After clearing my head on Cape Clear, I decided to head up to County Clare, where I hadn't really spent any time on my past trips. I had to take the bus through Cork, Limerick, and Ennis to get to Kilrush. I picked Kilrush because it looked like the biggest town in the south of Clare and I wanted to work my way up the coast to Doolin.
In Kilrush, I was alone in the hostel dorm the first night and I spent my day wandering around town looking in vain for a bookstore. I was losing my voice to a cold at this point, so I thought a couple of hot whiskeys might help [what do I know? - I'm not a doctor]. I found a wonderful little pub near the hostel and met a few of the regulars there. I had a really good chat with them about Ireland, how it's changed in the past few years, and where it may be headed. Of coure the smoking ban came up, but they were all pretty much in favour. They were light-heartedly making fun of each other and when it came to me, they tried to get me going with some anti-American talk. When they found out I was Canadian, they had a good laugh.
The next day, I got a roomie - a nurse named Kim from British Columbia. We wandered around town and out to the walled gardens, and that evening I introduced her to my favourite pub in Kilrush. We had a good laugh with three Dutch fellows who were vacationing in Kilrush, and my new pub-friend Michael regaled us with stories of his time in New York. The next day Kim and I caught the bus to Ennis.
I abandoned my plans to go up the coast because the bus services were not all running yet, so I thought I'd head to Lisdoonvarna. Unfortunately, I had a hard time gettting there from Ennis because of the timing of the buses, so I opted for Lahinch on the coast. It turned out that Lahinch was exactly the type of place I didn't want to stay at. It's a busy little seaside resort town with expensive tourist shops and surfers and golfers everywhere. Apparently it has a world-class golf course. Not much more to say about Lahinch.
From there, I caught the bus to Doolin, where I planned to stay a couple of night, then head to the Aran Islands from there. Doolin is a small, spread-out village with three hostels, three pubs, and about 100,000 B&B's. I've had an image of Doolin in my head since the first time I was in Ireland about seven years ago. I imagined a town with lots of musicians living there and a few pubs with proper sessions . Not quite. At O'Connors, the pub closest to Paddy Moloney's Doolin Hostel where I was staying, they had a section reserved for musicians, complete with microphones, and 'sessions' were held nightly at 9:30 each night, 5:30 on Sunday. Overall, the music was good, [one night I would say quite good], but after a few nights the facade crumbles. I suppose they don't expect people to stay for more than a night. After a couple of days, I was even joking with some of the staff at O'Connors about being 'factory workers'. I sat there reading one day at lunchtime and I watched as buses drove up and disgorged thirty to forty American tourists who lined up at the bar to be fed and watered, and then ushered out the other door, presumably to be driven to the Cliffs of Moher. Over and over and over. Despite the tourist frenzy though, I still enjoyed my stay in Doolin.
One of the best things I did during my stay there is to walk along the coast to the Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs themselves are pretty impressive, but I saw a lot along the way that was at least as impressive. Hiking the trail along the coast would normally take about one and a half to two hours but because I stopped so much to take in the sites, it took me about three. The path winds its way right along the cliff, barbed wire fence on the left, cliff on the right. At some points it got a little hairy, but most of the path was quite good. Along the way, I ran into only one person, a German fellow, coming the other way. He told me that he saw the rescue people bagging someone who either fell or jumped over the cliffs the previous day. I asked him where this happened, hoping I had already passed that point, but he didn't know. A little bit farther along, I found a little ledge overlooking some impressive cliffs and sat for about forty minutes watching the birds and the waves. When I finally arrived at The Cliffs, there were people everywhere and I felt like I was at Disneyland. I took a couple of pictures and hitched back to Doolin.
Back at the hostel, I considered life's list of Things Which Must Be Done. Coming in at around number 43,921 is 'Go out drinking with a women's rugby team'. Fortunately, I was in a position to check this off my list because the women's team from Beaconsfield Rugby Football Club, near Montreal, showed up at the hostel. They were in Ireland for ten days and were to play three matches. They dubbed the trip the 1000 Pint Tour because they planned, amongst the fifteen of sixteen of them, to consume 1000 drinks during their trip. I met them halfway through their trip and they were, impressively, ahead of schedule. We hit all three pubs in Doolin, hilarity ensued, and they actually made the bus to Cork the next day.
Number 43, 921. Check.