Far too quickly, our Irish visit was coming to a close and there were still a few items on our to-do list that hadn't been to-do'd yet. There are a number of national sports in Ireland that are unique to Ireland and, for the most part, played only inside Ireland. We had seen some of the hard hitting action associated with Gaelic Football (think Aussie Rules with a soccer ball) and we picked up tickets for the opening game of the Irish Hurling season. We d...

"It's a long way to Tipperary,It's a long way to go.It's a long way to TipperaryTo the sweetest girl I know!Goodbye Piccadilly,Farewell Leicester Square,It's a long long way to Tipperary,But my heart's right there."For some reason I had always been fascinated with the the remote Triple T's of travel. Timbuktu and Tuktoyaktuk (for Canadians at least) because they are both somewhat mysterious and very remote, and Tipperary because of the fam...

After a relatively quick stop in Killarney and a wander through Ross Castle we headed to the south of Ireland. DH was starting to zero in on the land of her people. With both of her parents immigrating to Canada from Liverpool, DH grew up thinking she was a product of the country that gave us fish and chips, and the Beatles. It was only in later life that she discovered that her grandparents had actually come from Ireland, and the Cork area specifically. Given t...

We took local advice and just made a quick stop in Limerick (just because you have to stop in any place named Limerick) for a coffee and a piece of rubber pie- actually we passed on the rubber pie and had carrot cake instead, and we were halfway through it when it dawned on us that 'rubber' pie was actually rhubarb pie with a thick Irish accent (among other translations, "tars" is actually towers, and "rats" is actually riots). You might expect that Limer...

So how small is Spud? Spud would be very much at home in a Shriners parade and our tiny vehicle now has a new challenge. DH aka Sciatica Sally has taken to rocking back and forth as a form of back/groin/knee pain control that is a stark reminder of her 70's head-banger rocker days. Spud wasn't built to handle this kind of motion so not only are we bouncing up and down with every little road bump but we're now also swaying side-to-side. I'm sure th...