Early this morning we farwelled Inish Mor after a wonderful visit, our flight back to Galway left the island at 8.45am & we found ourselves back on the road to further adventures a half hour later. As we made our way to Limerick via the country roads, we stumbled upon a church in Spiddal that had the most amazing life size replication of Christ's crucifiction with the smallest chapel adjacent that I have ever seen however the windows & doors were cemented up....moi tinks it's now home to a few horizontal bods. Another random stop was in Ennis at Clare Abbey, I seriously have a problem walking over the graves of our dearly departed no matter how long since their last drinks so as I trod lightly I noted many a loose stone....too many! So onward Christian soldiers toward Limerick.....Steve wanted to vist King John's castle which is situated within the medieval old town centre on the Shannon River, we had been here before about 10 years ago with the Callan's, seemingly things have changed a tad, lack of funds have impacted on maintenance & sadly the place isn't quite the same. This castle was built around 800 years ago at the request of King John, Lord of Ireland. A title given under dubious circumstances...brut force comes to mind but hey what do I know! Suffice to say a stosh was had between King Henry of England & William of Orange....the big bloke won & made John God in Ireland! We moved on into town to find a pub for lunch after our morning paying homage to KJ, found the Locke bar which was such fun, complete with the old snugs & bucketloads of character. It holds claim to Ireland's best pub as voted for 2011 & I have to say that I can see why, service was the old fashion way, food great & ambience right up there! After lunch we went in search of antiques in Limerick city & duly found two rather quaint stores, the first Annie's had a piano circa 1780 that has Steve's interest & a 1700 solid oak desk that has my interest....hmmmm...Annie was a wealth of knowledge, it was on her advice that we headed down here to the Dingle peninsular for the night, might stay 2, we will see what tomorrow brings....so easy to just rock up without reservations which is so much our style, much better to just wing it & we end up with delightful little gems such as we have here in O'Connors. We have absolutely nothing planned here & it's working a treat for us....we have been blessed with great weather & immense luck! Looking around right now is a pub in the middle of nowhere yet full with locals speaking a mixture of Irish & English & very engaging...so typically Irish. Peat fire is roaring, laced coffee is flowing, good craic is being had...so it's off to catch up with the locals. Hoo Roo until next time