A Bit of Irish Luck
Ireland is a land of faeries, mystical castles and horses. If ever there was a place to happen upon a mythical beast with a single horn protruding from its head, it’s the Emerald Isle. Alas, in our wandering and exploring while doing research for my novels, no unicorn awed us with its magical presence. No tiny faeries were seen flying between flowers on gossamer wings, and we didn’t find any pots of gold that leprechauns hid. We did however, ride some wonderful horses, and quite by chance, got to enjoy an amazing medieval banguet at a four hundred year old castle.
After spending weeks experiencing Irish culture, we decided to spend the last three days exploring Shannon, the city we were to fly out of. The odd expression, the bus driver gave us, when we asked him to drop us somewhere interesting, made so much more sense, shortly after we were dropped off. He left us at a new mall. Not only was it new, there were hardly any stores in it yet. Not that it mattered all that much, as it was closing in twenty minutes. Still, sweetpea still managed to find a really cute bikini on sale, and I got the most adorable swim bottoms, I never did wear.
As it turned out, there wasn’t anything to do in Shannon. No ancient history to soak up, no amazing architecture, none of the things we were in Ireland for. It was too late to leave town, so we found a bed and breakfast, and waited for morning.
Early the next day, we were standing at the bus stop, waiting to get out of that no horse town. The bus pulled up, politely kneeled before us with a whoosh of sound, and the doors opened. There with a huge grin on his friendly face was the same bus driver, who had dropped us off the day before.
“I had a suspicion, I’d be seeing yeh two lasses again,” he chuckled in that lovely, Irish accent. “So, where are yeh off to this fine morning then?”
“Somewhere, anywhere that there’s something to do,” I laughingly answered as the girlchild and I boarded the bus, “There’s nothing to do here, but we fly out of Shannon the day after tomorrow, so we can’t be that far away … any suggestions?”
“Ay,” he winked and shut the door, “I’ve just the place in mind. Leave it to me. Yeh know,” he glanced in the rearview mirror at us, and made no attempt to hide his amusement, “I wondered what yeh could possibly want to do for days in Shannon. There’s nought there to do. Was bespoke made, just for the airport, so it was. The whole lot is new.”
“Where are you taking us?” I asked as curiosity got the best of me. We’d barely left Shannon, but I was already a bit concerned that we would be too far from Shannon. We didn’t want to worry about the early flight out, day after next.
“Right here,” he chuckled as he pulled up before a grand, medieval castle, “this is Bunratty, and yeh’ll easily fill a couple of days here. The castle puts on a medieval banquet, and there’s a brill time to be had in the folk park. And,” he grinned and winked, “yer but ten minutes from the airport, so no need to fret over such as that. Enjoy yerselves.”
“Thanks so much,” already smiling at the sight of the castle towering over us, sweetpea and I were pretty thrilled. Things were definitely looking up, so to speak.
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