Plein air sketches from Ireland
Joel and I are back from a 3-week trip to Ireland. We rented a car and drove around the country as far north as Co. Sligo but didn’t have time to make it to Northern Ireland (there is a LOT to see in Ireland). It was fabulous! We saw and did so many things I can’t quite remember it all. When Joel and I roadtrip, we roadtrip hard. We had beautiful weather, a heat wave in fact, and only two days of rain…so it was perfect for sketching!
I feel like I need to say this somewhere and since I’m not active on social media, I’ll say it here: please don’t go on bus tours. Ireland’s tiny roads are literally clogged with massive tour buses who are dropping thousands people off at sites, turning them into circuses. Those sites are not meant to accommodate that many people at the same time. Go on a small tour with a van-full of people…not a giant tour bus. Or better yet, rent a car! You get a much more authentic experience than the pre-packaged tours. Driving on the other side of the road is not that hard, you get used to it.
And now on to the sketches:
The Superintendent’s Lodge in St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin. Our first sketch of the trip.
The round tower at Glendalough Monastery in Co. Wicklow. There are hundreds of these thousand-year-old towers all around Ireland, many of them still standing like this one. You can’t go in because the door is 10 ft from the ground, so they would have needed a ladder to get in. Fun fact, I lost my nose ring in the long grass while sketching this (don’t ask).
Blarney Castle, Co. Cork. Jam-packed with American tourists, but worth seeing nonetheless. It’s a very picturesque ruin and the gardens are amazing.
Poulnabrone Dolmen in the Burren. I realized as I was sketching this that I’ve drawn it before…from a photo that my mother took on her trip to Ireland. Turns out it was the same dolmen. Hah.
The wreck of the Plassey on Innisheer, the smallest of the Aran Islands. This massive ship was wrecked in the early 1960s and was washed ashore where it’s been deteriorating ever since. Joel and I sought it out because it was featured as an aerial view in the intro to Father Ted, one of my favourite tv shows.
We thought “we can’t leave Ireland without drawing one the famine cottages”. Most famine cottages are either in ruins or have been converted to animal enclosures; this one was being used as a shed. It was located on the road towards the Rosserk Priory in Co. Mayo.
I love this building so much. It used to be an Edwardian bathhouse that specialized in seaweed baths, but was abandoned 40 years ago because the tide was encroaching. I love that it was built to look like a sandcastle. Not to worry though, if you want a seaweed bath you can visit Enniskillen Bathhouse up the road in Enniscrone, another Edwardian-era bathhouse still in operation. Joel and I tried a seaweed and steam bath there and it is definitely an experience.
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