A Day (or Two) in Bray

Bray, which could be classified as a suburb of Dublin was the last stop on our whirlwind tour of southern Ireland. We had overnight stops in Kildare, Tralee, Cahersiveen, Cork, Waterford, Wicklow and Bray.

We had a sea-view room in Bray.

There was one day where the weather can only be described as foul. But on the sunny day, the promenade was teeming with people (and dogs) parading back and forth. But on the sunny day and the cloudy day, the views were fantastic!

A Little Blarney

Years ago my dear friend Jane was telling me about her visit to Blarney Castle and kissing the Blarney Stone. She described a narrow, winding stone staircase and people holding her feet while she kissed the stone. She didn't have any pictures to show me and the images her descriptions conjured up in my head were odd, if not outright frightening, and 100% inaccurate. (Think of bats in caves.)

Having been there now, I can see what she was talking about. Except that people no longer have to hold your feet. Now there are iron bars you can hold on to in order to keep from toppling out of the castle onto the ground - a generous three story drop. So having someone hold onto your feet for that little extra security is not a bad idea either.

See that opening at the very top? It's in there.

This is the stone.

They were doing major renovations on the castle while we were there, so I had to choose my camera angles carefully in order to avoid scaffolding and plastic, which add nothing to the charm of a castle.

The grounds were lovely, but it wasn't the right time of year for the gardens.

They say that kissing the Blarney Stone will give you eloquent speech. Hmmm. I know some people who should go...

Dingle Made Me Tingle

The Dingle Peninsula and the Iveragh Peninsula have some of the most stunning coastline I've ever seen. Even though the weather was overcast while we were there, it is still very dramatic.

Plus it's very hilly and there are waterfalls coming off the hills.

And there's just something about the name "Dingle"....

Hey, Hey LBJ

How many kids did you kill today? I remember that chant. Back in the 60s I'd have been among the chanters. I truly didn't think he cared about the Americans who were dying in southeast Asia. But after visiting the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin I came to realize that this man cared. More deeply than most of us knew. That war devastated that president. He understood that he couldn't win it and he didn't want it to be the undoing of everything else that he'd worked for.

And what else had he worked for? The Great Society - Civil Rights, Medicare, Head Start. Clean air and water. Things we take for granted today. While most of our government leaders today come from a legal background, Johnson's background was in education. It's my belief that this shaped the types of programs and legislation that he pursued. No telling what he might have accomplished if that war hadn't got in the way.

Anyway, as I learned in this visit, presidential libraries are not just about the papers and books of a particular president. They are designed to help you understand the context of the presidency. What was going on culturally, socially, and historically as well as politically. Having lived through the Johnson presidency, the exhibits in the Johnson library brought back lots of memories.

I'd assumed that presidential libraries are dull, boring places. Not so. (Same goes for the Library of Congress in Washington DC. - fabulous place to visit.) The Bush library is just down the road. I think we'll be paying a visit sometime soon.