Holy. Crap.
I finally have the film back from our trip to Ireland & England from last month!!! I photographed the ENTIRE trip on my two film camera’s, I didn’t even bring my digital camera with me – though Jay did have his. I am sorry, I am so, so sorry for all the pictures that are about to blow up your computer screen. These are a little out of order, but all of these are from the first week.
So without further ado, here is Week 1 of our Emerald Adventures!
Ardara, County Donegal
This is where both of my grandparents are from. My grandfather was a first generation born American but my grandmother was actually born & raised in Ardara. When she emigrated to the US, she was introduced to my grandfather & his family by friends who knew they were also from Ardara. The rest…is history!
We stayed at this super cute Victorian home in the middle of town. It doesnt look like much on the outside but the interior was gorgeous! Its called The Gatsby House and all the bedrooms are named after different film stars. We stayed in the grandest room, the Ava Gardener, which used to be the parlor room. Now, Jay & I didnt originally choose the best room, we had picked a different one, but my mom wanted that one and we were a day ahead of the rest of our group, so we moved across the hall. In the end, my parents ended up in the attic!
Im pretty sure this was the highlight of Jay’s trip – feeding a lamb!
My moms cousin Charlie owns this waterfall & his oyster farm is a little ways down the road
Sad story behind these beach caves – a bunch of local villagers ran to hide in these caves when the Vikings landed and they were found and massacred
This was the ONLY rainbow we saw the whole time!
This guy knew my grandma! He said she was the best dancer back in their day
Our rental car – Jay absolutely hated it!
These are my great grandparents
Mom’s uncle co-owns this bar. It was ALWAYS packed
Grandma’s House
This first house belonged to my great aunt Una’s husband. They were married for about 2 weeks and then he went back to work as a fisherman…and just disappeared in the middle of the ocean. Her in-laws tried to tell her that this house belonged to her now, but she wouldnt hear it, packed up her bags and moved to the States to live with my grandma. My niece is named after her and she’s living in Florida! This house is now a bed and breakfast.
And here is my grandma’s house that she grew up in. Her and her 15 siblings, including aunt Una. Theres ruins of a barn and the first house, which my great grandfather burned down during World War I when the British officers wanted to use it as a base office. He then built the current house which is the one my grandma was born in. Her brother owns it now. I’ll never forget the story she told me about when she was a little girl she woke up one night and there was a well dressed lady and her son standing at the foot of the bed staring at her. Creepy!!
Great grandpa was a school master, which was a pretty respectable job in Ireland back in the day. Turns out, they were kinda rich!
Ballyseede Castle
This was the first castle we stayed at! I mean, we only stayed at 2. Its supposed to be haunted with its most famous ghost being Hilda.
Ballyseede was originally occupied by the Earls of Desmond, but because they didn’t swear their allegiance to the crown, wars broke out that were known as the Geraldine Wars. The wars came to an end when the 16th Earl of Desmond was beheaded and his head displayed at London Bridge.
We were briefly considering eloping to Ballyseede Castle because we loved it so much, but alas, we couldn’t figure out how to get Falkor over to Ireland. Guess we’ll just have to settle for being someones Ballyseede Castle wedding photographers (-;
Rock of Cashel
It was a church or something? I dont know, my mom wanted to go! It was neat & old
Slieve League
So we didn’t get to see the Cliffs of Moher but we DID get to visit the highest cliffs in Europe – Slieve League! They were pretty impressive so we went twice. Just kidding, Jay wanted to go back on a sunny day…but they really are impressive!
The Coach House
This was actually the very first place we slept at. On the grounds are these cool castle ruins from the 1100’s! The coach house itself was built in the 1800’s. True story: Jay and I almost got run over by a pony in the morning when we were snapping these photos. Great start to the vacation! No photo proof as it was 7am, we were running on 5 hours of sleep after being awake for 48 hours straight and we were just plain dumbfounded at this small horse bounding towards us. I also caught a Clefairy at the breakfast table which made my day (-;
Misc. photos
And here we have a bunch of photos from when we were driving from place to place and pulled over to snap some photos, so I dont remember where any of these were or really anything behind the pictures…but they sure are pretty!
This is Kylemore Abbey, where we had our engagement photos taken by Julie Paisley Photography! Unfortunately the film insert of my Mamiya got jacked up and a lot of my pictures have a weird blur on them. I have a new insert now so the issue shouldnt happen anymore but aaaargh!
