May 19, 2022

Hill of Tara

Our room was HOT during the night. I got up a couple of times to try to reset the air conditioner. However, it didn’t work. So, on our way to breakfast, we asked to have it fixed.

Following breakfast, we returned to our room and got ready for the long drive south to the Hill of Tara. We had promised my best friend, Kathleen Murphy Stewart, we would take some of her ashes there several years before she died in 2020.

Larry was stressed even before we left, concerned about the long drive, crossing the border from Northern Ireland into the Republic of Ireland, and finding the location. Fortunately, we had Rick Steves’s maps to help a bit for this trip.

We stopped by the concierge desk and asked Philip the best way to get there. Jean and Owen had told us we would need euros for the tolls, so she gave us some. (We only had brought pounds, although we actually used few of them—mostly for our laundry.)

We had charted the route on the Rick Steves map, but it wasn’t nearly detailed enough. Once again, Larry had written the turn-by-turn directions. Philip called it up on Google Maps for us on his computer. He tried to print it out, but his printer didn’t work. He made a few notes for us of milestones to look for. Drogheda was key.

Then we finally hit the road.

The border crossing was a non-event. Just a sign along the road: Welcome to the Republic of Ireland.

As usual, the major motorways were fairly easy to follow, but when we got off those, the route became convoluted.

We followed Larry’s written instructions, but we must have made an error because we realized we were headed in the wrong direction. We pulled into a gas station and asked how to get to the Hill of Tara. Bless the clerk! He called up the turn-by-turn instructions on his phone. Then he walked us out to the road and pointed us in the right direction. He let me take a screen shot of the directions, and we were on our way again.

I fully expected we would see signs as we got close. Instead, we traveled down tiny unmarked lanes.

There were no signs at all. We finally drove through a gate into what looked like a farm yard. The only clue we had that we were in the right place was a tour van. (We couldn’t figure out how it maneuvered the very narrow roads.)

This is a major historic and cultural site and tourist attraction, so one would think there would be large signs pointing the way. Uh…no. We remembered the visitors’ center at New Grange with a wide road and direction signs. We had expected much the same at this place.

After a nearly two-hour drive, we’d found it.

The website said the visitors’ center would open on the 19^th, hence our choice of the date. When we got there, however, we discovered it would not open until the 28^th. Oh, well…

We followed the path and finally reached the signs on the site describing the location where Kathleen had asked us to spread some of her ashes. Her widower, Bill, had gotten them to us not long before we left home.

It was cold and blustery, but the view was beautiful. Larry just wanted me to drop them at the bottom, but I thought we should take them to the top. I placed them at the foot of the large standing stone, Lia Fáil. (Her widower later told me it was her favorite spot, so I was happy I had chosen the right place.)

As we walked back to the parking area, I picked a couple of the wildflowers from around the site. I also found two feathers and picked them up. I put them into the small envelope where her ashes had been.

We went into the tiny café for a cup of coffee. I had a lemon slice (a piece of lemon cake) and Larry had a chocolate muffin. He ordered ice cream with his. However, the waitress added ice cream and whipped cream to both of them. I gave Larry the whipped cream and about half of my ice cream. I did eat some as the cake was somewhat dry. But the coffee was delicious and warmed us up.

In the gift shop, I found a few items I wanted, including a t-shirt. Larry liked the design, so he got one, too.

Then we set out on the long journey back to Belfast. This time, we had to follow a “diversion” (detour), which bypassed the toll plaza. It took over an hour and a half each way—a total of more than three hours on the road. But we’d known this before we started out.

When we got back to our room, we discovered that nothing had been done about the air conditioning. We tried again to get it to work, but after waiting about half an hour, it was still HOT (nearly 80 degrees Fahrenheit). I called down to the desk and asked them to fix it.

They sent someone up to the room. He tried several times to get the programming to set, but he was as unsuccessful as I had been. He called down, and they said they would send up someone from maintenance.

We took the time to sort out our clothes for our return trip home, reorganize the suitcases, and get everything prepared for our flight.

After waiting for over an hour with no response, Larry went down to the desk to ask them to change our room.

He returned with the keys to the Moselle suite! WOW! This was gorgeous!

Only one night, but the accommodations were fabulous.

We didn’t spend long there, but we could get used to it!