Continued from Planning Your Trip to Ireland Part 5

INTO THE WEST
Around the Shannon area, in addition to Limerick and the two castles, there is also the techology town of Ennis, now booming thanks to Ireland being such a huge part of the computer age thanks to Mac computer factories and a very literate, English speaking workforce.
County Clare
Going west out of Ennis, you will visit the unique lunar landscape of the Burren, which is pretty much more granite boulder than grass going all the way to the coast and the spectacular Cliffs of Moher.
When the English began to push into Ireland, they made Catholics leave their land-they were said to be sending them to “Hell or Connaught” (Connaught is the western region of Ireland) because the land was so poor compared to the fertile soil they were being evicted from, that it was considered to be a death sentence. Anyone who has seen the film The Field will have a good idea of what it looks like.
Also famous in County Clare is the town of Ballyvaughan, a sleepy little hamlet with a wonderful international Irish music festival every February and seafood to die for. Then there is the town of Lisdoonvarna, where bachelors and unmwarried women go to be matched.
COUNTY GALWAY
Heading north on the main road from Limerick to you will come to Galway, on the west coast nearly directly opposite the country from Dublin.
Galway is a very vibrant town, a great tourist hub for the more wild parts of Galway County and for the ferries which will take you out to the Aran Islands, where many people still speak Irish and live in a traditional way.
All year round, you’ll find festivals which celebrate the various aspects of Irish culture. The medieval parish church in Galway is the biggest in Ireland, and many medieval stone buildings are still standing throughout the city.
County Galway is full of abbeys, castles, ruins, and the most outstanding seafood and pubs. Oughterard is a lovely town about 8 miles outside of the city if you want to sample the best of earth, sea, river and sky.
The area around Lenane was where they filmed many parts of The Quiet Man, and it is an amazing lough like a fjord, which was why the Vikings decided to settle in this area. There are many Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht to the far west. Clifton is the last point of civilisation, a bustling town full of music, pubs, and fabulous food, before you head still further west to the wilds of Galway.

Continues in Planning Your Trip to Ireland Part 7

Respiratory problems like COPD are becoming more and more common as people living longer than ever before. Traveling with oxygen can be a real challenge for some people, but here is a useful set of practical guidelines, so you can get out and about safely.

http://www.johnshopkinshealthalerts.com/alerts/lung_disorders/JohnsHopkinsHealthAlertsLungDisorders_810-1.html

Continued from Planning Your Trip to Ireland Part 4

NORTH FROM THE RING OF KERRY
Driving back towards Shannon airport is the bustling town of Limerick. Frank McCourt did not write the most flattering things about it in Angela’s Ashes, but he’s a bit of a northern Irishman in temperament, and it has changed a great deal. It has all of the modern conveniences of any Irish city, and some historical sites as well.
Everyone in the world has heard of the Blarney Stone, but there is an amazing castle that goes with it!
Nearby is another magnificent castle, Bunratty, with a folk park attached.
In both castles you can experience a medieval banquet several nights a week, and the mead, a sort of honey wine, is to die for.
At Bunratty, the folk park recaptures what traditional Irish life would have been like in a series of cottages complete with animals. There are some great pubs nearby with terrific menus. Even though you are so close to the city of Limerick, you’ll really feel like you’ve stepped right back in time.
THE SHANNON AREA
As we’ve said, you can always opt to go back to America when your honeymoon is over via Shannon Airport, rather than have to return to Dublin. Just make sure they know you are planning a one-way rental.
This trip around the southern part of Ireland from Dublin to Cork, and from Cork on to Shannon Airport which we have been describing should take you anywhere from a week to two weeks depending on how much stopping you do.
The Shannon river itself is a mighty sight, and now, thanks to some engineering first started in the 1840s during the Irish Potato Famine, and completed in the late 1990s, you can rent a cruiser and go all the way up the river to Northern Ireland, to the lake districts of Upper and Lower Lough Erne. There are many historic and sacred sites to visit along the way.

Continues in the article:
Planning Your Trip to Ireland Part 6

Here are some helpful guidelines on how to stay safe in the sun, to prevent melanoma – the least common but most deadly form of skin cancer:

http://www.johnshopkinshealthalerts.com/alerts/healthy_living/JohnsHopkinsHealthyLivingHealthAlert_425-1.html

Here is a useful article to encourage us all to stay up and about no matter what our health issues.

http://www.johnshopkinshealthalerts.com/alerts/arthritis/JohnsHopkinsArthritisHealthAlert_1920-1.html

We will spare you the jokes. Suffice it to say, traveling can be a joyful experience for some, and a nightmare for others if they end up with a bad tummy.

