O’Brien’s Bridge

While driving through the winding countryside, we noticed many houses with interesting pattern on their roof. Thatchwork roofs are signed withba signature which is associated to the builder or artist. The saying raining cats and dogs, want to know where it came from? Well cats and dogs dug into the straw to keep warm and when it rains they would fall out of the straw and people would say its raining counts and dogs.

In 1169 when british (anglonormans) arrived on request of king dermot, he decided he Wanted to be high king of ireland and needed help. He sent word and spoke to king henry II to get help and aking Henry told Dermot to speak to a man named strombo - who agreed to help him out as long as he could marry dermots eldest daughter. He knew by marrying her he would be in some sort of power. Henry ii was the firat english king to come to ireland and convinced other kings to become lords and dukes.

Anglo normans became irish and some would say they were more irish than the irish themselves. In the 1500s king henry 8 upset everyone. He was paranoid and a religious fanatic. He decided he wanted a divorce and the pope declined it, he saw it as an act against god and converted to protestant in order to be the head of the church andnget a divorce. The lords and dukes in ireland were not happy as they were roman catholic so he had to try to convert to protestant. Thats why northern ireland is mostly protestant now.

1608 king james comesbinto power and he wrote the protestant bible. He put a tax and licencing on whisky. Started making own alcohol, made pocheen ranges from 60%-90% pure. Was the way around paying the tax.

He made plantations to expand them into british protestant areas. Irish started to rebel and had the 1641 massacre. Got theb sland under control of roman catholic however in 1649 cromwell came across to restore british protestant control and slaughtered many irish people. Sent irish to caribbean islands and jamaica as slaves.

We drove across the Longest coastal drive in the world which is over 2500kmblong. Canada has the longest coastline in the world, however it isn't connected by a road.

Star Wars, the Force Awaken was mainly filmedbon the island. When the Disney company came over they thought many of the roads were too skinny and that there werr faster ways to get across the mountain, so they built new roads and widened roads in ireland. This is more work than the Irish government has done in years :P

Gaelic and english are the 2 main languages in Ireland.

Craic = (sounds like crack.)

Means fun.

That was good craic

Whisky will make you frisky

Ishkabada. Means water of life. Irish word for whisky.

Stopped in to Doolin for lunch, got a coat of arms and we had the jelly sandwiches we made from the free breakfast the hostel had for us. After relaxing we boarded the bus to head to the place we have all been waiting for: the Cliffs of Moher!Read more