My aim today was primarily to visit Holy Island in Lough Derg. Another round tower to tick off the list and several bullauns to see. I couldn't wait! I set off quite early and arrived at Mountshannon to get the ferry at 11am. After ringing the number on the booking caravan for the ferry I found that the ferries don't run until after 2pm.

With three hours to dispose of I headed off to see a few sites that I've had my eye on for a long time. Due to torrential rain at the first of these I only saw the one before heading back to wait for the first ferry to Holy Island.

What a great place! Loads to see and explore, and lots of variety too. Old churches, holy wells, bullaun stones by the bucket load and a round tower. I stayed for over two hours on the island and the ferryman kindly showed me two of the bullauns that I couldn't locate. He also told me of one that I would never have found, or even known about for that matter, in the next town. Many thanks to him for all of that!

If I had managed to get a morning ferry I had planned to head for a couple of great tombs in the Burren that I have still yet to go to, but the late afternoon trip to Inishcaltra put pay to that. Not to worry. It just means that I can head back to the Burren again soon, which is never hard work.

This weekend my wife and I headed off to County Cork for a spot of sight/site seeing. She hadn't been to Cork before so it was a great excuse to revisit a few favourites whilst seeing some new stuff too. Saturday morning was dismal and I really did consider turning back for home at one point: the rain just kept coming. By the time we arrived at our first site it had stopped though. The rest of the day was warm, but mainly overcast.

After visiting a few monuments we headed for the campsite so that we (a) were sure to have a place and (b) could go out and not have to think about rushing to get the tent up if it started raining again. The campsite we chose was The Meadows campsite just 1 mile from Drombeg (County Cork). This meant we could walk up to the stones in the evening and chill out for a while. This campsite is very nice, but does lack a shop so take everything you need with you: it was a half hour round trip to get some milk!

After setting up the tent we set off again to see a few more places. After our evening meal we walked to Drombeg and watched the sun set. It's not too spectacular at this time of year as the sun sets behind a hill. There's just a pinky glow in that directon. However, a sunset is a sunset and it's always a pleasure to experience one with someone you love!

After a good night's sleep we had a slow relaxing breakfast at the campsite in the scorching morning heat. It was obvious that this day would be too hot to do much climbing or even very long walks, so we chose sites that are close to the road (except one).

As usual on the weekends away with Uta I had used the first day to show her some of my favourite sites and planned some new sites for the second day. Unfortunately for the site count we didn't get to as many sites as I'd have liked to, but we did see some interesting new stuff.

We had a guest over from Germany this week, so a trip around some of the local sites was called for. I always drag them out! We saw some of the sites I usually take people to, but I decided to throw in a couple of extras too that I wanted to get back to myself and that my wife hadn't been to yet either.

I have to make a comment here about the state we found the dolmen at Haroldstown (County Carlow) in. Someone had decided to 'honour' the tomb with a few candles. I collected six tealights and 2 normal candles from inside the chamber. Not only did they leave these candles littered about floor, but the idiot(s) had wedged candles between rocks. I couldn't remove these without causing more damage to the stones. The inside of one of the portal stones has purple wax dripped down it. Removing this wax and the couple of wedged in candle stubs will cause damage to the stones and the lichen growth.

Basically the actions of whoever did this have ruined the tomb for everyone to follow. If it was you who did this then YOU ARE A COMPLETE IDIOT!!!!!!!! For the sake of this country's heritage and everyone's enjoyment please stay away from these sites. Myself and other people do not want to have to tidy up your litter and we certainly don't want to have to look at lumps of melted candle on the stones.

I appologise to everyone else for that little tirade and sermon. I know that most people who visit these sites do show them respect. I always try to adhere to this little motto: Take only memories and leave only foot prints. Do that and you can't go wrong.