Here is a really handy special report on how to recognizing 12 common Digestive Disorders, and what to do when things go wrong in the digestive system

http://www.johnshopkinshealthalerts.com/reports/digestive_health/871-1.html

continued from Planning Your Trip to Ireland Part 3
WEST FROM CORK
THE RING OF KERRY
But if you have time once you reach Cork why not press on to the far southwest, to the famous Ring of Kerry. It is a ring of roads going around the lovely lakes of Killarney. It is an exceptionally unspoilt blue-green landscape in an already amazingly mon-modernized country.
As you go from Cork to Kerry, you can take a quick stop at the lovely sailing center of Baltimore. Or, you can get a boat to take you out to the Blasket Islands, made famous by the book The Islandman, where the Irish-speaking community kept to the old ways long after the rest of Ireland had started to become modernized.
The Gap of Dunloe is a famous tourist spot in the Ring of Kerry area. As the name suggests, it is a gap between the mountains.The views are incredible, and it has also been made famous, or infamous, for the Irish jaunting car rides you can take there.
I say infamous because they cost a small fortune, and they don’t actually go through the pass, just up to the small bridge where you ford the river, and back again to the pub where you can hire them.
But you CAN drive through the Gap of Dunloe yourself, if you have a good rental car and don’t mind taking your time on a leisurely 10 mile an hour view of the sights.

The gap has very unusual pale white soil, so be warned, and it will muck up your car big time and you might want to head to a car wash before you return it to the rental place if you have time.

The road is steep both going up and coming down, but the view is breathtaking, mountains, lakes, sea and sky. Just take it slowly, and remember which side of the road you are meant to be driving on –you would be amazed at how many people forget.

Driving through the Gap of Dunloe brings you back down around onto the flat plains and lake area again, which also has many little forests. If you look carefully enough, you will be able to see small sitka deer, European red deer, and the native Irish gray deer, about the size of a small moose with impressive antlers.

So going through the Gap is a great drive if you want to see the sights and don’t have any set plans except to wander and see where you end up. There are no really large towns in this area part from Kenmare, but there are numerous places to stay throughout the area. You never have to worry about chancing your luck with a B and B. They are always inspected and so of a very high standard.

There is so much accommodation around the Ring of Kerry, all pretty much at a set price depending on double, single, with or wthout shared bathroom, that you can’t really go very far wrong if you just want to drive around and see what you find. Even people who are not running an official B and B often take tourists in for a bit of extra money.

For more information on this popular tourist spot with foreigners and Irish alike, visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_of_Dunloe

http://www.killarney.ac/gdtour.html

Planning Your Trip to Ireland Part 5

continued from
Planning Your Your Trip to Ireland Part 2
WEST FROM WATERFORD
Lismore Castle near Dungarvan is a must-see. It’s owned by the same family who own Chatsworth in Derbyshire in England, which was the model for Darcy’s great house Pemberley in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

The Castle grounds alone are worth looking at, but the whole countryside is remarkable.
Another amazing town slightly inland as you are heading west from Waterford is the medieval one of Kilkenny, containing one of the best-preserved medieval castles in all of Ireland, if not Europe. The town has a great atmosphere, and many fine pubs and restaurants. You could easily spend a whole day in the castle and still not think it was enough.
CORK
Once you arrive in Cork, you will want to take in all the local attractions of this bustling city. It is a lively town, smaller than Dublin, with an atmosphere of its very own. (see Part 2 for more details)
You could head from Cork back to Dublin via whichever route you didn’t take to get south, so, either through the Midland, or via Waterford.
Or, you can easily head up to Shannon from Cork to get the plane home to America.
Planning Your Trip to Ireland Part 4

Yes, it is that time of year again, when pollen and other environmental outdoor allergens rear their ugly heads and become an eye-watering ordeal for those of us who want to spend more time enjoying the great outdoors.
For 10 great tips on how to deal with spring allergies, have a look at this article.

http://www.webmd.com/allergies/features/how-to-survive-spring-allergies?ecd=wnl_day_040808

A terrific site full of useful nutrition information.

http://www.nutrition-goddess.com