really?
But, of course, when we travel, we can’t plan for everything. We hope for the best, and intend for perfection, yet it never works out that way. Ultimately, we have to learn to think of things on a sliding scale (from perfection to catastrophic and about 150 stops in between). We have to balance between toxic positivity and Eeyore-type negativity.Â
Travel, it turns out, is a lot about what’s in the eye of the beholder. But travel can also challenge us to turn our eyes to different things, to adjust our field of vision.
So despite some bruising and limited mobility for a few days, this part of Ireland still found me astonished and happy. Our family trip in Ireland was still worth every moment.
My fall happened at Clonmacnoise. I am aware of the irony of feeling sorry for myself over a hurt knee at a monastery started in 544 by a man who died from the plague at age 33. Clonmacnoise was brutally attacked by the Irish 27 times, the Vikings 7 times, and the Normans 6 times.
If Clonmacnoise does nothing else, it certainly provides perspective and can put you in your back in your tiny-speck-of-modern-day-privilege seat.
Visiting Clonmacnoise
We went here based on a recommendation from a friend, and this started our driving tour of Ireland. We left Dublin and its tidal wave of human condition behind and found the pastoral rivers of rural Ireland.
The sheep lay low and the clouds blanketed us just enough to make us feel encased in a shroud of mystery while we visited the ruins of higher pursuit and pain.
Clonmacnoise was not crowded when we went. We took time to enjoy the movie inside and walked the grounds. We soaked in the quiet and peacefulness. sensing the lives that walked before us. It was beautiful and haunting in a perfect way.
We all loved the whispering arch; I was shocked and delighted at how well it worked!
For more on visiting Clonmacnoise, visit this link: heritageireland.ie/places-to-visit/clonmacnoise
Based on a recommendation from someone working at Clonmacnoise, we ended up grabbing a riverside lunch at The River Cafe in Shannonbridge.
Visiting the Burren
After nursing wounds and collecting our thoughts, the sun came out and shone down on us. Ancient walls held us up while we perched above a slow-moving river. It was glorious.
We drove on to the Burren.
The parking for the Burren was incredibly hard to find (for more on driving in Ireland, see our notes and tips). It required some patience and common sense, but we eventually found the parking area.
My family took a quick walk through what they say is an otherworldly landscape. A plateau of limestones, riddled with fossils, stretches out before fields of green and the ocean.
For more on visiting the Burren, visit: www.ireland.com/en-us/destinations/regions/the-burren
We then made our way to Lahinch. In our minds, Lahinch was a “gimme” stop on the way to Cliffs of Moher. We just needed a place to rest our bodies and get ready for the following day.
But it turned out Lahinch was lovely and a highlight.
Visiting Lahinch
Lahinch is a town on the coast and gets quite crowded during the summer. So it is best to book early if you intend to visit. We found lodging at the cute and quaint Atlantic Hotel, immediately downtown. Parking was challenging, but the people were incredibly friendly and the location perfect. Plus, Irish breakfast was included!
Given our itinerary, we didn’t have time for many activities in Lahinch, but the after a pub dinner, we walked (or, in my case, hobbled) down to the beach.
A phrase I never thought to use but is appropriate here: the cold summer beach breeze, hit our faces. The ocean is perfect anywhere, no matter what country you are in, as we found in Portugal, too.
The sun began to set and the tide began to eat the beach. Our toes squished under us while the sun’s last light hit the windows of the old buildings up on the bluff.
While this day in Ireland had roughed me up a bit, I had no complaints. My eyes were looking at one of the most beautiful scenes I’d seen in a long time.
We had gone from a monastery holding secrets for centuries, to a limestone mound from prehistoric ages, to an Irish seaside town, all in one day.
What could I possibly have to complain about?