Our senior features writer travels with a group of enthusiastic first-time visitors to Ireland
US couple Elizabeth Boehlefeld and Tyler Andre at Ross Castle in Killarney after getting engaged at the Cliffs of Moher while on a CIÉ coach tour. Photograph: Domnick Walsh/Eye Focus
“I ran the risk that she’d say yes,” says Andre, who brought a diamond ring with him. He planned to propose at the Cliffs because he thought it was the most scenic location on the tour. The other 13 members of his extended family and friends group knew he was going to propose, and captured it all on camera, so it really is just as well Boehlefeld said yes.
The following morning we assemble for jaunting-car rides to Ross Castle, through Killarney’s gorgeous National Park. Donald Rice from Arizona is chatting with his friend Jeff Seagel in the hotel lobby about some of the things they have absorbed so far about Ireland and its history.“It’s hard to retain all the information,” Rice says. Then he mentions the name Cromwell.Seagel shakes his head. “No, he was one of the bad guys.
The trees are in their emerald summer beauty, the lake water glitters, and Ross Castle looms on the horizon. I could happily ride in this jaunting cart very frequently. Joy throws various jokes out to us like well-aimed feed to birds: this is not the first time he’s telling them.“In the freezer,” Joy says. “Did you know why politicians are like bananas?”
Katie Moorman is travelling with her mother, Sally Moorman , from Cleveland, Ohio. She buys a gold and silver Claddagh ring as a souvenir of their trip. “The lakes and the mountains are so beautiful,” Katie says. “I loved Kate Kearney’s Cottage and the fact we could see the dancing so close up.”
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