Ireland 2023 Recap

This will be a brief summary of the trip. I plan to blog more extensively on several of the stops we made on the Brigid’s Ancient Ireland Tour.

Was I excited to return to Ireland? You betcha! (Picture by Sandy Beck)

I was honored to be asked by Prime Tours to help plan and lead a tour to Ireland based on places in my book Brigid of Ireland. Below are two maps I used while writing Brigid and the sequel Pages of Ireland.

I can confirm that we definitely followed the story.

Of course, I had no idea how the tour would go, and neither did anyone else truly. I mean, eight days on a bus with mostly strangers? But no worries. They were all great people and became new friends.

Picture by Sandy Beck

Another thing, a big thing, that made this tour so special was my two best friends came! My husband Tom and my best friend Sandy Beck. It was Sandy’s first time to Ireland (as it was for most of the guests) and I’m so happy I got to share this special country with them.

After flying all night and barely sleeping, Lisa from Prime Tours and our bus driver for the week Anthony McCann met us at the Dublin airport along with those who had flown in earlier. Then we were off for a tour around Dublin. Anthony was wonderful at pointing out all the interesting sites and giving us some history on what we were seeing. Then off to Trinity College to see the library and the Book of Kells. The library is preparing to be renovated and some books had been taken down, but I’m hearing in some Facebook groups that now there are even less books on the shelves so it seems we visited just in time to get a good look at it. I’d been before but it never fails to put me in awe.

Staircase, Trinity College Library Long Room ©CindyThomsonLong Room Library, Trinity College, Dublin. They are in the process of adding busts of women along with the men. ©CindyThomson

As I’m writing this I realize I cannot do a simple recap. I want to share all of this with you with photos so I suppose I’ll have to do several “recaps”. In the future these are the topics I will blog on regarding this trip:

National Museum of Ireland, ArchealogyDublin CityGlendaloughKildareA sheepdog herding demonstration in the area of the Wicklow MountainsKilkenny and the haunted dungeon/cellarLive musicKilkenny CastleSt. Canice CathedralRock of CashelKillarneyDingle Peninsula (where the photo at the top was taken)St. Brigid’s Holy WellsThe Cliffs of MoherThe BurrenKilfenora GalwayKate Kerrigan, author and performerInis CealtraClonmacnoiseThe concept of thin places

What a list, huh? What a trip it was. Every day sunny except one. While bus tours can be whirlwind adventures with much driving, we got to see a lot and had a lot of fun. From what I’m hearing 100% of these travelers had a GREAT time. We all had our favorites and places we wished we could have spent more time at, but Ireland calls us back. I plan to answer!

Brigid’s Ancient Ireland Tour Group minus Tom and Don who were taking the photos.©CindyThomson