Christmas on the Emerald Isle

We spent the Christmas holidays at Dromoland Castle in Ireland.  We had stayed there during our visit to Ireland in summer 2005 and were glad to get a chance to go back.    Per Wikipedia, other famous guests include George W Bush, Bill Clinton, Juan Carlos I of Spain, Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali, Jack Nicholson, Johnny Cash, Michael Flatley, Bono and John Travolta.  I wonder if the folks at wiki will update their information to include us now?  

The crew with our shooting guide, Patrick.  He's been shooting on the castle grounds since he was 10.  

Patrick helps Kate kill another clay pigeon.  

After shooting we moved on to archery.  

Don't mess with Lori if she has a bow in her hand. 

I think that Kate's bow impacted her aim.

Ireland truly is the land of rainbows.  Probably because it rains every day.  

This girl was feeding the resident ducks.  Shortly after I took this picture her mother told her that one of those birds would be on their Christmas dinner table.   No need to sugar coat things I guess.  

There's a beautiful golf course on the castle grounds.  We didn't play but it had nice walking trails.  

Another rainbow.  Most of the time, they were double rainbows.  

Prior to Christmas Eve dinner.  Another not very good picture taken by hotel staff (see Kate's birthday blog of NYC). 

We were told that a piper would lead Santa in that evening.  We didn't realize it would be a bagpiper.  

Santa handed out presents to everyone.....

....even Kate.  

Before Christmas Lunch.  This time we didn't use the hotel staff for photographs.  With much better results.  

While the girls went to the spa (no photo's allowed) Grant & I met with the resident falconer.  We walked through the woods with Damion, the falconer (who was originally from Hawaii) and TJ, one of his 15 or so birds.  TJ would fly away, then return to our glove...usually enticed by a small piece of meat.   He was a friendly bird; sometimes even getting on our shoulders.  As we walked I noticed that Damion has two bandaids on his finger.  It turns out that TJ's sister, Alice, is not a nice bird.  He's been training her with limited success.  

On the last day we drove to the west coast to see the Cliffs of Moher.  They're an impressive sight, rising 200 meters out of the Atlantic.  As you can see from the photo's, it was very windy and cold that day.  We didn't spend too much time gazing out to sea.  The Cliffs got us ready for the second half of our vacation -- some scenes from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince were shot there.