Walking the Poems of Ireland

This book is a detailed daily narrative of the author's exploration of over 45 sites of antiquities in Ireland as well as beautiful gardens and estates and Ireland's major cities. These often remote sites still pepper the country today with astounding and beautiful ancient abbeys, castles, High Crosses, Round Towers, and medieval towns. This book is a search for these sites and what they can tell about the magic of Ireland.I spent many days traveling the small country roads to often inaccessible sites of antiquities in isolated fields, behind farmers barnyards, and near the coasts. I also explored the Celtic sites of kings and queens and their lost legacies forgotten in the mists of legendary castles and abbeys. I saw remnants in the current day Travelers, a group of people who chose to live on the fringes of society and seek to live independently. They also chose to live in scattered caravans in some of the most astoundingly beautiful places I have ever seen.I was enthralled by the undiscovered adventures of rambling on small country roads with sheep and cattle sharing the road with my small Opel Vectra car, and driving on the left and sitting in the right side of the car. The little shops and country people I discovered along the way were charming. The Irish countryside, unindustrialized and uncommercialized, is a mystique of changing colors of green fields mingled with little cottages and huge country manors. Sometimes lost among this beauty, I stopped to gaze upon time-honored Celtic High Crosses, or swans upon a lake, or ducks on a river, or border collies waiting at the threshold of a hundred farm cottages, or to ponder how such a beautiful place could remained unspoiled in the mist.I journeyed into the City of Dublin with its River Liffey and the stone bridges that looked like medieval sites in the mist. Dublin has a haunting blend of majestic stone buildings, a remote age castle, green flowered parks, and old antique shops that created a city lost in time. Its hustle and bustle, world-famous theater, and unique shopping opportunities, made walking its streets worthy of many days ramblings. This journal also covers a weekend exploring the majestic great castle ruins of Northern Wales and visiting three castles that are World Heritage Sites. My travels were so overwhelming, I will let each day speak for itself to the readers of this book.