Days 7 & 8 - Lisdoonvarna, Doolin and Folk Music

Good day all.  Saturday in Ireland. Did not get around to writing last night.  Out a little too late at a pub watching me p's & q's and listening to some wonderful folk music.  (See below)

Can't believe we are half way thru already - WOW!

I am going to combine Day 7 and Day 8 into one.  Not real busy today (Saturday day 8)  Had a bit of lay in this morning until 9 am.  Then some breakfast and then down to Doolin to check on the status of our trip to the Aran Islands and then go to the Music festival for a while. 

Which we did and are now back to the B&B for a little napper before we head back to the FolkFest tonight.

So you get 2 days in one and 2 days worth of pics and videos in one file. 

Which is here by the way: Day 7 & 8 Pics & Video

FRIDAY - DAY 7

So yesterday we made the short (1 hour) drive up from Shannon to the Town of Lisdoonvarna where we are staying.  Lisdoonvarna is about 7 miles from the coast village of Doolin where the 3 day Folk music festival started Friday night and runs thru Sunday. 

It is also where the pier is with the boats leave from that normally take you out to the Aran Islands and for tours to see the Cliffs of Moher from the water.  NORMALLY.  But definitely not yesterday when we were supposed to go look at the Cliffs of Moher from the water side on the ferry.

THE SEAS WERE ANGRY FRIDAY

                 The video and the picture are in the same spot, Looking in the same direction

There is a big storm halfway between Scotland and Iceland that has been pummeling the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland with pretty steady 20 - 40 mile an hour winds out of the SW.  Causing 15 - 20 foot waves.  If you look at any of the videos in the Day 7 & 8 folder you will see some pretty angry seas.  There is not a lot of rain associated with the storm, at least down here, but the wind will not stop.  And the Ferry boats that are normally tied up at the pier were moved to more sheltered waters elsewhere.

We went down to Doolin pier at today (Saturday) at lunch time and found out they did get todays ferry to the island off and plan to go again tomorrow.  Which is good news for us.  Though it looks like it will be an exciting ride.  The rides to the Cliffs of Moher have been cancelled at least thru tomorrow.

While we there the ferry to island came back and Anita got a video of it coming in.  It is a pretty big boat.  It holds 250 people. 

                                                     We'll be doing this sleigh ride tomorrow.

Back to Friday Night and speaking of Folk Music, we accomplished the other really big goal of our trip last night.  We found ourselves in a really small pub in Lisdoonvarna called the Roadside Pub where 4 very talented and locally well known musicians from Doolin showed up to play for the 15 -20 people in the pub. They also convinced a few independent musicians who will be playing at the folk festival to join them last night.  The 4 locals: 3 old men and a younger women consisted of one old man playing the Bodhran (pronounced bow-ron and is a small Celtic drum) and another playing the squeeze box and singing Irish ballads acapella  (or accompanied only by a pipe).  The final old man was a master of the pipes.  He played a modern flute, tin whistle, penny whistle, recorder, and an old-style wooden flute.  He was kind of the leader of the locals.  The fourth local was a young woman fiddle player and obviously very good and a friend of the other 3.  She did an unbelievable job keeping up with the other three.  The pipe players name was Christy Berry.  I got talk to him for a bit and he was just a great old character to chat with.  He did tell me the fiddle player was a 3rd generation fiddler and that Christy played with both her father and grandfather.  

In addition to these 4 locals, Christy invited a few independent musicians from the folk festival up to jam with him.  So we also had 3 additional fiddlers, a guitarist and a guy that played mandolin and tin whistle.  This group was not really a formal band.  They were a group of Americans from New Orleans (none of them originally from New Orleans, they just all met there.)  But they came over as a gang, to play pick-up gigs at the Folk Festival.  

In case you lost count, that's 9 musicians playing.  And you need to see the pics or videos to get an appreciation of how small this place was.  There were no more than 20 of us watching and listening to them play.

I can not describe what a great night it was sitting, watching and listening to a group of people make such wonderful music and having s grand time doing together. It was fascinating to me to watch one or two them start a song and see the others, who did not know the song when it started,  join in as they figured where the music was going.  

So needless to say, the reason I am writing this on Saturday is because we stayed as long as they played which was after midnight.  3 hours they played.  Not all played all the time.  But for three hours, there was always at least a couple of the playing.  And, of course, there was me drinking pints and Anita sipping Powers Whiskey.  (Please note that I spelled Whiskey with an "e" - the proper way to spell Irish made Whiskey.  Whisky with no "e" is Scottish)  You can learn a lot in Pubs.

So a good time was had well into the wee hours.

So today (Saturday) we did as I mentioned earlier.  It is now about 6 pm here and we are going to head back down to Folk Fest at Doolin and see how things are done there.  

Tomorrow we need to be on the dock at 10 am for our boat ride out to Inishmore in the Arans.  Once there we are being toured around the island in a horse and trap (buggy) by one of the island residents.

This is the first time in 3 years they have had the Folk Festival because of Covid, so there are a lot of people in town for it.

Look thru the Day 7 & 8  photo files.  There are some pictures and video of the angry sea and music in the pub.  Some of the videos are pretty big files.  I tried to compress them as best I could, but then they lose quality.

Some videos are labeled  "ORIGINAL" and  "REDUCED" file.  If you have a good hi-speed internet connection, watch the original.

The pictures and video of the seas just do not do it justice.  Try as I might, you just can't capture 15 - 20 foot waves crashing into 30 cliffs and relate what you are seeing.

Here is the link again: Day 7 & 8 Pics& Video

Thanks for following along.  Try to watch some of the videos of the music.

Depending on how wore out we are tomorrow I will let you know how we make out tonight and  and tomorrow.  I will try for tomorrow night, but it may be Monday morning.  

This vacationing keeps you hopping!

Anita and Jim